It is often assumed that contemporary physics is more hospitable to divine action (and human freedom) than classical mechanics. The article criticizes this assumption on the grounds of both physics and theology. Most currently discussed models of divine action do not challenge the physicalist assumption that physics provides a true and complete description of nature’s causal web. Thus they resemble physicalism-plus-God. Taking up suggestions from Herman Dooyeweerd and Henri Blocher, I propose an alternative framework for divine action in the world. (...) It takes creation as the starting-point to understand the world and leads to a non-reductionist, multidimensional picture of reality. (shrink)

David Lewis has proposed an analysis of lawhood in terms of membership of a system of regularities optimizing simplicity and strength in information content. This article studies his proposal against the broader background of the project of Humean supervenience. In particular, I claim that, in Lewis's account of lawhood, his intuition about small deviations from a given law in nearby worlds (in order to avoid backtracking and epiphenomena) leads to the conclusion that laws do not support (certain) counterfactuals and do (...) not bestow nomic necessity on (certain) facts induced by these laws. Support of counterfactuals and nomic necessity, however, are widely held to be important aspects of the concept of lawhood. In my view, therefore, it is not possible to abandon these criteria in any satisfactory analysis of the notion of laws of nature. In a final section, I suggest that the whole project of Humean supervenience is misleading. It does not sufficiently take notice of the important role that reasoning about contrary-to-fact situations plays in modern scientific practice. (shrink)

The belief that laws of nature are contingent played an important role in the emergence of the empirical method of modern physics. During the scientific revolution, this belief was based on the idea of voluntary creation. Taking up Peter Mittelstaedt’s work on laws of nature, this article explores several alternative answers which do not overtly make use of metaphysics: some laws are laws of mathematics; macroscopic laws can emerge from the interplay of numerous subsystems without any specific microscopic nomic structures (...) (John Wheeler’s “law without law”); laws are the preconditions of scientific experience (Kant); laws are theoretical abstractions which only apply in very limited circumstances (Nancy Cartwright). Whereas Cartwright’s approach is in tension with modern scientific methodology, the first three strategies count as illuminating, though partial answers. It is important for the empirical method of modern physics that these three strategies, even when taken together, do not provide a complete explanation of the order of nature. Thus the question of why laws are valid is still relevant. In the concluding section, I argue that the traditional answer, based on voluntary creation, provides the right balance of contingency and coherence which is in harmony with modern scientific method. (shrink)

What is the relationship between religious belief and the study of nature, between theology and science? This is the fundamental preoccupation of the three different studies brought together in _Einstein, Polanyi, and the Laws of Nature._ By exploring the highly original yet little known thought of Michael Polanyi, Jaeger highlights the inherent personal investment in any quest for knowledge, including the scientific enterprise, thus raising the question of the objectivity of human knowledge. Considered to be the greatest mind of (...) the twentieth century, Albert Einstein saw scientific research as the fruit of the “cosmic religion.” His response to the question of the relationship between faith and science also receives the close analysis it deserves. Finally, Jaeger is interested in science’s propensity to use the concept of laws of nature, a concept also found in the Bible. By examining the similarities and differences, she paves the way for interdisciplinary dialogue. The synthesis of these three complimentary studies brings out the complicity between belief and knowledge, thus establishing a bridge between two noble human activities: faith and scientific research. It will be of interest to all serious followers of the ongoing science and religion dialogue. (shrink)

In his recent book, The Empirical Stance (2002), Bas van Fraassen elaborates on earlier suggestions of a religious view that has striking parallels withhis constructive empiricism. A particularly salient feature consists in the way in which he keeps a critical distance from theoretical formulations both in scienceand religion, thus preferring a mystical approach to religious experience. As an alternative, I suggest a view based on mediation by the word, both in the structureof reality and the encounter between persons. Without falling (...) prey to rationalist illusions, such an approach allows for true human knowledge as embedded intranscendent Wisdom. It implies a more radical break with the Enlightenment ideal of neutral and universal knowledge than van Fraassen’s program, as he stillmaintains a kind of immanent grounding of knowledge in the form of direct, unmediated experience, in spite of his rejection of classical foundationalism. Wecan thus overcome the antithetical ring that characterizes his notion of rationality understood as bridled irrationality and escape relativism without forgetting thelessons that we have learned from the collapse of positivism—lessons to which van Fraassen rightly draws our attention. (shrink)

The most influential physicist of the 20th century considered his scientific activity to be a contribution to ,,cosmic religion". Starting from his own writings, the article presents Einstein's religious views and questions the extent to which his pantheistic convictions can provide the necessary foundations for human knowledge and action. German Der bedeutendste Physiker des 20. Jahrhunderts fasste seine wissenschaftliche Tätigkeit als Beitrag zur ,,kosmischen Religion auf. Der Artikel zeichnet die Religionsauffassung Einsteins an Hand von Originaltexten nach und fragt, inwieweit seine (...) weitgehend pantheistisch geprägten Überzeugungen menschliches Wissen und Handeln begründen können. (shrink)

L'interrogation sur le rôle que jouent aujourd'hui les convictions religieuses en philosophie des sciences peut paraître une démarche surprenante, car trop souvent la religion est rejetée hors du champ de l'enquête philosophique. Cet ouvrage ose au contraire demander dans quelle mesure les options religieuses d'un penseur influencent sa conception de l'ordre cosmique. L'examen du concept de loi de la nature s'inscrit dans une quête plus large : il permet de tester la façon dont les choix épistémologiques d'un individu dépendent de (...) sa vision du monde et ainsi de porter une attention particulière aux interactions entre science, épistémologie et religion. L'étude porte sur quatre figures des plus marquantes du débat contemporain sur les lois de la nature : David Armstrong, Nancy Cartwright, David Lewis et Bas van Fraassen. L'analyse de leurs écrits, approfondie d'entretiens personnels, fait ressortir pour chacun les liens qui existent entre sa posture religieuse et son compte rendu de la légalité naturelle. (shrink)

The Meaning Circuit Hypothesis (MCH) is a synthesis of ideas providing John Wheeler’s outline of ultimate physics, which he fine-tuned over several decades from the 1970s onward. It is a ‘working hypothesis’ in which ‘existence is a ‘meaning circuit”’ that portrays the world as a “system self-synthesized by quantum networking.” It was strongly advocated by him for roughly two decades and since then has had an increasingly strong impact on the approach of many investigators of quantum theory; in particular, elements (...) such as the quantum participator and ‘it from bit’ are now considered by others as candidate components of a foundation for quantum theory in which information is involved essentially. Therefore, it is worthy of review and critique. (shrink)

Physicians, philosophers, and theologians consider how to address death and dying for a diverse population in a secularized century.Most of us are generally ill-equipped for dying. Today, we neither see death nor prepare for it. But this has not always been the case. In the early fifteenth century, the Roman Catholic Church published the Ars moriendi texts, which established prayers and practices for an art of dying. In the twenty-first century, physicians rely on procedures and protocols for the efficient management (...) of hospitalized patients. How can we recapture an art of dying that can facilitate our dying well? In this book, physicians, philosophers, and theologians attempt to articulate a bioethical framework for dying well in a secularized, diverse society.Contributors discuss such topics as the acceptance of human finitude; the role of hospice and palliative medicine; spiritual preparation for death; and the relationship between community, and individual autonomy. They also consider special cases, including children, elderly patients with dementia, and death in the early years of the AIDS epidemic, when doctors could do little more than accompany their patients in humble solidarity.These chapters make the case for a robust bioethics—one that could foster both the contemplation of finitude and the cultivation of community that would be necessary for a contemporary art of dying well.ContributorsJeffrey P. Bishop, Lisa Sowle Cahill, Daniel Callahan, Farr A. Curlin, Lydia S. Dugdale, Michelle Harrington, John Lantos, Stephen R. Latham, M. Therese Lysaught, Autumn Alcott Ridenour, Peter A. Selwyn, Daniel Sulmasy. (shrink)

Business ethics can be taught as a stand-alone course or be woven throughout a curriculum. There is a debate over whether to teach ethics in the form of theory or real-world connectedness or both. A moral-judgment gap exists, and many believe Business education should promote knowledge and skills that enable ethical intentions to be followed with ethical behaviors. This conceptual paper diagrams where the gap exists in Business Ethics education and theorizes how multi-modal, learning-centered ethics teaching can bridge this shortfall. (...) Literature from the field of Education is drawn upon for pedagogies that promote learning and application. Case studies, constructed narratives, and simulations function as several key components useful for developing complex skills needed for applying ethical reasoning. Additional components and strategies that undergird and reinforce the case studies and other active learning components are laid out in pyramid form toward an overall best-practices approach to developing principled moral reasoning in Business Ethics. (shrink)

This monograph identifies the essential characteristics of the objects described by current quantum theory and considers their relationship to space-time. In the process, it explicates the senses in which quantum objects may be consistently considered to have parts of which they may be composed or into which they may be decomposed. The book also demonstrates the degree to which reduction is possible in quantum mechanics, showing it to be related to the objective indefiniteness of quantum properties and the strong non-local (...) correlations that can occur between the physical quantities of quantum subsystems. Careful attention is paid to the relationships among such property correlations, physical causation, probability, and symmetry in quantum theory. In this way, the text identifies and clarifies the conceptual grounds underlying the unique nature of many quantum phenomena. (shrink)

_An exploration of philosophical and religious ideas about humor in modern philosophy and their secular implications._.

This book argues that sometimes we have reasons to overcome repression and that these reasons are unlike any other reasons for action typically recognized by philosophers.

A Yale physician's fascinating and wise exploration of why so many people die poorly and how a medieval bestseller on the art of dying well holds important lessons for today.

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 was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. 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. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. 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)

Hermann von Helmholtz allows for not only physiological facts and psychological inferences, but also perspectival reasoning, to influence perceptual experience and knowledge gained from perception. But Helmholtz also defends a version of the view according to which there can be a kind of “perspectival truth” revealed in scientific research and investigation. Helmholtz argues that the relationships between subjective and objective, real and actual, actual and illusory, must be analyzed scientifically, within experience. There is no standpoint outside experience from which we (...) can reason, no extra-sensory knowledge of the constitution of the “ideal subject” or of the properties of “real objects.” In the tradition of psychophysics inherited by Helmholtz, we can arrive at a kind of perspectival analysis of perceptual experience, which embeds an account of that experience within the context of the history and situation of the perceiving subject. That analysis is relative to the perceiving subject, but the perspectival explanations Helmholtz constructs are not thereby relativist: in fact, for Helmholtz, the more squarely the perceiving subject is placed in a scientific, perspectival context, the more facts we are able to learn about her experience and the objects with which she interacts. (shrink)

This book has been considered by academicians and scholars of great significance and value to literature. This forms a part of the knowledge base for future generations. So that the book is never forgotten we have represented this book in a print format as the same form as it was originally first published. Hence any marks or annotations seen are left intentionally to preserve its true nature.

The early history of German patriotism is complex and illuminates many of patriotism’s potential virtues as well as its dangers. Throughout the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, patriotism’s overarching connotation was devotion to the greater good, but whether that greater was local, national, or global varied dramatically. Early uses of patriotism were devoid of national or military connotations and instead denoted local engagement in public projects and willingness to aid to those in need. The patriot moreover worked for enlightened (...) political reform, convinced that good government could convert subjects into citizens. Patriotism also had distinct cosmopolitan connotations, indicating someone who had humanity’s good generally as a goal. In the early aftermath of the French Revolution, acting in the interest of humanity’s development meant supporting the revolutionaries as the best hope for furthering political progress. As the Revolution dissolved into the Terror, German intellectuals hoped that Germany could assume the mantle of progress: being a patriot meant supporting German culture as a means of furthering humanity’s enlightenment. The Napoleonic Wars, however, shifted Germans’ attitude significantly: years of French occupation culminated in patriotism being defined as favoring German culture and unity in the interest of defeating the French. Patriotism’s nationalist connotations from that point intensify significantly. But its early history argues for remembering and revitalizing its potential to unite the local with the global and to promote enlightened civic engagement in the pursuit of political progress. (shrink)

In a famous debate between Thomas Kuhn and Karl Popper, Popper accused Kuhn and Quine of propagating the “Myth of the Framework”: that some broad set of specific background commitments are required for interlocutors to be able to have a fruitful conversation. The Myth of the Framework could be used to argue for a beneficial version of the canon: that training in these shared background commitments allows for the growth of a robust community of inquiry. Popper argues, however, that the (...) position that truth or inquiry can be framework-dependent is a pernicious form of relativism, and undermines the possibility of rational inquiry. I subject Popper’s view to criticism, showing that it can be used to undermine “orthodoxy” and the canon in some ways, but that it props up the canon in others. In closing, the paper examines the connections between Popper’s position on the community of inquiry and standpoint epistemology, and argues for the claim that Popper’s view, to be persuasive, requires a more robust account of how critical inquiry relies on the evaluative capacities of rational agents within a community. (shrink)

Taking Philosophy Seriously initiates a meta-philosophical dialogue that challenges the division between academic and practical philosophy. In contradistinction to the perfectionist tradition of philosophy, it offers a melioristic view of philosophy that rethinks the approach to philosophy, reinvigorates its academic teaching and secures the respectability of its practitioners outside the academe. It addresses the neglected topic of philosophers education through a subtle analysis of the mentor-apprentice relationship and the remedies philosophers have found to its tensions. It reveals the problems inherent (...) in emulating past practical philosophies from Alexandrian times, the Enlightenment or the 19th century, and the necessity of reevaluating the tools, reconsidering the means, and rethinking the methods of the contemporary practice of philosophy. To that purpose, it problematizes the notions of dialogue, self-knowledge, and self-transformation, and questions the feasibility of autonomy and self-integration as well as the differentiation between philosophy and psychology. It offers original solutions to the problems it highlights and points to unique benefits in the practice of philosophy that contribute to resolving the contemporary crisis of philosophy.This book combines high academic standards and an accessible style, and will engage academic and practical philosophers alike, professionals in education and the helping professions, and the general public. -- Provided by publisher. (shrink)

Calling on philosophers as the custodians of rationality to reconsider their responsibility toward their communities and the state of civilization at large, this book considers philosophy to be a practical discipline. Largely foreign to philosophers and non-philosophers alike, this conception of philosophy discloses the relevance of its unique contributions to contemporary society. The book offers a compelling and accessible analysis of philosophy also in relation to religion, psychology, the New Age Movement, and globalization, and exemplifies through a wide range of (...) current problems how philosophers can fulfil their responsibility. Its argument that responsibility lies where one is capable of doing what is needed, and even more so, when no one else can do it, targets philosophers. However, its innovative study of contemporary philosophy coupled with its original contributions to the problems at hand will engage academics and students from other disciplines, as well as a general readership. (shrink)

The growing contradictions inherent in capitalism are concentrated, as though at a focal point, in the monetary field—the most, vulnerable point in the whole capitalist economy. The extended period of the general crisis of capitalism is punctuated by periodic bursts of monetary crisis.

For much of the modern period, theologians and philosophers of religion have struggled with the problem of proving that it is rational to believe in God. Drawing on the thought of Thomas Aquinas, Theological Philosophy seeks to overturn the longstanding problem of proving faith's rationality and to establish instead that rationality requires to be explained by appeals to faith. Building on a constructive argument developed in a companion book, Rationality as Virtue, Lydia Schumacher advances the conclusion that belief in (...) the God of Christian faith provides an exceptionally robust rationale for rationality and is as such intrinsically rational. (shrink)

In this volume, an international group of prominent philosophical practitioners brings new methods, aims, problems and audiences to the practice of philosophy. The twelve chapters here exemplify how philosophers can fulfill their responsibility towards their communities, and, ultimately, towards civilization at large. This anthology will prove to be valuable not only to philosophers, both practical and theoretical, but also to professionals and students in education and the helping disciplines. Written in a clear and engaging style, it will be of interest (...) to the general public as well. (shrink)

Hayek and the Efficient Market Hypothesis are often seen as proposing a similar theory of prices. Hayek is seen as proposing to understand prices as information conveyer, incorporating inform...

Este artículo presenta una investigación conceptual que tiene dos objetivos: aportar una aproximación al estado de la cuestión del debate académico de las ciencias sociales sobre el sadomasoquismo (SM) y detectar y discutir los argumentos más estructurantes de su discurso intelectual. Se realiza una revisión de la literatura académica y se analiza desde la teoría feminista. Se problematiza la idea de que el SM es una sexualidad alternativa a la patriarcal; se estudian las fragilidades del consentimiento como su legitimador; y (...) se objeta a la argumentación que lo sitúa en una categoría ontológica. La conclusión principal de la investigación permite dar cuenta de que el SM está constituido de un elogio a la violencia y a la dominación masculina y de que reproduce los estratos políticos de lo masculino y de lo femenino en la sexualidad. (shrink)

For much of the modern period, theologians and philosophers of religion have struggled with the problem of proving that it is rational to believe in God. Drawing on the thought of Thomas Aquinas, this book, a companion to Theological Philosophy, lays the foundation for an innovative effort to overturn the longstanding problem of proving faith's rationality, and to establish instead that rationality requires to be explained by appeals to faith. To this end, Schumacher advances the constructive argument that rationality is (...) not only an epistemological question concerning the soundness of human thoughts, which she defines in terms of ‘intellectual virtue’. (shrink)

This essay interrogates the motives of eighteenth-century European naturalists to alternately show and hide their laboring-class fossil suppliers. Focusing on rare moments of heightened visibility, I ask why gentlemen naturalists occasionally, deliberately, and even performatively made visible the marginalized science workers on whom they crucially depended but more typically ignored or effaced. Comparing archival fragments from elite works of natural history across a considerable stretch of time and space, including Italy, France, Switzerland, Britain, Ireland, Germany, Spain, and French, Spanish, and (...) British America, this essay sketches the contours of a disparate group of people I term ‘earth workers’: laborers of very low social rank, such as quarrymen, shepherds, ditch-diggers, and fieldworkers, whose daily labor in and on the earth enabled the discovery of subterranean specimens. At the same time, archival traces of laboring lives ultimately reveal more about the naturalists who created them than they do about the marginalized laborers whose lives they faintly record. Cultural norms of elite masculinity and scholarly self-presentation in the Republic of Letters help us to understand why some eighteenth-century naturalists felt they had to publicly disavow a form of labor that would come to be recognized as a crucial and skilled part of scientific fieldwork in the modern era. Compared to other kinds of invisible labor that historians of science have brought into view, the social meaning of earth work rendered it uniquely visible in some ways and uniquely invisible in others. (shrink)

This article brings to light how AI research has benefited from post-Wittgensteinian philosophy. My research shows that Wittgenstein’s work began to engage the attention of AI researchers not only in the 1970s down to the present but right from the early beginnings of computational research in the 1950s. More specifically, his later philosophy inspired a group of researchers called the Cambridge Language Research Unit (CLRU) to start one of the first programs in machine translation, information retrieval, mechanical abstracting, and knowledge (...) representation technologies in the early 1950s, all of which have later been claimed for AI and cognitive science. I focus on the philosophical work of CLRU founder Margaret Masterman and her extraordinary but forgotten contributions to ordinary language philosophy. (shrink)

Este libro, tratado y monografia a la vez, requiere unas breves palabras de explicacion. No trata de hacer una exposicion sistematica, sino de analizar los escritos de Aristoteles para descubrir en ellos las huellas de la marcha de su espiritu.

Altersarmut, Bildungsunterschiede, eine wachsende Kluft zwischen Arm und Reich - die deutsche Gesellschaft spaltet sich, und viele fordern mehr Soziale Gerechtigkeit. Die Autorin untersucht, wie sich das Verstandnis von Sozialer Gerechtigkeit in Philosophie und Politik gewandelt hat, und hinterfragt, inwieweit Politiker Soziale Gerechtigkeit als Akzeptanzmittel fur ihre Entscheidungen nutzen.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 10.3 (2003) 227-231 [Access article in PDF] World Traveling as a Clinical Methodology for Psychiatric Care Suzanne M. Jaeger Keywords embodiment, dialogical consciousness, interpersonal communication, epistemic responsibility, self-knowledge, understanding IN HER ARTICLE "Moral Tourists and World Travelers," Nancy Potter suggests a way in which psychiatrists and psychologists could gain a better understanding of their mentally ill patients' experiences. Rather than assuming that hallucinations and (...) incoherent speech and behavior are merely senseless disconnections from reality, Potter argues that mental health care clinicians ought to spend time engaging patients on their own terms. Even when mental illness is a result of brain disease, much can be learned about the patient's experiences of their disease by temporarily setting aside the scientific frameworks of diagnosis and medical treatment. Potter uses Maria Lugones' concept of world traveling and recommends playfully accepting, and even entering into the patient's world (Lugones 1990). She calls world traveling a methodology and explains it in some detail. Moreover, at the close of her essay, Potter suggests that clinicians have a moral obligation to understand the mentally ill patient's world from the patient's perspective. This obligation is based on an appeal to our sense of what it is to be a responsible knower who attends to issues of trust and truth. Relying on arguments made by Lorraine Code (1987), Potter asserts that to try to understand the other's perspective is the responsible thing to do.My discussion focuses on the notion of play to which Potter appeals, as well as on what she sees as the moral obligation of clinicians to communicate with their mentally ill patients in extra-professional ways. This moral obligation arises because (a) the theoretical and professional frameworks of medical science are seen as inadequate, and (b) playfulness opens up mutually respectful, authentic interaction between persons. I generally agree with Potter's claims, and I want to situate them in the wider framework of an epistemological debate about the status of our knowledge of others. A broader context will help to elucidate the strengths of Potter's analysis as well as some points for critical discussion. I begin with the relationship of trust between clinicians and patients.Few people would disagree with the claim that patients need to be able to trust that their physicians are not harming them, but helping them to get better. If patients feel misunderstood, they will not trust their caretakers. This is probably even truer for psychiatric patients, whose conditions and loss of autonomy make establishing trust even more challenging. Psychiatric patients [End Page 227] often have their own ways of compensating for the symptoms of their mental illness. If either their will to survive or their compensatory strategies go unrecognized or misinterpreted, patients may respond by rejecting the well-intentioned efforts of caretakers to restore them to a degree of ease, measured as it must be by the standards of the professionals under whose care the patient remains. 1 Despite the fact that these standards are established through scientific testing procedures for the treatment of diseases, they may be experienced by patients as indifferent to the particular and unique features of their condition. Nestled within the issue of trust is thus a question of truth.Although current scientific knowledge of the human brain, and of human behavior, has made available a range of sophisticated therapies and psychotropic drugs, there are still many mental illnesses that leave families and clinicians wondering whether the treatment plans are providing any help. Alzheimer's disease and schizophrenia are two examples. There is a difference between, on the one hand, containing the patient's behavior by admitting the patient to a psychiatric ward and managing symptoms with psychotropic medications, and, on the other hand, understanding what is happening for the patient, from his or her perspective. Although psychiatric patients may not have a realistic sense of either their abilities or the extent and nature of their disease, there may be much about their experiences that ought to be known and understood by the professionals caring for them... (shrink)

This book presents a collection of novel contributions and reviews by renowned researchers in the foundations of quantum physics, quantum optics, and neutron physics. It is published in honor of Michael Horne, whose exceptionally clear and groundbreaking work in the foundations of quantum mechanics and interferometry, both of photons and of neutrons, has provided penetrating insight into the implications of modern physics for our understanding of the physical world. He is perhaps best known for the Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt (CHSH) inequality. This collection (...) includes an oral history of Michael Horne's contributions to the foundations of physics and his connections to other eminent figures in the history of the subject, among them Clifford Shull and Abner Shimony. Among the editors and contributors are John Clauser and Anton Zeilinger, recipients of the Nobel Prize in Physics 2022. (shrink)