Introduction 1. Alexander in Modern Scholarship; The Present Translation The anti-Manichaean treatise of Alexander of Lycopolis has for a long time been...

"The fact that religions show internal variation and develop over time is not only a problem for believers, but has also long engaged scholars. This is especially true for the religions of the ancient world, where the mere idea of innovation in religious matters evoked notions of revolution and destruction. The present volume brings together articles that study this transformation, ranging from broad overviews to detailed case-studies."--BOOK JACKET.

In der Reihe werden herausragende monographische Untersuchungen und Sammelbände zu allen Aspekten der Philosophie Kants veröffentlicht, ebenso zum systematischen Verhältnis seiner Philosophie zu anderen philosophischen Ansätzen in Geschichte und Gegenwart. Veröffentlicht werden Studien, die einen innovativen Charakter haben und ausdrückliche Desiderate der Forschung erfüllen. Die Publikationen repräsentieren damit den aktuellsten Stand der Forschung.

Ernest Mandel theorised the capitalist world economy as an articulated system of capitalist, semi-capitalist and precapitalist relations of production, linked to each other by capitalist relations of exchange and domination by the capitalist world market. This seems to be an interesting starting point for an historically well-founded theory, building on and going beyond Marx's work, of the worldwide expansion of the capitalist mode of production from its origins to the present. In his attempt to formulate his theory, Mandel did not (...) succeed in resolving all difficulties, however. His main works – Marxist Economic Theory and Late Capitalism – show a number of dangling loose ends. The central question is whether these loose ends are merely technical difficulties or whether they reveal fatal flaws in the theory as a whole. In order to come a step closer to answering this question, a conference was organised in Amsterdam, November 2003. This introduction formulates the five, closely interrelated issues that were highlighted at this conference. (shrink)

During the past three decades the Utrecht scholar Jaap Mansfeld has built up a formidable reputation in the field of the history of ancient philosophy. This state-of-the-art collection of articles is presented to him by colleagues and friends on his sixtieth birthday.

We give a model for iterated belief change in multi-agent systems. The formal tool we use for this is a combination of modal and dynamic logic. Two core notions in our model are the expansion of the knowledge and beliefs of an agent, and the processing of new information. An expansion is defined as the change in the knowledge and beliefs of an agent when it decides to believe an incoming formula while holding on to its current propositional beliefs. To (...) prevent our agents from forming inconsistent beliefs they do not expand with every piece of information they receive. Instead, our agents remember their original beliefs and every piece of information they receive. After every receipt of information they decide which subset of the received information should be incorporated into their original beliefs. This procedure is called the processing of new information. We show that our model of belief update behaves in an intuitive way and that it is not sensitive to criticism on comparable models. (shrink)

This paper analyses the republican notion of non-domination from the viewpoint of individual dignity. It determines the aspect of individual dignity that republicans are concerned with and scrutinises how it is safeguarded by non-domination. I argue that the notion of non-domination as it is formulated by Pettit contains a number of ambiguities that need to be addressed. I discuss these ambiguities and argue for specific solutions that place great importance on a person’s moral beliefs and his status as a moral (...) being amongst others. Furthermore, I argue that the impunity interpretation is to be favoured over the immunity interpretation of non-domination. I show that whilst these solutions accord well with many important republican tenets, they have other implications that contradict known republican positions. In particular, I show there is both room and a need for retributivism within republicanism. (shrink)

Can a person’s degree of wellbeing be affected by things that do not enter her experience? Experientialists deny that it can, extra-experientialists affirm it. The debate between these two positions has focused on an argument against experientialism—the experience machine objection—but few arguments exist for it. I present an argument for experientialism. It builds on the claim that theories of wellbeing should not only state what constitutes wellbeing, but also which entities are welfare subjects. Moreover, the claims it makes about these (...) two issues should have a certain coherence with each other. I argue that if we accept a particular plausible answer to the second question—namely that all and only sentient beings are welfare subjects—extra-experientialist theories face a problem of coherence. While this problem can typically be solved, doing so will involve steps that are unattractive. On experientialist theories, on the other hand, the answer to these questions cohere perfectly. (shrink)

The present study investigated whether scores on the Autobiographical Memory Test (AMT) in 55 patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD) were modified after long‐term psychotherapy and whether the pretreatment AMT scores would predict improvement in depression severity or BPD symptom severity at the end of treatment. In addition, it was analysed whether changes in ratings of mood, thought suppression, dissociation, and BPD symptom severity following treatment were associated with changes in AMT scores. Only patients with BPD and a comorbid diagnosis (...) of depression at time 1, generated significantly more specific memories and fewer categoric memories after 15 months of therapy. Moreover, these changes were unrelated to type of therapy and changes in depression severity, borderline symptom severity, dissociation, or thought suppression. The AMT scores at initial assessment did not predict depression severity at 15 months. The percentage of negative specific memories tended to predict BPD symptom severity. (shrink)

Coercion is by its very nature hostile to the individual subjected to it. At the same time, it often is a necessary evil: political life cannot function without at least some instances of coercion. Hence, it is not surprising that coercion has been the topic of heated philosophical debate for many decades. Though numerous accounts have been put forth in the literature, relatively little attention has been paid to the question what exactly being subjected to coercion does to an individual (...) that makes it so hostile to his person. This paper develops an analysis of the subjective aspect of coercion whereby this hostility is explained. It is argued that coercion is not just a matter of interference with one's agency, but also affects one's morality. Because coercion is a form of subjugation it does more than merely limit one's freedom, it constitutes an affront to one's dignity as well. A new account of coercion is developed that pays particular attention to the subjectivity inherent in coercion. This account takes a middle ground in the ongoing debate between advocates of moralised and non-moralised conceptualisations of coercion. The paper closes by applying this account to two prominent issues in the literature on coercion: the use of coercion claims in attempts to avoid being held responsible for one's actions, and the coercíveness of the law. (shrink)

This textbook not only provides the student with a solid foundation in ethics, but introduces students to the most important themes relevant to business today. Issues such as human rights violation down in the supply chain, the effect business has on nature and the environment, and inclusiveness are each discussed in separate chapters, which discuss their importance, but also their challenges. While there are numerous business ethics textbooks, few take a philosophical approach to business ethics. However, without introducing philosophical ethics, (...) discussions about business ethics are bound to get stuck in fallacies and paradoxes. This textbook therefore fills an important societal gap by providing an introduction to profound philosophical issues in clear language at a philosophically high, but accessible level. (shrink)

Wellbeing describes how good life is for the person living it. Wellbeing comes in degrees. Subjective theories of wellbeing maintain that for objects or states of affairs to benefit us, we need to have a positive attitude towards these objects or states of affairs: the Resonance Constraint. In this article, we investigate to what extent subjectivism can plausibly account for degrees of wellbeing. There is a vast literature on whether preference-satisfaction theory – one particular subjective theory – can account for (...) degrees of wellbeing. This is generally taken to be problematic. However, other subjective theories – namely, desire-satisfaction, judgment- and value-fulfillment theories – do not suffer from the same difficulties. We introduce two models of degrees of wellbeing a subjectivist can employ: the Relative and the Absolute Model, and defend the claim that both models face difficulties. In particular, we argue that a subjectivist theory should describe instances of depression as instances of low degrees of wellbeing. We also argue that a reduction of desires may sometimes improve one’s degree of wellbeing, an idea we call the Epicurean Intuition. We then argue that the Relative Model fails to account for the disbenefit of certain types of depression, while the Absolute Model fails to meet a central commitment of subjectivism – the Resonance Constraint – and is unable to accommodate the Epicurean Intuition. The upshot of the paper is that subjectivist theories cannot account for degrees of well-being in a plausible way. (shrink)

This paper is on the update semantics for might of Veltman. Threeconsequence relations are introduced and studied in an abstract setting.Next we present sequent-style systems for each of the consequence relations.We show the logics to be complete and decidable. The paper ends with asyntactic cut elimination result.

Job’s body is ‘portrayed’ in a text that can be nothing more than audible. Compared with the eyes of Job (mentioned 49 times explicitly), his ears (mentioned 13 times, i.e., four times less than his eyes, perhaps because his ears are less visible) play a much more subtle role, underlying even his final confession in 42:5-6, where it seems/sounds that his eyes gave him (only) his final in-‘sight’. That leaves the impression that his ears give him access to the second-hand (...) testimony of tradition but his eyes to his own, personal experience. The hypothesis of this study is that a psychoanalytical perspective can give additional meaning to this polarity and cooperation of the senses for both the main character and recipient of the book of Job in that Job’s (in)sight depends on the foundation of the aural experience, even the musical experience.Contribution: A psychoanalytical perspective adds to the breadth and depth of insight gained from studying the role of the sensory experience in the narrative about the psychic and spiritual development of the protagonist in the Book of Job. (shrink)

The view that persons are entitled to respect because of their moral agency is commonplace in contemporary moral theory. What exactly this respect entails, however, is far less uncontroversial. In this book, Van der Rijt argues powerfully that this respect for persons’ moral agency must also encompass respect for their subjective moral judgments – even when these judgments can be shown to be fundamentally flawed. Van der Rijt scrutinises the role persons’ subjective moral judgments play within the context of coercion (...) and domination. His fresh, original analysis of Kant’s third formulation of the Categorical Imperative reveals how these judgments are intimately connected to a person’s dignity. The result is an insightful new account of coercion, a novel Kantian reformulation of the republican notion of non-domination and a compelling, innovative argument in favour of retributive justice. "In this admirably clear and insightful work, Van der Rijt develops an original account of coercion and dignity. On the basis of his analysis of the relation between these two concepts, he also provides an intriguing new angle on the nature of republicanism. I recommend this book to anyone interested in freedom and power and their roles in normative political theory." Ian Carter - University of Pavia "In this carefully argued and original study Jan-Willem van der Rijt offers an analysis of coercion, a broadly Kantian argument that coercion is an affront to dignity, and an illuminating contrast with Philip Pettit's republicanism. A most welcome contribution." Thomas E. Hill, Jr. - University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill "Jan-Willem van der Rijt has written a well argued, original book that will prove to be extremely helpful for the philosophical inquiry of the relationship between coercion and human dignity as well as for the assessment of republicanism and its consequences." Ralf Stoecker - University of Potsdam. (shrink)

The measurement of wellbeing is among the central aims of the capability approach. I develop one particular challenge to the operationalizability of the approach in the context of wellbeing measurement. I argue that the capability approach is both committed to Individuation of Wellbeing—the view that the wellbeing contribution of different capabilities and functionings is person-dependent—as well as Rejection of Subjectivism—the view that wellbeing should not be conceptualized in terms of subjective judgments of preference-satisfaction or happiness. I argue that there is (...) a tension between these two commitments that cannot be resolved in a viable way. (shrink)

Welfare in economics is generally conceived of in terms of the satisfaction of preferences, but a general, comparable index measure of welfare is generally not taken to be possible. In recent years, in response to the usage of measures of subjective well-being as indices of welfare in economics, a number of economists have started to develop measures of welfare based on preference-satisfaction. In order to evaluate the success of such measures, I formulate criteria of policy-relevance and theoretical success in the (...) context of preference-satisfaction measures of welfare. I present a detailed case study of the methodological choices put forward in a prominent generalized proposal for measuring welfare through preferences recently published in the American Economic Review. I contrast this with an alternative welfare measure which also uses preferences to weight aspects of welfare: the ICECAP-A measure. I assess the methodology of both approaches in detail and argue that the two goals of a preference... (shrink)

The current context of a turn to the visual and the transpersonal–psychological potential of the book of Job forms the background of this study, which aimed at focusing a psychological lens on the topic of eyes in the book of Job. This approach has the potential of seeing beyond both the literal and the figurative sense of eyes in the book of Job, gaining a vision of a transcendental reality, either in or after this life. In this way, the bodily (...) suffering experienced by the protagonist could be illuminated as a model for every recipient. By relating the eye to other body parts mentioned in the book, a texture of meanings has been woven with a complicated and intriguing subtext for the narrative of the eye in the life of Job. This wealth of value attached to the eye in the book subverts the traditionally negative attitude to the visual in monotheistic religions and resuscitates the eye to the status of even a transcendental level. (shrink)

In this essay an attempt will be made to trace the origins and history of the accusation that Jews are cannibals. Its origins go back much further into history than most people know, and for that reason it is this aspect of our topic that will receive the most attention. At the same time, it will be demonstrated that this anti-Jewish myth has an unprecedented tenacity, since it is still readily believed in by millions up until the present day. Part (...) I: Antiquity1Frist Encounters The encounters between Jews, on the one hand, and Greeks and Romans, on the.. (shrink)

The Philosophy of R.G. Collingwood W. J. Van Der Dussen. Collingwood's conclusion is that " ... science, even at its best, always falls short of understanding the facts as they really are"88. Only history is able to realize this. It is another ...

Normative ethics is concerned with reflection on moral problems. It does so through the analysis of moral reasons. In this chapter we explain what a moral problem is, why some moral problems should be classified as problems of will, some as cognitive problems, and describe the difference between motivations and reasons. The chapter then provides an overview of three types of moral reasons: (1) reasons that derive from the consequences of our actions, (2) reasons that concern the acts themselves (principles), (...) and (3) reasons that concern our own character (virtues). To arrive at a moral judgments, these reasons need to be weighed, which requires making an ethical judgment. (shrink)

Recently the English scholar Heather McKay defended the thesis that before the third century CE the synagogue had never been a place of sabbath worship. In this article the author reviews all the material presented by her, adds some new evidence, and comes to the conclusion that the evidence points to a situation in which already before 70 CE the synagogue served as a place of sabbath worship.

Some sceptics claim that in cases of peer disagreement, we ought to suspend judgment about the topic of discussion. In this paper, we argue that the sceptic’s conclusions are only correct in some scenarios. We show that the sceptic’s conclusion is built on two premises (the principle of evidential symmetry and the principle of evidentialism) and argue that both premises are incorrect. First, we show that although it is often rational to suspend judgment when an epistemic peer disagrees with you, (...) peer disagreements are not symmetrical. Next, we argue that even if one assumes that peer disagreements are symmetrical, it might still be rational to stick to one’s guns in the light of peer disagreement. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Match-fixing is a major ethical issue in sports. Although research interest in match-fixing has increased in recent years, we remain largely in the dark regarding how both betting- and non-betting-related match-fixing relate to the moral decision-making of those involved. Drawing on Rest’s theory of morality and on the perceptions of a large sample of participants in Flemish sports, this study indicates that most match-fixing incidents are non-betting-related, while moral motivation and associated challenges clearly differ according to the type of (...) match-fixing. Therefore, each type of match-fixing requires different preventive measures. (shrink)

Amsterdam University Press is a leading publisher of academic books, journals and textbooks in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Our aim is to make current research available to scholars, students, innovators, and the general public. AUP stands for scholarly excellence, global presence, and engagement with the international academic community.

Moral exemplars are often held up as objects to be admired. Such admiration is thought beneficial to the admirer, inducing him or her to emulate virtuous conduct, and deemed flattering to the admired. This paper offers a critical examination of admiration from a broadly Kantian perspective, arguing that admiration – even of genuine moral exemplars – violates the duty of self-respect. It also provides an explanation for the fact that moral exemplars themselves typically shun admiration. Lastly, it questions the assumption (...) that admiration leads to emulation on the basis of scientific findings that indicate that admiration induces passivity in the admirer rather than an incentive to self-improvement. (shrink)

This paper examines the increasingly popular view that new insights from the science of subjective well-being (SSWB) should play a prominent role in the determination of public policy. Though there are instrumental reasons for caring about societal happiness too, these political aspirations of the SSWB appear to be mostly intrinsically motivated. As the intrinsic value of happiness is endorsed across the political happiness as a fitting response to the state of the world, authenticity, and merit – it is shown that (...) different views of the conditionality of the intrinsic value of happiness have widely diverging policy implications, which greatly undermines the political aspirations of the SSWB. (shrink)

Several recent analyses of torture focus on the humiliation torture inflicts on the victim as the principal evil inherent in torture. This paper challenges this focus by arguing that the connection between torture and humiliation is not a necessary one. Though it is true that most contemporary usages of torture humiliate, it is shown that this is dependent on both the context of the torture and the specific means of torture applied. It is demonstrated that, in certain circumstances, torture is (...) feasible without inflicting the humiliation contemporary accounts of torture identify. At a theoretical level, it may even be possible to use torture as a way of explicitly expressing respect. The paper, therefore, warns against hinging the entire case against torture on humiliation and argues that we should scrutinize other ways in which torture may violate dignity, too. (shrink)

The concept of meaningful work is used to evaluate the quality of work. Typical cases of meaningless work that have been used to clarify this concept are assembly line work, and work involving other types of mindless tasks, but also David Graeber's ‘bullshit jobs’. I argue that there are at least two fundamental reasons to care about meaningful work: reasons from the wellbeing of the worker and reasons pertaining to meaningfulness of the worker's life. I first argue that a concept (...) of meaningful work needs to reflect these two values, but that these two values may come apart. Because of this, accounts that provide a single answer to the question to what extent a particular work context is meaningful work for a particular worker are unable to reflect these two values. I then survey three promising accounts of meaningful work: perfectionism, which captures the self-interested aspect of meaningful work well but fails to capture the meaningfulness aspect appropriately; consequentialism, which captures the meaningfulness aspect well but fails to capture the self-interested aspect; and Wolf's Fitting Fulfilment View of meaningful projects, which can be read as addressing both concerns but leads to implausible judgments about meaningful work. I then argue that we should conceive of the concerns that fall under the notion of meaningful work as two separate concepts and values. The best work incorporates both these dimensions but falling short on either dimension is problematic for different reasons. (shrink)

(1996). Korte Notities Over Het Godsbegrip Bij Grieken En Romeinen En De Vergoddelijking Van Jezus in Het Nieuwe Testament. Bijdragen: Vol. 57, No. 2, pp. 149-157.

Measures of happiness are increasingly being used throughout the social sciences. While these measures have attracted numerous types of criticisms, a crucial aspect of these measures has been left largely unexplored—their calibration. Using Eran Tal’s recently developed notion of calibration we argue first that the prospect of continued calibration of happiness measures is crucial for the science of happiness, and second, that continued calibration of happiness measures faces a particular problem—The Two Unknowns Problem. The Two Unknowns Problem relies on the (...) claim that individuals are necessarily a part of the measurement apparatus in first person measures of happiness, and the claim that we have no reason to believe that the evaluation standards people employ are invariant across individuals and time. We argue that calibrating happiness measures therefore involves solving an equation with two unknowns—an individual’s degree of happiness, and their evaluation standards—which is, generally, not possible. Third, we consider two possible escape routes from this problem and we suggest that the most promising route requires yet unexplored empirical and theoretical work on linking happiness to behavioral or neural evidence. (shrink)

Adopting a descriptive phenomenological approach, this study explores the experiences of discrimination of white women in committed interracial relationships with black men within the South African context. Three white females in committed interracial relationships with black males were recruited and interviewed. Open-ended interviews were conducted in order to elicit rich and in-depth first-person descriptions of the participants’ lived experiences of discrimination as a result of being in committed interracial relationships. The data analysis entailed a descriptive phenomenological content analysis and description. (...) The results of this study suggest that white women in committed interracial relationships with black men experience discrimination in various contexts, where discrimination manifests as either a negative or a positive encounter; in addition, discrimination evokes various emotional responses and is coped with in either maladaptive or adaptive ways. Finally, the experience of discrimination, although personal, necessarily impacts on the interracial relationship. The nature and impact of discrimination experienced by white women in committed interracial relationships with black men is thus multi-layered and both an intra-personal and an inter-personal phenomenon. (shrink)

Compared with other biblical books that are named after its main protagonist, Job mentions many (at least 72) body parts. Yet hair is explicitly referred to only once, even when it plays a relatively significant role in other books in the Hebrew Bible. This virtual absence of hair in the book can at first glance be explained by the shaving of Job's 'head' as early as 1:20, using a different verb, •••, from the one in Leviticus 13:33 and 14:8.9, •–•, (...) where the context is that of —’—’–’—, wrongly translated as 'leprosy', but probably referring to the same skin problem from which Job is suffering. This connection to the skin is important, because the two body parts seem to be almost mutually exclusive, as also suggested by 1:21 immediately after the aforementioned shaving, where Job considers himself to be essentially –’—’– [naked]. This means that hair has, amongst other functions, also a clothing-like role in the book of Job. Three questions will hence be explored: how 'absence' is to be psychoanalytically interpreted and more specifically, what consequences all of this has on the virtual absence of hair in the Book of Job and, finally, what relevance this absence has for the South African context. CONTRIBUTION: Applying a psychoanalytical perspective to both the body and to absence, the biblical text is contextualised on a broader horizon than what the purely historical-critical approach can render. The additional African context widens the relevance of the ancient book even further. (shrink)

Health technology assessment (HTA) is often biased in the sense that it neglects relevant perspectives on the technology in question. To incorporate different perspectives in HTA, we should pursue agreement about what are relevant, plausible, and feasible research questions; interactive technology assessment (iTA) might be suitable for this goal. In this way a kind of procedural ethics is established. Currently, ethics too often is focussed on the application of general principles, which leaves a lot of confusion as to what really (...) is the matter in specific cases; in an iTA clashes of values should not be approached by use of such ethics. Instead, casuistry, as a tool used within the framework of iTA, should help to articulate and clarify what is the matter, as to make room for explication and consensus building. (shrink)

This study is about the mouth and its parts in the book of Job on the one hand, and on psychic introjection on the other, even when these two aspects do not completely overlap. The dominance of the mouth and orality in this biblical book speaks for its symbolic and psychic implications, including dependency and depression, but also symbolisation and empathy, where psychic digestion is resymbolising what has been desymbolised by trauma. The hypothesis is therefore that the mouth plays a (...) crucial role in the process of mourning in the Book of Job. Contribution: Interdisciplinary research into biblical texts from the perspective of psychoanalytic literary criticism adds to the broader horizons within which these texts can be analysed and interpreted. Within this frame, the focus on the mouth continues and promotes the Bodies Studies movement, which has been blossoming for over 40 years. (shrink)

In this paper it is shown that the most rational of all creatures, Homo Oeconomicus, can be enticed to freely engage in an activity that is guaranteed to lead to his ruin. It is furthermore shown that this is possible if and only if utility functions are unbounded. The paper thus develops an argument in favour of bounded utility functions.