In this paper I argue that the existence of human reason gives us good reason to suppose that God exists. If the world were as the materialist supposes it is, then we would not be able to reason to the conclusion that this is so. This contention is often challenged by the claim that mental and physical explanations can be given for the same event. But a close examination of the question of explanatory compatibility reveals that the sort of explanation (...) that would have to be given for the event of, say, inferring that atheism is true, is incompatible with the event being explicable as a purely physical product of a purely physical universe. (shrink)

In our exchange in the book, C. S. Lewis’s Christian Apologetics: Pro and Con, edited by Gregory Bassham, David Kyle Johnson argued that four naturalistic views, property dualism, the identity theory, epiphenomenalism, and eliminative materialism, can all meet the challenge posed by a C. S. Lewis–style argument from reason. I maintain that his response fails to take into account what a consistent naturalism is committed to, and that his defenses of these positions fail to put those positions in the clear.

THIS PAPER IS A DISCUSSION OF MACKIE’S HUMEAN ARGUMENT THAT MIRACLES CANNOT PLAY A ROLE IN A CASE FOR THEISM. I ARGUE THAT MACKIE IS MISTAKEN IN CONTENDING THAT MIRACLES CANNOT FORM PART OF A CASE FOR THEISM. IF THERE IS EVIDENCE THAT CERTAIN EVENTS DEVIATE FROM THE ORDINARY COURSE OF NATURE, AND IF AFFIRMING THE EXISTENCE OF GOD WOULD RENDER THAT EVIDENCE MORE COMPREHENSIBLE THAN OTHERWISE, THEN IT MUST BE ADMITTED THAT EVIDENCE THAT THESE EVENTS HAVE OCCURRED IS EVIDENCE (...) THAT GOD EXISTS. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction The Nature of the Argument The History of the Argument Subdividing the Argument Five Popular Objections References.

Parsa-Parsi et al systematically discuss and elucidate contentious and non-controversial ethical issues that emerged during the ICoME (International Code of Medical Ethics) revision process and the consensus they achieved. The ethical issues discussed include the physician’s duty to act in the best interests of patients and to ensure they are protected from the unjustifiable risk of harm, respect for patient autonomy and the duties of physicians during emergencies, among others. This paper examines paragraph 26, which requires doctors to provide only (...) medically justified remote treatment, ensure patients offer informed consent and adequately protect their confidentiality.1 At the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, many countries in Europe and America implemented remote-by-default healthcare policies. At that time, the policy aimed to ensure that patients enjoyed continued access to care while protecting healthcare professionals’ health and well-being. After the COVID-19 pandemic, this policy remained in place. Regardless of the nature of their ailment, patients have consistently preferred in-person care out of concern that their health issues might not be accurately diagnosed and that they may not receive quality care …. (shrink)

Two hundred and twenty-six state employees completed a structured questionnaire that investigated their ethical values and training needs. Top management were more likely to have attitudes against cronyism and giving advantage to others. Individuals higher in the organizational hierarchy, and female employees were more likely to believe that discriminatory practices were an ethical concern. In addition, employees with a larger number of clients outside of the organization were more supportive of the need to maintain strict confidentiality in business dealings. Employees'' (...) awareness and use of the organization''s code of conduct generally proved to be poor predictors of ethical values. Other analyses revealed that a variety of sociodemographic factors, job characteristics and ethical values predicted specific areas of training needs in ethics. (shrink)

The book outlines the contribution of passivity to the constitution of phenomena as diverse as temporal syntheses, perceptual associations, memory fulfillment and cross-cultural communication.

This book examines leadership strategies that allow administrators to be proactive, visionary, and flexible while increasing collaboration, open communication, and closely integrating theory and practice to ensure successful administration in higher education settings.

Western scholarship on religion and gender has devoted considerable attention to women’s entry into leadership roles across various religious traditions and denominations. However, very little is known about the dynamics of women’s religious authority and leadership in developing settings, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, a region of powerful and diverse religious expressions. This study employs a combination of uniquely rich and diverse data to examine women’s formal religious authority in a predominantly Christian setting in Mozambique. I first use survey data to (...) test hypotheses regarding the prevalence and patterns of women’s formal leadership across different denominational groups. I then support and extend the quantitative results with insights on pathways and consequences of women’s ascent to formal congregation authority drawn from qualitative data. The analysis illustrates how women’s religious authority both defies and reasserts the gendered constraints of the religious marketplace and the broader gender ideology in this developing context. (shrink)

Presented in the form of an acrostic, the text offers six entries. It begins with the Japanese term nagori, the etymology of which is in nami-nokori, ‘remains of the waves’, to refer to the ephemeral imprints left by the waves as they withdraw from the beach. The modern word nagori carries a more general sense of resignation, of a destiny that cannot be changed, of things that pass. The opening entry, for example, refers to our present time as the nagori (...) of photography – as being ‘everywhere’ even before being shattered and scattered by the internet, by social media and cameras in mobile phones. Underlying the six entries is specific reference to the work of Roland Barthes, notably as a form of writing with Barthes, not about him. As such, and as the final contribution to a special issue of Theory, Culture & Society, ‘Neutral Life/Late Barthes’, this opens up for the ‘reader’ a specific practice and politics of writing. (shrink)

Excerpt from Les Sceptiques Grecs Enfin le doute lui-meme n'est pas le scepticisme. C'est du doute seulement qu'on pourrait dire qu'il est a peu pres contem porain de la pensee humaine; car, pour un esprit qui reflechit, la decouverte de la premiere erreur suffit a inspirer une certaine defiance de soi; et combien de temps a-t-il fallu a des esprits un peu attentifs pour s'apercevoir qu'ils s'etaient plus d'une fois trompee? About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of (...) rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

Célestin Freinet était un innovateur, et ses racines pédagogiques et intellectuelles expliquent les origines de ses idées, celles du Mouvement Freinet.

The place of men in reproductive and contraceptive changes and the role of informal social interaction in these processes have become central themes in recent research on fertility change in sub-Saharan Africa and other developing regions. These two themes, however, have been treated separately in the literature, and this study bridges them by examining men's informal communication on family planning matters through a gender lens. This analysis, based on qualitative data collected in Greater Maputo, Mozambique, indicates that although men's communication (...) on these matters is limited in comparison to women's communication, it nonetheless plays an important role in the formation of men's reproductive and contraceptive attitudes and preferences. Gender ideology emerges as a powerful delimiter of men's communication circles and of the information transmitted in those circles. The author argues that gender barriers in peer communication affect individuals' perceptions of reproductive and contraceptive matters and their corresponding preferences and decisions. (shrink)

In this article I argue that there are two different types of understanding: the understanding we get from explanations, and the understanding we get from unification. This claim is defended by first showing that explanation and unification are not as closely related as has sometimes been thought. A critical appraisal of recent proposals for understanding without explanation leads us to discuss the example of a purely classificatory biology: it turns out that such a science can give us understanding of the (...) world through unification of the phenomena, even though it does not give us any explanations. The two types of understanding identified in this paper, while strictly separate, do have in common that both consist in seeing how the individual phenomena of the universe hang together. Explanations give us connections between the phenomena through the asymmetric, ‘vertical’ relation of determination; unifications give us connections through the symmetric, ‘horizontal’ relation of kinship. We then arrive at a general definition of understanding as knowledge of connections between the phenomena, and indicate that there might be more than two types of understanding. (shrink)

This article explores the possibility of a notion of left-wing populism that is conceptually opposed to the identitarian logic of embodiment that characterises right-populist interpellations of ‘th...

J. L. Mackie famously argued that a commitment to non-existent objective values permeates ordinary moral thought and discourse. According to a standard interpretation, Mackie construed this commitment as a universal and indeed essential feature of moral judgments. In this paper I argue that we should rather ascribe to Mackie a form of semantic pluralism, according to which not all moral judgments involve the commitment to objective values. This interpretation not only makes better sense of what Mackie actually says, but also (...) renders his error theory immune to a powerful objection. (shrink)

In this article I give a unified account of three phenomena: bullshit, pseudoscience and pseudophilosophy. My aims are partly conceptual, partly evaluative. Drawing on Harry Frankfurt's seminal analysis of bullshit, I give an account of the three phenomena and of how they are related, and I use this account to explain what is bad about all three. More specifically, I argue that what is defective about pseudoscience and pseudophilosophy is precisely that they are special cases of bullshit. Apart from raising (...) interesting philosophical issues, gaining a clearer understanding of these phenomena is also of practical importance, in that it bears on how best to tackle the threat that they pose. (shrink)

The text of Ephesians 6:10–20 reframes the sectors of what we know as ‘spiritual warfare’ to tackle demons that menace and disturb people’s daily life. Reading this text from an African perspective helps to understand the text as well as believers in Africa to efficiently use the proposed weapons.Contribution: An approach such as an intercultural criticism with the aid of a four-legged stool model in this research proved to be appropriate.

Central to Watts and Newson’s argument in their seminal paper ‘ Is there a duty to routinely reinterpret genomic variant classifications? ’ is that diagnostic laboratories are not morally obligated to actively reinterpret variants of uncertain significance (VUS) due to the superior outcomes offered by next-generation sequencing (NGS) compared with traditional methods.1 NGS technologies can identify, analyse and interpret millions of genetic variations at once. For example, ‘the use of conventional molecular assays in clinical contexts could require doing a lot (...) of assays for various mutations. Using these different assays, more tissue may be required. These targets can accurately be questioned using NGS technology in a single test.’2 If NGS-based genomic sequencing is reliable and its output outweighs the potential harm of uncertainties, then, it is plausible to say that those test providers cannot incur a moral duty to actively reinterpret VUS because there won’t be any need to do so.1 Despite its seeming reliability, diagnostic laboratories face enormous challenges in implementing NGS-based …. (shrink)