The cosmological and teleological argument both start with some contingent feature of the actual world and argue that the best or only explanation of that feature is that it was produced by an intelligent and powerful supernatural being. The cosmological argument starts with a general feature, such as the existence of contingent being or the presence of motion and uses some version of the Principle of Sufficient Reason to conclude that this feature must have an explanation. The debate then focuses (...) on two points: first, whether the PSR in question is true, and second, whether the explanation must involve God or at least some God-like being. The teleological argument begins with a general feature of the cosmos judged to have value, such as the existence of intelligent life or the presence of order in the universe, and argues, usually inductively but sometimes deductively, that this feature is to be explained by the agency of a powerful supernatural being. Here, the debate tends to focus on whether there are alternate naturalistic explanations, such as Darwinian evolution. (shrink)

Narrative ambiguity is a deliberate stylistic device which engages the reader, seizes the imaginative processes, and creates an interaction with the characters of the story that a more explicitly detailed account does not allow to happen.

Three of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals to eradicate poverty are very much inter-related: ‘Promote gender equality and empower women,’ ‘Reduce child mortality,’ and ‘Improve maternal health.’ Although the biblical text has often been used to subordinate and oppress women, it can be a resource to empower women who live and give birth in conditions of grinding poverty. Put in the mouths of pregnant women, the Song of Hannah and Mary’s Magnificat envision a reversal of hierarchies, in which ‘The (...) Lord raises up the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap.’ Attention will be paid to the social pre-exilic and Palestinian contexts of exploitation to which these songs speak. (shrink)

BackgroundResistance training (RT) can offer beneficial physiological and psychological effects. The regular continuation of this exercise can be accomplished by improving the recovery and mood after a workout. Frequency-specific microcurrent (microstimulation) might offer a solution here as it has been shown to improve physical injuries, mood state, and sleep. However, knowledge is lacking about the impact of microstimulation after RT on said parameters. The present study aimed to test the effects of RT and muscle-microstimulation on mood and physical recovery in (...) healthy men after performing conventional deadlifts, which is a type of RT.MethodsThe study was conducted according to a single-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled, and two-way crossover study. Twenty participants naïve to microstimulation (MS) engaged in RT twice on separate days. They were randomized to receive MS on 1 day and no microstimulation (Sham-MS) on another day. Before and after the workout and after their treatment (MS or Sham-MS), participants self-rated their mood state and mental and physical exhaustion levels.ResultsFindings showed that MS increased the self-ratings of well-rested and sociable and, most importantly, reduced the feeling of exercise-induced exhaustion. There were no MS effects on ratings of feeling sad, happy, or exhausted, although the workout, independent of MS, negatively influenced the level of exhaustion.ConclusionThe combination of enhanced sociableness, reduced fatigue, and exercise-induced exhaustion after a workout, followed by microstimulation, has important implications for professional sporters and nonprofessionals who try to get the best result after a workout. Future studies using a double-blind approach including different types of exercises, different durations of programs, and both sexes can shed more light on the full potential of microstimulation after a workout on mood state and exercise-induced exhaustion. (shrink)

In Utopophobia Estlund offers a prominent version of a conditional account of feasibility. I think the account is too permissive. I defend an alternative incentives account of feasibility. The incentives account preserves the spirit of the conditional account but qualifies fewer actions as feasible. Simplified, the account holds that an action is feasible if there is an incentive such that, given the incentive, the agent is likely to perform the action successfully. If we accept that ought implies feasible, then we (...) should reject some normative requirements on agents that Estlund would accept in light of his more permissive conditional account. But we can still recognise normative requirements on individual and collective agents that, if complied with, would result in a world that is radically better than our own. (shrink)

Preview: /Zofia Rosińska interviewed by Mikołaj Sławkowski-Rode/ MSR: Your book Po śladach. Doświadczenie modlitewne w ujęciu filozofii kultury [After the Traces. The Experience of Prayer in the Perspective of Philosophy of Culture] has an unusual format for an academic work. Apart from an overview and discussion of various conceptions and examples of prayer you have added an annex containing eight interviews with various people as well as five testimonials concerning the experience of prayer – some very intimate. What was (...) the motivation for choosing such a format and how did you select the texts comprising the annex? ZR: My book is not a cultural study or a work of theology, psychology, or psychiatry, although it touches the boundaries of all these disciplines. What I mean here is that it takes up topics and utilizes the categories specific to these fields. My book is a book about the human being and it is written from the perspective of philosophy of culture. You say that the format of my book is not typical for an academic work, because of the decision to include the annex containing conversations with people who pray and with others who reject it. This is true. However my book necessitates this minor structural difference. The goal of the book was to discern and understand various forms of prayer present in our culture: from set prayers through poetry, painting and music to activities like work. I call this ‘ontological prayer’. Unfortunately I could not include painting and music in this work. (shrink)

A bi- or multilingual repertoire is a complex and dynamic system of languages (Herdina & Jessner, 2002; Herwig, 2001; Larsen-Freeman & Cameron, 2008; Stotz & Cardoso, 2022) which interact with each other and with the conceptual system (Kroll & Stewart, 1994; Pavlenko, 2009). Importantly, fluent and regularly used native languages are not spared from the influence of later acquired non-native ones. The paper presents the results of a case study conducted with a native speaker of Polish with three additional languages: (...) English, German, and French. Based on the analysis of the instances of lexical reverse transfer observed in the spoken production in her L1, it is concluded that reverse transfer may lead to partial L1 attrition, at least when the monolingual perspective is taken. From the multilingualism point of view, reverse transfer should rather be treated as a phenomenon leading to partial restructuring and enhancement of mother tongue competences. (shrink)

We formulate a Π1 sentence τ which is a version of the Tableau consistency of GlΔ0. The sentence τ is true and is provable in GlΔ0 + exp. We construct a model M of GlΔ0+Ω1+τ+BGs1 which has no proper end-extension to a model of GlΔ0+Ω1+τ. Also we prove that GlΔ0+Ω1+τ is not Π1 conservative over GlΔ0+τ.

Fiction has been of concern to both the aesthetician and the ontologist. The former is concerned with the criteria or standards by which we judge the aesthetic worth of a fictional work, the latter with whether our ontology must be enlarged to include possible or imaginary worlds in which are housed the characters and incidents referred to and depicted in such works. This is a paper on the ontology of fiction. It will attempt to answer these ontological questions concerning truth (...) and reference in fiction by clarifying the use of language. Our paradigm case of the fictive use of language will be one in which the story-teller orally relates the fictional story in the presence of his audience, rather than one in which he inscribes his story so that it may be read at a later date. The value of considering the use of language in a face-to-face situation is that it brings before us in their full explicitness all of the different facets of a speech act, many of which often lie dormant in non-face-to-face uses and therefore are hard to discover from a consideration of such uses. (shrink)

We will give a new cosmological argument for the existence of a being who, although not proved to be the absolutely perfect God of the great Medieval theists, also is capable of playing the role in the lives of working theists of a being that is a suitable object of worship, adoration, love, respect, and obedience. Unlike the absolutely perfect God, the God whose necessary existence is established by our argument will not be shown to essentially have the divine perfections (...) of omnipotence, omniscience, omnibenevolence, and sovereignty. Furthermore, it is not even shown that he is contingently omnipotent and omniscient, just powerful and intelligent enough to be the supernatural designer-creator of the exceedingly complex and wondrous cosmos that in fact.. (shrink)

John Rawls tells at the start of A Theory of Justice that his theory is intentionally constrained in two ways: it is ideal and focuses on the justice of the basic structure of society. This chapter begins by evaluating Rawls's claim that ideal theory sets the target of reform for nonideal theory, whose task it is to work out what to do “under less happy conditions.” It states that it is unclear just when ideal theory can inform the priorities of (...) nonideal theory. The chapter also presents discussions on whether the ideal theory is utopian and concessive to human nature. Even the kind of nonideal theory that delivers concrete action‐guidance for “us” remains unhelpfully ideal if it does so merely in the form of policies or institutional arrangements. (shrink)

Individuals in dating and marital relationships experience various transgressions that require forgiveness (e.g., hurtful communication, mistrust, lies, or infidelity). This study examines forgiveness-granting strategies in the context of forgiveness tendency, relationship length, commitment, satisfaction, and relational consequences to better understand relationship dynamics. 649 individuals (532 dating, 117 married), aged 18–65 (M = 26.00, SD = 8.82) participated. The sample included 517 women (79.7 %) and 132 men (20.3 %). Participants described a forgiven transgression and completed questionnaires, including the Multidimensional Forgiveness-Granting (...) Scale (MFGS), Transgression-Related Interpersonal Motivations Inventory (TRIM-18), Relationship Assessment Scale (RAS), and the commitment subscale from the Investment Model Scale. One open-ended question (types of forgiven transgressions) was analyzed consensually. Quantitative data were analyzed using correlational analysis, regression analysis, andt-tests. The most common transgression was infidelity. A linear regression analysis showed that the strongest positive predictor of relationship satisfaction was the tendency to forgive one’s partner. Nonverbal displays positively predicted relationship strengthening, while the discussion strategy predicted relationship deterioration negatively. These findings emphasize the importance of how forgiveness is communicated and may inform interventions to enhance romantic relationships. (shrink)

BackgroundRandomized controlled trials (RCTs) are often complex and expensive to perform. Less than one third achieve planned recruitment targets, follow-up can be labor-intensive, and many have limited real-world generalizability. Designs for RCTs conducted using cohorts and routinely collected health data, including registries, electronic health records, and administrative databases, have been proposed to address these challenges and are being rapidly adopted. These designs, however, are relatively recent innovations, and published RCT reports often do not describe important aspects of their methodology in (...) a standardized way. Our objective is to extend the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) statement with a consensus-driven reporting guideline for RCTs using cohorts and routinely collected health data.MethodsThe development of this CONSORT extension will consist of five phases. Phase 1 (completed) consisted of the project launch, including fundraising, the establishment of a research team, and development of a conceptual framework. In phase 2, a systematic review will be performed to identify publications (1) that describe methods or reporting considerations for RCTs conducted using cohorts and routinely collected health data or (2) that are protocols or report results from such RCTs. An initial “long list” of possible modifications to CONSORT checklist items and possible new items for the reporting guideline will be generated based on the Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) and The REporting of studies Conducted using Observational Routinely-collected health Data (RECORD) statements. Additional possible modifications and new items will be identified based on the results of the systematic review. Phase 3 will consist of a three-round Delphi exercise with methods and content experts to evaluate the “long list” and generate a “short list” of key items. In phase 4, these items will serve as the basis for an in-person consensus meeting to finalize a core set of items to be included in the reporting guideline and checklist. Phase 5 will involve drafting the checklist and elaboration-explanation documents, and dissemination and implementation of the guideline.DiscussionDevelopment of this CONSORT extension will contribute to more transparent reporting of RCTs conducted using cohorts and routinely collected health data. (shrink)

In what follows, we revisit the most promising conceptions of “hope” while following Haraway’s admonition to “stay with the trouble.” Thirty-five years after Haraway’s opening to the Manifesto for Cyborgs where she states that “irony is about contradictions that do not resolve into larger wholes”, we move with her ceaseless task to eschew resolution and certainty, urging instead a radical contingency that is fundamental to thought itself. The radical contingency recognizes the limits of what any one individual or one species (...) is capable of unto itself. Any such exceptionalism is spurned. The possibilities of thinking-with, and making-with, are the necessary path of the troubled present. And there is no escaping the present, a present that is thick with affliction but is still unfinished and ongoing. We enter into the thick presence of our ongoing conversation around hope by revisiting the concepts that help us to think our thoughts, exploring how these conceptions worked and did not work for our collective thinking. We then build on the concepts’ appendages, their attachments and detachments to our conversation around hope, by sketching Haraway’s materialist challenge to hope, and her refusal of futurism and contingency that raise some questions about the potentialities of “critical hope.” Finally, we situate our work within an understanding of the “pedagogical work of the concept,” drawing a line from Haraway to Stengers to Deleuze, which allows us to explore resonance between concepts and posit a “pedadogy of the concept” to situate the limits of hope and potentialities of “staying with the trouble.” To work towards a pedagogy that “stays with the trouble,” we extend Haraway’s critique that it matters “what thoughts think thoughts” by suggesting that it also matters which feelings we feel with, highlighting the vital necessity of feeling to the project of staying with the trouble. (shrink)

I am concerned that, in our quest to end discrimination, we as feminists may be concentrating too much on equality and ignoring more basic issues of social justice. I argue that we must not lose sight of where we as a society are going in the effort to make sure we all get there together. The primary goal, after all, is not simply for women to get what men have, but justice for all.

The paper reports the results of a comparative analysis of the two groups students coming from temporarily disconnected families due to foreign work parents and teenagers with the same social environment, but without the experience of separation time. The subject of the analysis was: the cohesion of a family from the perspective of the evaluated adolescent and three factors of psychological loneliness: social loneliness, emotional loneliness and existential loneliness. The Loneliness Scale was used based on an original concept of multidimensional (...) sense of loneliness. The questionnaire for the survey of family cohesion were used too. The age, gender, family structure and the family lifestyle were controlled. Obtained results revealed significantly lower cohesion and significantly higher existential loneliness in group of teenagers from temporarily disconnected families. Not confirmed the supposition that made in earlier studies of temporarily disconnected families due to economic migration, that these teenagers suffer from a sense of emotional loneliness There has also confirmed the belief that the level of family cohesion and a sense of loneliness in adolescents is associated with atypical organization of family life associated with the duration of migration of parent/parents, frequency of contact with family members working abroad: mothers, fathers or broth parents, the duration of stays at home. (shrink)

Meta-analytic findings have suggested that individual differences are relatively weaker predictors of academic dishonesty than are situational factors. A robust literature on deviance correlates and workplace integrity testing, however, demonstrates that individual difference variables can be relatively strong predictors of a range of counterproductive work behaviors (CWBs). To the extent that academic cheating represents a kind of counterproductive behavior in the work role of "student", employment-type integrity measures should be strong predictors of academic dishonesty. Our results with a college student (...) sample showed that integrity test scores were moderate to strong correlates of self-reported academic cheating and that these relationships persisted even after controlling for a variety of measurement concerns such as item format similarity, concurrent assessment, and socially desirable responding. Implications for institutional honor codes and the broader relations between educational and workplace dishonesty are discussed. (shrink)

Our paper ‘A new cosmological argument’ gave an argument for the existence of God making use of the weak Principle of Sufficient Reason (W-PSR) which states that for every proposition p, if p is true, then it is possible that there is an explanation for p. Recently, Graham Oppy, as well as Kevin Davey and Rob Clifton, have criticized the argument. We reply to these criticisms. The most interesting kind of criticism in both papers alleges that the W-PSR can be (...) justifiably denied by the atheist, and constitutes no improvement on the strong Principle of Sufficient Reason (S-PSR) which claims that every true proposition in fact has an explanation. The criticism is predicated on the fact that it can be shown that the W-PSR entails the S-PSR. We argue that the W-PSR's plausibility remains despite the criticisms. From this it can be seen to follow that the entailment relation between the W-PSR and the S-PSR gives one reason to believe the S-PSR. (shrink)

We show that for each n ≥ 1, if T2n does not prove the weak pigeonhole principle for Σbn functions, then the collection scheme B Σ1 is not finitely axiomatizable over T2n. The same result holds with Sn2 in place of T 2n.

The dead are among us. We are reminded of their names through the books we read, the hoovers we buy, the sandwiches we consume, the tarmac we travel on, the wellingtons we wear, or, frequently, the buildings we visit. Even if we settled on the criteria for being worthy of commemoration, what should we do about the fact that there seem to be so many people who would likely meet them? Commemoration is a form of attention giving, and attention is (...) a scarce resource. It is scarce even if it could be permissibly commanded at will. It is even more scarce when commanding attention may violate someone's freedom to decide for themselves where to bestow it. I will argue that when it comes to public commemorative attention, there are duties that fall on us all to remember the now dead victims of injustice. I will also offer reasons for why such duties would normally mean that we need to prioritize the remembrance of the victims of injustice ahead of remembrance that might be owed to those who had expectations of being remembered or even took steps by donations to secure such remembrance. (shrink)

The aim of this paper will be to try and show why there could not be any acceptable counter-stipulation-example to this analytic truth. The overall strategy will be to articulate the conceptual centrality of this analytic truth by showing that a change in it will cause absurdities to break out in certain neighboring concepts with which the concept of cause has logical liaisons, such as action, possibility, intention, deliberation, memory, responsibility, and punishment: and when we try to protect ourselves from (...) these absurdities by altering these latter concepts as well, we will have twisted our concept of causality, along with these other concepts, out of recognition. In other words, it will be argued that to give up this analytic truth will require such a drastic overhauling of the basic concepts of our conceptual system that they will not be a recognizable analog of their former self. Obviously, I cannot give any precise criterion for just when an altered concept ceases to be a permissible analog of its former self. While there is room for disagreement about these matters, we can reach agreement upon the logical connections between the concept of causality and these other neighboring concepts, so that we can determine what changes must be made in the latter so as to accommodate a change in the former. Whether we then wish to say that these changes are so extensive that these concepts are not permissible analogs of their former selves is of secondary importance. However, I do believe that it can be shown that the extended concept of causality which permits a cause to be later than its effect requires such a drastic change in neighboring concepts that there will be little room for disagreement as to whether it is a legitimate analog to the original concept of causality. (shrink)

The two main questions addressed in the chapter are “What is the point of (good) nonideal theory?” and “Can (good) nonideal theory be done in isolation from ideal theory?” To address them, I distinguish between different types of nonideal theory and locate nonideal theory vis‐à‐vis ideal theory as well as realism and applied philosophy. I argue that nonideal theory is useful but some of its versions need to concede that they are defeatist. I also argue that nonideal theory builds on (...) ideal theory, though not in all the ways suggested by defenders of ideal theory. (shrink)

We prove that the Gödel incompleteness theorem holds for a weak arithmetic T = IΔ0 + Ω2 in the form where Cons H (T) is an arithmetic formula expressing the consistency of T with respect to the Herbrand notion of provability.

What’s special about human rights? For Rowan Cruft human rights are special because they capture the importance of the good of the right-holder. But his account struggles with explaining the existence of global socioeconomic human rights. I argue that such rights exist and show how we should revise Cruft’s account to accommodate this.

Is there a duty to do more than one’s fair share of solving collective problems? If there is, can those who do less than their fair share coerce others to do more? These questions arise urgently in relation to the problem of refugee protection. The fact that various states host refugees to a dramatically different extent is due to a range of factors but the most prominent one is that, on the whole, states devote their differential capabilities to the aim (...) of not hosting them. When some states fail to host – or otherwise assist – as many refugees as they should, must other states do more than their fair share in order to solve the problem of providing refugees with an appropriate place to live? I examine what I call the conservative, moderate and responsive answers to this question. I defend the responsive view and argue that there is a duty to do more than one’s fair share here and that such a duty is always enforceable. (shrink)

This volume brings together a distinguished, international list of scholars to explore the role of the learner's intention in knowledge change. Traditional views of knowledge reconstruction placed the impetus for thought change outside the learner's control. The teacher, instructional methods, materials, and activities were identified as the seat of change. Recent perspectives on learning, however, suggest that the learner can play an active, indeed, intentional role in the process of knowledge restructuring. This volume explores this new, innovative view of conceptual (...) change learning using original contributions drawn from renowned scholars in a variety of disciplines. The volume is intended for scholars or advanced students studying knowledge acquisition and change, including educational psychology, developmental psychology, science education, cognitive science, learning science, instructional psychology, and instructional and curriculum studies. (shrink)

The introduction to Leopold Blaustein’s (1905–1944) two essays in this issue of Estetika contains a general biographical note about the author and his philosophical affiliations, as well as a brief description of his particular interests within philosophical aesthetics. Blaustein’s method of philosophical inquiry is described as analytical phenomenology. Three interconnected fields of aesthetics in Blaustein’s works are emphasized: the theory of aesthetic perception, the theory of attitudes (towards the imaginary world and the reproduced one) and the theory of representation, especially (...) the imaginary representation crucial for aesthetic perception. Blaustein’s theory of perception and aesthetic experience is discussed in greater detail in the introduction as well as represented by the essay ‘The Role of Perception in Aesthetic Experience’. His theory of imaginary representation is exemplified by a selection from his important book Przedstawienia imaginatywne (Imaginary representations, 1930). The introduction ends with an account of the idea of ‘experiential unity of a higher order’, which for Blaustein serves as the condition for the possibility of aesthetic experience and constitutes an important background for an understanding of Blaustein’s aesthetics. (shrink)

Under what conditions are people responsible for their choices and the outcomes of those choices? How could such conditions be fostered by liberal societies? Should what people are due as a matter of justice depend on what they are responsible for? For example, how far should healthcare provision depend on patients' past choices? What values would be realized and which hampered by making justice sensitive to responsibility? Would it give people what they deserve? Would it advance or hinder equality? The (...) explosion of philosophical interest in such questions has been fuelled by increased focus on individual responsibility in political debates. Political philosophers, especially egalitarians, have responded to such developments by attempting to map out the proper place for responsibility in theories of justice. This book both reflects on these recent developments in normative political theory and moves the debate forwards. (shrink)

We prove that the standard cut is definable in each existentially closed model ofIΔ0+ exp by a (parameter free) П1–formula. This definition is optimal with respect to quantifier complexity and allows us to improve some previously known results on existentially closed models of fragments of arithmetic.