In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Human Reproduction: Dominion and LimitsRichard A. McCormick S.J. (bio)The general struggle throughout Christian history has been to seek the proper balance between dominion and limits, intervention and nonintervention, givenness, and creativity. This struggle has worked itself out in six areas that touch human life. In this essay, I will revisit the Catholic tradition’s treatment of these in terms of dominion and limits to see whether we can discern (...) developmental patterns that might suggest an approach to issues pertaining to the sources of life (reproductive ethics) as we move into the next century.1. Abortion. The history of the treatment of abortion in the Catholic tradition is the history of an evaluation. This evaluation was somewhat muddied by [End Page 387] unclarity and inconsistency in the use of terms. Thus, some theologians distinguished three types of abortion: prevention of conception, abortion of an inanimate fetus, and abortion of an animated fetus. Others regarded all interventions into the life-giving process as homicides. Still others argued that termination of a nonanimated fetus was justified to save the life of the mother. And still others said such termination was anticipated homicide or the misuse of semen conceptum.Such unclarities and qualifications eventually vanished and produced an evaluation of fetal life that yielded to very few competing interests, what John Noonan (1970) referred to as “an almost absolute value.” There was some dominion or control, but the limits became increasingly clear and powerful.2. Individual and corporate self-defense. Augustine disallowed lethal individual or personal self-defense, but established the first elementary rules for war. Aquinas allowed both. Vitoria, Suarez, and others refined the criteria justifying war (jus ad bellum) and listed them as three: recovery of property, resistance to aggression, and vindication of injuries (injustices). Pius XII narrowed these to a single reason: national self-defense. The Challenge of Peace (NCCB 1983) moves away from the licitness of nuclear war and nuclear deterrence even for self-defense. Once again, the limits to the dominion over life in war grow stronger and more powerful even as the weapons of such dominion grow more powerful.3. Capital punishment. Over the centuries, Christian thinkers, such as Thomas Aquinas, permitted the use of capital punishment. Three justifications were proposed to found this right of the state: retribution, deterrence, and reform. In the past decades, however, these justifications have been seriously questioned. Both the American and Philippine bishops’ conferences have rejected all use of capital punishment. Most recently John Paul II (1995, n. 56, p. 709) adduces defense of society as the only possible justification for it and sees such cases as “very rare if not practically non-existent.”4. The preservation of life. The theme of a balance between dominion and limits is perhaps nowhere clearer than in the Catholic approach to life preservation. Catholic tradition does not accept our culture’s rejection of death. Rather it asserts that the facts that we are pilgrims, that Christ has overcome death and lives, and that we also will live with him yield a general value judgment on the meaning and value of life as we now live it: Life is a basic good but not an absolute one. It is basic because, as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (1980, p. 511) worded it, it is the “necessary source and condition of every human activity and of all society.” It is not absolute because there are higher goods for which life can be sacrificed—e.g., the glory of God, salvation of souls, service of one’s brethren, and the like. Thus in John (15:13): “There is no greater love than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. John Paul II (1995, n. 47, p. 706) briefly summarizes this in Evangelium Vitae: “The life of the body in its earthly state is not an absolute good for the believer.” This value [End Page 388] judgment has immediate relevance for care of the ill and dying: Not all means must be used to preserve life.Thus the Catholic tradition has moved between two extremes: medico-moral optimism or vitalism (which preserves life with all means, at any cost... (shrink)

Clearly, if a man holds a self-contradictory belief, then his belief cannot be rational, for there can be no set of evidence sufficient to justify it. This is most apparent when the self contradictory belief is a belief in a conjunction, , rather than when it is a non-conjunctive self-contradictory belief, e.g. a belief that red is not a color.

While Saint Augustine has been a household name for centuries, the same cannot be said of long-overlooked philosopher John Poinsot. But in _Augustine and Poinsot_, John Deely contends that the history of semiotics cannot be conceived of without Poinsot’s landmark contribution. According to Deely, even though Augustine was the first to describe _what_ the sign does, Poinsot was the first to show _how_ the sign mediates between nature and culture. This revolutionary volume demonstrates how Poinsot’s account of semiotics (...) allows us to produce human knowledge and experience. (shrink)

This book shows otherwise. John Martin rehabilitates Neoplatonism, founded by Plotinus and brought into Christianity by St. Augustine.

"In 1982, the author of this book issued a "promissory note" of just the sort that analytic philosophers of the twentieth century have led us to expect will come to nothing. This particular "note" occurred as a passing remark in the concluding chapter of his Introducing Semiotic (Indiana University Press) to the effect that it would be possible to establish the classical distinction between sense and intellect by means of the analysis of the role of relations in the action of (...) signs." "Provoked by the remark of a colleague that, could this promissory note be fulfilled, it would provide "the first essay worth reading on the subject since the days of Locke and Hume," Deely decided to break with the analytic tradition of leaving promissory notes unfulfilled and to develop the alleged possible proof in full." "A colloquium convened by Professor Norma Tasca, in the Fall of 1995 in Porto, Portugal, provided Deely with the occasion. His lengthy essay for the occasion, ponderously titled "The Intersemiosis of Perception and Understanding," became the initial draft of this book." "Especially in the circles of English-speaking philosophers, where a mere difference of degree between animal intelligence and human understanding has come to be largely taken for granted and philosophy has been reduced to a play of linguistic signs without regard for the dependency of those signs upon other signs whose play is far from linguistic, the work is bound to stimulate considerable debate."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved. (shrink)

Contrary to what the author dismisses as false claims of postmodernity, the work shows that what is truly postmodern in philosophy both goes beyond modernity and recovers philosophy's past in a renewed understanding of the human condition.

Neither novel should be read as predictions, the accuracy of which can be used to judge them. Rather, both attempt to portray what humanity could conceivably become. The authenticity of this conceivability is a necessary condition of the power of both works to raise central philosophical questions about the human condition. What is ethically wrong with control? How far can Man go in recreating himself? In what sense are these worlds anti-utopian? Are they really possible worlds? How credible are they (...) as political systems? In what ways do the different systems depict the end of humanity? What logical and moral objections could be made against their fictional apologists? (shrink)

In his “Reply to Williams” (2013), a response to my “David-Hillel Ruben’s ‘Traditions and True Successors’: A Critical Reply.” (2013), David Ruben reports that there is much that we disagree about concerning the nature of true succession. I am not entirely persuaded by what he says of these disagreements.

Bayesianism tells a story about the epistemic trajectory of an ideally rational agent. The agent begins with a ‘prior’ probability function; thereafter, it conditionalizes on its evidence as it comes in. Consider, then, such an agent at the very beginning of its trajectory. It is ideally rational, but completely ignorant of which world is actual. Let us call this agent ‘superbaby’. We show that superbaby is committed to sincerely asserting propositions of the form [p and I am not justified in (...) believing that p]. (shrink)

Ondanks de grote diversiteit van Berlins werken, die een groot cultuurhistorisch bereik hebben, gaat hij uit van een moreel minimum als constante horizon van de mensheid, ondanks alle culturele verschillen.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and (...) made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

For Diderot, the man who discovers significant truths not through the experimental method but through global intuition is a genius, a kind of visionary poet.

It is widely accepted that scientific theories should be simple, have inductive support and high empirical content, while other theories should be accurate and have high explanatory power. This book argues that these features can all be reduced to a single feature - the independence of theory from data. It also argues that theories possessing this feature are more likely to be true than those that don't.

Analysis of Mao's writings on education from 1917 as a student in Hunan to 1973 as the first Chinese leader to greet an American president.

In ‘Generalization and Induction: Misconceptions, Clarifications, and a Classification of Induction’, we comment on Lee and Baskerville’s paper ‘Generalizing Generalizability in Information Systems Research’, which attempts to clarify the concept of generalization and classify it into four types. Our commentary discusses the misconceptions in their paper and proposes an alternative classification of induction. Their response ‘Conceptualizing Generalizability: New Contributions and a Reply’ perpetuates their misconceptions and create new ones. The purpose of this rejoinder is to highlight the major problems both (...) in their original paper and in their reply and to provide further clarifications. Lee and Baskerville’s so-called ‘new language’ of describing research activities based on their concept of generalization is confusing. Their classification abuses the term ‘generalize’ and is self-contradictory. Hence, contrary to their claim, their classification and ours are not compatible. Also contrary to their claim that we advocate paradigmatic domination, our commentary is just about the correct use of terms such as ‘generalize’, ‘induction’ and ‘deduction’. (shrink)

G. E. Moore observed that to for me to assert, “I went to the pictures last Tuesday but I don’t believe that I did” would be “absurd”. Over half a century later, the explanation of the nature of this absurdity remains problematic. Such assertions are unlike semantically odd Liar-type assertions such as “What I’m now saying is not true” since my Moorean assertion might be true: you may consistently imagine a situation in which I went to the pictures last Tuesday (...) but fail to believe that I did. Moreover, if you contradict my assertion then your words, “If he went to the pictures last Tuesday then he believes he did” do not express a necessary truth1. Nonetheless it remains absurd of me to assert that p and I don’t believe that p. It seems no less absurd of me to silently judge that p and I don’t believe that p2. But why should it be absurd of me to assert something that might be true of me? Why should it be absurd of me to believe something that might be true of me? (shrink)

You are told that you may choose one of two envelopes, each containing a sum of money. Since you are a maximally rational risk-neutral economic agent you do so. But before you open it, you are told that one envelope contains twice the amount in the other and offered the chance to switch envelopes.

'You have known me for years, Lois' explains Superman, as I lay aside my copy of Crimmins’s example. 'But there is something you have not yet discovered. You also know me under a disguise. You have not yet realized that this person is I in disguise. On that way of thinking about me, you have different opinions of me. In fact you think me an idiot.' I've just informed Superman that I accept his testimony on the strength of his intelligence. (...) But I confess I don’t quite know how to acknowledge my acceptance of his final remark. (shrink)

Adam Morton recently argued that the Ramsey test of whether we may accept a conditional as true embodies a misunderstanding of the function of indicative conditionals. I attack the Ramsey Test for different reasons; there are conditionals that we should accept as true that the Ramsey Test tells us to reject and there are conditionals that we should reject that the Ramsey Test tells us to accept.

I argue that Moore's propositions, for example, 'I went to the pictures last Tuesday but I don't believe that I did' cannot be rationally believed. Their assertors either cannot be rationally believed or cannot be believed to be rational. This analysis is extended to Moorean propositions such as God knows that I am an atheist and I believe that this proposition is false. I then defend the following definition of assertion: anyone asserts that p iff that person expresses a belief (...) that p with the intention of causing relevant epistemic change in the cognition of an actual or potential audience. (shrink)

Voor wie geen troost kan vinden in het al-te-menselijke, valt hoop te putten uit de natuur. Daarvan getuigt ook Thomas Hardy’s gedicht op de nachtegaal. Het dier is verminkt door mensen, maar het zingt nog altijd en bezorgt de mens levensvreugde.

Lee and Baskerville (2003) attempted to clarify the concept of generalization and classify it into four types. In Tsang and Williams (2012) we objected to their account of generalization as well as their classification and offered repairs. Then we proposed a classification of induction, within which we distinguished five types of generalization. In their (2012) rejoinder, they argue that their classification is compatible with ours, claiming that theirs offers a ‘new language.’ Insofar as we resist this ‘new language’ and insofar (...) as they think that our position commits us to positivism and the rejection of interpretivism, they conclude both that our classification is more restrictive than theirs and also that we embrace ‘paradigmatic domination.’ Lee and Baskerville’s classification of generalization is based on a distinction between theoretical and empirical statements. Accordingly we will first clarify the terms ‘theoretical statement’ and ‘empirical statement.’ We note that they find no fault with our classification of induction, we re-state our main objections to their classification that remain unanswered and we show that their classification of generalizing is in fact incompatible with ours. We argue that their account of generalization retains fatal flaws, which means it should not be relied upon. We demonstrate that our classification is not committed to any paradigm and so we do not embrace ‘paradigmatic domination.’. (shrink)

Mitchell's formulation of the chemiosmotic theory of oxidative phosphorylation in 1961 lacked any experimental support for its three central postulates. The path by which Mitchell reached this theory is explored. A major factor was the role of Mitchell's philosophical system conceived in his student days at Cambridge. This system appears to have become a tacit influence on his work in the sense that Polanyi understood all knowledge to be generated by an interaction between tacit and explicit knowing. Early in his (...) life Mitchell had evolved a simple philosophy based on fluctoids, fluctids and statids which was developed in a thesis submitted for the Ph.D. at the University of Cambridge, England. This aspect of his work was rejected by the examiners and became a tacit element in his intellectual development. It is argued from his various publications that this philosophy can be traced as an underlying theme behind much of Mitchell's theoretical writing in the 50's leading, through his notion of vectorial metabolism, to the formulation and amplification of the chemiosmotic theory in the sixties. This philosophy formed the basis for Mitchell of his understanding of biological systems and gave him his unique approach to cell biology. (shrink)

What explanation is there of the source of my justification for my beliefs about my beliefs that respects the fact that I am normally the best authority on them? Moore's paradox demands an explanation of the absurdity of believing or asserting possible truths of the forms p but I don't believe that p or p but I believe that not-p. I argue for Evans principle that whatever justifies me in believing that p also justifies me in believing that I believe (...) that p. This helps explain how I come to know my own beliefs and also shows that it is impossible for a Moorean belief to be justified. I then explain the absurdity of Moorean assertion while avoiding the messy notion of 'expressing belief' yet acknowledging Shoemaker’s constraint that if I cannot non-absurdly believe that p then I cannot non-absurdly assert that p. (shrink)