Taking the Hagar story as the central biblical resource to address the particular plight of Black women—a plight that reckons with patriarchal and White supremacist forces that desire its enclosure—Delores Williams challenges both the traditional understanding of atonement theory which embraces the Cross as salvific and Black liberation theologies’ apocalyptical conceptions of a mighty liberating God. This article seeks to read Delores Williams closely to take seriously her theological development through literature more broadly and her soteriological critiques of (...) the Cross specifically. A rereading of Williams will provide the grounds for continuing the debate of the Cross’s significance within Black theological thought at large. Analyzing Williams’ soteriological critiques will allow me to offer a reading of the Cross that ultimately relies on Williams’ emphatic rejection. Such a rejection of the Cross is necessary for understanding how Black Christianity centers the Cross in order to reject it, as it is intended to be. (shrink)

With the increasing volume of data transmission through insecure communication channels, big data security has become one of the important concerns in the cybersecurity domain. To address these concerns and keep data safe, a robust privacy-preserving cryptosystem is necessary. Such a solution relies on chaos encryption algorithms over standard cryptographic methods that possess multistage encryption levels, including high speed, high security, low compute overheads, and procedural power, among other characteristics. In this work, a secure image encryption scheme is proposed using (...) linear feedback shift register and chaos-based quantum chaotic map. The focus of the scheme is mainly dependent on the secret keys from the input of the algorithm. The threat landscape, the statistical test analysis, along critical comparisons with other schemes indicate that the presented algorithm is significantly secure and is resistant to a wide range of different attacks such as differential and statistical attacks. The proposed method has sufficiently higher sensitivity and security when compared to existing encryption algorithms. Several security parameters validated the security of proposed work such as correlation coefficient analyses among the neighboring pixels, entropy, the number of pixels change rate, unified average change intensity, mean square error, brute force, key sensitivity, and peak signal to noise ratio analyses. The randomness of the ciphers produced by the proposed technique is also passed through NIST-800-22. The results of NIST indicate that the ciphers are highly random and do not produce any type of periodicity or pattern. (shrink)

Mr. Alan Ker in C.Q., N.S. vii , 151–8, proposes to alter the text of Claudian in numerous places where the tradition appears to me to be blameless, in some cases substituting for readings which seem characteristic and admirable others which seem less so. Claudian is an elegant poet, whose mastery of language many regard as comparable with that of the Silver Age poets, and Mr. Ker's dismissal of him as ‘a simple writer, with a small and unambitious vocabulary’ does (...) less than justice to his powers. I would suggest, in particular, the following points for consideration. (shrink)

For horribilesque we need something better than Haupt's horribile aequor ; and Mr. E. L. B. Meurig Davies comes near the truth, I think, with his proposal horribilem niue. A noun in the ablative indicating cold to define horribilem is just what we require. That noun does not seem to me, however, likely to be niue. Read rather horribilem gelu; cf. Luc. 2. 570 ‘ Rheni gelidis … fugit ab undis’, Claud. Rapt. 3. 321 ‘non Rheni glacies, non me Rhipaea (...) tenebunt’, Paneg. 7. 6 ‘duratus gelu Rhenus’. (shrink)

This paper explores the effect of structurally enacted governance, such as board membership rules, versus process enacted governance, such as disclosure practices, on investor trust. Certain organizational factors are proposed due to their ability to inform trust propensity and transparency enactment. Regulatory oversight, organizational structure and investor salience are considered in light of their effect on relational and transactional approaches to a company’s investors.

The form of this paper, which has more than one purpose, needs a word of explanation and perhaps of excuse. I had had it in mind to bring together and discuss a number of passages of Plautus in which gratus or gratia occurred. Then I came across an interesting paper by Professor L. R. Palmer in Hommages à Max Miedermann , Bruxelles, 1956, pp. 258–69, entitled ‘The Concept of Social Obligation in Indo-European: A Study in Structural Semantics’. There Palmer dealt, (...) among other things, with gratus and related words; he seemed to me, however, to treat the Latin evidence, the greater part of it from Plautus, in a way which I felt to be mistaken. In addition it seemed that a preconceived theory, derived from a special interpretation of the Mycenean tablets, was being read into Roman thought and institutions against the evidence. I have therefore taken the opportunity to discuss the passages of Plautus in which I was first interested within a general examination of Palmer's treatment of the Latin evidence for his theory. (shrink)

As humans, we want to live meaningfully, yet we are often driven by impulse. In Religion and the Meaning of Life, Williams investigates this paradox – one with profound implications. Delving into felt realities pertinent to meaning, such as boredom, trauma, suicide, denial of death, and indifference, Williams describes ways to acquire meaning and potential obstacles to its acquisition. This book is unique in its willingness to transcend a more secular stance and explore how one's belief in God (...) may be relevant to life's meaning. Religion and the Meaning of Life's interdisciplinary approach makes it useful to philosophers, religious studies scholars, psychologists, students, and general readers alike. The insights from this book have profound real-world applications – they can transform how readers search for meaning and, consequently, how readers see and exist in the world. (shrink)

"Translated with an uncanny sense for the overall point of Augustine's doctrine. In short, a very good translation. The Introduction is admirably clear." --Paul Vincent Spade, Indiana University.

First published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Reviews in allegory the approaches taken to the problem of agency by contemporary perspectives in psychology and broader intellectual tradition. The author argues that agency can only be rendered sensible or possible where there is freedom from traditional determinisms and where there is real moral content. It is argued that agency will only be possible when moral relativity is overcome. 2012 APA, all rights reserved).

An overview of major work on Augustine published between 1990 and 2000.

Ordinary skepticism is based upon some form of certainty. One may be skeptical about the claims of religion because one accepts the certainties of science or some philosophical argument. One may be skeptical about a certain investment strategy because one believes in various proven economic principles. Absoluteskepticism, on the other hand, has no such certainty upon which to rely. Every standpoint, including absolute skepticism itself, is open to doubt. Thus absolute skepticism is not another philosophical position but raises severe doubt (...) about all philosophy and all knowledge. In this paper I will explore some of the implications of absolute skepticism and how Lao Zi and Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895-1986) may serve as possible representatives of absolute skepticism. (shrink)

This article is a response to an essay written by an academic in English Literature, Professor John Sutherland. Through close textual analysis,Sutherland purports to resolve a well-known literary question: whether the sexual encounter outlined in the Victorian novel Tess of the d'Urbervilles should be classified as rape or seduction. The present article rejects his conclusion on the matter. An(equally) close analysis of the fictional text in question and of Sutherland's gloss, demonstrates the partiality of his critique, both in literary-critical and (...) critical-legal terms. In addition, examination of the conceptual and historico-legal context regarding the notions of rape and seduction on both sides of the Atlantic highlights parallels between Sutherland's own partiality and that of the law. In short, the apparent objectivity of the textual analysis and subsequent critique undertaken by Sutherland is revealed as a continuation of legal and patriarchal prejudices defining rape and seduction. The use of close textual analysis as the key critical device promotes the apparent probity of his findings. Locating them in an essay collection designed for mass lay public consumption completes the circle – from partisan scholarship to `informed' popular prejudice. (shrink)

This article looks at ethical issues when conducting qualitative semi-structured interviews in the field outside of the researcher’s country of residence. What makes this research unique is that I...

This paper offers a new critical evaluation of the Rawlsian model of global public reason (‘GPR’), focusing on its ability to serve as a normative standard for guiding international diplomacy and deliberation in matters of war. My thesis is that, where war is concerned, the model manifests two fatal weaknesses. First, because it demands extensive neutrality over the moral status of persons – and in particular over whether they possess equal basic worth or value – out of respect for the (...) beliefs of inegalitarian yet ‘decent’ societies, or ‘peoples’, Rawlsian GPR renders calculations of proportionality in war impossible. Second, because its content is provided by a conception of global justice (the so-called ‘Law of Peoples’) whose injunctions are addressed exclusively to peoples, as corporate agents, Rawlsian GPR pushes the moral evaluation of the independent wartime choices of individuals off the agenda of the global public forum altogether. (shrink)

The relationship between corporate executives and shareholders has riveted the attention of business ethicists since the inception of the field. Most ethicists agree that corporate executives owe their investors the duties of loyalty, candor, and care. These fiduciary duties undergird the promises made to shareholders at the time of incorporation, placing on executives moral obligations to engage in fair dealing and to avoid conflicts of interest.We concur that executives owe all of their existing shareholders both promise-keeping and fiduciary duties and (...) argue that some corporateexecutives violate these responsibilities by attempting to withhold information from or limit information to some shareholders while courting others. We analyze the ethical implications of six techniques and tools that executives use to attract certain types of shareholders while deterring others. We conclude with recommended structural and behavioral changes to these current managerial and investor practices. (shrink)

If a bit of perceptual behavior is a trope, so is any response to a stimulus, and so is the stimulus, and so therefore, more generally, is every effect and its cause. When we say that the sunlight caused the blackening of the film we assert a connection between two tropes; when we say that Sunlight in general causes Blackening in general, we assert a corresponding relation between the corresponding universals. Causation is often said to relate events, and generally speaking (...) any event is a trope: a smile, a sneeze, a scream, an election, a cold snap, a storm, a lightning flash, a conspiracy, perhaps a wave, and so on up to such big and important events that they have proper names, like the Passover and Lulu the H-bomb explosion. We have called a trope a "case" of its universal, while the universal is the "kind" of the trope, so it is no surprise that a medical "case" is a trope--in the sense, at any rate, in which a person is said to have a case of typhoid fever rather than to be a case of it. A high-school boy, uncoached, has assured me, "Of course there's such a thing as Redness--this pencil has a case of it." When a scientist reports a temperature or a velocity or a viscosity he is reporting a trope--not a universal, because it is a once-for-all occurrence, but not a concrete thing either, though doubtless a component of one. He is likely to call it an "aspect" of the thing or, preferably, a "state," and generally speaking a "state" of a thing or a nation is a trope. Recent developments in sub-atomic physics, a none too reliable oracle, suggest that an electron, e.g., just is an existent state, and that the common-sense philosophy of concreta here abdicates altogether in favor of the trope. (shrink)

A compelling combination of photography, cultural history, and philosophical geography, Double Take presents more than seventy photographic pairs - each a distinctive "then" and "now" view of the same location - that document more than a century of change in downtown Madison, Wisconsin. Presented side-by-side, the dramatic transformations comprise one of the most ambitious and exacting urban rephotography surveys ever undertaken. Celebrated Wisconsin photographer Zane Williams has meticulously replicated the original views of an earlier Madison photographer, Angus McVicar, who (...) first shot these locales from the 1920s to the 1950s. The result is a rich archive of historic and contemporary images and a provocative examination into the nature of change in a mid-sized American city. (shrink)

In a world no longer centered on the West, what should political theory become? Although Western intellectual traditions continue to dominate academic journals and course syllabi in political theory, up-and-coming contributions of 'comparative political theory' are rapidly transforming the field. Deparochializing Political Theory creates a space for conversation amongst leading scholars who differ widely in their approaches to political theory. These scholars converge on the belief that we bear a collective responsibility to engage and support the transformation of political theory. (...) In these exchanges, 'deparochializing' political theory emerges as an intellectual, educational and political practice that cuts across methodological approaches. Because it is also an intergenerational project, this book presses us to re-imagine our teaching and curriculum design. Bearing the marks of its beginnings in East Asia, Deparochializing Political Theory seeks to de-center Western thought and explore the evolving tasks of political theory in an age of global modernity. (shrink)