In this study, W. J. Waluchow argues that debates between defenders and critics of constitutional bills of rights presuppose that constitutions are more or less rigid entities. Within such a conception, constitutions aspire to establish stable, fixed points of agreement and pre-commitment, which defenders consider to be possible and desirable, while critics deem impossible and undesirable. Drawing on reflections about the nature of law, constitutions, the common law, and what it is to be a democratic representative, Waluchow urges a different (...) theory of bills of rights that is flexible and adaptable. Adopting such a theory enables one not only to answer to critics' most serious challenges, but also to appreciate the role that a bill of rights, interpreted and enforced by unelected judges, can sensibly play in a constitutional democracy. (shrink)

This volume contains the editions of polemical texts by Erasmus against Martin Luther and Pierre Cousturier, of his defence against attacks on his oration on matrimony (and celibacy), and of his immensely popular ‘pocket’ edition of the _Disticha Catonis_.

In this article I have tried to rebut certain types of arguments which purport to show not merely that God does not exist but that the notion of necessary existence is itself either self-contradictory or senseless. In showing that it is not self-contradictory I have allowed myself the luxury of a negative and a positive approach. Negatively, I have had to show that when the accusation of self-contradiction is made, it is often accompanied, not by an argument but by a (...) sheer assertion. On the rare occasions when an argument is forthcoming, the arguments, I have tried to show, have been invalid, not even, inconclusive. And to the extent that Kant may be said to have argued not simply the impossibility of a genuine proof of the existence of God, but indeed the impossibility of the concept of necessary existence, I have argued out the weakness of Kant's arguments, the most notable of which I have discussed in some detail. Finally, to establish the genuineness of the concept of necessary existence, positively, I have paradoxically made use of a notion from Russell's logic. (shrink)

Even lawyers who obey the law often seem to act unethically--interfering with the discovery of truth, subverting justice, and inflicting harm on innocent people. Standard arguments within legal ethics attempt to show why it is permissible to do something as a lawyer that it would be wrong to do as an ordinary person. But in the view of most critics these arguments fail to turn wrongs into rights. Even many lawyers think legal ethics is flawed because it does not accurately (...) describe the considerable moral value of their work. In Lawyers and Fidelity to Law, Bradley Wendel introduces a new conception of legal ethics that addresses the concerns of lawyers and their critics alike.Wendel proposes an ethics grounded on the political value of law as a collective achievement that settles intractable conflicts, allowing people who disagree profoundly to live together in a peaceful, stable society. Lawyers must be loyal and competent client representatives, Wendel argues, but these obligations must always be exercised within the law that constitutes their own roles and confers rights and duties upon their clients. Lawyers act unethically when they treat the law as an inconvenient obstacle to be worked around and when they twist and distort it to help their clients do what they are not legally entitled to do. Lawyers and Fidelity to Law challenges lawyers and their critics to reconsider the nature and value of ethical representation. (shrink)

First published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Buddhist meditation practices presuppose that the abstract doctrines of Buddhist teachings can be transformed into individual experiences. In contrast to the assumption of a merely solipsistic phenomenology which focuses on first-person perspectives alone, we would like to propose a sociological extension of this perspective to a relational perspective that includes specific world- and selfreferences. With the empirical case of a long-time practitioner of Theravada Buddhism, we show how the primary focus on individual experiences may be misleading in terms of Buddhist (...) training and how shifts in the first-person perspective only occur through social friction. In this way, we are able to present empirical insights into how individual qualities of meaning become linked to social qualities of meaning, which then can be understood as a process of co-production of individual and social meaning. The empirical basis of this contribution is part of the research project 'Buddhism in the West'. The solution of the problem of life is seen in the vanishing of the problem. (Is not this the reason why those who have found after a long period of doubt that the meaning of life became clear to them have been unable to say what constituted that meaning?) -- Ludwig Wittgenstein (1974, Proposition 6.522) However it is, however it is he touches the arising-and-passing of aggregates: he gains rapture and joy: that, for those who know it, is deathless, the Deathless. --Dhammapada (373/374, Translation: Venerable Thanissaro). (shrink)

Examines an important and controversial topic in lexical semantics: polysemy, the capacity of words to manifest a range of different meanings when employed in different contexts."--Publishers website.

Op basis van de zgn. wijsbegeerte der wetsidee van Dooyeweerd (1894-1977) bouwt de auteur een christelijke, wijsgerige antropologie.

Mitte der fünfziger Jahre entsteht mit den Arbeiten der amerikanischen Linguisten Zellig S. Harris und Noam Chomsky die Theorie der generativen (Transformations-)Grammatiken a) Chomskys Grammatikmodell in den "Aspects" ... b) Entwicklung der Theorie ... nach 1965 ...