The earlier volume in this series dealt with two religions of Indian origin, namely, Buddhism and Jainism. The Indian religious scene, however, is characterized by not only religions which originated in India but also by religions which entered India from outside India and made their home here. Thus religious life in India has been enlivened throughout its history by the presence of religions of foreign origin on its soil almost from the very time they came into existence. This volume covers (...) three such religions—Zoraoastrianism, Judaism, and Islam. In the case of Zoraostianism, even its very beginnings are intertwined with India, as Zoroastrianism reformed a preexisting religion which had strong links to the Vedic heritage of India. This relationship took on a new dimension when a Zoroastrian community, fearing persecution in Persia after its Arab conquest, sought shelter in western India and ultimately went on to produce India’s pioneering nationalist in the figure of Dadabhai Naoroji ( 1825-1917), also known as the Grand Old Man of India. Jews found refuge in south India after the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 C.E. and have remained a part of the Indian religious scene since then, some even returning to Israel after it was founded in 1948. Islam arrived in Kerala as soon as it was founded and one of the earliest mosques in the history of Islam is found in India. Islam differs from the previously mentioned religions inasmuch as it went on to gain political hegemony over parts of the country for considerable periods of time, which meant that its impact on the religious life of the subcontinent has been greater compared to the other religions. It has also meant that Islam has existed in a religiously plural environment in India for a longer period than elsewhere in the world so that not only has Islam left a mark on India, India has also left its mark on it. Indeed all the three religions covered in this volume share this dual feature, that they have profoundly influenced Indian religious life and have also in turn been profoundly influenced by their presence in India. (shrink)

The earlier volume in this series dealt with two religions of Indian origin, namely, Buddhism and Jainism. The Indian religious scene, however, is characterized by not only religions which originated in India but also by religions which entered India from outside India and made their home here. Thus religious life in India has been enlivened throughout its history by the presence of religions of foreign origin on its soil almost from the very time they came into existence. This volume covers (...) three such religions—Zoraoastrianism, Judaism, and Islam. In the case of Zoraostianism, even its very beginnings are intertwined with India, as Zoroastrianism reformed a preexisting religion which had strong links to the Vedic heritage of India. This relationship took on a new dimension when a Zoroastrian community, fearing persecution in Persia after its Arab conquest, sought shelter in western India and ultimately went on to produce India’s pioneering nationalist in the figure of Dadabhai Naoroji ( 1825-1917), also known as the Grand Old Man of India. Jews found refuge in south India after the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 C.E. and have remained a part of the Indian religious scene since then, some even returning to Israel after it was founded in 1948. Islam arrived in Kerala as soon as it was founded and one of the earliest mosques in the history of Islam is found in India. Islam differs from the previously mentioned religions inasmuch as it went on to gain political hegemony over parts of the country for considerable periods of time, which meant that its impact on the religious life of the subcontinent has been greater compared to the other religions. It has also meant that Islam has existed in a religiously plural environment in India for a longer period than elsewhere in the world so that not only has Islam left a mark on India, India has also left its mark on it. Indeed all the three religions covered in this volume share this dual feature, that they have profoundly influenced Indian religious life and have also in turn been profoundly influenced by their presence in India. (shrink)

This discussion focuses on veterinary practice as a form of service delivery. Based on data collected during a year of participant observation in a major veterinary hospital in the northeast, the paper examines the criteria veterinarians routinely used to define nonhuman patients as problematic and the means they employed to deal with troublesome animals. The conclusion frames veterinarians' tactics for evaluating and controlling patients within the larger context of how rule-breakers are identified in everyday interactional settings and the routine approaches (...) used in the exercise of social control. (shrink)

Applied general equilibrium models have received considerable attention and scrutiny in the public debate over the North American Free Trade Agreement. This collection brings together the leading AGE models that have been constructed to analyse NAFTA. A variety of approaches to modelling trade liberalization are taken in these studies, including multi-country and multi-sectoral models, models that focus on institutional features of particular sectors affecting multinational firms and rules of origin, and models with some inter-temporal structure. Further, by constructing stylized models, (...) theoretical linkages have been identified that drive numerical results in the larger AGE models. The volume also assesses what can be learned about the likely economic effects of NAFTA from the collection of studies taken as a whole. Areas in need of further study have been highlighted. (shrink)

Precision cell signaling activities of reactive electrophilic species (RES) are arguably among the most poorly‐understood means to transmit biological messages. Latest research implicates native RES to be a chemically‐distinct subset of endogenous redox signals that influence cell decision making through non‐enzyme‐assisted modifications of specific proteins. Yet, fundamental questions remain regarding the role of RES as bona fide second messengers. Here, we lay out three sets of criteria we feel need to be met for RES to be considered as true cellular (...) signals that directly mediate information transfer by modifying “first‐responding” sensor proteins. We critically assess the available evidence and define the extent to which each criterion has been fulfilled. Finally, we offer some ideas on the future trajectories of the electrophile signaling field taking inspiration from work that has been done to understand canonical signaling mediators. (shrink)

BackgroundThe Pacific Islander population is the second fasting growing population in the United States and Arkansas is home to the largest Marshallese population in the continental US. The Marshal...

I answer Alvin Plantinga's challenge to provide a ‘proper’ de jure objection to religious belief. What I call the ‘sophisticates’ evidential objection' concludes that sophisticated Christians lack epistemic justification for believing central Christian propositions. The SEO utilizes a theory of epistemic justification in the spirit of the evidentialism of Richard Feldman and Earl Conee. I defend philosophical interest in the SEO against objections from Reformed epistemology, by addressing Plantinga's criteria for a proper de jure objection, his anti-evidentialist arguments, and the (...) relevance of ‘impulsional evidence’. I argue that no result from Plantinga-style Reformed epistemology precludes the reasons I offer in favour of giving the SEO its due philosophical attention. (shrink)

Robert Nozick sharply distinguished his vision of the free society from egalitarian liberals such as John Rawls. Less remarked upon is the distinction he drew between the free society governed by a strictly limited government and the society without any government at all. In this volume, the editors have brought together a selection of specially commissioned essays from key theorists actively involved in this debate.

Historically, philosophers, artists, and spiritual leaders have extolled the benefits of solitude; currently, advice on how to achieve solitude is the subject of many popular books and articles. Seldom, however, has solitude been studied by psychologists, who have focused instead on the negative experiences associated with being alone, particularly loneliness. Solitude, in contrast to loneliness, is often a positive state—one that may be sought rather than avoided. In this article, we examine some of the benefits that have been attributed to (...) solitude—namely, freedom, creativity, intimacy, and spirituality. In subsequent sections, we consider the environmental settings and personality characteristics conducive to solitude, how time spent alone is experienced differently across the life span, and the potential dangers related to the attractiveness of solitude. We conclude with a brief discussion of the theoretical and practical implications of solitude. (shrink)

The recent book Rush Rhees on Religion and Philosophy contains a stimulating collection of writin~s by Rush Rhees on a variety of topics in the philosophy of religion. Comprising accounts of personal, religious and moral struggles, these essays provide a refreshing change from the often dry, overly technical approach to philosophy writing. Despite spanning more than thirty years, Rhees' s essays disclose a fairly consistent philosophy.of religion with a clear emphasis. Since he was Wittgenstein's student and long-time friend as (...) well as a literary executor ofWittgenstein's writings, it is not surprising that Rhees's comments on the philosophy of religion reveal a distinctly Wittgensteinian approach, both in content and style. Moreover, Rhees's particular way of doing philosophy of religion seems, in retrospect, to have set the course that subsequent philosophy of religion of the Wittgensteinian type would take. (shrink)

Michael Bergmann seeks to motivate his externalist, proper function theory of epistemic justification by providing three objections to the mentalism and mentalist evidentialism characteristic of nonexternalists such as Richard Feldman and Earl Conee. Bergmann argues that (i) mentalism is committed to the false thesis that justification depends on mental states; (ii) mentalism is committed to the false thesis that the epistemic fittingness of an epistemic input to a belief-forming process must be due to an essential feature of that input, and, (...) relatedly, that mentalist evidentialism is committed to the false thesis that the epistemic fittingness of doxastic response B to evidence E is an essential property of B–E; and (iii) mentalist evidentialism is “unmotivated”. I object to each argument. The argument for (i) begs the question. The argument for (ii) suffers from the fact that mentalist evidentialists are not committed to the consequences claimed for them; nevertheless, I show that there is, in the neighborhood, a substantive dispute concerning the nature of doxastic epistemic fittingness. That dispute involves what I call “Necessary Fittingness”, the view that, necessarily, exactly one (at most) doxastic attitude ( belief , or disbelief , or suspension of judgment ) toward a proposition is epistemically fitting with respect to a person’s total evidence at any time. Reflection on my super-blooper epistemic design counterexamples to Bergmann’s proper function theory reveals both the plausibility of Necessary Fittingness and a good reason to deny (iii). Mentalist evidentialism is thus vindicated against the objections. (shrink)

The teaching of evolutionary theory in U.S. public school science classes has been called into question via numerous school board mandated “evolution is a theory, not a fact” disclaimers that have appeared on science textbooks in recent years and which have been the subject of recent court cases. I evaluate the scientific reasonability of such disclaimers by engaging in conceptual analysis on the crucial terms in the key claim: “evolution is a theory, not a fact.” Assessing various interpretations of the (...) key claim, I argue that, for any interpretation, it is either clearly false, or trivially true, or not even marginally reasonable as a rationale, of the sort pertaining to science, that justifies the use of the disclaimer or the advice it recommends to students. I conclude that such disclaimers haveno scientific merit. Finally, I offer brief remarks about what we may learn from the use of the disclaimers, as well as a word about the relevance of methodological naturalism to current disputes, and likely ones in the near future, over evolution. (shrink)

The teaching of evolutionary theory in U.S. public school science classes has been called into question via numerous school board mandated “evolution is a theory, not a fact” disclaimers that have appeared on science textbooks in recent years and which have been the subject of recent court cases. I evaluate the scientific reasonability of such disclaimers by engaging in conceptual analysis on the crucial terms in the key claim: “evolution is a theory, not a fact.” Assessing various interpretations of the (...) key claim, I argue that, for any interpretation, it is either clearly false, or trivially true, or not even marginally reasonable as a rationale, of the sort pertaining to science, that justifies the use of the disclaimer or the advice it recommends to students. I conclude that such disclaimers haveno scientific merit. Finally, I offer brief remarks about what we may learn from the use of the disclaimers, as well as a word about the relevance of methodological naturalism to current disputes, and likely ones in the near future, over evolution. (shrink)