This paper compares the ways in which revealed theology, natural theology and philosophical theology justify religious belief. Revealed theology does so with an appeal to revelation and natural theology with an appeal to reason and perception. It is argued that both are inadequate. Philosophical theology analyses the meaning rather than proving the truth of religious belief. In doing so it does show how truth claims are entailed by a religious tradition and how the whole heritage of a tradition should be (...) coherent, credible, and intelligible as well as relevant and adequate to the demands of life. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung In diesem Beitrag zeigen wir anhand zweier empirischer Fälle aus dem Bereich sportlichen Trainings, wie Neulinge Praktiken erlernen. Der Beitrag beginnt mit einer kurzen Skizzierung praxis­theoretischer Grundgedanken sowie ihres Interesses daran, wie Teilnehmer von Praktiken ‚Rekrutiert‘ werden. Der Ausgangspunkt unseres Beitrags ist, dass in praxistheoretischen Zugängen, die sich einer Analytik der Rekrutierung bedienen, Praktiken zu typisierten Vollzugsformen oder Entitäten hypostasiert werden, die über die Macht verfügen, sich ihre Teilnehmer beiläufig für ihre Ziele und Zwecke anzueignen. Mit dieser Betrachtung von (...) Praktiken geht einher, dass die Perspektiven der in Praktiken positionierten Teilnehmer ausgeblendet und ihr situatives accomptishment des Engagiert- Werdens sowie Sich-Engagierens degradiert werden. Im Anschluss an die einfuhrenden theoretischen Überlegungen werden Analysen der empirischen Fälle vorgestellt. Es wird gezeigt, wie Lernende und Lehrende die Lernprozesse, die stets auch mit Unsicherheiten behaftet sind, Schritt für Schritt gemeinsam meistern und dabei die erforderlichen,Mitspielkompetenzen‘ erworben werden. Am Ende werden Gemeinsamkeiten und Unterschiede der Fälle dargelegt. Zudem wird auf die Verallgemeinerbarkeit der gewonnenen Ergebnisse auch für Praktiken und Lernprozesse abseits des Universums des Sports reflektiert. (shrink)

Summary The article aims at addressing a sport sociological research desideratum: the question of acting in sport. So far, this question has mainly been dealt with in human kinetics and sport psychology. Here, action theories refer to action as a rational-reflective and individual phenomenon whose cognitive and ideational foundations must be given particular attention. Recently, however, the focus has begun to be shifted to embodied, pre-reflective, and relational dimensions of action in these sub-disciplines of sport science. Similar reorientations can be (...) observed in sociology, where the mentalism and individualism inherent in action theories is undermined by practice theories emphasizing the bodily, tacit, and collective properties of practice. Practice theories promise additional advances and insights into practical action in sport insofar as they explicitly take into account dimensions of practice widely abstracted from by approaches of human kinetics and sport psychology. By means of a praxeological reflection of the existing approaches to action in sport, the article identifies their blind spots and presents initial ideas for overcoming them. (shrink)

Richard Dawkins is one of the most passionate contemporary defenders of atheism. His rejection of religious faith is based on the assumption that religion is an explanatory theory that has been made obsolete by the results of scientific enquiry. The first section of this paper explains how on this view faith is reduced to religious belief which in turn is judged and rejected in the light of the epistemic criteria of science. The second section argues that faith is primarily a (...) hermeneutical rather than an epistemic phenomenon. It is way of understanding life and the world in the light of the heritage of metaphors and narratives handed down in a religious tradition. Dawkins' rejection of religion is therefore based on a misconception of the nature of religious faith. The third section argues that all views of life, both religious and secular, are hermeneutical and in need of an interpretative framework of metaphors and narratives. This also applies to Dawkins himself. The theory of evolution is for him not merely a fruitful explanatory theory, but also a hermeneutical narrative in terms of which he tries to make sense of life and experience. Dawkins' narrative is shown to be inferior to the interpretative narrative of the Christian tradition. (shrink)

This paper is a response to Dirk-Martin Grube’s article elsewhere in this issue. After discussing the points on which I agree with Grube, I explain why his notion of bivalence has not yet received the accuracy it needs.

In this response to Stenmark's critique of my views on rational theology, I concentrate on his distinction between the epistemic and the practical goals of religion and between descriptive and normative rational theology. With regard to the first distinction, I grant that truth claims play an essential role in religious belief and that it is indeed the task of philosophy of religion to decide on the meaning and rationality of such claims. I argue, however, that since such claims are internally (...) related to the practical context of religious belief, their meaning and rationally cannot be determined apart from this context as is done in the kind of rational theology which Stenmark calls 'scientific'. With regard to the second distinction, I reject Stenmark's view that philosophy of religion has a descriptive task with reference to religion, and hence also his claim that I have put forward a false description of 'the religious language game'. (shrink)

It is well established that microRNAs (miRNAs) induce mRNA degradation by binding to 3′ untranslated regions (UTRs). The functionality of sites in the coding domain sequence (CDS), on the other hand, remains under discussion. Such sites have limited impact on target mRNA abundance and recent work suggests that miRNAs bind in the CDS to inhibit translation. What then could be the regulatory benefits of translation inhibition through CDS targeting compared to mRNA degradation following 3′ UTR binding? We propose that these (...) domain‐dependent effects serve to diversify the functional repertoire of post‐transcriptional gene expression control. Possible regulatory benefits may include tuning the time‐scale and magnitude of post‐transcriptional regulation, regulating protein abundance depending on or independently of the cellular state, and regulation of the protein abundance of alternative splice variants. Finally, we review emerging evidence that these ideas may generalize to RNA‐binding proteins beyond miRNAs and Argonaute proteins. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungDer Beitrag befasst sich mit Prozessen der Spielplanung und -analyse im gegenwärtigen Profi- und Leistungsfußball. Auf der Basis einer ethnografischen Studie analysiert er, wie in diesen Prozessen die dem Spiel inhärente Unsicherheit einzuhegen und seine Kontingenz zu managen versucht werden, und eruiert dabei die vielfältigen Implikationen des Planens und Analysierens für die (Re-)Organisation der Spielpraxis sowie die Subjektivierung von Trainern und Spielern. Die interessierenden Prozesse werden praxissoziologisch als Praktiken perspektiviert und in ihren ‚natürlichen‘ Kontexten und soziomateriellen Anordnungen in den Blick (...) genommen. Besondere Aufmerksamkeit wird auf den Beitrag verschiedener Artefakte gerichtet, die im Planen und Analysieren als Medien der Hervorbringung eines neuen spielbezogenen Wissens bzw. spezifischer Vorstellungen des Spiels zum Einsatz kommen. Es wird gezeigt, wie Spieler vermittelt über die Medien ‚teamförmig‘ eingestellt werden und ihnen ein ‚theoretisch-analytisches‘ Wissen für ein sicher(er)es Zusammenspiel verfügbar gemacht wird, das in anschließenden Trainingspraktiken auf dem Platz verkörpert und in ihrem praktischen Sinn verankert werden muss. (shrink)

Vincent Brümmer distinguishes in this article between three types of theology. While ‘revealed theology’ tends to lead into fideism and isolationism, ‘natural theology’ is in danger of decontextualising religious belief. Trying to steer a middle course Brümmers sets out to demonstrate that a Wittgensteinian ‘philosophical theology’ can be characterised by means of the Anselmian dictum “faith seeking understanding”. Faith is seen as a form of life; religious doctrine as a language game, and “God exists” as a tacit presupposition constitutive of (...) the religious form of life. This is not a fideistic project; neither does it make communication with religious outsiders impossible. Brümmer parts company with D.Z. Phillips when the latter propounds a non-realistic interpretation of the aforementioned tacit presupposition. Philosophical theology should demonstrate the coherence, intelligibility, credibility, relevance and adequacy of religious conceptualisations. Moreover, philosophical theology should fuffill an innovative role. (shrink)

De hoogleraar godsdienstwijsbegeerte behandelt de verhouding tussen taalfilosofie en theologie.

The overall conclusion which emerges from this study is that there is no sound defense for the view that indifference to others constitutes a reasonable policy of action. ;The purpose of the work is to advance a defense of the duty of the initial equal consideration of persons . Such a duty involves these things: that an agent is obligated to consider the likely ends of those persons directly affected by his action to the limits of his abilities; that he (...) is obligated initially to rank these ends on a par with his own; and, that he is obligated to use this consideration as a basis for his action. I seek to ground the defense of this duty upon a foundation suggested by examining the ethical theories of Hume, Kant, and the twentieth century personalist, Peter A. Bertocci. (shrink)

The purpose of the present article is to argue against the minimalist theory of social responsibility (i.e., that the sole responsibility of business is to maximize profit in conformity with law), particularly as it is advanced by Butler D. Shaffer. Against this view, I argue that such a theory does not necessarily support or achieve greater levels of corporate efficiency than does a more demanding theory of social responsibility, and that the argument for the former view is no more valueneutral (...) than for the latter. Finally, I argue that Shaffer fails to show that the more maximal theory demands too much from executives and is too unclear to be applicable to their decision-making. (shrink)

In zijn verhelderende opstel over De eigen aard van het geloof in de wijsgerige theologie van Vincent Brümmer, gaat Henk Geertsema vooral in op ‘de aard van de geloofskennis zoals die in de Utrechtse school [en met name in mijn geschriften] wordt gezien’ . De centrale vraag voor Geertsema is ‘of de wijze waarop Brümmer de kennis die eigen is aan het geloof, opvat recht doet aan het eigen aard van het bijbelse geloof als bepaald door de levende omgang met (...) God’ . Twee gezichtspunten zijn hier vooral van belang:’ de verbinding van geloofskennis met de praktische levenshouding, die kenmerkend wordt geacht voor het “verfijnd theologisch realisme” van de Utrechtse school; de typering van de wijsgerige theologie als “grammatica van het geloof”‘ . In mijn antwoord zal ik vooral ingaan op Geerstema’s bespreking van het ‘verfijnd theologisch realisme’. Ten aanzien van ‘het grammatica van het geloof’ zal ik volstaan met een opmerking over Geertsema’s onderscheiding tussen ‘de taal van de wijsgerige theologie’ en ‘die van het concrete geloven of van de Bijbel’ . Ik kan hier kort zijn omdat Marcel Sarot in zijn bijdrage uitvoerig op dit punt ingaat. (shrink)

As in the field of economics, the questions of business ethics can be divided into two distinguishable types — micro and macro. Micro-ethical questions arise primarily for subordinates in an organization and concern what should be done when the demands of conscience conflict with perceived occupational requirements. Macro-ethical questions arise principally for superiors and concern the setting of policy for the organization in general. The present article elaborates upon this distinction and advances a line argument for resolving micro-ethical problems when (...) their affinity to macro-ethical issues is noted. (shrink)

The purpose of the article is to give a deontological defense of the reasonableness standard of corporate disclosure presently mandated by the Securities and Exchange Commission of the U.S. government. The first part of the article distinguishes the reasonableness standard from the older standard of materiality. The second part presents three deontological arguments, inspired by the work of Ross and Kant, for the prima facie compellingness of the new standard.