Peter Abelard (1079–1142 ce) was the most wide‐ranging philosopher of the twelfth century. He quickly established himself as a leading teacher of logic in and near Paris shortly after 1100. After his affair with Heloise, and his subsequent castration, Abelard became a monk, but he returned to teaching in the Paris schools until 1140, when his work was condemned by a Church Council at Sens. His logical writings were based around discussion of the “Old Logic”: Porphyry's Isagoge, aristotle'S Categories and (...) On Interpretation and boethius'S textbook on topical inference. They comprise a freestanding Dialectica (“Logic”; probably c.1116), a set of commentaries (known as the Logica [Ingredientibus], c. 1119) and a later (c. 1125) commentary on the Isagoge (Logica Nostrorum Petititoni Sociorum or Glossulae). In a work Abelard called his Theologia, issued in three main versions (between 1120 and c.1134), he attempted a logical analysis of trinitarian relations and explored the philosophical problems surrounding God's claims to omnipotence and omniscience. The Collationes (“Debates,” also known as “Dialogue between a Christian, a Philosopher and a Jew”; probably c.1130) present a rational investigation into the nature of the highest good, in which the Christian and the Philosopher (who seems to be modeled on a philosopher of pagan antiquity) are remarkably in agreement. The unfinished Scito teipsum (“Know thyself,” also known as the “Ethics”; c.1138) analyses moral action. (shrink)

Information is a recognized fundamental notion across the sciences and humanities, which is crucial to understanding physical computation, communication, and human cognition. The Philosophy of Information brings together the most important perspectives on information. It includes major technical approaches, while also setting out the historical backgrounds of information as well as its contemporary role in many academic fields. Also, special unifying topics are high-lighted that play across many fields, while we also aim at identifying relevant themes for philosophical reflection. There (...) is no established area yet of Philosophy of Information, and this Handbook can help shape one, making sure it is well grounded in scientific expertise. As a side benefit, a book like this can facilitate contacts and collaboration among diverse academic milieus sharing a common interest in information. . First overview of the formal and technical issues involved in the philosophy of information . Integrated presentation of major mathematical approaches to information, form computer science, information theory, and logic . Interdisciplinary themes across the traditional boundaries of natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities. (shrink)

One of the most controversial issues that divided Islamic philosophers and theologians during the Middle Ages was whether human beings would have a spiritual or bodily existence after death. The idea of a world of image was conceived as a solution, suggesting that there exists a world of non-physical bodies, beyond our earthly existence. This world may be reached in sleep, in meditation or after death.From the embryonic conception by Ibn Sina, to the radical rethinking by Suhrawardi and Shahrazuri into (...) a sophisticated system, L. W. C. van Lit unravels the history of this idea. Using a distant reading approach for measuring the transmission, he further shows how the idea remained relevant for Muslim thinkers through the centuries, up until today. (shrink)

The Neuroethics Affinity Group of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities met for the third time in October 2007 to review progress in the field of neuroethics and consider high-impact priorities for the future. Closely aligned with ASBH's own goals of recruiting junior scholars to bioethics and mentoring them to successful careers, the Neuroethics Affinity Group placed a call for new ideas to be presented at the Group meeting, specifically by junior attendees. One group responded with the idea to (...) probe a new direction for neuroethics focused on the neuroscience of gender differences. In the spirit of full disclosure, two of the authors are a student and fellow of the program I formerly directed at Stanford University. The third is junior faculty there. The intellectual ownership of the ideas in the report below, however, are entirely theirs. Like lit torches in a juggling act, there are many directions this project can go. The report is a snapshot of these authors' first iteration of the concept of women's neuroethics. Many thanks are extended to participants of the ASBH Neuroethics Affinity Group meeting whose enthusiasm and feedback was immensely helpful in shaping the concept and moving it ahead. - Judy Illes, Editor AJOB-Neuroscience. (shrink)

Some of the basic terminology of Yogācāra philosophy needs reevaluation. Whereas commentaries almost universally gloss the term dvaya ('duality') with some version of the phrase grāhya grāhaka ca (lit. 'grasped and grasper', but usually translated as 'subject and object'), in fact this gloss is absent from the earliest strata. The term and its gloss are derived from separate streams of Yogācāra reasoning - one from discussions of linguistic conceptualization and the other from discussions of perception. Once we see that these (...) two are distinct, it becomes clear that the commentarial literature asserts their identity in order to philosophically unify Yogācāra thought. One upshot of this is that even in this later assertion 'duality' refers not to the distinction between internal and external reality (as in 'textbook' Yogācāra), but to the falsely projected distinction between mental subjects and mental objects. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Rita Gross as Coeditor of Buddhist-Christian StudiesTerry C. MuckMy assignment is to celebrate Rita's editorial work on Buddhist-Christian Studies, the journal of our society. But I want to begin by acknowledging Rita's contributions to the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies overall. Her contributions to our society have been enormous. She was a founder and visionary at the beginning. She has, I believe, held every office in the society except for (...) treasurer. And her unfailing willingness to work on whatever needed to be worked on has been an inspiration to us all.But now I want to focus on her work on the editing of Buddhist-Christian Studies. I was chosen for this because Rita and I were coeditors of the journal for ten years, from 1995 to 2005.In one sense Rita and I were guinea pigs. For the first fifteen years of the society, David Chappell, the founding editor, edited the journal. When David retired, the board decided that it would be good to have two editors of the journal, one a Buddhist, one a Christian. It was also in keeping with society commitments that one of us was a man and one a woman.The question was whether two very different people could make a coeditorship work. Coeditorships do not always work. There are two issues. The first is choosing people who actually have the skills to do the job. Coeditorships seem like a great idea when decision makers are wrestling with the internal politics of an organization, especially the issues of proper representation among office holders. In order to avoid appearing to favor one or another identity group within an organization, office-holding choices are often made according to representation rather than skill sets.There is a second issue with coeditorships. Even when the chosen pair satisfies both the representational needs of an organization and the skill sets requirements, there is a question as to whether these two particular people can work together well enough to produce a good journal, whether their work styles mesh, whether their personalities have a reasonable chance of relating positively. In case you are thinking to yourselves, this sounds like my marriage, the analogy is apt.So I would like to spend a few moments remembering for you how this worked with Rita and me. My conclusion is that is worked very well, and I have heard Rita say that from her point of view it worked very well. And there are ten volumes of [End Page 85] Buddhist-Christian Studies sitting on many of our shelves, silent testimonies to the fact that this coeditorship worked well enough so that the journal came out, came out on time, and produced essays and reviews that furthered the aims of the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies.My recollections will be in the form of personal anecdotes and stories, since to my mind that is really what made it the fun, voluntary endeavor that the work of the society has become for many of us. I will talk about Rita, I will talk about the editing process, and I will reflect a bit on the challenges and rewards of coediting.Rita GrossI first saw Rita Gross at one of the early meetings of the forerunner of the society, the Cobb-Abe dialogue group. It was at a press conference called by the organizers of the meeting to get some publicity. Rita was being interviewed along with a male scholar who shall remain nameless. I remember two things about the press conference. One was that Rita was wearing a pair of platform shoes that appeared to me to be tippy, and I remember thinking how hard it must be to balance oneself while wearing those things. The second thing I remember was the dynamics between Rita and the male scholar. The male scholar was coming across toward her as one of the most condescending people I have ever seen, and those of you who know Rita know that she does not take to patronization very well. After the second or third of these snide comments coming Rita's way from this very famous man, she just lit into him... (shrink)

The World of Image in Islamic Philosophy: Ibn Sīnā, Suhrawardī, Shahrazūrī, and Beyond. By L. W. C. van Lit. Edinburgh Studies in Islamic Apocalypticism and Eschatology, vol. 2. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2017. Pp. viii + 278. $110, £75.

Among Digitized Manuscripts: Philology, Codicology, Paleography in a Digital World. By L. W. C. van Lit. Handbook of Oriental Studies, I, vol. 137. Leiden: Brill, 2020. Pp. xi + 333. $150, €125, open access: https://brill.com/view/title/56196.

In various publications over the past years, Floridi has developed a theory of semantic information as well-formed, meaningful, and truthful data. This theory is more or less orthogonal to the standard entropy-based notions of information known from physics, information theory, and computer science that all define the amount of information in a certain system as a scalar value without any direct semantic implication. In this context the question rises what the exact relation between these various conceptions of information is and (...) whether there is a real need to enrich these mathematically more or less rigid definitions with a less formal notion of semantic information. I investigate various philosophical aspects of the more formal definitions of information in the light of Floridi’s theory. The position I defend is that the formal treatment of the notion of information as a general theory of entropy is one of the fundamental achievements of modern science that in itself is a rich source for new philosophical reflection. This makes information theory a competitor of classical epistemology rather than a servant. In this light Floridi’s philosophy of information is more a reprise of classical epistemology that only pays lip service to information theory but fails to address the important central questions of philosophy of information. Specifically, I will defend the view that notions that are associated with truth, knowledge, and meaning all can adequately be reconstructed in the context of modern information theory and that consequently there is no need to introduce a concept of semantic information. (shrink)

n various publications over the past years, Floridi has developed a theory of semantic information as well-formed, meaningful, and truthful data. This theory is more or less orthogonal to the standard entropy-based notions of information known from physics, information theory, and computer science that all define the amount of information in a certain system as a scalar value without any direct semantic implication. In this context the question rises what the exact relation between these various conceptions of information is and (...) whether there is a real need to enrich these mathematically more or less rigid definitions with a less formal notion of semantic information. I investigate various philosophical aspects of the more formal definitions of information in the light of Floridi’s theory. The position I defend is that the formal treatment of the notion of information as a general theory of entropy is one of the fundamental achievements of modern science that in itself is a rich source for new philosophical reflection. This makes information theory a competitor of classical epistemology rather than a servant. In this light Floridi’s philosophy of information is more a reprise of classical epistemology that only pays lip service to information theory but fails to address the important central questions of philosophy of information. Specifically, I will defend the view that notions that are associated with truth, knowledge, and meaning all can adequately be reconstructed in the context of modern information theory and that consequently there is no need to introduce a concept of semantic information. (shrink)

Ethics as First Philosophy brings together original essays by an outstanding group of international scholars that discuss the work of Emmanuel Levinas. The book explores the significance of Levinas' work for philsophy, psychology and religion. Ethics as First Philosophy comprises an excellent collection of work on this major contemporary thinker. The book presents Levinas philosophy from a wide and well-balanced variety of perspectives. The contributions range from thematic discussions of Levinas central concepts to explorations of his affinities and differences with (...) other key writers such as Kant, Kierkegaard, Rosenzweig, Benjamin, Blanchot and Derrida. Some of the authors focus on the religious and philosophical issues presented by Levinas while others analyze the role of Levinas within phenomenology in or within recent French philosophy. (shrink)

Emmanuel Levinas (1906–1996) has exerted a profound influence on 20th-century continental philosophy. This anthology, including Levinas's key philosophical texts over a period of more than forty years, provides an ideal introduction to his thought and offers insights into his most innovative ideas. Five of the ten essays presented here appear in English for the first time. An introduction by Adriaan Peperzak outlines Levinas's philosophical development and the basic themes of his writings. Each essay is accompanied by a brief introduction (...) and notes. This collection is an ideal text for students of philosophy concerned with understanding and assessing the work of this major philosopher. (shrink)

Bertrand Russell’s _Principles of Mathematics_ (1903) gives rise to several interpretational challenges, especially concerning the theory of denoting concepts. Only relatively recently, for instance, has it been properly realised that Russell accepted denoting concepts that do not denote anything. Such empty denoting concepts are sometimes thought to enable Russell, whether he was aware of it or not, to avoid commitment to some of the problematic non-existent entities he seems to accept, such as the Homeric gods and chimeras. In this paper, (...) I argue first that the theory of denoting concepts in _Principles of __Mathematics_ has been generally misunderstood. According to the interpretation I defend, if a denoting concept shifts what a proposition is about, then the aggregate of the denoted terms will also be a constituent of the proposition. I then show that Russell therefore could not have avoided commitment to the Homeric gods and chimeras by appealing to empty denoting concepts. Finally, I develop what I think is the best understanding of the ontology of _Principles of __Mathematics_ by interpreting some difficult passages. (shrink)

In the world of television-making, the media industry relies on measurements from a people-meter panel in order to find out how many people watch a certain program or commercial on television. A people-meter panel is a special-purpose panel in which the television-watching behavior of household members is measured using a special device attached to television sets. The measuring device can also register the television-watching behavior of guests to the panel homes. The reliability of estimates based on the people-meter panel primarily (...) depends on the sample size. Due to the complexity of the sample design, the effective sample size cannot be determined straightforwardly. This is even more the case when one incorporates the viewing behavior of guests. This paper describes a methodology that determines effective sample sizes by computing design effects and which extends the methodology in such a way that it incorporates ‘guest viewing’. (shrink)

The aim of this study is to better understand why public officials and business employees engage in corruption. Insight into individual-level explanations for corruption was obtained with the aid of a self-report survey. The results suggest that the most indicative factors of whether or not individuals are corruption-prone are as follows: the moral conviction they have to refrain from corruption; perceptions of whether their colleagues approve of and engage in corruption; and difficulties experienced in complying with the rules on corruption. (...) This result pattern was identical for public officials and business employees alike, and as a consequence, for both sides of corrupt acts. The latter indicates that the same motives may not only underlie corruption in both private and public sectors, but also the act of corruption in its active and passive forms. The results of the current study do not provide strong support for the assumption that economic considerations—expected costs and benefits—are crucial in predicting corruption. Based on the findings that norms and the perceived opportunity to comply are dominant factors in explaining corruption, this article focuses on the practical implications for the development of anti-corruption strategies within both public and private sectors. (shrink)