NO ANALOGY IS ADEQUATE FOR THE RELATIONS BETWEEN THE PERSONS OF THE TRINITY. A FAMOUS AND HELPFUL ONE OF ST AUGUSTINE’S IS DISCUSSED AND AN INADEQUACY SUGGESTED: TRIPLENESS OF PERSONS IS TOO RESTRICTED. ANOTHER LIMITED, BUT PARTLY OFFSETTING ANALOGY COUCHED IN TERMS OF ’MULTIPLE PERSONALITIES’ IN PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY IS SPELLED OUT FOR EVALUATION.
CHARLES BABBAGE, OUTSTANDING 19TH CENTURY FIGURE ON THEORY OF COMPUTING, URGES ON PROTO-GOODMANIAN AND NEO-MAIMONIDEAN GROUNDS THAT HUME IS QUITE WRONG ABOUT THE PROBABILITY OF MIRACLES’ OCCURRING. AQUINAS’ CLASSIFICATIONS OF MIRACLES INDICATE THAT NOT SINGLE PROBABILITY JUDGMENT IS ALWAYS RIGHT. BABBAGE’S WORK ON COMPUTING STILL CIRCULATES, BUT HIS NINTH BRIDGEWATER TREATISE (ON MIRACLES) HAS LONG DESERVED REPUBLICATION.
AT LEAST ONE MODEL OF THE RATIONAL RELIGIOUS BELIEVER EXISTS: PRIMARY COMMITMENT TO DISCOVERING TRUTH AND ACTING RIGHTLY; COMMITMENT TO A RELIGION FLOWING FROM THOSE PRIMARY ONES; SOME DEGREE OF TENTATIVENESS ABOUT FAITH; SEARCHING FOR PROBABILITY, MORE THAN CERTAINTY; FAITH CONSTITUTING A PARTLY MORAL WAGER AIMED AT MAXIMIZING EXPECTED UTILITIES OF CERTAIN KINDS; A TOLERANT WISDOM ABOUT COMMITMENTS (AND ORDERINGS) PARTLY PLEASING TO SUCH SECULAR THINKERS AS MILL, QUINE AND POPPER, ALSO AQUINAS, BARTLEY AND WILLIAM JAMES; PRIMARY LOVE FOR GOD (...) AS THE SUPREME JUSTIFIER OF HUMAN JUSTIFIER OF HUMAN HISTORY--GOD’S POWER BEING TREATED AS SECONDARY TO HIS GOODNESS. (TOPICS INCLUDE: MIRACLES, IS AND OUGHT, PROBABILITY, WAGERS, PROOFS, TIME, WAR). (shrink)
Summary This paper will attempt to integrate (1) some new reflections on the implications for ontology of Monistic interpretations of formulae in quantification theory, with (2) a review of earlier material that I have published on such implications, and with (3) a sketch of several points made by others which bear on related issues.
This note attempts first to broaden the investigation of ties expressed by ?my? and ?mine?, which was initiated in ?The Concept of ?Mine?; ? (Inquiry, Vol. 7, No. 3). Socially accepted types of use ties (active and passive), worth ties and other sorts are distinguished from the previously noted ties of ownership, agency, etc. These further distinctions of ties, it is argued, also deserve the attention of philosophers and conceptually oriented social scientists. The analysis of ?mine? is then applied to (...) the much disputed concept of ?imagining?: some major clusters of divergent facts and phenomena called human imaginings are mapped and related to ?mine? (shrink)
Misunderstanding of the word mine and its shifting relations to 'pro-attitudes' inspired much of Aristotle's attack on collectivism at Politics 1261B 15ff. Similar misunderstandings contribute to certain criticisms leveled by modern conservatives like Goldwater against 'welfarism', they presuppose confused psychological and ethical doctrines. Thus semantically necessary truths may be misconstrued as entailing contingent propositions about political and economic arrangements. Different confusions about mine and 'pro-attitudes' lend a correspondingly specious aura of certainty to some Platonic and Marxist claims. The ownership model (...) of mine impedes our understanding of men. (shrink)
Tarski's equivalence, as he allows, applies only roughly to assertions in ordinary language. Some of the relevant exceptions are of merely grammatical importance but others leave scope for interesting metaphysical pronouncements on science, mathematics and other fields of assertion. To understand these latter exceptions is to gain insight into Baylis' and Lukasiewicz' views on the question "Are some Propositions neither True nor False?" (this journal, 1936). From different standpoints each is right and each is wrong. This comment also applies to (...) some later contributions to their controversy. (shrink)
HUME AND NOWELL-SMITH TRIED TO UNDERSTAND CERTAIN THEOLOGIANS’ CLAIMS ABOUT MIRACLES WITHOUT ATTENDING TO THEIR BASES IN ARISTOTELIAN PHYSICS. THIS SOMEWHAT WEAKENS THEIR CRITICISMS. AFTER REJECTING A "DEMONSTRATIVE" OR "DEDUCTIVE" APPROACH TO MIRACLES WHICH RESULTS FROM CERTAIN (OUT-DATED) ARISTOTELIAN BELIEFS ABOUT SCIENTIFIC REASONING, I ARGUE FOR THE INTELLIGIBILITY AND RATIONALITY OF A TOLERANT ’GOOD REASONS’ APPROACH TO JUDGMENTS ABOUT THE MIRACULOUS. SOME, NOT ALL, OF TILLICH’S REMARKS ON MIRACLES TEND TO FIT THE LATTER APPROACH WHICH LEADS TO AN ILLUMINATING CLUSTER (...) CONCEPT OF "THE MIRACULOUS" (SACRED AND PROFANE). (shrink)
