"--David Ruelle, author of "Chance and Chaos" "This is an important book, one that should cause an epoch-making change in the way we think about mathematics.

Taking reduction in the traditional deductive sense, the programmatic claim that most of genetics can be reduced by molecular genetics is defended as feasible and significant. Arguments by Ruse and Hull that either the relationship is replacement or at best a weaker form of reduction are shown to rest on a mixture of historical and logical confusions about the nature of the theories involved.

An outline is given of the proof that the consistency of a κ⁺-Mahlo cardinal implies that of the statement that I[ω₂] does not include any stationary subsets of Cof(ω₁). An additional discussion of the techniques of this proof includes their use to obtain a model with no ω₂-Aronszajn tree and to add an ω₂-Souslin tree with finite conditions.

Scientific models may be more useful for false assumptions they make than true ones when one is interested not in the fit of the model, but in the form of the residuals. Modeling Darwin’s “blending” theory of inheritance shows how it illuminates features of Mendelian theory. Insufficient understanding of it leads to incorrect moves in modeling population structure. But it may prove even more useful for organizing a theory of cultural evolution. Analysis of “blending” inheritance gives new tools for recognizing (...) population structure for culture and for understanding differences between biological and cultural inheritance. (shrink)

Efforts to bare the psychonomic nature of the semantic reference (representation) relation have been remarkably scanty; in fact, the only contemporary account developed with any care is the one proposed by Osgood. However, not even Osgood has looked deeply at the difficulties that beset any attempt to analyze reference in terms of common effects appropriately shared by a symbol and its significate.

Trends of recent demographical development show that the world's population is aging at its fastest clip ever. In this paper, I ask whether adult children should support the life of their chronically ill parents as long as it takes, and I analyze the matter with regard to the doctrine of Confucianism. As the virtue of filial piety plays a central role in the ethics of Confucianism, adult children will face stringent demands while giving care to their chronically ill parents. In (...) this paper, I argue that because of the extreme moral demands Confucians impose on adult children, Confucianism is an objectionable moral theory. I also argue that if Confucianism allows these agents to opt out of the caregiving tasks, it may cause conflict with its own doctrines. For these reasons, I conclude that Confucianism cannot provide a defensible response to the problem of long-term caregiving. (shrink)

THIS ARTICLE ARGUES THAT WEAK SUPERVENIENCE IS\nSUFFICIENTLY STRONG TO ESTABLISH A REASONABLE AND PLAUSIBLE\nMATERIALISM. SUPERVENIENCE IS A RELATION BETWEEN FAMILIES\nOF PROPERTIES, SUCH THAT, ROUGHLY SPEAKING, FAMILY A\nSUPERVENES ON FAMILY B IF ANY OBJECTS WHICH ARE\nINDISCERNIBLE WITH RESPECT TO B ARE THEREBY INDISCERNIBLE\nWITH RESPECT TO A. WEAK SUPERVENIENCE IS SUPERVENIENCE\nRESTRICTED TO ONE POSSIBLE WORLD; STRONG SUPERVENIENCE IS A\n"NECESSARY" SUPERVENIENCE EXTENDING ACROSS SOME PRINCIPLED\nSET OF POSSIBLE WORLDS. THESE NOTIONS ARE MADE SOMEWHAT\nMORE RIGOROUS FOLLOWING JAEGWON KIM'S DEVELOPMENT OF THEM.\nKIM HAS ARGUED THAT ONLY (...) STRONG SUPERVENIENCE CAN GROUND A\n'ROBUST' MATERIALISM, SO THE ARTICLE BEGINS BY CRITICIZING\nHIS ARGUMENTS FOR THIS POSITION. IT ARGUES THAT ANY FORM OF\nSTRONG SUPERVENIENCE IS IN FACT TOO STRONG TO CHARACTERIZE\nMATERIALISM AS IT IS NORMALLY CONCEIVED, FOR MATERIALISM IS\nNEITHER LOGICALLY NOR PHYSICALLY NECESSARY. BUT THE DAY IS\nSAVED AS WEAK SUPERVENIENCE CAN BE SHOWN TO BE JUST\nSUFFICIENTLY STRONG TO GROUND MATERIALISM. IN PARTICULAR,\nIT IS SHOWN THAT SUPERVENIENCE CAN SUPPORT COUNTERFACTUALS\nWITHOUT REQUIRING ANY NOTION OF "NECESSARY"\nSUPERVENIENCE. (shrink)

The European election which took place on June 17, 1984 must be seen in a more national than European context. Compared with previous general elections, the turn-out was generally lower and individual candidates polled a larger number of votes. Ought the Christian Democrats and Liberals, who make up the ruling coalition, be pleased about their respective results? A careful approach is required to answer that question. For the country as a whole, thefour governing parties lost 2.45 % of their share (...) of the vote in relation to the 1981 general election. This cannot be seen either as a massive repudiation or as a very satisfactory result. After two and a half years in power, this can be regarded as an average performance. However, if one takes a closer look at it, the result cannot be said as being very satisfying. In Flanders, the Liberals suffered a severe setback whereas the level of support for the Christian Democrats was only fractionally higher than in 1981. Between them, the two governing parties lost 6.72 % of the votes. In Brussels, the four ruling parties gained 9.89 %. This is partly due to two factors: the votes polled by Mr. Nols and, more importantly, the fact that no UDRT candidate stood in the election. It is not at all certain that a similar result would be recorded at a general election. Finally, in Wallonia, the two governing parties put up a good fight and gained 1.37 % of the votes whereas the Socialists and the Green movement made gains not because the ruling parties suffered a defeat but because of the considerable losses both by the Communist Party and by the nationalist parties. (shrink)

Organized only two years after the previous genera! elections, the 1987 poll, characterized by a great stability of the electorale, wilt probably have a deep political impact on the country's future.If the rate of external mobility suitably gauges the extent of the citizens' shifts in votes, the 1987 elections will have ranged among the four most stable general elections out of the twenty-two that have taken place since universal suffrage has been introduced. And yet, because of the decline of the (...) outgoing coalition, on the one hand, which is mainly due to the loss suffered by the CVP, and because of the change of majority within the Walloon Regional Council and the French-speaking Community Council, on the other, the political situation appears very different after the 13th December 1987 elections. The observer can only be struck by the asymmetrical behaviour of the voters in the northern and southern parts of the country. In Flanders, the main party is on the decline white all other parties are winning votes.However, everything seems to show that the motivation of the voters who did not vote twice for the same party in 1985 and 1987, but who, as we said, are not very numerous, was an economic and social motivationrather than a language or community-related one. The gains of Agalev, the PVV and the SP in the face of the Volksunie's status quo cannot be explained otherwise. The gains of the Vlaams Blok, notably in Antwerp, are probably due to social rather than community-linked motivations too. In the W alloon Region, on the contrary, the main party is registering an obvious gain, white the other parties are declining or stagnating. In this case, the motivations seem to be numerous : they have a social and economic background on the part of voters who trusted the main opposition party, but they are also community linked and inspired by considerations that have to do with the relationships between the Walloon and Flemish people in the Belgian State under transformation.The political prospects then appear uncertain. This is even more true that two other elections are to take place in the next eighteen months.These concern the opposite levels of the elected Assemblies: the municipal Council and the European Parliament. (shrink)

Sutton Elbert Griggs wrote the first major African-American political novel, Imperium in Imperio. Imperium is a utopian novel and the first novel to represent the New Negro, a figure that Alain Locke popularized a quarter of a century later. Griggs used the term New Negro to refer to a generation of educated black Americans born after emancipation, a multiplicity of voices that demanded equality at the turn of the twentieth century. The 1890s are often described as the nadir of race (...) relations in the United States, for blacks were disfranchised, legally segregated, and subject to terrorist mob violence in the form of lynching and burning alive. Race war was in the air.Sutton Griggs was born... (shrink)

This is an account of the psychotherapeutic treatment of a sign-maker. The treatment posed a special challenge owing to the patient's idiosyncratic blend of sexual, artistic, and spiritual interests, all of which informed his own notion of the sign/way-finding relationship. Way-finding came to connote more than its usual pedestrian meaning; it came to represent a spiritual quest and a personal exploration of the sacred. Conceptualizing this treatment, first for myself, then the patient, and now for you the reader, led me (...) through a way-finding process of my own. This entailed a reconsideration of the function and meaning of signs before finally locating the pertinent theoretical context for my... (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 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. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be (...) preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

In 1997 the Tenth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that school officials at West High School did not violate Rachel Bauchman's constitutional rights by including Christian religious music as part of its curriculum, or by staging school performances at religious sites. Three philosophical questions are investigated in this paper: whether the performance of religious text constitutes a religious practice, the ways in which instructional and performance context can affect the performance of sacred music, and how music teachers can avoid (...) coercion when teaching religious music. Conclusions suggest that music educators must carefully consider the historical and cultural context of texts utilized in choral music. Certain contemporary devotional texts intended primarily for worship may prove problematic in a classroom setting. In addition, the instructional context in which religious music is presented can greatly impact how students understand the music's significance. Music educators should carefully articulate clear pedagogical reasons for staging performances in houses of worship to avoid the appearance of endorsement, and should refrain from asking students to participate in organized worship services. Finally, music educators should be sensitive to the problems religious texts present to individual students, taking responsibility for facilitating a classroom environment that respects a diversity of viewpoints. (shrink)

In this essay, I ask what the precise relation is between Laudato si's theology and its claims about our individual and corporate responsibility for the environment and the plight of the poor. To do so, I first clarify the relationship between the theological claims and its account of moral norms, situating the text within the history of western ethical theory. I then turn to reconstruct the submerged theology of the encyclical, focusing on Pope Francis's accounts of the techno‐economic paradigm and (...) the possibility of an “integral ecology” paradigm. I end by assessing the text in terms of the coherence and plausibility of its argument as an ethical and theological statement. (shrink)

INTRODUCTION A story has been passed down to us from some two millennia ago of a conversation between a wealthy Athenian estate owner, ...

Evil and Many Worlds is a free-will theodicy based upon Huw Everett III's 1957 many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. The theodicy argues for a balance of good and evil across an emergent multiverse where free will—a greater good valued by both persons and God— flourishes.

Among the three kinds of theoretical knowledge, Aristotle distinguishes between physics and metaphysics—what he calls Second and First Philosophy. Aristotle’s physics studies changing things, things that change in any of several ways according to an inner principle that governs their alterations and their underlying stability—fundamentally, things that come into being and pass away. What Aristotle calls First Philosophy studies substances that are immovable and unchanging, eternal objects including primarily but not exclusively Aristotle’s god. Aristotle’s distinction between Second and First Philosophy (...) constitutes a decisive difference between Aristotle and earlier philosophers. My main claim will be that Aristotle “discovered” First Philosophy through critical reflection on the universalizing or totalizing assumption of his predecessors. By “universalizing assumption” I mean that according to Aristotle, his predecessors assumed either explicitly or implicitly that they were enquiring into τὸ πᾶν, the all, the totality of everything that exists. Aristotle claims that they were wrong in this assumption. All sciences seek knowledge of principles and causes (archai and aitia). But an investigation of beings that come into existence and pass away is essentially different from the philosophical investigation of immovable, unchanging being. To understand why, one must nevertheless begin by studying changing beings—in large part to come to recognize the insufficiency of Second Philosophy to investigate being as such. Aristotle’s discovery was that the original project of Greek philosophy—the study of the whole—requires both Second and First Philosophy. (shrink)

In this book, first published in 2004, William Dembski, Michael Ruse, and other prominent philosophers provide a comprehensive balanced overview of the debate concerning biological origins - a controversial dialectic since Darwin published The Origin of Species in 1859. Invariably, the source of controversy has been 'design'. Is the appearance of design in organisms the result of purely natural forces acting without prevision or teleology? Or, does the appearance of design signify genuine prevision and teleology, and, if so, is (...) that design empirically detectable and thus open to scientific inquiry? Four main positions have emerged in response to these questions: Darwinism, self-organisation, theistic evolution, and intelligent design. The contributors to this volume define their respective positions in an accessible style, inviting readers to draw their own conclusions. Two introductory essays furnish a historical overview of the debate. (shrink)