Tomasz Ignacy Szpot Dunin SJ w swoim dziele poświęconym historii Chin nie ominął postaw znaczących chińskich dowódców w okresie przełomu historycznego jakim był upadek dynastii Ming i jej zastąpienie przez mandżurską dynastię Qing. Jednym z nich był Wu Sangui, który początkowo wspierał Mingów w walce z zewnętrznymi i wewnętrznymi wrogami, by w kluczowym momencie przyczynić się do powodzenia najazdu mandżurskiego, a po niemal trzech dekadach działania pod zwierzchnością nowej dynastii wypowiedzieć jej posłuszeństwo i stanąć na czele tzw. Rebelii Trzech Lenników. (...) Sprawa ta była znana w Europie i stała się nawet przedmiotem zainteresowania literackiego w XVIII w. Szpot Dunin nie poddaje się w swoim opisie skrajnym tendencjom, umiejętnie rozważa okoliczności decyzji i przedstawia zniuansowany, ale jednocześnie wyrazisty obraz postaci Wu Sangui, jego zamiarów i niepowodzeń. (shrink)

The article presents a collection of seventeen previously unpublished inscriptions on stone and small objects from Bithynia. The majority of them belong to the middle Byzantine period and comes from the area of Nikaia and Nikomedeia. First of all, the inscription from a boundary stone of a monastery of Theotokos near Niketiaton is discussed, in which the bridge of a certain Eustathios and the monastery of Johannes Kranbas are mentioned. The building inscription of a refectory attests to the existence of (...) a splendid monastic complex near Kanlıçay, to the east of the Sangarios River. The inscription from a column offered by Leon lists several saints. In addition to clerics and monks, the funerary inscriptions also mention one Basil who came from the Diocese of Ikonion. This is followed by an epigraphical attestation of the koinonikon σῶμα Χριστοῦ (an Easter hymn), a fragment of an inscription mentioning the city of Joannina, a reliquary cross of Saint Damian, and two processional or blessing crosses. A clay seal with the monogram probably of a certain Photios closes the collection. (shrink)

Wollen (Libertarianism and conjoined twins) argues that libertarianism premised on absolute property rights founders where physical boundaries between two persons cannot be discerned, as is the case with conjoined twins. In this rejoinder, we make a three-pronged argument against Wollen’s claim. First, it is demonstrated that even if conjoined twins really do not hold self-ownership rights against one another, they still have one bodily ownership right against the rest of the world. Second, two alternative resolutions of Wollen’s hypothetical dispute between (...) conjoined twins that derive from two different versions of libertarianism are set forth. Third, it is shown that the quandaries engendered by the existence of conjoined twins not only are not specific for libertarianism but there also are political philosophies to which conjoined twins pose even greater a challenge. (shrink)

The present paper aims to study the issue of the value of life in Murray N. Rothbard’s work, and to examine his argument for the contention that “life _should_ be an objective ultimate value” and that “the preservation and furtherance of one’s life takes on the stature of an incontestable axiom.” Rothbard’s assumptions and presuppositions are investigated and critically assessed. Using conceptual and logical analysis rooted mostly in the praxeological method of economics (as developed by Mises and Rothbard himself) and (...) the theory of value (Scheffler, Raz, Elzenberg), it is demonstrated that Rothbard’s account is fallacious both on its own as well as on broader theoretical grounds. It is argued that what Rothbard could—under his specific assumptions about valuing—correctly claim is only that an actor values life _to some extent_, rather than that life has an objective ultimate value or preservation and furtherance of one’s life has an axiomatic status. The theoretical argument is supported by empirical illustration from suicide terrorism. The paper submits that Rothbard’s position on the value of life is unsound, and that using his argumentation as it stands cannot succeed. (shrink)

Academic dishonesty has serious consequences for human lives, social values, and economy. The main aim of the study was to explore a model of relations between personal and cultural variables and academic dishonesty. The participants in the study were N = 2,586 individuals from nine countries (Pakistan, Israel, Italy, India, the USA, Peru, Romania, Ghana, and Poland). The authors administered the Academic Dishonesty Scale to measure academic dishonesty, the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale to measure distress, the Almost Perfect Scale – (...) Revised to measure perfectionism, the Brief Self-Control Scale to measure self-control, and the Singelis Scale to measure independent self-construal. The results showed that the theoretical model was well fitted to the dataset in six countries: Pakistan, the United States, Romania, Ghana, Israel, and Poland. However, it was not well fitted in Italy, India, and Peru. Our results also showed that perfectionism significantly predicted academic dishonesty, but not in all countries. Self-control significantly predicted cheating, falsification, and plagiarism in the USA. Moreover, we found that distress was related to cheating o0nly in Ghana. Finally, independent self-construal predicted academic dishonesty. Our findings provide a cross-cultural contribution to the debate on academic dishonesty by highlighting its significant predictors and may inform interventions aimed at eliminating it. Our results can be used in preventing and curbing academic dishonesty. Knowledge on cross-cultural differences can be useful in international education for example, as an indicator accepting or relaxing attitude toward academic dishonesty in students from different countries. (shrink)

As formulated by Duncan Pritchard and John McDowell, epistemological disjunctivism is the claim that perceptual experience can provide the subject with epistemic justification that is reflectively accessible and externally grounded at the same time. Pritchard calls this thesis ‘the holy grail of epistemology’, since it reconciles two traditionally rival theories of justification, namely epistemic internalism and epistemic externalism. The main objection against epistemological disjunctivism thus understood is that it does not do justice to the well-known internalist intuitions expressed in The (...) New Evil Demon and Brain-in-a-Vat scenarios. I defend epistemological disjunctivism from this objection by indicating that those who apply to such scenarios commit themselves to implausible views in the philosophy of mind. I conclude that epistemological disjunctivism accurately expresses the epistemological attitude of a non-reductive materialist regarding the body-mind problem. (shrink)

L'article analyse l'interprétation deconstructive de la pensée de F. Nietzsche, qui a été presentée par Sarah Kofman sous l'influence de Jacques Derrida et à la base de sa critique de la tradition logocentrique. Kofman discerne deux périodes dans l'evolution de la philosophie de Nietzsche. Dans la premier Nietzsche part de la notion de la métaphore, qui detruit la possibilité du langage rationelle et objectif, mais qui se rapport symboliquement à l'essence dionysiaque du monde. Dans la seconde Nietzsche développe la notion (...) de l'interprétation: la volonté de puissance n'est que l'interprétation, "la hypothèse interprétative" qui fonde la possibilité de l'interprétation en général. À la fin de l'article j'analyse les difficultés concernant l'interprétation presentée par Kofman. (shrink)

Die ewige Wiederkehr gehört zu den meist unklaren Fragen in der Philosophie von Friedrich Nietzsche. Die Idee der ewigen Wiederkunft wird von mir als ein integraler Teil seiner Philosophie angesehen, da meines Erachtens ist das die grundsätzliche Kategorie, die das Ganze jener Philosophie begreifen laßt. Am Beispiel konkreter Interpretationen werden dann genannt und kritisch betrachtet drei Interpretationsweisen der Idee der ewigen Wiederkehr, die sich in der Geschichte der Rezeption der Philosophie Nietzsches finden lassen: die ewige Wiederkehr im stoischen Sinne als (...) Wiederkehr der "identischen Fälle, die ewige Wiederkunft im ethischen Sinne als Postulat der Wirkung und die ewige Wiederkunft im dionysischen Sinne - als Prinzip und Charakteristik des Werdens. Ich spreche für die "dionysische" Interpretation aus, da sie mit den Voraussetzungen und mit der ursprünglichen Fassung der Philosophie von F. Nietzsche am meisten übereinstimmt. (shrink)

The contemporary secularism is found to be a philosophy of life “as if there were no God” or a kind of ideology, which demands an absolute autonomy of human being to shape his destination. In the philosophy of Descartes at least three sources of secularism could be found: his theory of cognition which resulted in developing other than the classical concept of truth and rationality; his metaphysics; his arguments for the existence of God and in his concept of the nature (...) of God. Karl Marx’s criticism of religion was a next powerful factor on the advance of secularism. Marx makes the charge against the religion that it acts to reinforce the break down the conscience of man living in the modern society, into a public and a private realm. The widest criticism of religion was made by Marx in: Acontribution to the Hegel’s criticism on the philosophy of law”. Especially its first seven paragraph, are particularly important in view of the advance of secularism. F. Nietzsche undermines metaphysics by showing that knowledge of a non-empirical world is cognitively superfluous. He makes clear that he has moved beyond the assumption that there might be a metaphysical world to a positing of the empirical world as the only one. Nietzsche considers that the notion of God is inimical to human nature and human life. Is this really so in reality? Is Nietzsche’s consideration about God and religion in any way applicable to our own age? (shrink)

In this paper we argue that inferentialist approach to meaning does not, by itself, show that meaning is normative in a prescriptive sense, and that the constitutive rules argument is especially troubling for this position. To show that, we present the proto-inferentialist theory developed by Ajdukiewicz and claim that despite the differences between his theory and contemporary inferentialism rules of language in both theories function more like classificatory devices than prescriptions. Inferentialists can respond by claiming that in their theory meaning (...) is essentially social and hence normative, but we claim that then semantic normativity becomes derivative of social normativity. (shrink)

Traditions and transformations of legal ethics -- Conceptions of legal ethics -- Multi-dimensional theory of legal ethics -- Legal ethics and some theoretical models of law -- Legal ethics among legal sciences.

In this volume, F.M. Kamm explores how theories as well as hypothetical and practical cases help us understand rights and their limits. The book begins by considering moral status and its relation to having rights (including whether non-human animals have rights and what rights future persons have). The author then considers whether rights are grounded in duties to oneself, which duties are correlative to rights, and whether neuroscientific and psychological studies can help determine what rights we have. Kamm next investigates (...) the contours of the right not to be harmed by considering critiques of deontological distinctions, the costs that must be undertaken to avoid harming, and a proposal for permissibly harming someone (that allows for resisting the harm) in the Trolley Problem. Additional chapters cover possible implications of the Trolley Problem for such practical issues as correctly programming self-driving cars, providing medical treatments, and enacting redistributive economic policy. Kamm concludes the book by comparing the use of case-based judgments about extreme cases in moral versus aesthetic theory, and by exploring the significance of the right not to be harmed for morally correct policies in the extreme cases of torture and a pandemic. Where pertinent, Kamm considers the views of Derek Parfit, Tom Regan, Christine Korsgaard, Shelly Kagan, Ronald Dworkin, Amartya Sen, Allan Gibbard, Joshua Greene, Arthur Danto, and Judith Thomson, among others."--Provided by publisher. (shrink)

Originally published in 1948, this book contains personal reminiscences by Frederick Blagden Malim on the various schools he attended, taught at or visited from 1895 to 1939. Malim discusses a number of schools in the UK and elsewhere in the English-speaking world, including several schools in Australia and New Zealand. The text is illustrated with photographs of several of the schools mentioned in Malim's account. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in the history of education (...) in the British Empire. (shrink)

49th International Congress on Medieval Studies8 May 2014Western Michigan UniversityKalamazoo, Michigan Emmett Randolph Daniel became interested in the subjects of medieval apocalypticism, eschatology and related matters largely on the heels of the pioneering work done in these fields during the 1950s and 1960s by European scholars like Herbert Grundmann,1 Marjorie Reeves,2 Beatrice Hirsch-Reich,3 and Bernhard Töpfer.4 Nearly fifty years later, that is to say, after the publication of his brief but ground-breaking article of 1968 in Speculum on the subject of (...) the Franciscan Joachites,5 one can attest that “Randy” Daniel was for many years an integral part of a new group of distinguished American... (shrink)

Although higher-level constructs often fail to explain the mechanisms underlying motivation, we argue that purely mechanistic approaches have limitations. Lower-level neural data help us identify “biologically plausible” mechanisms, while higher-level constructs are critical to formulate measurable behavioral outcomes when constructing computational models. Therefore, we propose that a multi-level, multi-measure approach is required to fully unpack the black box of motivated behavior.

The leading arguments of Anquetil-Duperron's Legislation Orientale (1778) are analysed as a sustained attempt by this early Indologist to refute Montesquieu's influential theory of oriental despotism with respect to the Muslim regimes of Turkey, Persia and India (the Mogul empire). Anquetil adduces literary evidence and his own observations to refute the claim that Asian governments are invariably arbitrary, lawless and without property rights. Rather, similarities in these basic respects between European and Asian societies underline the common humanity of their inhabitants, (...) in keeping with the convictions of Enlightenment humanism and contrary to some eighteenth-century justifications for European empires. (shrink)