The Dialectical Forge identifies dialectical disputation as a primary formative dynamic in the evolution of pre-modern Islamic legal systems, promoting dialectic from relative obscurity to a more appropriate position at the forefront of Islamic legal studies. The author introduces and develops a dialectics-based analytical method for the study of pre-modern Islamic legal argumentation, examines parallels and divergences between Aristotelian dialectic and early juridical jadal-theory, and proposes a multi-component paradigm—the Dialectical Forge Model—to account for the power of jadal in shaping Islamic (...) law and legal theory.In addition to overviews of current evolutionary narratives for Islamic legal theory and dialectic, and expositions on key texts, this work shines an analytical light upon the considerably sophisticated “proto-system” of juridical dialectical teaching and practice evident in Islam’s second century, several generations before the first “full-system” treatises of legal and dialectical theory were composed. This proto-system is revealed from analyses of dialectical sequences in the 2nd/8th century Kitāb Ikhtilāf al-ʿIrāqiyyīn / ʿIrāqiyyayn through a lens molded from 5th/11th century jadal-theory treatises. Specific features thus uncovered inform the elaboration of a Dialectical Forge Model, whose more general components and functions are explored in closing chapters. (shrink)

Is the Nazi euthanasia program a useful analogy for contemporary discussions of euthanasia? This paper explores the logic of slippery slope arguments with the Nazi analogy as a test case.

The author nationally recognized for the quality and depth of his teaching in religious studies has written the first full-scale introduction to the history and methods of the study of religion.

Whether or not we have any natural right to landownership, like life and liberty, the institution of private property is agood. The utility produced by private property in land is overshadowed by the evils produced by the speculative withholding of supramarginal land unless compensatory payments are required of landowners. Such payments should be made to those living in the same “rental area” and should be of an amount that will eliminate all incentive to land speculation. It is not always either (...) desirable or possible to require that all of one's land value be paid in compensation. and even if such payments could be accomplished, they would not always be enough to redistribute the product stemming from the “monopolization” of real property The proper compensatory payment should reflect real increases in the value of real estate since its purchase, minus the value of improvements to the site made by the owner. (shrink)

WHENCE COMES the idea of justice? The question may seem strange. Yet Hume devoted one entire section of A Treatise of Human Nature to "The origin of justice and property" and returned to the problem in Section III of An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, and John Stuart Mill developed a rival theory in the last chapter of Utilitarianism.

THERE HAS BEEN FOR MANY years a tension between the anarcho-capitalist or free-market anarchist, and the limited government or minarchist wings of the libertarian movement. This dispute has both enriched debate within such institutions as the Libertarian Party, the International Society of Individual Liberty, the Ludwig von Mises Institute, and the Cato Institute, and magazines such as Liberty and Reason, and has engendered greater insights as to the core of the overall philosophy shared by both.1 While this intralibertarian debate has (...) had its staunch supporters on either side, for many participants it has not been a pressing issue. After all, modern society resembles neither vision, and present governments will have to be radically reduced in scope and orientation before the divisions between these two alternatives will become a matter of practical interest. Thus many have agreed that this debate, except as a matter of intellectual curiosity, will have no practical relevance until that happy day when present governments are reduced to, say, 5 percent of their present size and influence.2 But intellectual curiosity and political philosophy are integral parts of libertarianism. Accordingly, analysis of government can. (shrink)

Spinoza exerted a strong pull on many of the German idealists. This paper explores the evidence of Spinoza's influence on Fichte in the latter's 1804 lectures on his Wissenschaftslehre (the second series). Fichte explicitly mentions Spinoza's names only three times, and each of these references is critical of Spinoza. However, there are other important resonances connecting the thinking of these two philosophers, each of whom faced charges of atheism. These include the priority each grants to practical reason, the accounts each (...) gives of what is genuinely ultimate, and their views about how human beings come into relation with the ultimate. (shrink)

Starting from the study of the physical world, we develop the concept of a dual pair, Comparing dual pairs is known as duality. We show that duality is a basic mechanism for our intellectual curiosity.