In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Transcendent God, Rational World: A Maturidi Theology by Ramon HarveyArnold Yasin Mol (bio)Transcendent God, Rational World: A Maturidi Theology. By Ramon Harvey. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2021. Pp. xiv + 280, Hardcover £90.00, isbn 978-1-4744-5164-2.When can it be claimed that a certain discipline is doing something so new and innovative, that it can be labeled as such? Or when is something so new and innovative that it (...) can no longer bear its original label? Either case signifies a level of discontinuity or rupture with the old ways of doing things. This is the fate of modern Islamic theology, which goes by the name kalām jadīd, New Theology.The discipline of Islamic philosophical or dialectical theology, ʿilm al-kalām, acquired its distinct methodology and themes in the first two centuries of Islam, becoming the defining intellectual voice of the Islamic worldview. Responding both to the developed theologies of Christianity and Zoroastrianism and other religions and philosophies, as well as responding to inner theological disputes, it combined comparative theology, philosophy of religion, and dogmatics. It developed its own indigenous rationalism, and integrated and adapted other philosophical ideas and methods, especially those of Aristotle and Neoplatonism. Islamicate civilization generated many native philosophers, like al-Kindī (d. 873) and al-Fārābī (d. 951), but it was Ibn Sīnā (Latin: Avicenna, d. 1037) who literally overturned metaphysical thought in such a radical way that theologians, including Jewish and Christian, speak of theology as before and after his influence.During the 750 years after the "Avicennian turn" many new philosophies have arisen, but none challenged the metaphysics of the Abrahamic theologies as much as Kant. Kalām can, similar to Christian Neo-Scholasticism, ignore the Kantian turn by restating their confidence in Peripatetic and Avicennian/Thomistic metaphysics, or it can integrate and adapt to it. The Muslim voices that have tried the latter are few but they have garnered more attention over the years. One of the biggest challenges of Kantian thought are towards retaining the classical proofs of God's existence, but also the possibility of speaking meaningfully of any type of metaphysical existence apart from empirical experience. The Ottoman theologian Muṣtafā Ṣabrī (d. 1954) emphasized that the Islamic ideas of prophethood and the unseen spiritual realm (ʿālam al-ghayb) would not fit the minimalistic metaphysics of Kant, as many Muslim modernists started to reject the idea of miracles, angels, and life after death. [End Page 1]Kalām jadīd, or (post-)Kantian kalām, has therefore the interesting challenge to either reconfigure Kantian metaphysics so that it can sustain traditional Islamic ideas to a certain degree, or the other way around. This challenge is not new as, although Peripatetic and Avicennian metaphysics provided the basis for proofs of God's existence, it also problematized Abrahamic theism, prophethood and resurrection of the body. Kalām jadīd can therefore learn much from its discursive tradition on how to deal with those challenges, if one's intent is to salvage the classical Islamic worldview.To this end, Ramon Harvey's Transcendent God, Rational World: A Maturidi Theology presents itself as a work of kalām jadīd but also as challenging important aspects of the discursive tradition it is using. When a discipline crystalizes into a certain epistemology and critical method, it attains a level of foundationalism whereby it becomes a tradition which is self-explanatory. This gives it a reasoning and stability which can be passed on over the centuries through certain core ideas and texts. Harvey sees this as the main problem explaining "why the kalām jadīd movement has been underwhelming." The Kantian turn upends the post-Avicennian foundationalism of kalam, forcing it to become an "open theology" that is "characterised by a receptiveness to diverse sources in its theological structure, prioritising meaning above systematic, foundationalist proof" (p. 5). The challenges for which a new theology has to be constructed are, according to Harvey, the developments in mathematics, logic, analytical philosophy, the phenomenological movement, and quantum mechanics (p. 2). Reality, and thinking about reality, are not the same anymore.The function of kalām is... (shrink)

Gehlen's core idea in Man is that humans have unique properties which distinguish them from all other species: 1. world-openness, a concept originally coined by Max Scheler, which describes the ability of humans to adapt to various environments (as contrasted with animals, which can only survive in environments which match their evolutionary specialisation). This gives us 2. the ability to shape our environment according to our intentions, and it comprises a view of language as a way of acting (Gehlen was (...) one of the first proponents of speech act theory), Human beings are also marked 3. by an excess of impulses and by 4. the ability of self-control. These properties allow us (again in contrast to all other animals) 5. to create our own (for example cultural) environments. Gehlen's philosophy has influenced many contemporary German thinkers in a range of disciplines, including Peter L. Berger, Thomas Luckmann and Niklas Luhmann in sociology, and Hans Blumenberg in philosophy. (shrink)

"Arguing that debates over legitimacy, political violence, freedom, and justice would benefit greatly from cross-tradition theorizing, this book shows how putting analytic and continental political theory in conversation would help us to overcome these intractable problems"--.

Dynamic ordinal analysis is ordinal analysis for weak arithmetics like fragments of bounded arithmetic. In this paper we will define dynamic ordinals – they will be sets of number theoretic functions measuring the amount of sΠ b 1(X) order induction available in a theory. We will compare order induction to successor induction over weak theories. We will compute dynamic ordinals of the bounded arithmetic theories sΣ b n (X)−L m IND for m=n and m=n+1, n≥0. Different dynamic ordinals lead to (...) separation. In this way we will obtain several separation results between these relativized theories. We will generalize our results to further languages extending the language of bounded arithmetic. (shrink)

In everyday life it is often important to have a mental model of the knowledge, beliefs, desires, and intentions of other people. Sometimes it is even useful to to have a correct model of their model of our own mental states: a second-order Theory of Mind. In order to investigate to what extent adults use and acquire complex skills and strategies in the domains of Theory of Mind and the related skill of natural language use, we conducted an experiment. It (...) was based on a strategic game of imperfect information, in which it was beneficial for participants to have a good mental model of their opponent, and more specifically, to use second-order Theory of Mind. It was also beneficial for them to be aware of pragmatic inferences and of the possibility to choose between logical and pragmatic language use. We found that most participants did not seem to acquire these complex skills during the experiment when being exposed to the game for a number of different trials. Nevertheless, some participants did make use of advanced cognitive skills such as second-order Theory of Mind and appropriate choices between logical and pragmatic language use from the beginning. Thus, the results differ markedly from previous research. (shrink)

The business practices of multinational corporations raise many provocative moral issues and offer a touchstone for some fundamental ethical concepts. This essay identifies a wide range of problems but centers on the matter of consistency in corporate policy between foreign and domestic practices and the kind of generality of standards that is required to achieve consistency. Two considerations are singled out for illustrative discussion: wage scales and bribes. Proposals are offered for achieving consistency and generality in each case, the principle (...) of contextual generality for the first and the notion of structural universals for the second. (shrink)

Peter Strawson makes a crucial distinction between reactive attitudes and the objective attitude. Reactive attitudes such as gratefulness, anger and indignation imply that we take each other seriously as responsible agents. The objective attitude implies that we stop taking each other seriously. Strawson argues that the objective attitude is not merely psychologically difficult: it is inconceivable that we would systematically refrain from taking each other seriously and stop discussing with each other or blaming ourselves or others. Strawson, however, only discusses (...) the reactive attitudes from a general point of view. In this paper, we argue that the reactive attitudes of remorse and moral indignation are forms of ”symbolic restoration’. Retributive punishment should also be interpreted from this perspective. Consequently, our concern with moral blame cannot be understood independently from a concern with the harm that has occurred. Our attitude to the outcome determines our attitude to the agent. The concern with the mental state is secondary: it is structured by its place within the practice of symbolic restoration. (shrink)

Inspired from Buchholz' ordinal analysis of ID1 and Beckmann's analysis of the simple typed λ-calculus we classify the derivation lengths for Gödel's system T in the λ-formulation.

This paper does not question the thesis that the phenomena associated with the phrase 'moral luck' point to an important philosophical problem. The aim is, rather, to sketch an interpretation of these phenomena. It is argued that the notion of symbolic restoration is the key we need to understand why the out-come of our actions has a moral significance that is not reducible to the moral significance of the mental states from wich these actions arise.

Two perspectives on religion are contrasted. From the internalist perspective religion is not in need of any neutral justification: its point is manifest within religious life itself, just as the point of morality is manifest within moral life. From the externalist perspective religious practices and attitudes are dependent on the truth of certain assumptions about supernatural realities. It is argued that there are good reasons for endorsing internalism and, consequently, for radically dissociating religion from belief: if religious discourse is non-literal (...) , belief becomes dispensable. Finally, however, it is admitted that the internalist, by drawing a sharp line between literal and non-literal language, might miss an important truth about religion. (shrink)

By the close of the eighteenth century, many features of Western intellectual history had become incorporated into a coherent body of aesthetic doctrine that soon acquired the standing of tradition. "The three dogmas of aesthetics" is Allen Carlson's fitting designation of the main principles by which I have characterized this theory: that "art consists primarily of objects," that "these objects possess a special status," and that "they must be regarded in a unique way." Held against the practice and experience of (...) the arts, each of these, I claim, is assumptive and misleading.'. (shrink)

The theories Si1 and Ti1 are the analogues of Buss' relativized bounded arithmetic theories in the language where every term is bounded by a polynomial, and thus all definable functions grow linearly in length. For every i, a Σbi+1-formula TOPi, which expresses a form of the total ordering principle, is exhibited that is provable in Si+11 , but unprovable in Ti1. This is in contrast with the classical situation, where Si+12 is conservative over Ti2 w. r. t. Σbi+1-sentences. The independence (...) results are proved by translations into propositional logic, and using lower bounds for corresponding propositional proof systems. (shrink)

This article argues that because racial inequalities are embedded in American society, as well as in medicine, more evidence-based investigation of the effects and implications of affirmative action is needed. Residency training programs should also seek ways to recruit medical students from underrepresented groups and to create effective mentorship programs.

PART 1: DEATH AND DYING: 1. The medical definition of death /A Keith Mant. 2. Philosophical concepts of death / Ninian Smart. 3. The dying and the doctor / John Hinton. 4. Death and the young /Simon Yudkin.

I explore how the notion of divine creation could be made understandable in a worldview dominated by empirical science. The crucial question concerns the empirical basis of belief in creation. Astronomical observations have changed our worldview in an exemplary manner. I show by an example from imaginative literature that human beings can perceive stars by means other than astronomical observation. This alternative mode may be described as “participatory perception,” in which a human experiences the world not by objectifying separation as (...) in science, but by personal involvement. I relate such perceptions to “embodied cognitive science,” a topical interdisciplinary field of research in philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience. Embodied cognitions initiate processes that can convey personal experiences of the stars. Such cognitions may involve religious apprehensions and give rise to sophisticated values. It is argued that the knowledge available through astrophysics and interpretation of the universe as divine creation represent two different ways of perceiving the same reality and should thus be seen as mutually complementary. (shrink)

Why Don't You Just Talk to Him? looks at the broad political contexts in which violence, specifically domestic violence, occurs. Kathleen Arnold argues that liberal and Enlightenment notions of the social contract, rationality and egalitarianism -- the ideas that constitute norms of good citizenship -- have an inextricable relationship to violence. According to this dynamic, targets of abuse are not rational, make bad choices, are unable to negotiate with their abusers, or otherwise violate norms of the social contract; they (...) are, thus, second-class citizens. In fact, as Arnold shows, drawing from Nietzsche and Foucault's theories of power and arguing against much of the standard policy literature on domestic violence, the very mechanisms that purportedly help targets of domestic abuse actually work to compound the problem by exacerbating the power differences between the abuser and the abused. The book argues that a key to understanding how to prevent domestic violence is seeing it as a political rather than a personal issue, with political consequences. It seeks to challenge Enlightenment ideas about intimacy that conceive of personal relationships as mutual, equal and contractual. Put another way, it challenges policy ideas that suggest that targets of abuse can simply choose to leave abusive relationships without other personal or economic consequences, or that there is a clear and consistent level of help once they make the choice to leave. Asking "Why Don't You Just Talk to Him?" is in reality a suggestion riven with contradictions and false choices. Arnold further explores these issues by looking at two key asylum cases that highlight contradictions within the government's treatment of foreigners and that of long-term residents. These cases expose problematic assumptions in the approach to domestic violence more generally. Exposing major injustices from the point of view of domestic violence targets, this book promises to generate further debate, if not consensus. (shrink)