The argument laid out in this book discusses and interprets the work of Hobbes in relation to religion. It compares a traditional interpretation of Hobbes where Hobbes’ use of conventional terminology when talking about natural law is seen as ironic or merely convenient despite an atheist viewpoint, with the view that Hobbes’ morality is truly traditional and Christian. The book considers other thinkers of the age in tandem with Hobbes and discusses in detail his theology inspired by corporeal mechanics. The (...) position is that there are significant senses in which Hobbes can be said to be a traditional natural law theorist. (shrink)

This article analyzes the evolution of state capacity in Peru during the recent commodity boom. Peru’s economic growth happened in a context in which inclusive democratic institutions were at play for the longest period ever registered in the country and at a time when political elites decided to invest considerable resources in developing state capacity. This case illustrates how boom-led economic growth can lead to the institutional strengthening of a weak state. However, state capacity continues to be low in Peru. (...) The causal mechanism that yields such continuity differs from those entertained in classic path-dependent explanations of state capacity in Latin America. The article identifies a novel mechanism that helped reproduce the Peruvian path intertemporally. This relational mechanism suggests that state capacity remains low because of the relatively enhanced capacities of state challengers to locally fend off and contest an otherwise much stronger state apparatus. The article argues, on that basis, the need to employ a relational analysis that gauges net state strength with respect to the power acquired by relevant non-state actors who might challenge state authority across different local arenas. Classic conceptualizations of state capacity are indeed relational, but conventional applications are predominantly unilateral and, thus, misleading. Unilateral notions of state capacity are those that focus on either state efforts and investments to assert state capacity or, alternatively, on the presence of challenges that curtail the levels of actually observed state capacity. (shrink)

Doctoral programs at U.S. universities play a critical role in the development of human resources both in the United States and abroad. This volume reports the results of an extensive study of U.S. research-doctorate programs in five broad fields: physical sciences and mathematics, engineering, social and behavioral sciences, biological sciences, and the humanities. Research-Doctorate Programs in the United States documents changes that have taken place in the size, structure, and quality of doctoral education since the widely used 1982 editions. This (...) update provides selected information on nearly 4,000 doctoral programs in 41 subdisciplines at 274 doctorate-granting institutions. This volume also reports the results of the National Survey of Graduate Faculty, which polled a sample of faculty for their views on the scholarly quality of program faculty and the effectiveness of doctoral programs in preparing research scholars/scientists. This much-anticipated update of such an essential reference will be useful to education administrators, university faculty, and students seeking authoritative information on doctoral programs. (shrink)

Las exclusivas del hombre. La mano.--La caricia.--La caricia (continuacíon)--El tiempo.--El tiempo (conclusión).

Three issues related to Feldman and Levin's treatment of biological variability are discussed. We question the usefulness of the indirect component of δλ. We suggest that trade-offs between speed and accuracy in aimed movements support identification of δλ, rather than λ, as a control variable. We take issue with the authors' proposal for resolving redundancy in multi-joint movements, given recent data.

If we are looking for an Ur-explanation for the persistence of the Ur-myth, or any other myth, in our literature, could we not more directly find it in the structure of a mind which does not have to remember in order to imitate? The occasion of both myth and literature is the social life of the species which, in Starobinski's sense, is a history of continual eviction; but as regards the apparatus of thought by which this social life is reflected (...) in art it is more a history of assimilation and repetition. "The work of the brain," to cite a recent article in Scientific American, "is to create a model of a possible world rather than to record and transmit to the mind a world that is metaphysically true…Different worlds are presumably constructed by similar species."1 And, presumably, similar worlds are constructed by similar species. Weisinger hints briefly at something like this in his essay "The Mythic Origins of the Creative Process," but one has the clear impression, as his title suggests, that he would like to have the [myth/ritual] cart before the creative horse.2 However much this may satisfy our longing to crown our literature, if not creativity itself, with a mythic genealogy, it seems a wistful hypothesis. One might just as well look upon the remains of early man's shelters, marvel that they too had roofs, just like ours, and conclude that therefore our roofs have their origin in theirs.· 1. Harry J. Jerison, "Paleoneurology and the Evolution of Mind," Scientific American, January 1976, p. 99.· 2. Herbert Weisinger, The Agony and the Triumph: Papers on the Use and Abuse of Myth , p. 250.Bert O. States, professor of dramatic arts at the University of California at Santa Barbara, is the author of Irony and Drama: A Poetics and The Shape of Paradox: An Essay on "Waiting for Godot.". (shrink)

Explainable AI (XAI) provides methods to understand non-interpretable machine learning models. However, we have little knowledge about what legal experts expect from these explanations, including their legal compliance with, and value against European Union legislation. To close this gap, we present the Explanation Dialogues, an expert focus study to uncover the expectations, reasoning, and understanding of legal experts and practitioners towards XAI, with a specific focus on the European General Data Protection Regulation. The study consists of an online questionnaire and (...) follow-up interviews, and is centered around a use-case in the credit domain. We extract both a set of hierarchical and interconnected codes using grounded theory, and present the standpoints of the participating experts towards XAI. We find that the presented explanations are hard to understand and lack information, and discuss issues that can arise from the different interests of the data controller and subject. Finally, we present a set of recommendations for developers of XAI methods, and indications of legal areas of discussion. Among others, recommendations address the presentation, choice, and content of an explanation, technical risks as well as the end-user, while we provide legal pointers to the contestability of explanations, transparency thresholds, intellectual property rights as well as the relationship between involved parties. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Walking the Bodhisattva Path/Walking the Christ PathU.S. Conference of Catholic BishopsCatholics and Buddhists brought together by Dharma Realm Buddhist Association, the San Francisco Zen Center, and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) met 20-23 March 2003 in the first of an anticipated series of four annual dialogues. Abbot Heng Lyu, the monks and nuns, and members of the Dharma Realm Buddhist Association hosted the dialogue at the (...) City of Ten Thousand Buddhas in Talmage, California. The community had transformed their Confucius Hall into a chapel, with a large, newly constructed wooden cross on a wall above an altar facing out from a raised platform, so the Catholic delegation would have a space for worship. A special poster announcing the theme of the conference, "Walking the Bodhisattva Path/Walking the Christ Path," showing a Buddhist dharma wheel at one foot of a bridge and a Celtic cross at the other foot, had been created by the hosting community.The daily schedule for the dialogue did not interfere with the monastic routine at the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas, which included early morning chanting (4:00-5:00 am), daily rituals in the Buddha Hall, and the single large meal for monastics before noon to which all participants were invited. Catholics and Buddhists meeting in the dialogue began each day with an optional forty-five minutes of quiet sitting together in the monastery meditation hall, each following their own form of meditation and prayer. There was a Eucharist on Friday and Saturday evenings for the Catholics and to which the Buddhists were invited, and additional meals of breakfast and supper throughout the meeting at the City's Jyun Kang Restaurant.Fourteen Buddhists and fourteen Catholics participated in the formal discussions. Each participant spoke on what it means to them to follow Christ or the way of the Bodhisattvas or enlightened beings. In addition to speaking, each participant distributed a short passage, usually from a traditional text, on this topic. Several passages from Master Dogen's Shobogenzo and the Gospel of John were among those shared by the group. Other passages shared were taken from the Avatamsaka Sutra and the Shurangama Sutra and from the other gospels and the writings of Zen master HakuinZenji, the Dalai Lama, Korean Zen Master I-sahn Hye-yeon, the teachings of Master [End Page 247] Hsuan Hua, Shantideva, Origen, St. Ignatius, St. Benedict, the author of The Cloud of Unknowing, St. John of the Cross, and Chiara Lubich. A minute of silence separated the fifteen-minute segments for each presentation. With so large a group, most of the time in the formal sessions involved listening to series of presentations; however, during discussion periods the participants asked several challenging questions of one another.Some participants noted the tension they felt between belonging to a particular religious group and the need to let go of any consequential narrowness. The goal of the discussion was to promote understanding of the differences and similarities between Christianity and Buddhism. At one point, the participants noted several concerns about mutual enrichment: whether Buddhist methods can be separated from Buddhism and Christian methods from Christianity, and what specific aspects of Christian practice truly enrich Buddhists and which Buddhist practices likewise enrich Christians. Several times participants discussed their understanding of terms such as transformation, grace, the incarnation and the passion of Jesus, discernment of spirits, prayer, Buddha-nature, and related terms. There was consensus that Buddhists and Catholics can practically help one another regarding mental cultivation and religious precepts. They expressed this consensus in their choice of the topic forthe next dialogue, "Transformation of Hearts and Minds: Chan/Zen-Catholic Approaches to Precepts."The group agreed to reconvene in 2004 to respond to six presentations, three from each side, on different aspects of this topic.Chairing the sessions were Rev. Heng Sure for the Dharma Realm Buddhist Association, Rev. Taigen Dan Leighton for the San Francisco Zen Center, and Bishop John Webster for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Their three organizations are the sponsors of the Northern California Chan/Zen-Catholic Dialogue. Chan and Zen are respectively the Chinese and Japanese terms for the meditation school... (shrink)

Brunner, Austin Farrer, W.M. Horton, Pierre Maury.

The literature addressing bias and fairness in AI models (fair-AI) is growing at a fast pace, making it difficult for novel researchers and practitioners to have a bird’s-eye view picture of the field. In particular, many policy initiatives, standards, and best practices in fair-AI have been proposed for setting principles, procedures, and knowledge bases to guide and operationalize the management of bias and fairness. The first objective of this paper is to concisely survey the state-of-the-art of fair-AI methods and resources, (...) and the main policies on bias in AI, with the aim of providing such a bird’s-eye guidance for both researchers and practitioners. The second objective of the paper is to contribute to the policy advice and best practices state-of-the-art by leveraging from the results of the NoBIAS research project. We present and discuss a few relevant topics organized around the NoBIAS architecture, which is made up of a Legal Layer, focusing on the European Union context, and a Bias Management Layer, focusing on understanding, mitigating, and accounting for bias. (shrink)

Philologus, founded in 1846, is one of the oldest and most respected periodicals in the field of Classics. It publishes articles on Greek and Latin literature, historiography, philosophy, history of religion, linguistics, reception, and the history of scholarship. The journal aims to contribute to our understanding of Greco-Roman culture and its lasting influence on European civilization. The journal Philologus, conceived as a forum for discussion among different methodological approaches to the study of ancient texts and their reception, publishes original scholarly (...) contributions with a strong international focus. Publications languages are: German, English, Italian, French. As of 2014 the publication of supplementary volumes will be resumed. The series Philologus. Supplemente / Philologus. Supplementary Volumes will publish monographs and edited volumes pertaining to all aspects of the study of ancient literature and its reception, with a special focus on topics concerning literary theory, philosophy and the history of scholarship from an interdisciplinary perspective. (shrink)

Drawing its strength from the UN Charter and UDHR, human rights ethics is a beacon of hope and a promise that requires continuous reaffirmation during these turbulent times. These two documents, with their unwavering faith in ‘fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small,’ have shaped our understanding of human rights as global and universal ethics. However, this faith is now being severely (...) tested by four countercurrents: extremism, exclusionism, selectivism, and populism. These countercurrents pose significant and urgent human rights threats that activists, academics, and policymakers must confront by reasserting the basic core values of the UN Charter and UDHR. (shrink)

Volume 24, Issue 8, August 2024, Page 121-123.

The idea of a state of emergency connotes more than that there is an exceptional political situation which requires an urgent response, one different in nature from normal methods of dealing with political problems. The ‘state’ part of the idea indicates the legally performative, illocutionary nature of the declaration of a state of emergency. A state of emergency is created by the properly formulated speech act of an official with authority to do so. Officials always claim that the declaration responds (...) accurately to the reality of an exceptional situation. But the declaration is supposed to create a new normative order in which governments may act in ways that in ordinary times would be illegal. Thus the idea of a state of emergency is a legal, even constitutional idea. As such, it is strange to the point of paradox. (shrink)

Contemporary nation‐states commonly meet all these criteria simultaneously. But historically, this complex governmental form evolved slowly and partially, with particular characteristics developing unevenly in different locales and becoming generalized over long time periods. The processes of state formation have been strongly influenced by many factors – the transition from feudalism to capitalism, changes in military technology, wars, revolutions, imitative effects, geopolitical situations, the rise of nationalism and of liberal democracy, and the experience of communism, fascism and other forms of ‘exceptional (...) regimes’ in industrialized countries. Within the defining characteristics set out above, there can be many different state variants, with contrasting institutional arrangements. Circumstances quite often arise where most defining characteristics are present but one or several features are missing or called in question – creating difficult cases where the attribution of statehood becomes problematic. (shrink)

The fall of the Berlin Wall in October 1989 bears a striking resonance with the biblical fracturing of the curtain in the Jerusalem temple. It presaged the death of the post-war dispensation of Church-state relations characterised by a Church that was, in the main, subservient, acquiescent and complicit to the apartheid regime in South Africa, as well as the oppressive one-party state regimes north of the Limpopo. As the Berlin Wall collapsed, the dispensation characterised by either neutrality or docility and (...) co-option of the Church to the Apartheid and Independent states gave way to the birth of a 'prophetic' Church, which would not only gain a new lease on life, but would become a robust interlocutor of the post-Cold War state. The latter is exemplified by historical signposts such as the Rustenburg Declaration, the Pastoral letter of the Zambia Catholic Bishops Conference and the Pastoral letter by the Catholic Bishops of Malawi, among others. This paper is an analytical desktop study, which will be based on the published literature. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.This work is in the public domain in (...) the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

The self evolved out of a sense of somatic motor orientation and body boundary awareness; and affective states as motivators furthered in conjunction with a sense of self evolutionary speciation. Affective states form to a greater extent than cognition the sense of experiential reality that is taken for granted. Neurophysiological and experiential culture-invariant evidence indicate the existence of eight (and possibly ten) basic affective states in mammals. These affective states have in humans found expression in mythic terms as well as (...) in the basic themes of world literature. According to classical Indian introspective analysis of aesthetics the basic emotions determine human activity and are the well- spring of literature and art, especially if the emotions become dis- sociated from a sense of egocentricity, i.e. if they become detached from a sense of self so that they no longer are in uenced by ex- istential fear. The comparatively close similarity between Indian aesthetics and the neurophysiology of the different affective states suggests the possibility that such aesthetic value judgments may be based on widespread evolutionary determinants. (shrink)

Bennett and Schumacher’s postselected quantum teleportation is a model of closed timelike curves (CTCs) that leads to results physically different from Deutsch’s model. We show that even a single qubit passing through a postselected CTC (P-CTC) is sufficient to do any postselected quantum measurement with certainty, and we discuss an important difference between “Deutschian” CTCs (D-CTCs) and P-CTCs in which the future existence of a P-CTC might affect the present outcome of an experiment. Then, based on a suggestion of Bennett (...) and Smith, we explicitly show how a party assisted by P-CTCs can distinguish a set of linearly independent quantum states, and we prove that it is not possible for such a party to distinguish a set of linearly dependent states. The power of P-CTCs is thus weaker than that of D-CTCs because the Holevo bound still applies to circuits using them, regardless of their ability to conspire in violating the uncertainty principle. We then discuss how different notions of a quantum mixture that are indistinguishable in linear quantum mechanics lead to dramatically differing conclusions in a nonlinear quantum mechanics involving P-CTCs. Finally, we give explicit circuit constructions that can efficiently factor integers, efficiently solve any decision problem in the intersection of NP and coNP, and probabilistically solve any decision problem in NP. These circuits accomplish these tasks with just one qubit traveling back in time, and they exploit the ability of postselected closed timelike curves to create grandfather paradoxes for invalid answers. (shrink)

The processes of state formation in the agrarian states of Southeast Asia lend themselves to fruitful comparative analysis using Eliasian concepts. However, in the difficult physical environment of a region endowed with plentiful land relative to population, the control of labour was more important than control of territory, as demonstrated by the cases of Siam and Java. Moreover, the religious, ceremonial and symbolic significance of kingship remained very important even when the coercive power of the centre was weak. Courts made (...) absolutist claims, but their dominance depended on symbolic power and on complex intrigues and networks of patronage. Elias is useful to analyse these endogenous processes of state formation. However, the modern states of the region were forged by colonialism, nationalist movements and the more recent technocratic developmentalist programmes of authoritarian elites. Rapid economic transformation and industrialization have brought new classes and new tensions to test the adequacy of state structures, now far removed from the elite territorial competition of the past. (shrink)

INTRODUCTION: BUILDING DEMOCRATIC STATES ON NATIONAL DIVERSITY Mohammad-Saïd Darviche & William Genieys Juan J. Linz is one of the most famous scholars in ...

The comparison between the concept state of nature, as it appears in the contractualist theories of XVII and XVIII centuries, and the original position of the the- ory of justice by John Rawls, reveals the assumptions, difficulties and limitations of the latter. In spite of its claims, the original position does not justify the search and existence of a well ordered society, and it is far away from reach the brightness and coherence with which their predecessors argued on behalf of (...) societies where safety, freedom or equality ruled. Besides, Rawls, on amounting justice to a material welfare which must arrive, does not know the important role that the historical memory plays when claiming the resolution of the injustices from the pastLa comparación entre el concepto de estado de naturaleza, tal y como aparece en las teorías contractualistas de los siglos XVII y XVIII, y la posición original de la teoría de la justicia de John Rawls, sirve para poner de manifiesto los supuestos, dificultades y limitaciones de esta última. A pesar de sus pretensiones, la posición original no justifica la búsqueda y existencia de una sociedad bien ordenada, y está lejos de alcanzar la brillantez y coherencia con la que sus antecesores argumentaron a favor de sociedades donde reinara la seguridad, la libertad o la igualdad. Además, Rawls, al reducir la justicia a un bienestar material que ha de llegar, desconoce el importante papel que la memoria histórica desempeña a la hora de reclamar la resolución de las injusticias del pasado. (shrink)

The philosophical problem of the correspondence between what we think, what we say and 'what there is' is a perennial one. At the beginning of the Sophistical Refutations (1, 165a7-9), for example, Aristotle gives a synthetic formulation of it: since 'it is impossible in a discussion to bring in the actual things discussed: we use their names as symbols instead of them; and we suppose that what follows in the names, follows in the things as well' (Aristotle 1984, I, 278). (...) But whereas this diffi culty pertains to language (or thought) in general, it becomes remarkably acute when the linguistic expressions at stake are not simple names, but bearers of truth and falsity, namely, statements or, to use the medieval word for it, propositions. Th is chapter addresses the following question: did medieval authors consider that just as names signify things, propositions, too, are semantically related to special objects-- and if so, what kind of things did they think those special objects are? I shall begin with two short introductory remarks about the notion of state of aff airs (SOA) as well as the identifi cation criteria for the theories describing them before the technical category of SOA was coined (Sections 1 and 2); I shall then give a survey of the fi ve main types of medieval answers given to the question of the nature of SOAs (Section 3); fi nally, I shall briefl y compare the medieval conceptions with (some) later, that is late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century, as well as contemporary theories of SOAs (Section 4). (shrink)