Interpretation of the classics in political theory seems to go in waves. For a while we had John Locke, the bourgeois thinker. Now we seem to be in a Locke-as-radical-democrat phase. Locke-the-bourgeois had problems of its own, but a radically democratic Locke -- not just the old Locke as liberal democrat but Locke as quasi-Leveller -- strains the interpretative imagination more than most; yet in recent years, several different kinds of argument have been advanced in support of it, both textual (...) and contextual. The most effective argument has proceeded by situating Locke in the context of radical Whig politics in the 1670s and '80s, the struggles over religious toleration and the royal succession, in particular the �Exclusion Crisis� of 1679-81. This contextual argument has been accompanied by various textual interpretations having to do with Locke's conceptions of property, consent, representation, the right of revolution and natural law. Among other things, these are supposed to show that while Locke had nothing explicit to say about the extent of the franchise, the weight of evidence suggests that he would have supported a fairly wide franchise, perhaps even something like the (almost) manhood suffrage advocated by the Levellers (at least according to some, and probably the most convincing, interpretations of their ideas). Most recently, in these pages, Martin Hughes, building on the work of James Tully and Richard Ashcraft in particular, has pushed the argument as far as it can probably go. His argument on taxation and suffrage has provided a motivation here for a wider exploration of Locke's views on representation, consent and the franchise. (shrink)

Some theorists, worried about liberalism’s potential as a foundation for public health ethics, suggest that republicanism provides a better background of justification for public health policies, interventions, etc. In this article, this suggestion is put to the test, and it is argued that (i) contemporary (civic) republicanism and liberalism are not nearly as opposed as it is sometimes suggested, and that (ii) the kind of republicanism which one leading scholar in the field, Bruce Jennings, as an alternative to liberalism, does (...) not reflect the contemporary understanding of republicanism as held by, e.g. Phillip Pettit et al. (shrink)

Analyses of the 'food business' expose some of the most fascinating and disturbing characteristics of contemporary capitalism as well as some of the most significant flaws within contemporary academic discourses; deficiencies in diets are the material manifestations of the deficiencies in common analytical and conceptual categories as well as political will. Much of the voluminous recent discourse about sustainable development is similarly flawed. This paper reflects on the connections between the character of contemporary capitalism and allied discourses on globalisation, hunger (...) and sustainable development and argues that these connections require a vigorous ethically informed critique. (shrink)

Provability, Computability and Reflection.

LetL(K) denote the lattice (ordered by inclusion) of quasivarieties contained in a quasivarietyK and letD 2 denote the variety of distributive (0, 1)-lattices with 2 additional nullary operations. In the present paperL(D 2) is described. As a consequence, ifM+N stands for the lattice join of the quasivarietiesM andN, then minimal quasivarietiesV 0,V 1, andV 2 are given each of which is generated by a 2-element algebra and such that the latticeL(V 0+V1), though infinite, still admits an easy and nice description (...) (see Figure 2) while the latticeL(V 0+V1+V2), because of its intricate inner structure, does not. In particular, it is shown thatL(V 0+V1+V2) contains as a sublattice the ideal lattice of a free lattice with free generators. Each of the quasivarietiesV 0,V 1, andV 2 is generated by a 2-element algebra inD 2. (shrink)

How ought Christians to approach moral problems? This is a question of method in moral theology. It is also a question of who is in authority to speak on matters of morality. In this essay, the moral methodology of Richard McCormick, S.J., one of the most powerful voices in contemporary Roman Catholic theology, is explored in depth. Attention is focused on its critical details, its development over time, and in particular McCormick's use of authorities in Roman Catholicism. It is argued (...) that his ethical theory is built around one central insight: that the human person in all its facets and dimensions is the criterion of the rightness and wrongness of human actions. (shrink)

We argue that on logical grounds the constructivist algorithms mentioned by Quartz & Sejnowski (Q&S) do not resolve the learning paradox. In contrast, a neural network might acquire a more powerful structure by means of phase transitions. The latter kind of developmental mechanism can be in agreement with the constructivist manifesto.

In this paper, logics are conceived as two-sorted first-order structures, and we argue that this broad definition encompasses a wide class of logics with theoretical interest as well as interest from the point of view of applications. The language, concepts and methods of model theory can thus be used to describe the relationship between logics through morphisms of structures called transfers. This leads to a formal framework for studying several properties of abstract logics and their attributes such as consequence operator, (...) syntactical structure, and internal transformations. In particular, we treat Belief Revision Systems (BRS) as our main example, defining the Wide Belief Revision Systems (WBRS''s). This generalization allows us to define BRS''s in an abstract setting for classical and non-standard logics. We also show how the concept of translation between logics can be obtained as a particular case of transfers. (shrink)

The relevance of the research is the intensity of noise emitted by lorries depends on the regime of the vehicle movement. One of the main negative factors caused by road vehicles is air pollution with exhaust gases. The article presents results for noise caused by lorries and gas usage while the vehicle is accelerating. The subject of the study is 4 lorries, and they also feature fuel recording systems which are less than 5 years old. Research methodology. The level of (...) noise emitted by heavyweight transport vehicles is measured according to Lithuanian standard LST ISO 1996-2:2008 requirements. During the tests the noise levels of L A,eq, L C,eq, L C,peak were measured. The tests were done 5 times each and the results are presented as arithmetical averages. Fuel consumption is registered in vehicle data registration system. The researched vehicles have to comply with environmental safety normative requirements; that the vehicle carbon monoxide, particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, unburned fuel and other hazardous substances contained in the combustion gases must not exceed the prescribed limits. The results of the experimental studies show that EURO6 lorries noise level is the lowest compared to the EURO4 and EURO5. After carrying out the analysis of the caused noise and gas usage, it was found that noise pollution and gas usage are higher without speed control system. The noise caused by lorries can be described in square polynomial which defines the noise inclination change while vehicle is accelerating. Scientific novelty of the research a complex research on noise and fuel consumption of lorries by using and not using speed control system. Research idea and problem is to achieve sustainable transport development objectives, in particular the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions under the Kyoto Protocol. It is very important to find ways to forecast and reduce transport noise pollution, while also reducing overall pollution, as well as mitigating the impact on the global climate., Conclusion – after conducting a lorry noise and fuel consumption analysis, it was determined that not using speed control system increases the noise and fuel consumption and if the system is used both of these factors decrease drastically. (shrink)

The strong weak truth table (sw) reducibility was suggested by Downey, Hirschfeldt, and LaForte as a measure of relative randomness, alternative to the Solovay reducibility. It also occurs naturally in proofs in classical computability theory as well as in the recent work of Soare, Nabutovsky, and Weinberger on applications of computability to differential geometry. We study the sw-degrees of c.e. reals and construct a c.e. real which has no random c.e. real (i.e., Ω number) sw-above it.

Paperback. The book treats two general questions: 1. Whether Erasmanism and Erasmian Humanism existed as a recognizable attitude during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries; 2. Whether Erasminism represented a definable middle way between the confessional conflicts of these times. How important was Erasmanism in these respects? The treatment of these two questions is geographically limited to those countries where Erasmus himself was active: Italy, The Netherlands, Holy Roman Empire, Switzerland and England.Erasmanism as a concept has hardly been studied before, (...) although the term is used freely by scholars of the early modern period. This book is a first attempt at a begriffsgeschichte of Erasminism. (shrink)

We show that the analysis of Keisler’s order can be localized to the study of φ-types. Specifically, if is a regular ultrafilter on λ such that and M is a model whose theory is countable, then is λ+-saturated iff it realizes all φ-types of size λ.