In Situations and Individuals, Paul Elbourne argues that the natural language expressions that have been taken to refer to individuals — pronouns, proper names, and definite descriptions — have a common syntax and semantics, roughly that of definite descriptions as construed in the tradition of Frege. In the course of his argument, Elbourne shows that proper names have previously undetected donkey anaphoric readings.This is contrary to previous theorizing and, if true, would undermine what philosophers call the direct reference theory (...) (which holds that the sole contribution of a proper name to the truth conditions of a sentence is an individual) as well as the related doctrine that proper names are rigid designators. Elbourne begins by addressing donkey anaphora, relating other concerns about pronouns to the solution of this notorious problem. His subsequent argumentation provides a unified semantics for the donkey anaphoric and bound and referential uses of pronouns and discusses the prospect of unifying the syntax and semantics of pronouns with the syntax and semantics of normal definite descriptions. Elbourne's aim is not only to advance his proposal of a unified syntax and semantics but also to urge linguists and philosophers dealing with pronoun interpretation to consider a wider range of theories than they do at present, and to test the competing claims of description-based theories and dynamic semantics against the data. (shrink)

This 2004 book reconfigures the basic problem of Christian thinking - 'How can human discourse refer meaningfully to a transcendent God?' - as a twofold demand for integrity: integrity of reason and integrity of transcendence. Centring around a provocative yet penetratingly faithful re-reading of Kant's empirical realism, and drawing on an impelling confluence of contemporary thinkers Paul D. Janz argues that theology's 'referent' must be located within present empirical reality. Rigorously reasoned yet refreshingly accessible throughout, this book provides an (...) important, attentively informed alternative to the growing trends toward obscurantism, radicalization and anti-reason in many recent assessments of theological cognition, while remaining equally alert to the hazards of traditional metaphysics. In the book's culmination, epistemology and Christology converge around problems of noetic authority and orthodoxy with a kind of innovation, depth and straightforwardness that readers of theology at all levels of philosophical acquaintance will find illuminating. (shrink)

In this work Paul Murray explores which style of rationality is most appropriate to Christian theology in the contemporary pluralist, postfoundationalist, ...

At a historic dialogue convened at the University of Richmond, Virginia, Baptist and secular humanist scholars in theology, history, philosophy, and the social sciences, came together to define shared concerns and common values. The dialogue focused on major areas of concern: academic freedom; social, political, and religious tolerance; biblical scholarship; separation of church and state; the social agenda of the Christian Coalition and the Southern Baptist Convention; the danger of militant fundamentalism; freedom of conscience and the historic and current role (...) of American Baptists; as well as the plight of pluralistic democracy. (shrink)

This article attempts to clarify some of the central questions and distinctions that provide the necessary backdrop for thinking in a sophisticated way about security in Africa. Drawing on the developing Critical Security Studies literature it suggests that an understanding of security based on people, justice and change offers the surest route to a stable future. It then sketches preliminary answers to some fundamental questions, namely: whose security should be prioritized? How have security dynamics in Africa been influenced by the (...) wider processes driving world politics? What clusters of threats are the most salient? Where do such threats have the most pernicious effects? Which actors are best placed to alleviate those threats? And what sort of institutions should be built to assist in that process? The role of outsiders concerned with promoting security on the continent should be to try to ensure that as many Africans as possible are able to voice their opinions on these crucial issues. (shrink)

By applying markedness to Semitic morphology in a rigorous manner, this book brings to bear a venerable linguistic construct on a persistent philological crux, in order to achieve deeper clarity in the structures and workings of Canaanite and Hebrew verbs.

Systems of logico-probabilistic (LP) reasoning characterize inference from conditional assertions interpreted as expressing high conditional probabilities. In the present article, we investigate four prominent LP systems (namely, systems O, P, Z, and QC) by means of computer simulations. The results reported here extend our previous work in this area, and evaluate the four systems in terms of the expected utility of the dispositions to act that derive from the conclusions that the systems license. In addition to conforming to the dominant (...) paradigm for assessing the rationality of actions and decisions, our present evaluation complements our previous work, since our previous evaluation may have been too severe in its assessment of inferences to false and uninformative conclusions. In the end, our new results provide additional support for the conclusion that (of the four systems considered) inference by system Z offers the best balance of error avoidance and inferential power. Our new results also suggest that improved performance could be achieved by a modest strengthening of system Z. (shrink)

KANT is the foremost philosopher to have argued at length for there being moral duties to oneself, and he puts forward the most extensive list of such duties to be found in philosophical writings. Kant's most detailed statement of his views concerning duties to oneself is to be found in his late work, the Tugendlehre or Doctrine of Virtue, which forms the second part of his Metaphysic of Morals, that work for which the much more famous Grundlegung was the foundational (...) study. I shall confine my consideration of Kant entirely to the Tugendlehre, for his views there, at least concerning duties to oneself, represent only an amplification of ideas that he had expressed in earlier writings. (shrink)

Huw Price’s subject naturalism has emerged as a leading pragmatist position within recent debates surrounding philosophical naturalism. Unlike orthodox views which tend to be guided by metaphysical questions about the “place” of, for instance, the mind, meaning, and morality within the natural world, subject naturalism focuses philosophical attention on language-users and the functions that certain concepts play within discursive practices. This paper considers two objections to subject naturalism and argues that they can be overcome by looking to the methodological insights (...) of philosophical genealogy. Although Price occasionally characterizes his project as a kind of genealogy, he offers little explanation of what such a methodological orientation is supposed to involve. I suggest that subject naturalists ought to remedy this theoretical lacuna by looking to the work of Bernard Williams. On the one hand, doing so can serve a diagnostic function: Williams’ conception of genealogy affords a perspective from which subject naturalism’s explanatory inadequacies are more clearly understood. On the other hand, Williams’ elaborated conception of genealogy represents a path by which the subject naturalist can overcome the shortcomings discussed in this paper. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:IS GOD ESSENTIALLY DIFFERENT FROM HIS CREATURES? RAHNER'S EXPLANATION FROM REVELATION INTRODUCTION IN THIS PAPER we shall discuss two questions concerning the doctrine of God in the theology of Karl Rahner. What is it? On what is it based? In the process, we shall critically examine the relationship between the doctrine of God and Rahner's view of Christian revelation, focusing on the nature of theological method. Analysis will proceed (...) in two ways: comparison of Rahner's method with what I see as the method of scripture (faith seeking understanding) and with that of traditional Thomism as represented by Etienne Gilson. In Foundatians of Christian Faith, Chapter ~. "Man in the Presence of Absolute Mystery," Theological Investigations, volume 4, "The Concept of Mystery in Catholic Theology," and Theological ln1Yestigations, volume 11, "The Experience of God Today " Rabner develops his doctrine of God from his concept of absolute mystery which is drawn from human experience of reality according to his transcendental method. This method itself establishes the foundation for answering the first question, as we shall see. In answering the second question it is important that we examine carefully the foundation and determining element for any concept of God and of the creature's relation with God. The following issues will have to be discussed also: the nature of and need for Christian revelation, the role of faith and the kind of relation which exists between the Creator God and creatures. We shall discuss how Rahner deals with the free grace of God's revelation and presence in history while synthesizing creaturely self-tran575 576 PAUL D. MOLNAR scendent experience with grace and revelation according to his transcendental method. Such synthesis perceives the reality of God according to the constructs of natural theology and eliminates any practical need for revelation and faith in the triune God as the only true God. Moreover, we hope to show that the starting point for Rahner's transcendental method [human experience] is the very £actor which causes irreconcilable conflicts for a theology which claims to be a theology based on revelation. Rahner's analysis of experience is profound and has been useful for many in describing the creature's relation with the Creator. But as long as it is thought that our self-transcending experiences provide a point of departure for knowing the true God, Christian theologians will always have difficulty actually distinguishing God from their ideas about Hirn. For scriptural faith the point of departure for knowing the reality of God was and remains God's own free self-manifestation in His historical interventions within the realm of experience. As we shall see, this very point is what Rahner seeks to uphold. But in fact his method causes him to be inconsistent. While he would insist that this historical intervention is what happened in Israel, in Christ and in the Church; his method cannot a11ow him to hold consistently that the only point of departure for knowing the truth about our experiences is the Word of God revealed and active in Christ and the Spirit. Thus, true knowledge of God for Rahner is simultaneously ascribed to the grace of God and to our innate knowledge of absolute being. This claim is actually indebted to the Cartesian method and, as we shall see, it causes logical and theological problems for a theology that claims to be a theology of revelation. Concerning Rahner's doctrine of God, then, we return to the opening questions: What is it? On what is it based? Following Rahner's own outline in Fottndations of Christian Faith these questions can only be answered together by tracing the development of his own logic based upon the transcendental experience of our" horizon." Rahner's doctrine of God begins RAHNER'S EXPLANATION FROM REVELATION 577 from the assumption that an experience of one's "horizon " is an experience of God. And this assumption dictates what it is. Therefore, in Rahner's thought, these two questions cannot in fact be separated. Rahner provides no other foundation for this assumption than the idea that man must think and act in light of this horizon. Instead of pointing beyond the circle of human experience to show us... (shrink)

Everything we experience and do as individuals is assumed to be a function of the nervous system. It is as though we were born with a total supply of algorithms for all given forms of psychic states and solutions for immediate or eventual actions. There is evidence that the forebrain is, so to speak, the central processor for psychic experience and psychologically directed behavior. Since information itself is immaterial, all forms of psychic experience represent immaterial emanations of the forebrain, including (...) sensations, perceptions, drives, affects, thoughts, and the precisely measured, cold hard facts of science. But it is to be emphasized that there can be no manufacture or communication of information without the intermediary of behaving entities. Because of the immateriality of information and the Gödel-like problem of self-reference, a central question arises as to whether or not we can ever rely on the brain with its viscoelastic properties to achieve a reliable yardstick for measuring time and space and the general nature of things. Most needed at the present time is a refined picture of the anatomy and chemistry of the brain’s circuitry accounting for its particular species of algorithms. Emphasis is given to the basic role of various proteins in generating subjective experience. Because of the role of resonance in contributing to the dynamical excitability of neural circuits, examples are given here of how it might play an algorithmic role at macroscopic, microscopic, molecular, and atomic levels. To describe this idea attention is focused on three evolutionary types of cortex that have developed in the triune evolution of the mammalian forebrain from the mammal-like reptiles to human beings. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:MOLTMANN'S POST-MODERN MESSIANIC CHRISTOLOGY: A REVIEW DISCUSSION 1 PAUL D. MOLNAR St. Johns University Jamaica, New York 0 VER TWENTY-FIVE years ago Jiirgen Moltmann's response to Karl Barth's suggestion that it might be wise to " accept the doctrine of the immanent trinity of God " 2 indicated the future of his theology: " in studying C.D. at these points I always lost my breath. I suspect you (...) are right but I cannot as yet or so quickly enter into this right." Moltmann believed he could present the " economic Trinity " in such a way that " in the foreground, and then again in the background, it would be open to an immanent Trinity... the Holy Spirit is first the Spirit of the raising of the dead and then as such the third person of the Trinity." 3 Moltmann's The Way of Jesus Christ reflects the same onesidedness that Barth had criticized in his theology of hope, and this predicament leads to his own distinct messianic christology, as we shall see. This third volume in Moltmann's systematic theology, following his Trinity and the Kingdom and God in 1 The Way of Jesits Christ: Christology fo Messianic Dimensions. By Jiirgen Moltmann. Translated by Margaret Kohl (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, a division of HarperCollins Publishers, 1990). Pp. vii + 388. $24.95. This volume has a name index only. The Way of Jesits Christ will henceforth be cited in the text of this article by page numbers within parentheses, without further qualification. 2 Karl Barth Letters 1961-1968, ed. Jurgen Fangmeier and Hinrich Stoevesandt, trans. and ed. by Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1981)' p. 175. 3 Ibid., p. 348. Barth's Church Dogmatics is usually abbreviated as C.D. 669 670 PAUL D. MOLNAR Creation,4 is intended to lead to a fourth volume on Redemption. Like Moltmann's other works it is tightly written, difficult, intriguing and informative. His writing is clear and his position certainly is developed with a commendable systematic rigor. Throughout this book, which contains seven chapters with clear headings indicating the topics to be treated, the reader is compelled to admire Moltmann's ability to weave together immense amounts of scriptural and systematic data without losing his own position in the process. While the wealth of information alone makes this book worth studying, there is much more than information here. Yet the problem with this book is apparent throughout, i.e., Moltmann attempts to reconceive christology not from a superior knowledge of the person and work of Jesus Christ as presented in scripture but from the community's experience of Jesus Christ in the present. Hence he begins his own " pneumatological christology " with the experience of discipleship (xiv) and argues against the traditional christologies, on the basis of " Christopraxis " which he says is "the source from which christology springs " (41). But can we say that our discipleship is the "source" of christology when, according to Matt. 16 :17, flesh and blood did not disclose who Jesus was-rather, this was revealed by God? This substitution of experience for a real action of the trinity within history is the weakness of Moltmann's bold attempt to revise christology.5 I hope to show how this problem affects Moltmann's method and conclusions. While I agree with Moltmann's intention to present a christology which makes sense in a post-modern environment, I hope to illustrate that by beginning with experience rather than with the Word of God revealed, 4 Jiirgen Moltmann, God in Creation: A New Theology of Creation and the Spirit of God (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1985), pp. xv-365. Hereafter cited within the text of the article as Creation. J iirgen Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom: The Doctrine of God (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1981), pp. xvi-256. Hereafter cited within the text of the article as Trinity. 5 As I indicated in Theological Studies vol. 51 (p. 684), this is also a serious predicament in his theology of the trinity and of creation. MOLTMANN'S POST-MODERN CHRISTOLOGY 671 he is unable to escape the " Jesuology " which he criticizes in Rahner and the metaphysical view that... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:From Epistemology to EthicsPaul D. NumrichThe evolution of the essays gathered here began as I pondered a popular article about contemporary science-religion dialogue some years ago. I was reminded that Christian notions provide the motivation, presuppositions, and conclusions for much of this dialogue and wondered, "How might things differ if Buddhism joined the conversation?" I later learned that others wondered likewise and that the John Templeton Foundation was willing (...) to fund a project to explore the contours of a Buddhism-Christianity-science dialogue.As important as all this was, the project took an early epistemological turn, to borrow a phrase from Mark T. Unno's chapter in the eventual edited volume, The Boundaries of Knowledge in Buddhism, Christianity, and Science.1 The project's advisors recommended that we not devolve into simplistic litanies of how the latest scientific theories confirm ancient religious wisdom or how religions might accommodate the latest scientific discoveries. They also counseled that we should avoid narrowly construed theoretical or doctrinal discussions. Instead, we should focus on "knowability" in science and religion. And we should challenge the hubris that claims to know everything—or everything that really matters—whether that hubris presumes to speak for science or for religion.The Boundaries of Knowledge in Buddhism, Christianity, and Science addresses the really big philosophical question "What can we know about reality?" and inquires into profound epistemological issues that cut across the worldviews of Buddhism, Christianity, and science: How do they explore the boundaries between the known and the unknown? What do they define as unknowable? How do they participate in the human quest for knowledge about reality? The volume goes beyond the usual fare in contemporary science-religion dialogue to explore how science and religion engage each other's attempts to understand reality.In the opening chapter, I ruminate on human knowledge generally. The other chapters move largely from Buddhism to Christianity to science, although several incorporate insights from more than one of these worldviews. Project advisor Roger Blomquist of Argonne National Laboratory suggested the important distinction between a boundary (which is movable) and a limit (which is fixed, i.e., the ultimate boundary). The frontiers of knowledge are often pushed back in both science and religion, yet these shifting boundaries exist within a larger fixed limit of human knowability. What Buddhists, Christians, and scientists do in the face of moveable boundaries within a fixed limit of knowability provides the intrigue of the volume. The contributors were not required to honor the distinction between moveable boundaries and a fixed limit. At times these terms are used interchangeably, at other times the distinction is implicitly called into question, thus adding to the volume's intrigue.The physicist-philosopher Niels Bohr (1885-1962) pondered the inherent inadequacy of conceptualization and language in apprehending and explaining reality. His assistant relates a discussion between Bohr and unnamed others: "He [Bohr] was forcefully stressing the primacy of language: 'Ultimately, we human beings depend on our words. We are hanging in language.' When it was objected that reality is more fundamental than language and lies beneath language, Bohr answered: 'We are suspended in language in such a way that we cannot say what is up and what is down.'"2Religions understand the human condition of being suspended in languages that cannot contain perceived realities. Hence their frequent use of metaphor, symbolism, via negativa statements, and the notion of "mystery." Here is a fruitful opening for dialogue between science and religion, offering an opportunity for mutual pondering of the limit of pondering. The volume presents Buddhism, Christianity, and science as case studies in the human endeavor to understand a reality tantalizingly beyond our ability to understand fully. It examines the epistemological conundrums at the boundaries and limit of human [End Page 161] knowledge, where at some point both conceptualization and language inevitably fail us.The essays gathered here were given in early versions at the 2009 annual meeting of the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies. Paul O. Ingram and Dennis Hirota gave presentations based on their chapters in The Boundaries of Knowledge in Buddhism, Christianity, and Science, to which Sandra Costen Kunz and Amos Yong, respectively, gave responses. These four presentations... (shrink)

We propose that synesthetic cross‐activation between the primary auditory cortex and the anatomically adjacent insula may help explain two puzzling conditions—autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) and misophonia—in which quotidian sounds involuntarily trigger strong emotional responses. In ASMR the sounds engender relaxation, while in misophonia they trigger an aversive response. The insula both plays an important role in autonomic nervous system control and integrates multiple interoceptive maps representing the physiological state of the body to substantiate a dynamic representation of emotional wellbeing. (...) We propose that in ASMR cross‐activation of the map for affective (sensual) touch leads to an increase in subjective wellbeing and parasympathetic activity. Conversely, in misophonia the effect of the cross‐activation is to decrease emotional wellbeing and increase sympathetic activity. Our hypothesis also illuminates the connection between hearing and wellbeing more broadly and helps explain why so many people experience decreased wellbeing from modern urban soundscapes. (shrink)

The present paper introduces a simple framework for modeling the relationship between environmental states, perceptual states, and action. The framework represents situations where an agent’s perceptual state forms the basis for choosing an action, and what action the agent performs determines the agent’s payoff, as a function of the environmental conditions in which the action is performed. The framework is used as the basis for a simulation study of the sorts of correspondence between perceptual and environmental states that are important (...) for successful navigation of the world. Some of the results are surprising and conflict with long held views about the kind of perception-to-environment correspondence that is important for knowledge of the world. The results also raise doubts concerning the view that our perceptual states provide a basis for knowledge of the real structure of the external world. (shrink)

Abstract.In evolving to its great size the human brain has retained the distinctive features and chemistry of three kinds of brains that reflect an ancestral relationship to reptiles, early mammals, and late mammals. It constitutes, so to speak, a psychencephalon comprised of three‐brains‐in‐one, a triune brain. In the evolution from reptiles to mammals two key changes were the development of nursing and maternal care. Through the agency of “newer” parts of the brain a parental concern for family eventually generalizes not (...) only to other members of the species but to the entire biosphere, a psychological development that amounts to the evolution of responsibility and what we call conscience. Given our freedom to decide “yes” or “no” on various issues, we need not look beyond the evolving family to find a reason for being, an ethic to live by. (shrink)

The point, for the 946,326th time is that people get elected to office by currying the favor of powerful interest groups. They don’t get elected for their excellence as political philosophers.Congress has consistently failed to solve some serious problems with the cost, effectiveness, and safety of pharmaceuticals. In part, this failure results from the pharmaceutical industry convincing legislators to define policy problems in ways that protect industry profits. By targeting campaign contributions to influential legislators and by providing them with selective (...) information, the industry manages to displace the public’s voice in developing pharmaceutical policy. (shrink)

In his commentary on the Elementatio theologica of Proclus, Berthold von Moosburg claims that the Proclean supersapientia is superior to Aristotelian metaphysics because it has a cognitive principle that is superior to the intellect. This unum in nobis also establishes a cognitive habitus, which consists in the union with the divine. This article shows how Proclean science leads to deification and to what extent it is the expression and conscious realization of deification. Examining the relationship between the “one in us” (...) and the intellect, it becomes clear that Berthold does not equate them with each other. Nevertheless, the intellectus adeptus, in whose conception Berthold is more oriented to Albertus Magnus than to Dietrich von Freiberg, is a necessary and never fully obsolete precursor for the union with the divine. With this view, Berthold integrates the Arabic-Peripatetic doctrine of the acquired intellect into the Proclean doctrine of the five modes of knowledge, thus returning them to their historical and systematic origin. (shrink)

Drawing on past work, we introduce a new approach to the New Riddle of Induction, showing that the inductive projection of gruesome properties is unreliable under particular ideal conditions that are sufficient for the reliable inductive projection of non-gruesome properties. As an auxiliary to our account, we introduce rules for resolving conflicts between background information and the conclusions of otherwise reliable inductive inferences. Our approach to the New Riddle of Induction is quite permissive in the range of properties it recognizes (...) as suitable for inductive projection, allowing for the inductive projection of highly gerrymandered non-natural properties. However, as an addendum to our discussion of the New Riddle, we show that natural properties do form a more reliable basis for inductive projection in cases where one’s sample is small. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:REFLECTIONS ON PANNENBERG'S SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY 1 PAUL D. MOLNAR St. John's University Jamaica, New York RADING PANNENBERG leaves no doubt that one is encountering an intellectual giant. His thought is clear, systematic, comprehensive, and fact-filled. In many respects this book is exciting; topics are introduced and developed with details from scripture, from obscure and renowned Protestant theologians, from Aquinas, Augustine, Origen, Duns Scotus, Barth, Jiingel, Moltmann, Rahner, and (...) many others until Pannenberg 's own position is clarified and fully developed. Its six chapters explore : 1) how truth is the foundation of systematic theology; 2) how the concept of God relates to this truth (natural theology) ; 3) how the reality of God is understood in relation to other religions; 4) how to understand revelation; 5) the trinity; and 6) the unity and attributes of God. This last lengthy chapter (337-448) presents a very challenging description of God's attributes arguing that " the trinitarian life of God in his economy of salvation proves to be the true infinity of his omnipotence " (415). Hence the doctrine of the trinity makes it possible to speak correctly about God's immanence and transcendence without falling into pantheism, dualism, modalism, or subordinationism. This book is essential reading for any serious student of theology. Because of its complexity and difficulty, however, we shall focus on the relation of theology and philosophy and briefly explore the roles of experience and faith, natural theology, the 1 Wolfhart Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, Volume 1, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids : William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1991). 501 502 PAUL D. MOLNAR trinity, revelation, God's being and act, and the person and work of Jesus, with a view toward seeing how Pannenberg's philosophy affects his theology. In spite of his view that Rahner may succumb to " subjectivism " through a consensus theory of truth ( 14, n.22), many of Pannenberg's ideas, e.g., that "Nonthematic knowledge of God" is real and " part of our original situation " ( 115), and that, in the context of modern secularism, the word " God " still reminds us that "the wholeness of human existence has become an unanswered question" (71), would resonate positively with a Rahnerian method. And while he believes Barth did not succeed in grounding the doctrine of the trinity in revelation (327, 296), he contends that Rahner made progress with his thesis of identity, even though by allowing the Father to remain transcendent, he did not go far enough and should have seen that the Father " has made himself dependent upon the course of history " (329, emphasis mine). While Pannenberg deliberately intends to emphasize God's freedom and to avoid subjectivism (36ff., 127ff., 376-7, 391, 419), as when he argues that dogmaticians do not decide what is true, but only God decides (56), fundamental problems do affiict his approach to theology from the beginning. For example: The natural theology of the philosophers had formulated a criterion for judging whether any God could be seriously considered as the author of the whole cosmos, and Christian theology had to meet this criterion if its claim could be taken seriously that the God who redeems us in Jesus Christ is the Creator of heaven and earth and thus the one true God of all peoples (79). The obvious question which arises here is whether it is philosophy or God the creator, known through faith, who determines the meaning of creation and redemption; problems connected with this assertion arise within each chapter. Even though Pannenberg recognizes the problem of establishing our knowledge of God by negating our limited experience ( 184£., 406), he actually attempts to understand God's being in terms of the limits of creaturely experience when he argues that finite knowledge " is grounded especially in the time-bound nature PANNENBERG'S SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY 503 of the knowledge" (54). Thus all of our statements about God, who is not an object in the world, "rest on anticipations of the totality of the world and therefore on the as yet nonexistent future of its uncompleted history " (55, emphasis mine) ; following Descartes, he writes " We attain a sense of the infinite only by negation of the limit of the finite "; while our direct unthematic... (shrink)

'A mere metaphor', 'only symbolic', 'just a myth' - these tell tale phrases reveal how figurative language has been cheapened and devalued in our modern and postmodern culture. In God and the Creative Imagination, Paul Avis argues the contrary: we see that actually, metaphor, symbol and myth, are the key to a real knowledge of God and the sacred. Avis examines what he calls an alternative tradition, stemming from the Romantic poets Blake, Wordsworth and Keats and drawing on the (...) thought of Cleridge and Newman, and experience in both modern philosophy and science. God and the Creative Imagination intriguingly draws on a number of non-theological disciplines, from literature to philosophy of science, to show us that God is appropriately likened to an artist or poet and that the greatest truths are expressed in an imaginative form. Anyone wishing to further their understanding of God, belief and the imagination will find this an inspiring work. (shrink)

The article begins by describing two longstanding problems associated with direct inference. One problem concerns the role of uninformative frequency statements in inferring probabilities by direct inference. A second problem concerns the role of frequency statements with gerrymandered reference classes. I show that past approaches to the problem associated with uninformative frequency statements yield the wrong conclusions in some cases. I propose a modification of Kyburg’s approach to the problem that yields the right conclusions. Past theories of direct inference have (...) postponed treatment of the problem associated with gerrymandered reference classes by appealing to an unexplicated notion of projectability . I address the lacuna in past theories by introducing criteria for being a relevant statistic . The prescription that only relevant statistics play a role in direct inference corresponds to the sort of projectability constraints envisioned by past theories. (shrink)

The article proceeds upon the assumption that the beliefs and degrees of belief of rational agents satisfy a number of constraints, including: consistency and deductive closure for belief sets, conformity to the axioms of probability for degrees of belief, and the Lockean Thesis concerning the relationship between belief and degree of belief. Assuming that the beliefs and degrees of belief of both individuals and collectives satisfy the preceding three constraints, I discuss what further constraints may be imposed on the aggregation (...) of beliefs and degrees of belief. Some possibility and impossibility results are presented. The possibility results suggest that the three proposed rationality constraints are compatible with reasonable aggregation procedures for belief and degree of belief. (shrink)

On the basis of knowledge prior to 1988, Ashbrook pointed out that whereas most men are primarily dependent on the left cerebral hemisphere (“dominant hemisphere”) for verbally related functions, women show a greater hemispheric balance in this respect. For men, he argues, their possession of a “speaking” and a “non‐speaking hemisphere” results in a positive‐negative, bipolar way of thinking that may be characterized as dualistic and dialectically hierarchical. In contrast, the greater balance of hemispheric function in women appears to promote (...) greater generalization and synthesis in their thinking.In this article I cite more recent neuroanatomical and brain imaging studies that provide further evidence of disparities in structure and function of the brains of men and women. As background for an attempt to explain these differences, I give a brief review of the triune evolution of the mammalian brain leading up to the human cerebrum. It is of major significance that the female has played a central role in mammalian evolution for more than 180 million years and that the evolutionary transition from reptilian therapsids to mammals is characterized by the develoment of (1) nursing conjoined with maternal care; (2) audiovocal communication or aiding mother‐offspring contact; and (3) play. In human beings, the infant‐carrying hypothesis suggests one means by which, over generations, certain parts of a woman's right hemisphere could undergo functional and eventual anatomical expansion. The mother‐infant communication of basic mammalian sounds with vowel and consonant components suggests a basis for the origination of speech.Finally, in an expansion of Ashbrook's original thesis, we arrive at the rovocative consideration that, unlike men, with their dialectical reasoning, women, with their more balanced brain, are provided with a trialectial ladder for climbing to achieve knowledge. In terms of quantum mechanics, the particle and wave would correspond to the substance and strength of the sides of the ladder, and the derived psychic information (which is neither matter nor energy) would compare to the rungs in between. (shrink)

It is hypothesized that repeated, non‐invasive stimulation of the vestibular (balance) system, via a small electrical current to the skin behind the ears, will cause the brain centers that control energy homeostasis to shift the body toward a leaner physique. This is because these centers integrate multiple inputs to, in effect, fix a set‐point for body fat, which though difficult to alter is not immutable. They will interpret repeated stimulation of the parts of the vestibular system that detect acceleration as (...) a state of chronic activity. During such a physiologically challenging time it is preferable, from an energy homeostasis viewpoint, to both utilize fat reserves, and reduce the volume of these reserves and thus the energy cost of carrying them around. Hence, this type of vestibular stimulation could potentially be a therapeutic option for metabolic syndrome disorders such as obesity. This hypothesis is eminently testable via a clinical trial. (shrink)