An appeal to the inexplicable has always been a favourite tactic of the Supernaturalist; and even today those Supernaturalists that remain seem to derive some comfort from it. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, for example, the orthodox Protestant apologetic in this country laid great stress on the ‘inexplicable’ events allegedly associated with Christ's life as anthenticating the truths of revelation. A more general thesis has been put forward as often, and even more often assumed: that the occurrence of inexplicable (...) events demonstrates the reality of a ‘spiritual’ realm. And in current literature we can find it claimed that the hegemony of science or the tenability of materialism is threatened by those inexplicabilities which are now known as the phenomena of ESP. (shrink)

Environment and Philosophy provides an accessible introduction to the radical challenges that environmentalism pose to concepts that have become almost second nature in the modern world. Written in an accessible way for those without a background in philosophy, this text examines ways of thinking about ourselves, nature and our relationship with nature.

For Leibniz, it was a requirement upon the `fundamentally real' to have a `principle of unity'. What does this mean?One general point is that Substance cannot be understood as pure extension. But there is a particular point about cohesion: a real thing had to have some means by which its parts were stuck together. But Leibniz' insistence on `unity' is also an insistence on indivisibility. Under this head there is first the point that there appears to be a contradiction between (...) extension and being incapable of being cut in two. Second, Leibniz uses the notion of `indivisibility' to mark the following distinction among things made up of parts: those which cannot be split without being destroyed; and the rest . To be `indivisible' is to be of the first type. Leibniz' insistence that the truly real must be `indivisible' is then his insistence that the truly real, if it is made up of parts, must be a thing with `integrity', i.e. not an aggregate.What does Leibniz think of as the connection between what is truly real and the possession of `integrity'? He took from Scholasticism the doctrine that action is necessarily attributed to a substance having `integrity', contructing what was in effect a theory of action with two parts: only self-subsistent substances can act; and an action is an origination of change. Leibniz thus insists that self-subsistent substances must be indivisible, in the sense that they cannot be mere aggregates. Aggregates cannot act, and self-subsistence in effect is the capacity for action. This is the most fundamental reason Leibniz had for insisting that the truly real must have a `principle of unity'.It is misleading to speak of Leibniz reintroducing the Scholastic form-and-matter conception of substance for the following reasons: the Scholastic `form' precisely lacked a `principle of action'; and during the period when it is suggested that Leibniz' conception was essentially Scholastic he was defending the view that what his `form' informed was not matter at all but what he called a `metaphysical point'. (shrink)

It has been claimed that in a single line of development the science of taxonomy stretches from Aristotle to the present day and that the Aristotelian 'essence' lies at the heart of much later thought about grouping. I try to establish some basic features of Aristotle's conception of 'essence', and then consider in more detail the conception of essence that entered into 18th century thought about classification, with a view to establishing discontinuities. 18th century thought, I note, has two kinds (...) of essence, real and nominal, and I consider the view that a 'natural' classification in that context should be understood as one which is based on real essences. In place of this thesis, I advocate the view that the hidden foundation of 18th century systematics is a very restrictive articulation of the visual field which gives sense to the possibility of grouping according to the sum total of observable similarities and differences: and that it is this possibility that a 'natural' classification was conceived of as realising. (shrink)

The rationale for the common rejection of classical societal functionalism is that it entails treating a society as an intelligent purposer, capable of directing its own internal organization in furtherance of survival. But a more acceptable alternative account of the origins of a society's functional organization is conceivable: the individual unconsciously recognizes the needs of his group and directs his behaviour so that they are met. The plausibility of this explanation hangs on whether selection between groups occurs to any significant (...) extent, however, and it is therefore on this question that the plausibility of classical societal functionalism itself depends. (shrink)

Published in the year 2004, Philosophy and the Social Sciences is a valuable contribution to the field of Sociology.

A sentence of first-order logic is satisfiable if it is true in some structure, and finitely satisfiable if it is true in some finite structure. The question arises as to whether there exists an algorithm for determining whether a given formula of first-order logic is satisfiable, or indeed finitely satisfiable. This question was answered negatively in 1936 by Church and Turing (for satisfiability) and in 1950 by Trakhtenbrot (for finite satisfiability).In contrast, the satisfiability and finite satisfiability problems are algorithmically solvable (...) for restricted subsets---or, as we say, fragments---of first-order logic, a fact which is today of considerable interest in Computer Science. This book provides an up-to-date survey of the principal axes of research, charting the limits of decision in first-order logic and exploring the trade-off between expressive power and complexity of reasoning. Divided into three parts, the book considers for which fragments of first-order logic there is an effective method for determining satisfiability or finite satisfiability. Furthermore, if these problems are decidable for some fragment, what is their computational complexity? Part I focusses on fragments defined by restricting the set of available formulas. Topics covered include the Aristotelian syllogistic and its relatives, the two-variable fragment, the guarded fragment, the quantifier-prefix fragments and the fluted fragment. Part II investigates logics with counting quantifiers. Starting with De Morgan's numerical generalization of the Aristotelian syllogistic, we proceed to the two-variable fragment with counting quantifiers and its guarded subfragment, explaining the applications of the latter to the problem of query answering in structured data. Part III concerns logics characterized by semantic constraints, limiting the available interpretations of certain predicates. Taking propositional modal logic and graded modal logic as our cue, we return to the satisfiability problem for two-variable first-order logic and its relatives, but this time with certain distinguished binary predicates constrained to be interpreted as equivalence relations or transitive relations. The work finishes, slightly breaching the bounds of first-order logic proper, with a chapter on logics interpreted over trees. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Notes References.

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 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. 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)

We can't understand ourselves or our world without knowing God. Designed for formal or informal study, this book explores God's plan, works, and attributes and answers key questions about him.

This new translation of The Upanishads is at once delightfully simple and rigorously learned, providing today's readers with an accurate, accessible rendering of the core work of ancient Indian philosophy. The Upanishads are often considered the most important literature from ancient India. Yet many academic translators fail to capture the work's philosophical and spiritual subtlety, while others convey its poetry at the cost of literal meaning. This new translation by Vernon Katz and Thomas Egenes fills the need for an (...) Upanishads that is clear, simple, and insightful - yet remains faithful to the original Sanskrit. As Western Sanskrit scholars who have spent their lives immersed in meditative practice, Katz and Egenes offer a unique perspective in penetrating the depths of Eastern wisdom and expressing these insights in modern yet poetic language. Their historical introduction is suited to newcomers and experienced readers alike, providing the perfect entry to this unparalleled work. (shrink)

The principal findings of experimental economics are that impersonal exchange in markets converges in repeated interaction to the equilibrium states implied by economic theory, under information conditions far weaker than specified in the theory. In personal, social, and economic exchange, as studied in two-person games, cooperation exceeds the prediction of traditional game theory. This book relates these two findings to field studies and applications and integrates them with the main themes of the Scottish Enlightenment and with the thoughts of F. (...) A. Hayek. (shrink)