This paper examines the forms and functions of religious Internet memes that relate to Covid-19, with a view to identifying the conceptual metaphors that underlie the creation of the memes. The data, which consist of thirty religious Internet memes shared in the Nigerian WhatsApp space, are analyzed qualitatively using the categorization of religious Internet memes, and the concept of multimodal metaphors. The memes contain (non-)linguistic metaphors such as the picture of Biblical Noah’s ark and expressions such as Noah’s (...) family was on lockdown, which reveal underlying conceptual metaphors such as LOCKDOWN IS A GODLY INSTRUCTION and COVID-19 IS A WAR. The memes are used to allay the fears of people in the face of the disease, and encourage adherence to lockdown orders, amongst others. The study concludes that the forms and functions of these religious memes assist in revealing the multimodal conceptual metaphors underlying the memes. (shrink)

"Noah and the Olive Branch" by Luis Herrera explores the profound symbolism of the olive branch in the context of human morality and existential renewal. Drawing on the biblical narrative of Noah's Ark, Herrera delves into a metaphor for peace, reconciliation, and the restoration of harmony between humanity and the natural world. The work interprets the olive branch not merely as a sign of the flood's end, but as a deeper emblem of ethical rebirth, signifying the opportunity for humanity to (...) reconstruct a more just and compassionate world after calamity. -/- Through a philosophical lens, Herrera examines the duality of destruction and creation, positing that potential for moral and spiritual growth follows great trials. The text questions the nature of divine justice and human responsibility, suggesting a call for ongoing ethical vigilance in a world perpetually on the brink of self-destruction. -/- It is a parable for man's quest for connection and reconciliation with the divine, in a violent world filled with chaos, anarchy and the antinomian pursuit of hedonistic ideals. Herrera's work resonates with contemporary concerns about cultural degradation and social fragmentation, urging a re-evaluation of our relationship with God and each other. The olive branch, in this interpretation, becomes a timeless symbol of hope, resilience, and the enduring quest for a harmonious existence. (shrink)

The Primeval Flood Catastrophe: Origins and Early Development in Mesopotamian Traditions. By Y. S. Chen. Oxford Oriental Monographs. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. Pp. xiii + 314, 16 plts. $175. The Ark before Noah: Decoding the Story of the Flood. By Irving Finkel. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 2014. Pp. x + 421, 16 plts. £19.99.

Companion animals -- Animals on factory farms -- Birds and marine wildlife -- Animals in research facilities -- Conclusion: Noah's task.

The Midrashic literature and biblical translations focus majorly on the verses that describe the gathering in Haman’s house and the preparing of the gallows for Mordechai the Jew (Es 5:14). The goal of this study is to discuss the narrative shaped by the Targum and Midrashic sources and to examine both the realistic domain concerning methods of punishment that were suggested and the theological–educational meaning of the punishment and the type of tree chosen. Targum Rishon develops the contents of the (...) conversation in Haman’s house as to how Mordechai should be executed. While according to the text, the suggestion to hang Mordechai appears to have been the only method agreed upon by all those present at the meeting, Targum Rishon includes several forms of killing and torture that were proposed and considered. While Targum Rishon presents the theological meaning of the choice to kill Mordechai specifically by hanging him from a gallows, a Midrash aggadah attempts to clarify the species of the tree used to prepare Mordechai’s gallows and comes to the surprising conclusion that it was a type of thorn tree. Regarding Haman’s search for a suitable beam on which to hang Mordechai, Midrash Abba Gorion relates that the beam was found in the king’s palace or, according to another opinion, the sawed beam found originated from Noah’s ark.Contribution: The Midrashic sources portray an entire scene that includes discourse, deliberations and choice in Haman’s house and in heaven. It seems that the authors of the Midrash and the Targum not only clarify the text and complement the story by adding missing realistic details, they also enrich the text with new meanings that serve their theological concepts. (shrink)

What happens when you take the idea of the biblical Adam—the first human—and apply it to insects? You create an origin story for Nature’s tiniest creatures, one that gives them 'a Pedigree as ancient as the first creation'. This the naturalist Robert Hooke argued in his treatise, the Micrographia (1665). In what follows, I will retrace how Hooke endeavoured to show that insects—then widely believed to have arisen out of the dirt—were the products of an ancient lineage. These genealogies, while (...) constructed from empirical observation, were conjectures of the imagination. Section 2 shows how Hooke introduced the concept of a 'prime parent' (an Adam-insect) to explain the anatomical similarities between 'mites'. Section 3 demonstrates how Hooke defined the family of 'gnats' as tiny machines built from the same components and relates Hookean genealogies to contemporary ideas about Noah’s Ark. Section 4 shows how Hooke outlined the morphology of 'insects' (delineating what we now call arthropods). Section 5 explores how Hooke used fossils to study these animals in the distant past. In sum, Hooke was turning natural history—collecting and describing insects—into natural history: reconstructing their origins. (shrink)

Literary sources In the closing days of his life Adam sends his son Seth to Earthly Paradise in order to find the soothing Oil of Mercy. However, Seth receives a twig from the Tree of Life to be planted on Adam's grave. The Jews will use the wood for the construction of Christ's Cross. In 1962 Esther C. Quinn publishes the first monograph on the Seth-personage in the context of the Legend of the Crosswood. In 1977 A.F.J. Klijn studies the (...) Seth-personage as it appears in the commentaries on Genesis, in the apocrypha of the life of Adam, in gnostic writings. While the Jewish apocrypha already considered the Seth-personage as a new Abel and a new Adam, patristics also typified him as a forerunner of Christ. Created after the image of Adam, he also was the pivot in the apocrypha on the life of Adam and Eve after the expulsion and the christian Gospel according to Nicodemus ). Two motives from that have persistently survived: the journey of Seth to Paradise and the Divine knowledge that was attached to two columns. Iconographical sources The fresco-cycle of Agnolo Gaddi in the Santa Croce in Florence at the beginning of the iconographical part of this article is not an arbitrary choice. It is here that the Seth-personage is visualized for the first time in the context of the Legend of the Crosswood. Subsequently it remains firmly bound to the fresco-medium and Franciscan donors in Italy. In this context the iconography of the Legend of the Crosswood is being transformed in function of an exegesis of the history of salvation. The Book of Hours of Catherine of Cleve from the middle of the 15th century is an isolated case, because its iconography of the Crosswood remains exceptional within the Netherlands. In the usual way the mass on Fridays concentrates upon the Cross or the Crucifixion in the text as well as in the iconography, but unusually by means of the long office of Gods Mercy and moreover illustrated by the Legend of the Crosswood culminating in an image of the Man of Sorrows. The choice of the subject might refer to a Franciscan background. From an iconographical point of view it is of considerable value that the Lutwin 14th-century German variant of the Vita Adae et Evae has been illustrated in a 15th-century manuscript. An existing tradition may be assumed, because the same iconography appears in three from the Vitae interpolated scenes in a Bavarian manuscript of the chronicle of Rudolf von Ems. This insertion in the Genesis-part of a worldchronicle allows it to presume that the Seth-personage could be found in 'classical' Genesis iconography. The southern porch of the choir in Schwabisch Gmünd and the northern friezes of the cathedral of Toledo bear witness to this. The second seems to use a Legenda-source. The representation of the Seth-vision seems to be confined to the one of Toledo, although Spanish variants of the Legenda-source have not been discovered as yet. Finally, the Seth-of-the-columns passage, as described in the Vita and included in medieval worldchronicles through Flavius Josephus, symbolizes the transmission of Divine knowledge to humanity. The Geometria Divina that was assigned to Adam, is destroyed by the Flood. This is shown in a miniature in a 14th-century manuscript of Rudolf von Ems, where Adam's column acts as counterpart of Noah's ark. The knowledge of astrology, Seth's learning, lives on. In this way the Chronica Regia Coloniensis wants to found the Holy Roman Empire on these columns: Seth and Adam represented as the 'authors' of the Civitas Dei. (shrink)

This book, in language accessible to the general reader, investigates twelve of the most notorious, most interesting, and most instructive episodes involving the interaction between science and Christianity, aiming to tell each story in its historical specificity and local particularity. Among the events treated in When Science and Christianity Meet are the Galileo affair, the seventeenth-century clockwork universe, Noah's ark and flood in the development of natural history, struggles over Darwinian evolution, debates about the origin of the human species, and (...) the Scopes trial. Readers will be introduced to St. Augustine, Roger Bacon, Pope Urban VIII, Isaac Newton, Pierre-Simon de Laplace, Carl Linnaeus, Charles Darwin, T. H. Huxley, Sigmund Freud, and many other participants in the historical drama of science and Christianity. (shrink)

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault provides a backup of seed collections from genebanks around the world. It’s unique character has made it iconic in the public imagination as a ‘Noah’s Ark’ for crop plants. Its remote location and strict controls on access have, however, also lent it an air of mystery, swirling with conspiracy theories. In this paper, I first clarify the aims of the Vault, the history of its development and the policies and practices of its current operation. (...) Given concerns around its potential links to the biotechnology industry, I go on to ask whether GM crops are currently stored in the Vault. Presenting several reasons for why GM crops are formally excluded, while indicating the potential for both change and unintentional contamination, I am compelled to question whether GM crops should be excluded. Answering this requires an interrogation of their potential conservation value as modern contributors to crop biodiversity. In exploring this issue, I suggest that there has been surprisingly little discussion of the moral status and conservation value of bio-technological crop plants and indeed, of how we care for all the techno-lifeforms we are currently engaged in co-creating. I suggest that these are becoming important issues as biotechnological techniques and applications begin to rapidly evolve and diversify. Emphasizing the scope for a refreshed interdisciplinary research agenda exploring the interface between biotechnology and biodiversity conservation, I conclude the article by proposing new concepts of synbiodiversity and symbiodiversity to encourage further debate. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Feeding Tiger, Finding GodScience, Religion, and "the Better Story" in Life of PiGregory Stephens (bio)Yann Martel's Life of Pi is an allegorical castaway story about a sixteen-year-old Indian polytheist who survives 227 days on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger. Martel frames this postmodern variant on the Noah's ark tale as "a story that will make you believe in God" (viii). But these words are neither Martel's, nor those (...) of the semifictional "Martel-like" narrator one encounters in the "Author's Note" (Innes 25). Rather, they are voiced by Mr. Adirubasamy, an elderly Indian man whom the Canadian quasi-author meets at a coffee house in Pondicherry. The virtual author, like the real Martel, is the author of two failed books, and looking for a capital-S "Story."1 Yet after tracking down the primary narrator of the novel (Pi Patel) in Toronto, reading his diaries of his Pacific Ocean ordeal, and listening to taped interviews with Pi, the quasi-author agreed with Mr. Adirubasamy that "this was, indeed, a story to make you believe in God" (x).That apparently "evangelical premise" could awaken resistance among readers who take this "explicit but deceptive statement" too literally (Ishmael). As one reviewer notes, "Martel's statement is likely to have the opposite effect on his reader, provoking a determined counter-reaction not to succumb to a didactic religious agenda."2 Although the novel has its didactic moments, most reviewers seem to have taken a measured view of the author's "religious agenda." In interviews, Martel notes that he comes from a secular background in Quebec. There are no indications that writing this book represented a Damascus conversion experience for him. Life of Pi is not a conversion narrative perse, but it is in part an ascent narrative (a journey toward enlightenment) that also contains elements of descent narratives.3 As a secular writer with sympathies for the religious imagination, Martel can pitch his revisioning of comparative religion to readers who have what Salman Rushdie once called a "God-shaped hole" in their heart.4 These "implied readers" (Iser) would have a hunger for some of the animating power of faith, if not a capacity for blind commitment to dogmatic faith itself.Reviewing Life of Pi for the Nation, Charlotte Innes describes it as "a religious book that makes sense to a nonreligious person" (25). In similar fashion, the Pequod argues that Martel's book "achieves something more quietly spectacular" than a literal conversion, or a restoring of one's faith in God: "it makes the reader want to believe in God. Martel gives the reader the democratic choice: the desire to believe rather than the belief itself" (Ishmael).Those responses of the secular left contrast sharply with the responses of my first-year students at the University of the West Indies, to whom I have twice taught Life of Pi. For students from a fundamentalist background, it is a challenge to buy into a narrative [End Page 41] that proclaims a God that transcends the imaginations of most believers in the three faiths in which the young Pi has been trained (Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam). In analyzing the theme of finding God, I position the text at a midway point between two different kinds of reception: secular readers for whom the notion of religious belief is at best metaphorical, and religious readers who may resist the narrative's conceit that the true God exists outside the confines of institutional religion.Life of Pi is suffused by a pervasive liminality.5 The teenaged Pi is in motion between continents, between faiths, and between childhood and adulthood, which means that the novel is also a bildungsroman.6 I here focus above all on the text's and Pi's location in the contested space between believers and nonbelievers, and on the novel's attempted mediation between those seeming binary opposites. I ask two perhaps paradoxical questions: In what ways would this be seen by the nonreligious as a religious book with appeal? Put differently, to what degree and in what ways might this text actually give secular readers a desire to believe, even if it does... (shrink)

This paper illuminates a variety of issues that speak to the question of whether ‘captivity for conservation’ can be an ethically acceptable goal of the modern zoo. Reflecting on both theoretical disagreements and practical challenges , the paper explains why the ‘Noah’s Ark’ paradigm is being replaced by an alternative ‘integrated approach.’ It explores the changes in the zoo’s core tasks that the new paradigm implies. And it pays special attention to the changes that would have to be made (...) in zoos’ collection policies: connection with in situ projects, emphasizing local species and the local biogeographical region, exchange of animals among zoos and between zoos and wildlife, and a shift towards smaller species. Finally the question will be addressed whether the new paradigm will achieve a morally acceptable balance between animal welfare costs and species conservation benefits. (shrink)

All civilian, government-sponsored spacecraft, despite ostensibly having the primary purpose of scientific data-collection, are, within the advanced cultures that produce them, primarily symbolic objects, created by the people as a means of indicating, both to themselves and to all the world, what is in their hearts: what they value. These craft are a statement that we value learning, exploration, adventure, difficult endeavors, teamwork, precision, self-discipline, and intelligence. All such spacecraft are, fundamentally, semiotic objects. The fact that they collect data, although (...) proffered as their primary function, is in fact secondary. In this paper I propose a thought-experiment, involving consideration of a spacecraft expressly intended for a symbolic, semiotic, psychological purpose: a kind of interstellar library, a Noah's Ark of Documents, the "Milky Way Messenger." By taking an idea that was originally merely a concept to be featured in a science-fiction story and exploring whether it might be feasible to accomplish it in the real world, the paper is intended to trigger thought and discussion concerning the conscious creation of such objects. The paper concludes with suggestions concerning the semiotic psychological function of certain government programs. (shrink)

The author of the article, based on a study of the writings of intellectuals from the Ukrainian diaspora in interwar Czechoslovakia, primarily professors at the Ukrainian Free University in Prague (1921-1945), formulates some ideas and trends and defines the Prague period of Ukrainian political philosophy. This period is determined by the formation of a powerful centre of Ukrainian intellectual life in Prague, a kind of "Noah's Ark" of Ukrainian emigration. The Prague period of the history of Ukrainian thought in exile (...) is characterised by intellectual freedom of ideas and discussions, which is different from the situation in the postwar period. Among the main topics of discussion are the problems of philosophy of history and nation-building (national mentality, consciousness, national philosophy), problems of philosophy and theory of law, and discussions between modern ideologies. From the perspective of the history of ideas, the Prague period was a continuation of the history of Ukrainian centrism, the 19th-century Ukrainophile discourse that largely continued Drahomanov's ideas of "Hromadivstvo", combining classical liberal notions with an awareness of the importance of both Ukrainian national struggle and social emancipation. This calls into question the linear progressivist scheme of Ukrainian intellectual history, in which the period of "narodnytstvo/populism" is "dialectically sublated" by the modernist period, and "federalism" cedes ground to "independence" (according to I. Lysiak-Rudnytskyi), thus, the "Ukrainophile" stage of the development of the philosophy of the Ukrainian national idea has been fulfilled (in the terms of V. Horsky), and the Drahomanov's worldview had to logically surrender to the ideas of integral nationalism. The article challenges these evolutionist schemes and emphasises that the Prague period of Ukrainian intellectual history contains many useful ideas for the history of Ukrainian liberalism and centrism in general. (shrink)

At his last conference in France, on 8 June 2004, in Strasbourg, under the title “Le souverain bien – ou l’Europe en mal de souveraineté”, Jacques Derrida (1930-2004), always very concerned about Europe and about the future of Europe, dared to admit that he dreamed, without the slightest Eurocentrism or identitarianism, of “a Europe whose universal hospitality and new laws of hospitality or the right of asylum would make it the Noah’s Ark of the 21st century” – since the (...) Bible (Gen. 6-9), Noah’s Ark [Tevat Noah] symbolizing the covenant, that is, Elohim’s alliance with Noah and “every living being” (Gen. 9, 15). Through the problematic of unconditional hospitality – which, as we try to point out, translates the singularity of this biblical alliance as well as underlines the singularity of Deconstruction as a philosophical idiom –, it is the silhouette of this dream of Derrida, as well as its juridical and political scope and implications not only in the European scene but also in the so-called Globalization scene, that we try to sketch here, showing how such a dream deconstructs, that is, denounces and critically re-thinks presumption and violence of the carno-fallo-logo-centric register of philosophical-cultural Westernity. (shrink)

Searching for God draws upon the traditional categories of systematic theology as it guides readers through the Catholic theological thought process involved in the search for God. At each step we examine the work of a past thinker from the time of the early church up to the early twentieth century, and a present thinker whose works are often required reading in theology courses. Not only do readers have the opportunity to critically evaluate several important theological works in the Catholic (...) tradition, they can also enter into dialogue with those works as they engage in their own search for God. Among the ten categories represented are: Bible: Hearing God--Past: Hugh of St. Victor, Noah's Ark (ca. 1130) Present: Sandra Schneiders, The Revelatory Text (1999) Christ II: Understanding God (Dogmatic Approach)--Past: Cyril of Alexandria, On the Unity of Christ (429) Present: Roger Haight, Jesus: Symbol of God (1999) Religions of the World: Listening for God Past: Jean Daniélou, The Salvation of the Nations (1946) Present: Raimon Panikkar, The Experience of God (2006) +. (shrink)

Books Reviewed in this Article: Transforming Bible Study. By Walter Wink. Pp.175, London, SCM Press, 1981, £3.50. Isaiah 1–39. By R.E. Clements. Pp.xvi. 301, London, Marshall, Morgan and Scott, 1980, £3.95. Isaiah 40–66. By R.N. Whybray. Pp.301, London, Marshall, Morgan and Scott, 1975, Reprinted 1981, £3.95. Die Gestalt Jesu in den synoptischen Evangelien. By Heinrich Kahlefeld. Pp.264, Frankfurt, Verlag Josef Knecht, 1981, no price given. Following Jesus: Discipleship in the Gospel of Mark. By Ernest Best. Pp.283, Sheffield, JSOT Press, 1981, (...) £15.00, £5.95. The Origin of Paul's Gospel. By Seyoon Kim. Pp.xii, 391, Tübingen, J.C.B. Mohr, 1981, 78 DM. An die Römer. By Ernst Käsemann. Pp.xvi, 411, Tübingen, J.C.B. Mohr, 1980, 48 DM. Les Récits de Resurrection des Morts dans le Nouveau Testament. By Gerard Rochais. Pp.xv, 252, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1981, £15.00. Prêtres Anciens, Prétre Nouveau selon le Nouveau Testament. By Albert Vanhoye. Pp.366, Paris Editions du Seuil, 1980, no price given. Woman in the World of Jesus. By Evelyn and Frank Stagg. Pp.292, Edinburgh, The St Andrew Press, 1981, no price given. Jesus, Man and the Church. By Karl Rahner. Pp.260, London, Darton Longman & Todd, 1981, £14.50. Jesus Lord and Savior: A Theopathic Christology and Soteriology. By William M. Thompson. Pp.ix, 287, Leominster, Fowler Wright, 1981, £7.45. God and World in Schleiermacher's ‘Dialektik’ and ‘Glaubenslehre’. Criticism and the Methodology of Dogmatics. By John E. Thiel. Pp.xiv, 239, Bern, Frankfurt and Las Vegas, Peter Lang, 1981, SF 49.50. Ministry: A Case for Change. By Edward Schillebeeckx. Pp.ix, 165, London, SCM Press, 1981, £4.95. The Sacraments: Readings in Contemporary Sacramental Theology. Edited by Michael J. Taylor. Pp.274, New York, Alba House, 1981, $7.95. Believing in the Church: The Corporate Nature of Faith. A Report by the Doctrine Commission of the Church of England. Pp.ix, 310, London, SPCK, 1981, £8.50. Confessing the Faith in the Church of England Today. By R.T. Beckwith. Pp.36, Oxford, La timer House, 1981, £1.00. A Kind of Noah's Ark? The Anglican Commitment to Comprehensiveness. By J.I. Packer. Pp.39, Oxford, Latimer House, 1981, £1.00. Reasonable Belief: A Survey of the Christian Faith. By Anthony Hanson and Richard Hanson. Pp.xii, 283, Oxford University Press, 1981, £8.50. Doctrine in the Church of England. The 1938 Report with a new introduction by G.W.H. Lampe. Pp.lx, 242, London, SPCK, 1982, £8.50. The Divine Right of the Papacy in Recent Ecumenical Theology. By J. Michael Miller. Pp.xvi, 322, Rome, Università Gregoriana Editrice, 1980, 18,000 Lire. Der heilige Geist in der Theologie von Heribert Mühlen: Versucheiner Darstellung und Würdigung. By John B. Banawiratma. Pp.ix, 310, Frankfurt and Bern: Peter D. Lang, 1981, SFr. 60.00. Standing Before God: Studies on Prayer in Scriptures and Tradition with Essays in Honor of John M. Oesterreicher. Edited by Asher Frinkel and Lawrence Frizzell. Pp.410, New York, Ktav Publishing House, 1981, $29.50. Judaism and Healing. By J. David Bleich. Pp.xiii, 199, New York, Ktav, 1981, $15.00. The Diversity of Moral Thinking. By Neil Cooper. Pp.x, 303, Oxford, Clarendon Press: Oxford University Press, 1981, £15.00. L'Homme: Sujet ou Objet? By Jacques Croteau. Pp.260, Montreal, Bellarmin: Tournai, Desclée et Cie, 1981, $15.00. The Texture of Knowledge: An Essay on Religion and Science. By James W. Jones. Pp.97, Washington, University Press of America, 1981, no price given. Cosmos and Creator. By Stanley L. Jaki. Pp.xii, 168, Edinburgh, Scottish Academic Press, 1980, £6.75. Dante, Philomythes and Philosopher: Man in the Cosmos. By Patrick Boyde. Pp.vii, 408, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1981, £30.00. Dissidence et Philosophie au Mayen Âge. By E.L. Fortin. Pp.201, Montreal, Bellarmin, 1981, $12.00. The Philosophy of John Norris of Bemerton. By Richard Acworth. Pp.x, 388, Hildesheim, Georg Olms, 1979, 74 DM. Philosophy and Ideology in Hume's Political Thought. By David Miller. Pp.xii, 218, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1981, £15.00. Hegelianism. By John Edward Toews. Pp.x, 450, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1980, £25.00. One Hundred Years of Thomism. Edited by V.B. Brezik. Pp.210, Houston, Centre for Thomistic Studies, 1981, no price given. Gramsci's Political Thought: Hegemony, Consciousness and the Revolutionary Process. By J.V. Femia. Pp.xiii, 303, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1981, £17.50. Greek and Roman Slavery. By Thomas Wiedemann. Pp.xvi, 284, London, Croom Helm, 1981, £10.95, £5.95. Prophecy and Millenarianism. Essays in Honour of Marjorie Reeves. Edited by Ann Williams. Pp.x, 355, London, Longman, 1980, £25.00. Of Prelates and Princes: A Study of the Economic and Social Position of the Tudor Episcopate. By Felicity Heal. Pp.xv, 353, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1980, £17.50. Radical Religious Movements in Early Modern Europe. By Michael Mullett. Pp.xxiv, 193, London, George Allen & Unwin, 1980, £10.50. The Jesuits. By J.C.H. Aveling. Pp.390, London, Blond and Briggs, 1981, £16.95. The Beginnings of Ideology. By Donald R. Kelley. Pp.xv, 351, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1981, £24.00. Utopia and the Ideal Society: A Study of English Utopian Writing 1516–1700. By J.C. Davis. Pp.x, 427, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1981, £25.00. Eastern Politics of the Vatican 1917–1979. By Hansjakob Stehle. Pp.466, Athens, Ohio University Press, 1981, £16.20, £8.10. Structuralism or Criticism? By Geoffrey Strickland. Pp.viii, 209, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1981, £17.50. The Call of God: The Theme of Vocation in the Poetry of Donne and Herbert. By Robert B. Shaw. Pp.xiii, 123, Cambridge, Mass., Cowley Publications, 1981, $5.00. John and Charles Wesley: Selected Prayers, Hymns, Journal Notes, Sermons, Letters and Treatises. Edited by Frank Whaling. Pp.xx, 412, London, SPCK, 1981, £8.95. The Trickster in West Africa: A Study of Mythic Irony and Sacred Delight. By Robert D. Pelton. Pp.312, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1980, £15.00. (shrink)

En partant de l’étonnement qu’a suscité l’apparition d’animaux sauvages dans les villes désertées par leurs habitants confinés, cet article met en exergue ce que la vie sauvage nous apprend de la vie urbaine, de ses insuffisances, de ses aberrations, des sacrifices qu’elle impose et des contraintes qu’elle exerce sur les vivants en général. Comment faire de la ville une nouvelle arche de Noé? Telle est la question qui se pose.

Ronald Giere and others aspire to 'naturalize science' by examining scientific activity as they would any other natural phenomenon — scientifically. Giere aims to fashion a theory of science that is naturalistic, realistic, and evolutionary, and to thus carve for himself a niche between foundationalist philosophies of science (positing abstract criteria of rationality) on the one hand, and relativist sociologies of science on the other. Giere's approach is appealing because it allows that science is a human endeavor pursued by humans (...) using human cognitive skills. The cognitive skills most salient to science, in Giere's view, are the ability to represent the world more or less accurately, and the ability to choose more or less accurately between available theories. These skills, Giere believes, have been endowed by evolution. We believe that Giere's account is inadequate because it gives short shrift to rationality. Giere places too much emphasis on natural modeling skills and on natural heuristics for judging the relative merits of these models, and too little emphasis on the systematic attempts to reflect on, find fault with, and modify, models that characterize so much of scientific activity. This aspect of science and other human endeavor — the creative, contemplative, reflective, in short the rational aspect of representation — is all but lacking in Giere's study. Thus, Giere's account of science, like other naturalist accounts, excludes precisely that which is most important, and which most needs to be explained, about science. (shrink)

Collected and edited by Noah Levin -/- Table of Contents: -/- UNIT ONE: INTRODUCTION TO CONTEMPORARY ETHICS: TECHNOLOGY, AFFIRMATIVE ACTION, AND IMMIGRATION 1 The “Trolley Problem” and Self-Driving Cars: Your Car’s Moral Settings (Noah Levin) 2 What is Ethics and What Makes Something a Problem for Morality? (David Svolba) 3 Letter from the Birmingham City Jail (Martin Luther King, Jr) 4 A Defense of Affirmative Action (Noah Levin) 5 The Moral Issues of Immigration (B.M. Wooldridge) 6 The Ethics of our (...) Digital Selves (Noah Levin) -/- UNIT TWO: TORTURE, DEATH, AND THE “GREATER GOOD” 7 The Ethics of Torture (Martine Berenpas) 8 What Moral Obligations do we have (or not have) to Impoverished Peoples? (B.M. Wooldridge) 9 Euthanasia, or Mercy Killing (Nathan Nobis) 10 An Argument Against Capital Punishment (Noah Levin) 11 Common Arguments about Abortion (Nathan Nobis & Kristina Grob) 12 Better (Philosophical) Arguments about Abortion (Nathan Nobis & Kristina Grob) -/- UNIT THREE: PERSONS, AUTONOMY, THE ENVIRONMENT, AND RIGHTS 13 Animal Rights (Eduardo Salazar) 14 John Rawls and the “Veil of Ignorance” (Ben Davies) 15 Environmental Ethics: Climate Change (Jonathan Spelman) 16 Rape, Date Rape, and the “Affirmative Consent” Law in California (Noah Levin) 17 The Ethics of Pornography: Deliberating on a Modern Harm (Eduardo Salazar) 18 The Social Contract (Thomas Hobbes) -/- UNIT FOUR: HAPPINESS 19 Is Pleasure all that Matters? Thoughts on the “Experience Machine” (Prabhpal Singh) 20 Utilitarianism (J.S. Mill) 21 Utilitarianism: Pros and Cons (B.M. Wooldridge) 22 Existentialism, Genetic Engineering, and the Meaning of Life: The Fifths (Noah Levin) 23 The Solitude of the Self (Elizabeth Cady Stanton) 24 Game Theory, the Nash Equilibrium, and the Prisoner’s Dilemma (Douglas E. Hill) -/- UNIT FIVE: RELIGION, LAW, AND ABSOLUTE MORALITY 25 The Myth of Gyges and The Crito (Plato) 26 God, Morality, and Religion (Kristin Seemuth Whaley) 27 The Categorical Imperative (Immanuel Kant) 28 The Virtues (Aristotle) 29 Beyond Good and Evil (Friedrich Nietzsche) 30 Other Moral Theories: Subjectivism, Relativism, Emotivism, Intuitionism, etc. (Jan F. Jacko). (shrink)

Is language understanding a special case of social cognition? To help evaluate this view, we can formalize it as the rational speech-act theory: Listeners assume that speakers choose their utterances approximately optimally, and listeners interpret an utterance by using Bayesian inference to “invert” this model of the speaker. We apply this framework to model scalar implicature (“some” implies “not all,” and “N” implies “not more than N”). This model predicts an interaction between the speaker's knowledge state and the listener's interpretation. (...) We test these predictions in two experiments and find good fit between model predictions and human judgments. (shrink)

I argue that classical theism is in tension with a kind of modal recombination principle known as ‘cut-and-paste’. I develop this tension at length, giving two arguments against theism based on cut-and-paste. I then both lay out and respond to various original proposals for reconciling theism with cut-and-paste. I conclude by measuring the cost of having to deny cut-and-paste. I argue that while there is an intuitive cost to this consequence of theism, theists also have plausible ways of addressing various (...) motivations for cut-and-paste. (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 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)

This study modelled associations between gender, ruminative cognitive style, alcohol use, and the time course of negative affect over the course of 43,111 random assessments in the natural environment. Participants completed 49 days of experience sampling over 1.3 years. The data indicated that rumination at baseline was positively associated with alcohol dependence symptoms at baseline as well as higher negative affect over the course of the study. Consistent with negative reinforcement models, drinking served to decrease the persistence of negative affect (...) from moment to moment. However, this ameliorative effect of drinking was evident only among women, suggesting an increased risk for negative reinforcement driven drinking behaviour. In addition, rumination appeared to counteract the desired effects of alcohol on mood among women. This suggests that women who ruminate more may be motivated to consume larger amounts of alcohol to achieve the desired effects. Overall, the results indicate that ruminative cognitive style and the persistence of negative affect from moment to moment may reflect an individual vulnerability for the development of alcohol use disorder especially among women. (shrink)

Jacques Ellul’s book, The Meaning of the City, widely recognized as one of the most important twentieth century theological reflections on the city, was also one of his most controversial scholarly contributions. Many urbanists interpreted the book as demeaning the city and diminishing the importance of urban policy, planning, design, architecture, and activism at a time when cities around the world had experience profound crises. This article reexamines The Meaning of the City and its relevance to twenty-first century urbanism.

İşitme kaybı sebebiyle işitme engeli olan çocukların dil gelişimleri gecikmekte ve buna bağlı olarak da bilişsel ve sosyal gelişimlerinde gecikme yaşanmaktadır. Bu sebeple işitme engelli çocuklara işitme engelliler için açılan ilkokullar, ortaokullar ve liselerde özel eğitim verilmektedir. İşitme engelliler ortaokullarının ve bu okullarda öğrenim gören öğrencilerin birçok sorunu bulunmaktadır. Bu sorunlardan biri de öğretmen eğitimi konusudur. Çünkü işitme engelliler eğitimi özel bir alandır ve eğitim verecek kişilerin de bu özel eğitimi verebilecek yeterlilikte olması gerekmektedir. Ancak özel eğitime ihtiyacı olan işitme (...) engelli öğrencilere eğitim veren işitme engelliler ortaokullarında görev yapmaya başlayan Din Kültürü ve Ahlak Bilgisi (DKAB) öğretmenleri, bu okullarda görev yapan diğer branş öğretmenleri gibi işitme engelli öğrencilerin eğitimi konusunda özel eğitim almadan, işitme engelli öğrencileri tanımadan bu okullarda görev yapmaya başlamaktadır. Bu da birçok sorunu beraberinde getirmektedir. Bu araştırmada Türkiye’de işitme engelliler ortaokullarında görev yapan DKAB öğretmenlerinin DKAB derslerinin öğretimi konusundaki yeterliliklerini, yine DKAB öğretmenlerinin görüşlerine bağlı kalarak çeşitli boyutlarıyla ortaya çıkarmak amaçlanmıştır. Öğretmenlerin karşılaştıkları sorunları ayrıntılı olarak ifade edebilecekleri düşüncesiyle araştırmada nitel araştırma yöntemi belirlenmiştir. Farklı illerde bulunan öğretmenlere yönelik hazırlanan görüşme formu, yarı yapılandırılmış görüşme tekniği ve standartlaştırılmış açık uçlu görüşme yapılarak 28 katılımcıya uygulanmıştır. Araştırmada ortaya çıkan bulgular değerlendirilmiş ve araştırmanın son bölümünde sonuç ve öneriler ifade edilmiştir. Araştırma sonucunda işitme engelliler ortaokullarında göreve başlayan DKAB öğretmenlerinin bu alanda yeterli düzeyde eğitim almadan göreve başladıkları, bu sebeple okula uyum sağlayana kadar ciddi bir zaman kaybı yaşadıkları, öğrencilerle iletişim kurmada zorlandıkları, öğretmen ve öğrencilerin yeterli seviyede Türk işaret dili bilmemesinin de bu sorunu artırdığı görülmüştür. Öğretmenlerin derslerde farklı anlatım yöntemleri kullanmaya çalışmalarına rağmen bu konuda da zorluklar olduğu, bireyselleştirilmiş eğitim planı hazırlanması ve uygulanmasında da sorunlar yaşandığı ortaya çıkmıştır. (shrink)

I argue for the viability of one neglected way of developing supervenience-based objections to metaethical non-naturalism. This way goes through a principle known as ‘Hume’s Dictum’, according to which there are no necessary connections between distinct existences. I challenge several objections to the Hume’s Dictum-based argument. In the course of doing so, I formulate and motivate modest and precise versions of Hume’s Dictum, illustrate how arguments employing these principles might proceed, and argue that the Hume’s Dictum argument enjoys some advantages (...) relative to other supervenience-based objections to non-naturalism. (shrink)

Homelessness and its various forms of manifestation are a complex phenomenon. Street homelessness, which is the subject of this study, continues to be a challenge for the South African people and government. Different research studies have been undertaken on street homelessness. Various frameworks have been used in an attempt to understand and respond to street homelessness. Churches continue as key role-players in responses to street homelessness. There is a need, however, for churches to continually evaluate the various approaches to street (...) homelessness, with a view to sharpening those approaches to better understand and respond to the challenge. Churches need frameworks that can help them to theologically understand and adequately respond to street homelessness. Gustafson's framework of moral engagement is explored within the context of street homelessness, with a view to suggest ways and means by which the Methodist Church of Southern Africa could better understand and adequately respond to the problem of street homelessness in South Africa. (shrink)

Knowledge is analyzed in terms of the cost incurred when mistakes are made — things we should have known better, but didn’t. Following Wittgenstein at the end of On Certainty, an Epistemic Wager, similar to Pascal’s Wager, is set up to represent the cost differences not in belief vs. disbelief, but in knowledge vs. skepticism. This leads to a core class of absolutely certain knowledge, related to Moorean Facts, that is integrated into our everyday lives. This core knowledge is resistant (...) to both radical skepticism, such as a Cartesian Demon, and Gettier style objections, while providing a small, but sufficient base for future epistemological research. (shrink)

We agree with Grossmann that fear often builds cooperative relationships. Yet he neglects much extant literature. Prior researchers have discussed how fear (and other emotions) build cooperative relationships, have questioned whether fear per se evolved to serve this purpose, and have emphasized that human cooperation takes many forms. Grossmann's theory would benefit from a wider consideration of this work.

I distinguish between two theses, DPJ and DGP. DPJ asserts that one’s justification for accepting particular epistemic propositions positively depends on one’s being justified in believing general epistemic principles. DGP claims that one’s justification in believing general epistemic propositions positively depends on one’s being justified in believing particular epistemic propositions. I claim that methodism accepts DPJ and rejects DGP and particularism accepts DGP and rejects DPJ. I argue that we should reject DGP and methodism roughly because these views imply that (...) many of us do not know epistemic propositions that we do know. This point is made by Roderick Chisholm in The Problem of the Criterion and challenged by Robert Amico. I consider Chisholm’s arguments and Amico’s objections. Finally, I argue that even if we reject DPJ and methodism, we need not embrace particularism, since we could reject both DPJ and DGP. (shrink)

This collection of essays, offered in honor of the distinguished career of prominent political philosophy professor Clifford Orwin, brings together internationally renowned scholars to provide a wide context and discuss various aspects of the virtue of “humanity” through the history of political philosophy.

This collection of essays, offered in honor of the distinguished career of prominent political philosophy professor Clifford Orwin, brings together internationally renowned scholars to provide a wide context and discuss various aspects of the virtue of “humanity” through the history of political philosophy.

"Dialogue" is one of American religion's shopworn terms. Although we hear much talk about dialogue, very little of it actually takes place. Religious discourse - especially about politics and public affairs - is increasingly polarized, involving much contestation but little conversation. If truth are to be tested, however, there is no substitute for dialogue.

In his Animadversiones on Machiavelli's The Prince (1661), Hermann Conring, one of the most famous of the early modern German professors of politics, further developed the constitutional reading of Machiavelli's The Prince, following in the footsteps of Bodin and the German political theorists of the previous generation such as Arnisaeus, Contzen, and Besold. For Conring, Machiavelli's exaggerated analysis of tyranny and his heavy emphasis on popular liberty offered not so much a realist political science but a dangerous prelude to the (...) monarchomachic theory of popular sovereignty and a fatalistic concession to sin. Conring, a committed Aristotelian with Arminian sympathies, preferred a more empirical constitutional analysis (and a theory of the state) which did not favor any particular faction of the state (i.e. the people over the nobility) as the unique source of stability or instability and which explained the necessity for wickedness as the result of poor constitutional design rather than a realistic view of human nature and fate. (shrink)

The flaws in social psychological research pointed out by Cesario have societal costs. These include ignoring crucial base rates thereby degrading the effectiveness of policy decisions, generalizing the conclusions derived from experiments on non-professionals thereby distorting the public's view of professional law enforcement personnel, questionable accusations of racism, and mis-attributions of the causes of racial differences in behavior.

In this article, I intend to show how Thomas More's use of a seemingly obscure episode from Livy's Ab Urbe Condita in his Apology provides important insights into the major themes of the polemical project that was to consume his final years. More's adaptation of the episode situates him among other Renaissance luminaries who saw in it a means to explore how group dynamics affect individual judgement and shape common opinion. The adaptation also serves to provide thematic cohesion in a (...) polemic long considered excessively excursive and without merit, literary or otherwise. This exploration will further shed light upon the ways in which Renaissance authors appropriated classical histories to address contemporary concerns. (shrink)

The United States’ Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 was sweeping legislation intended to protect the privacy of genetic information and prevent discrimination based on genetic factors in health insurance and employment. It protects the genetic privacy of individuals in these contexts and limits the likelihood that genetic discrimination will occur. However, in the case of employment, it does so at the cost of safety, both to the individuals it is meant to protect and to others. On occasion, adherence to (...) the dictates of GINA could lead to serious and avoidable harm to many people. Odd as it may seem, then, there can be such a thing as justified genetic discrimination. There are times when knowledge of genetic factors and subsequent action overrides reasons against obtaining or using such information. Moreover, this knowledge can be obtained without violating one's genetic privacyx. (shrink)