There is within all theological utterances something of the ridiculous, perhaps more so in Christianity, given its proclivity for the paradoxical and the childlike. Yet, few theologians are willing to discuss that consent to the Christian doctrine often requires a faith that goes beyond reason or does not exclusively identify with it. There seems to be a fear that the association of theology with the absurd will give fuel to the skeptic's refrain: "you can't seriously believe in all that nonsense" (...) This book considers the legitimacy of the skeptic's objection and rather than trying to explain away points of logical contradiction, the author explores the possibility that an idea can be contrary to rationality and also true and meaningful. The study involves the systematic analysis of central stylistic features of literary nonsense using Lewis Carroll's famous Alice stories as exemplar. The project culminates in the setting up of a nonsense theology by considering the practical and evangelical ramifications of associating Christian faith with nonsense literature; and conversely, the value of relating theological principles to the study of literary nonsense. Ultimately, the research suggests that faith is always a risk and that a strictly rational apologetic misrepresents the nature of Christian truth. (shrink)

A reply by the author of “Normalizing Atypical Genitalia: How a Heated Debate Went Astray,” to “The Battle Lines of Sexual Politics and Medical Morality,” by John D. Lantos, and “More Rhetoric Than Argument?” by Ellen K. Feder, Alice Dreger, and Anne Tamar‐Mattis.

One of two commentaries on “Normalizing Atypical Genitalia: How a Heated Debate Went Astray,” by Josephine Johnston, from the November‐December 2012 issue.

Este artigo se divide em duas partes. Na primeira seção, após a introdução, mapeamos as diversas ocorrências de “phýsis” ao longo das Hipotiposes Pirrônicas de Sexto Empírico, dividindo-as em 5 categorias: “natureza” como o real, em posição à “aparência”; o “natural” como aquilo que parece próprio, pertencente a algo ou alguém; a “Natureza”, como uma dimensão criadora e regente; o “natural” em oposição ao “antinatural”; a “natureza dos homens”. A forma como esses diversos usos aparecem na obra é invariavelmente crítica, (...) como elementos da argumentação contra os dogmáticos, especialmente os estoicos. Na segunda parte do trabalho, entretanto, mostramos como a “phýsis” aparece também de maneira positiva no início das Hipotiposes com a função de guia para a vida, como parte da resposta à célebre objeção da apraxía. Além disso, defendemos a hipótese de que a “natureza”, da perspectiva de Sexto, não se opõe nem ultrapassa as convenções e os costumes; pelo contrário, a natureza é o que é reconhecido por todos e é mesmo determinada pelas convenções e pelos costumes. (shrink)

G e moore and ludwig wittgenstein were very different teachers, both because of their differing views on the nature and aims of philosophical investigation, and because of the differences in the way they thought, their educational backgrounds, and the kind of persons they were. this paper records experiences of the two philosophers as teachers and as personalities, and indicates the features of their teaching which stemmed from their views and from their personalities.

We place agency front-and-centre in the aesthetics of science via an analysis of experimental design and performance. This first involves developing an account of scientific agency relevant to experiment. We do this via an analogy between experiments and games (as understood by Suits and Nguyen): both involve artificial practical environments designed to enable participants to exercise particular forms of agency. Second, we consider how this account of agency might underwrite an aesthetics of experiment. Experiments are well-designed not only when they (...) generate clear, elegant results, but also when they actively confront the experimenter with experimental phenomena, afford the exercise of agency throughout experimental runs and in iterative design and tweaking, and underlie stable, intersubjective experiences across agents. We apply the account to Newton’s optical work, and contrast this with contemporary experimental practices, where significantly more ‘experimental distance’ holds between the experimenter and the result. Taking the agency of experimental practice seriously enables a richer account of the role of aesthetic values, sensibilities, and judgments in science. (shrink)

This article is an account of a lecture-performance presentation held in the context of “Contradictions as a Method,” an international Bertolt Brecht symposium that took place in November 2019 at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. As three speakers engaged with theatre in different ways, we were inspired by the dialogical structure of Brecht’s play Buying Brass and staged a similarly structured conversation. This conversation imitated and transposed the form in which thespians and the philosopher meet in Brecht’s original (...) text. However, we decided not to perform characters from the play, but to speak from our own professional perspectives. Consequently, we focused on the current problems in theatre that we have met within our professional engagement, not specific problems mentioned in the original play. Yet, during the rehearsals, it came to light that there were many overlaps between the themes and characters of Brecht’s Buying Brass and the discussion of our live conversations. Therefore, we decided to use explicit references to some parts of the original Buying Brass play in our staged lecture-performance. (shrink)

Analytic debates about truth are wide-ranging, but certain key themes tend to crop up time and again. The three themes that we will examine in this paper are (i) the nature and behaviour of the ordinary concept of truth, (ii) the meaning of discourse about truth, and (iii) the nature of the property truth. We will start by offering a brief overview of the debates centring on these themes. We will then argue that cross-linguistic experimental philosophy has an indispensable yet (...) underappreciated role to play in all of these debates. Recognising the indispensability of cross-linguistic experimental philosophy should compel philosophers to significantly revise the ways in which they inquire about truth. It should also prompt analytic philosophers more generally to consider whether similar revisions might be necessary elsewhere in the field. (shrink)

Historically left to the margins, the topics of imagination and creativity have gained prominence in philosophy of science, challenging the once dominant distinction between ‘context of discovery’ and ‘context of justification’. The aim of this chapter is to explore imagination and creativity starting from issues within contemporary philosophy of science, making connections to these topics in other domains along the way. It discusses the recent literature on the role of imagination in models and thought experiments, and their comparison with fictions. (...) It then turns to the importance of constraints on imaginings in the scientific domain, as well as whether constraints can hinder creativity. The second part of the paper focuses on the social dimensions of science. It considers imagination and creativity of scientific communities, asks whether the institution of science promotes creativity (and whether we want it to) or if it encourages conservativeness, and ends with a reflection on the politics of imagination and creativity in science. (shrink)

This volume assesses the ethical, quantitative, and qualitative questions posed by the current financing of biomedical research.

This essay investigates the way in which Wolff takes an interest in the hypothesis of an emendatio of the prima philosophia from Leibniz’s incitement in De primae philosophiae emendatione, et de notione substantiae (1694) to re-found metaphysics. This makes it possible, secondly, to examine the way in which Wolff takes Johannes Clauberg’s ontology as a model, even though it represents in his view only a failed attempt at that same emendatio. Through the analysis of the texts, this article considers the (...) possibility of a new reading of the ‘failure’ attributed by Wolff to Clauberg, which would consist in his having ‘emended’ first philosophy by expelling it from the domain of ontology and finally identifying it with Cartesian prima philosophia. (shrink)

Two types of formal models - landscape search tasks and two-armed bandit models - are often used to study the effects that various social factors have on epistemic performance. I argue that they can be understood within a single framework. In this unified framework, I develop a model that may be used to understand the effects of functional and demographic diversity and their interaction. Using the unified model, I find that the benefit of demographic diversity is most pronounced in a (...) functionally homogeneous group, and decreases with the increase of functional diversity. (shrink)

It is well‐established within linguistics that slang serves a group‐identifying function. In this paper, a new understanding of the notion of lexical metadata is developed to provide a philosophical treatment of said function. The proposed account explains the group‐identifying function of slang in terms of certain inferences about a speaker's group affiliations that people competent with a slang word will be disposed to make given the lexical metadata related to the word in question. The resulting view is theoretically simple and (...) may extend to a whole range of linguistic phenomena that speakers utilize to position themselves in social space. (shrink)

In June 2024, NPR News reported on the story of Sun Kai, who created an AI driven avatar of his dead mother (voice, image, and likeness), that he converses with daily. A similar company, Super Brai...

The study investigated the supervision of undergraduates’ degree projects in Nigerian universities following the general allegation that the present day projects do not contribute to any knowledge because students copy past work and project supervisors do not have time for supervision. The population of the study was 27 federal Nigerian universities. A random sample of 9 federal Nigerian universities (33.3%) was used for the study. The instrument used in gathering the data was the questionnaire designed by the researcher titled Students’ (...) Project Management Inventory (SPMI). The validity of the instrument was done by both experts in educational administration and planning. Test-retest method was used to ascertain the reliability of the instrument. A Z-Test and common percent were the statistics used to analyze the data. The major finding was that the increased population of degree students with decreased number of supervisors have made it difficult to have good supervision of projects. Based on this finding, it is recommended that degree project requirement should be optional or elective and not compulsory. (shrink)

Global structural injustices are harms caused by structural processes, involving multiple individuals, acting across more than one state. Young (2011) developed the concept of ‘political responsibility,’ to allocate responsibility for structural injustice. In this paper, I am going to argue that when considering the climate crisis Young’s model needs to be adapted— to have agency as a basis for allocating political responsibility instead of contribution. This is a more intuitive way to allocate responsibility for the climate crisis given its nature (...) as a threshold problem, and the subtle structural positions occupied by the individuals involved. (shrink)

According to the received view in the literature on homonymy and polysemy representation, there is a difference between how polysemes and homonyms are represented in our mental lexicons. More concretely, the received view holds that whereas the meanings associated with a homonymous expression are (mentally) represented in separate lexical entries, the meanings associated with a polysemous expression are represented together in a single lexical entry. It is usually argued that this is the picture that is supported by the growing body (...) of empirical evidence coming from psycholinguistics. Empirical studies of ambiguity processing and resolution consistently show that polysemous expressions enjoy various processing advantages compared to homonyms, and the received view is generally taken to be required in order to explain these results. The aim of this paper is not only to show that this is not the case but also, and more fundamentally, that the received view falls far short of explaining the available data to a sufficient degree. As a result, the received view is caught up in an explanatory dilemma that I dub the Continuum Puzzle. I then claim that the best way to escape this puzzle is to give up the received view’s core thesis in favor of an alternative view consistent with the empirical evidence. Reaching such an alternative will require rejecting the following pervasive but ill-motivated assumption: Differences in ambiguity processing and resolution can only be explained by there being some corresponding differences in the architecture of our mental lexicons. (shrink)

This interpretive study proposes a framework with which to explore the ethical significance of classroom-based literacy practices. Overly narrow views of literature as a source of role models or moral precepts take insufficient account of the complexity of text and experience. Through analyses of telling examples from student writing and discussion in response to literature, the occurrence and interaction of six forms of ethical engagement are documented: judging, distancing, empathizing, affiliating, disclosing and resisting. The study concludes that ethical matters are (...) interwoven with the socially accomplished, situated work of engaging with literature and with specific pedagogical structures. (shrink)

Objective: To examine i) how ethical frameworks can be used in concrete cases of parent–doctors’ disagreements for extremely preterm infants born in the grey zone to guide such difficult decision-making; and ii) what challenges stakeholders may encounter in using these frameworks. Design: We did a case analysis of a concrete case of parent–doctor disagreement in the grey zone using two ethical frameworks: the best interest standard and the zone of parental discretion. Results: Both ethical frameworks entailed similar advantages and challenges. (...) They have the potential 1) to facilitate decision-making because they follow a structured method; 2) to clarify the situation because all relevant ethical issues are explored; and 3) to facilitate reaching an agreement because all parties can explain their views. We identified three main challenges. First, how to objectively evaluate the risk of severe disability. Second, parents’ interests should be considered but it is not clear to what extent. Third, this is a value-laden situation and different people have different values, meaning that the frameworks are at least partially subjective. Conclusions: These challenges do not mean that the ethical frameworks are faulty; rather, they reflect the complexity and the sensitivity of cases in the grey zone. (shrink)

In the wave of Umberto Eco’s oppositional binomial Dictionary-Encyclopedia, the paper aims to apply the rhizomatic system to the practical case of the (ethno)racial lexicon as a broad semantic area of the word race, which previously involved both physical predisposition and cultural habits. Given its critical issues, the dictionarial approach is distinguished into two different stages, intra-dictionarial (properly dictionarial) and inter-dictionarial (resulting from the metaphorical chain of meanings). Originally, race referred to horses (stud and herds) and property (as ownership and (...) essential attribute), which extended metonymically to other senses – general zoological-botanic, human (lineage, offspring) and typological qualitative ones. Comparing its correspondents in Romance and Germanic languages, reference to many different contexts and a continuous misalignment between lexeme and concept emerge. The liquidity within the semantic sphere of race (embracing the three semantic cores racial, ethnic, and typological) can be explained by taking a phenomenological and semiotic perspective. If the ethnic sense (people, nation, etc.) is connected to a socio-cultural Lifeworld in an interplay of identities and differences, the aporia of synonymy emerging from the inter-dictionarial analysis finds its balance in the local encyclopedic approach, which proves to be the real deterrent to Porphyry’s tree through the rhizome, conceived not in its entirety, but in the partiality and contingency of its branches. (shrink)

Le Canada s’est historiquement appuyé sur un système de comités ad hoc pour l’orientation éthique de la santé publique et de la politique scientifique, contrairement à l’approche plus centralisée de plus de 140 pays dans le monde. En s’appuyant sur des entretiens avec des responsables de tout le pays, nous proposons ici une perspective sur l’impératif et une stratégie pour un Conseil de bioéthique coordonné pour le Canada, structuré pour assurer une réflexion proactive, fournir des réponses rapides et engager le (...) public sur des questions urgentes de bioéthique concernant la santé et le bien-être des Canadiens. (shrink)

The ArgumentThis paper applies the approach developed by the congnitive sciences to a classical field of social anthropology—i.e., the analysis of represetations and behaviors relative to misfortune in “traditional” societies.The initial argument is that the conceptual division and the modes of description and explanation of anthropology suffer from serious weaknesses: these concepts cannot serve to understand empirical phenomena ; they rely on a confused and erroneous conception of the different domains involved and the causalities between them; and they use simplistic (...) hypotheses about the existence and causal status of the entities that usually form the ultima ratio of anthropological reasoning. These entities would directly “cause” other individual representations or behaviors. This simplification also affects the analysis of states of belief in these entities, to which individuals would supposedly “adhere”.I argue here that the cognitivist approach, within a “methodological individualism” framework, provides a more adequate description of phenomena observed in the field. This enables the various levels and domains to be more finely defined. The analysis of “typical” utterances and inferences in a “tranditional” society, the Senufo of the Ivory Coast, is here used to clarify these anthropological problems. Two levels can be distinguished: a priori representations, which are underdetermined, enabling them to occur within valid inferences; perception and/or action, which obeys different cognitive constraints. The existential status of unobservable entities appearing in causal inferences is not equivalent depending on whether they are determined as antecedent or consequent.This paper suggests a theory of interpretive processes and beliefs having flexible references, because they are incomplete and domain-specific. It allows a comparison with facts observed in Western societies. It is also in contrast to the ordinary conception of religious states of belief — i.e., these states would be purely psychological, states of “adherence,” collective, autonomous, obligatory, part of a systemized set of knowledge; collective notions would here logically precede individual representations. (shrink)

First published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Maternal fetal surgery (MFS) trials have the potential to substantially increase the survival and quality of life of fetuses with life-threatening conditions, but they also entail relevant and yet overlooked fair access challenges. In this topic piece, we will present the fair access concerns in MFS trials/practice and their ethical ramifications as well as some possible ways to address them. The most obvious challenge is cost. Although the cost of the surgery itself is generally covered, costs are high for participants, (...) including commute or housing near the hospital. This might hinder participations of parents from lower economic status. Strict eligibility criteria aimed at protecting participants further limit accessibility. These issues further affect the scientific validity of the trial. For example, the above-mentioned issues contribute to difficulties in recruitment which already lead to MFS trials delays and cancellations. They also contributed to homogeneous samples that are difficult to generalize. Hence, it is important that researcher first acknowledge the existence of fair access issues beyond those related to the cost of the surgery itself and that these issues affect participants’ right to fair access to the trial benefits as well as the scientific validity of the trial. Second, it is important that researchers actively try to foresee and reduce these issues. (shrink)

In this work, I explored the complex relationship between psychological awe and the philosophical concept of the sublime. While psychology has often considered awe as a positive emotion distinct from the negative variant of the sublime, philosophical discourse has suggested an inherent historical and aesthetic connection between the two phenomena. I aimed to provide a preliminary contribution towards solving this puzzle, by relying on empirical findings from psychology and drawing from philosophical theories of Longinus, Kant, Schopenhauer and Hegel. I suggested (...) a conceptualization of awe as a potential cultural evolution of the sublime, thus highlighting an overlap of key dimensions, such as vastness, self-transcendence, and alteration of sense of time. Moreover, I outlined practical insights and guidelines for eliciting awe in everyday life. Finally, the transformative nature of awe was explored by integrating psychological and philosophical perspectives, thus enabling a broader understanding of complex emotions and how they can influence human experience and wellbeing. (shrink)

Volume 25, Issue 2, February 2025, Page 1-2.

Using the Feferman-Vaught Theorem, we prove that a definable subset of a product structure must be a Boolean combination of open sets, in the product topology induced by giving each factor structure the discrete topology. We prove that for families of structures with certain properties, including families of integral domains, the pure Boolean generalized product is definable in the direct product structure. We use these results to obtain characterizations of the definable subsets of $$\prod _p \mathbb {F}_p$$ —in particular, every (...) formula is equivalent to a Boolean combination of $$\exists \forall \exists $$ formulae. (shrink)

These notes of G. E. Moore's lectures for the three terms of 1934-1935 were compiled by Alice Ambrose, then Student of Newnham College, and Margaret Macdonald, then Fellow of Girton College. The lectures cover a wealth of interrelated topics, and provide instances of the analyses which made Moore «the father of the analytic school.» Since his analyses of such concepts as material objects, sense data, and truth rest on the ordinary use of expressions for these concepts, «ordinary language» philosophers (...) found in him their champion. Moore examines the views of Broad, Russell, F. P. Ramsey, W. E. Johnson, and John Wisdom. (shrink)