Andrzej BOROWSKI JUSTUS LIPSIUS AND THE CLASSICAL TRADITION IN POLAND It was actually the Romanticism that created — as elsewhere in Europe ...

Many scholars have claimed that satire is a genre. At the same time, however, it is also widely acknowledged that satire has changed over the centuries, that it has taken various forms and that it still appears in a variety of other genres. Far from being a drawback in identifying satire as a genre, I will claim that variability is a natural property of genres if the latter are conceived of as dynamic cognitive categories that emerge out of a complex (...) interplay of heterogeneous factors which cluster differently under the effect of different contextual and cotextual attractors. I will assume that, in satire, these factors include a range of linguistic and rhetorical devices which interact in different ways to dynamically bring about specifically intended effects. I will further claim that understanding satire is a context-sensitive complex process which implies setting up and maintaining multiple mental representations, and drawing pragmatic inferences. (shrink)

What happens when someone acts? A familiar answer goes like this. There is something that the agent wants, and there is an action that he believes conducive to its attainment. His desire for the end, and his belief in the action as a means, justify taking the action, and they jointly cause an intention to take it, which in turn causes the corresponding movements of the agent's body. I think that the standard story is flawed in several respects. The flaw (...) that will concern me in this paper is that the story fails to include an agent-or, more precisely, fails to cast the agent in his proper role. (shrink)

Providing an original and systematic treatment of foundational issues in philosophy of religion, J. L. Schellenberg's new book addresses the structure of..

The contributions in this volume analyze different moments of intercultural negotiation within the history of Latin literature and look into the dynamic process of appropriation that guarantees its continuity.

Abstract I argue that meaning in life is importantly influenced by bioloical ties. More specifically, I maintain that knowing one's relatives and especially one's parents provides a kind of self-knowledge that is of irreplaceable value in the life-task of identity formation. These claims lead me to the conclusion that it is immoral to create children with the intention that they be alienated from their bioloical relatives?for example, by donor conception.

Retributive theories of punishment argue that punishing a criminal for a crime she committed is sufficient reason for a justified and morally permissible punishment. But what about when the state gets lucky in its decision to punish? I argue that retributive theories of punishment are subject to “Gettier” style cases from epistemology. Such cases demonstrate that the state needs more than to just get lucky, and as these retributive theories of punishment stand, there is no anti-luck condition. I’ll argue that (...) Gettier-style cases demonstrate an impermissible instance of punishment, even though they meet the conditions of retributive theories of punishment. Retributive theories are, therefore, too weak. The safety condition from epistemology provides the anti-luck condition needed for permissible punishment. I argue that two forms of retributivism, rights-forfeiture and what I call standard retributivism, are both subject to Gettier-style cases. Unlike the literature on standards of proof, this paper argues that safety is a condition on punishment itself, i.e., in all nearby possible worlds, the accuser must correctly accuse the convicted for the crime they actually committed. (shrink)

J.L. Schellenberg offers a path to a new kind of religious outlook. Reflection on our early stage in the evolutionary process leads to skepticism about religion, but also offers a new answer to the problem of faith and reason, and the possibility of a new, evolutionary form of religion.

Supervaluationism is often described as the most popular semantic treatment of indeterminacy. There’s little consensus, however, about how to fill out the bare-bones idea to include a characterization of logical consequence. The paper explores one methodology for choosing between the logics: pick a logic thatnorms beliefas classical consequence is standardly thought to do. The main focus of the paper considers a variant of standard supervaluational, on which we can characterizedegrees of determinacy. It applies the methodology above to focus ondegree logic. (...) This is developed first in a basic, single-premise case; and then extended to the multipremise case, and to allowdegreesof consequence. The metatheoretic properties of degree logic are set out. On the positive side, the logic is supraclassical—all classical valid sequents are degree logic valid. Strikingly, metarules such as cut and conjunction introduction fail. (shrink)

Hailed by the Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society as "undoubtedly a major addition to the literature of mathematical logic," this volume examines the essential topics and theorems of mathematical reasoning. No background in logic is assumed, and the examples are chosen from a variety of mathematical fields. Starting with an introduction to symbolic logic, the first eight chapters develop logic through the restricted predicate calculus. Topics include the statement calculus, the use of names, an axiomatic treatment of the statement (...) calculus, descriptions, and equality. Succeeding chapters explore abstract set theory—with examinations of class membership as well as relations and functions—cardinal and ordinal arithmetic, and the axiom of choice. An invaluable reference book for all mathematicians, this text is suitable for advanced undergraduates and graduate students. Numerous exercises make it particularly appropriate for classroom use. (shrink)