Aims to show that the brain is not responsible for consciousness, and uses this assertion to explore profound love and human connection.

ZUSAMMENFASSUNGIm Diskurs zum Theodizeeproblem beschäftigen sich die einzelnen Autoren mit sehr unterschiedlichen Ausgangsfragen, und zwar meist ohne diese Tatsache zu reflektieren. Wenn man jedoch ernst nimmt, dass »das Theodizeeproblem« einen Sammelbegriff für sehr unterschiedliche Fragen darstellt, setzt eine sinnvolle Bearbeitung des Theodizeeproblems eine bewusste Benennung der genauen Ausgangsfrage und idealerweise eine sachliche Begründung für die Wahl eben dieser Frage voraus. Davon, ob die Ausgangsfrage im Horizont des Glaubens formuliert wird oder nicht, in existenzieller oder in abstrahierender Perspektive, mit Gott (...) als Adressat oder nicht, anhand eines schöpfungstheologischen, kreuzestheologischen oder eschatologischen Zugangs, unter Zugrundelegung eines traditionell-theistischen oder eines nicht traditionell-theistischen Gottesbegriffs, agnostisch oder atheistisch, logisch oder empirisch, hängt es ab, ob es eine Antwort gibt, welche Antwortmöglichkeiten in den Blick kommen können und welche nicht, welche Bedürfnisse des Fragenden befriedigt werden und welche nicht, kurz: was von der weiteren Problembearbeitung erwartet werden kann und was nicht.SUMMARYIn the discourse on theodicy, individual authors deal with very different initial questions and for the most part fail to reflect upon this very fact. However, if one does recognize the importance of understanding THE problem of evil as an umbrella term for quite distinct issues, a proper treatment of theodicy implies precisely specifying the initial question and, ideally, a factual justification for the choice of this question. Whether the initial question is phrased in the horizon of faith, in an existential or abstract perspective, whether it directly adresses God, whether it is approached by means of creation theology, a theology of the cross or eschatological theology, whether it is based on a traditional theistical idea of god, agnostic or atheistic, logical or empirical, ultimately determines the actual existence of an answer, which possible answers can be brought to the questioner's attention and which of his or her needs can be satisfied in this regard; in short, what can be expected from the treatment of the problem and what cannot. (shrink)

While it might seem prima facie plausible that divine foreknowledge is all that is needed for prophecy, this seems incorrect. To issue a prophecy, God hasto know not just how someone will act, but how someone would act were the prophecy issued. This makes some think that Middle Knowledge is required.I argue that Thomas Flint’s two Middle Knowledge based accounts of prophecy are unsatisfactory, but one of them can be repaired. However the resources needed for repair also yield a sketch (...) of a foreknowledge-only account of prophecy. (shrink)

Professional philosophers and advanced students working in metaphysics and the philosophy of science will find this book both provocative and stimulating.

The present study investigated whether individual differences between psychologists in thinking styles are associated with accuracy in diagnostic classification. We asked novice and experienced clinicians to classify two clinical cases of clients with two co-occurring psychological disorders. No significant difference in diagnostic accuracy was found between the two groups, but when combining the data from novices and experienced psychologists accuracy was found to be negatively associated with certain decision making strategies and with a higher self-assessed ability and preference for a (...) rational thinking style. Our results underscore the idea that it might be fruitful to look for explanations of differences in the accuracy of diagnostic judgments in individual differences between psychologists (such as in thinking styles or decision making strategies used), rather than in experience level. (shrink)

For a novice this book is a mathematically-oriented introduction to modal logic, the discipline within mathematical logic studying mathematical models of reasoning which involve various kinds of modal operators. It starts with very fundamental concepts and gradually proceeds to the front line of current research, introducing in full details the modern semantic and algebraic apparatus and covering practically all classical results in the field. It contains both numerous exercises and open problems, and presupposes only minimal knowledge in mathematics. A specialist (...) can use the book as a source of references. Results and methods of many directions in propositional modal logic, from completeness and duality to algorithmic problems, are collected and systematically presented in one volume. (shrink)

A successful entrepreneur and internet marketer discusses opportunity, how to find and create it, and how to develop great opportunities in business, investing, health, relationships, personal development, and other areas of life.

The timeline of the Anthropocene – a geological epoch that Paul Crutzen and Eugene Stoermer say began in the late 18th century with the invention of the steam engine – seems like a brief and inconsequential blip, against the time scales embodied by the microbial communities. Wolbachia bacteria predate Anthropos by some 150 million years, and will likely outlast us. Wolbachia bacteria are worthy of their own geological epoch because they offer a fresh vantage point on one of the most (...) pressing ethical questions of our time: ‘How should we love in a time of extinction?’ Narratives about the Wolbachiacene have the potential to disrupt the overwhelming stories of tragedy orbiting around Anthropos, with disquieting and generative accounts of interspecies romance. Wolbachia often perform queer tricks inside their invertebrate hosts. In some host species these bacteria induce parthenogenesis – completely eliminating males from the population. Wolbachia can also transform genetic males into reproductively viable females. (shrink)

This Is A New Release Of The Original 1868 Edition.

Thomas Samuel Kuhn (1922–1996) is one of the most influential philosophers of science of the twentieth century, perhaps the most influential. His 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is one of the most cited academic books of all time. Kuhn’s contribution to the philosophy of science marked not only a break with several key positivist doctrines, but also inaugurated a new style of philosophy of science that brought it closer to the history of science. His account of the development (...) of science held that science enjoys periods of stable growth punctuated by revisionary revolutions. To this thesis, Kuhn added the controversial ‘incommensurability thesis’, that theories from differing periods suffer from certain deep kinds of failure of comparability. (shrink)

There is much debate on how to understand Kant’s transcendental idealism in the context of the Critique of Pure Reason. Heidegger’s Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics offers an innovative reading of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, but is often overlooked due to the violence it allegedly does in its interpretation. This paper offers a Heideggerian-inspired phenomenological or ontological interpretation of transcendental idealism by drawing on Heidegger’s interpretation of the Critique. First, I draw a connection between the two uses of (...) noumena in the Critique and, in doing so, draw attention to how the noumena relies on a concept of the proper which gains its meaning from outside the system. I then bring together Kant and Heidegger on the question of the place of truth and the role of the noumena. I claim not only that the ‘noumena’ reveals a ‘shrinking back’ from the ontological release of aletheia; but also, and as a consequence, that the ‘noumena’ does not represent ‘another world,’ but rather is the grounds of the constitution of the phenomenal world itself. Thus, I argue that the noumena is the being of the phenomena, and I do so through looking at objects, faculties, and ethics in the Critique. Finally, I claim that the understanding and reason must both be receptive: even the self-given is ultimately being given. (shrink)

Whether or not quantum physics can account for molecular structure is a matter of considerable controversy. Three of the problems raised in this regard are the problems of molecular structure. We argue that these problems are just special cases of the measurement problem of quantum mechanics: insofar as the measurement problem is solved, the problems of molecular structure are resolved as well. In addition, we explore one consequence of our argument: that claims about the reduction or emergence of molecular structure (...) cannot be settled independently of the choice of a particular resolution to the measurement problem. Specifically, we consider how three standard putative solutions to the measurement problem inform our under- standing of a molecule in isolation, as well as of chemistry’s relation to quantum physics. (shrink)

Thomas Kuhn transformed the philosophy of science. His seminal 1962 work "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" introduced the term 'paradigm shift' into the vernacular and remains a fundamental text in the study of the history and philosophy of science. This introduction to Kuhn's ideas covers the breadth of his philosophical work, situating "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" within Kuhn's wider thought and drawing attention to the development of his ideas over time. Kuhn's work is assessed within the context of other (...) philosophies of science notably logical empiricism and recent developments in naturalized epistemology. The author argues that Kuhn's thinking betrays a residual commitment to many theses characteristic of the empiricists he set out to challenge. Kuhn's influence on the history and philosophy of science is assessed and where the field may be heading in the wake of Kuhn's ideas is explored. (shrink)

' But, although such a being (a purely intellectual being) might perhaps be conceived to exist, and although, in studying our internal frame, ...

Stereotypes about exotic peoples and animals of the Orient shaped popular origin stories about COVID-19 in media reports. Outbreak narratives centred on the seafood market in Wuhan began to fall apart as new evidence was published by medical doctors, virologists, and epidemiologists. No viruses in bats or pangolins have been found that are direct ancestors of SARS-CoV2, the virus responsible for COVID-19 symptoms. Viruses are also being transformed as they interact with the human institutions, infrastructures and behaviours that facilitate their (...) spread. Epidemiological growth curves are shaped by national and foreign capital, cosmopolitanism, aspirations for independence and ongoing interdependence, the discourse of power and the discourse of resistance, as well as coexistence and violence. In reckoning with SARS-CoV2, we need to anticipate disruptive surprise of viral emergence rather recursively search for origins. Departing from Foucault’s foundational insights, this article gestures towards genealogies of possible viral futures. (shrink)

The question of archaeology corroborating any ‘historical information’ is excluded from the outset by the poetic genre of Song of Songs. This contribution therefore focusses on archaeology’s more modest purpose as far as its relationship with texts is concerned, namely whether it can facilitate the understanding of the text by investigating the material culture that features in Song of Songs. Archaeology is therefore understood in terms of its more extended definition, including artefacts, objects functioning as metaphors, and historical geography. Attention (...) amongst others will be paid to cities mentioned, the David’s Tower, Pharaoh’s palanquin, fauna and flora, as well as pottery.Contribution: Although archaeology cannot inform everything in the text, the continuous archaeological endeavour has the hermeneutical function to transpose the reader into the ancient life world, preventing him or her of anachronistic projection of the present-day readers own world into the text, but also appreciating the common human condition which the present-day reader shares with the world of the text. (shrink)

This book provides an accessible, critical introduction to the three main approaches that dominated work in the philosophy of mathematics during the twentieth century: logicism, intuitionism and formalism.

Achieving space domain awareness requires the identification, characterization, and tracking of space objects. Storing and leveraging associated space object data for purposes such as hostile threat assessment, object identification, and collision prediction and avoidance present further challenges. Space objects are characterized according to a variety of parameters including their identifiers, design specifications, components, subsystems, capabilities, vulnerabilities, origins, missions, orbital elements, patterns of life, processes, operational statuses, and associated persons, organizations, or nations. The Space Object Ontology provides a consensus-based realist framework (...) for formulating such characterizations in a computable fashion. Space object data are aligned with classes and relations in the Space Object Ontology and stored in a dynamically updated Resource Description Framework triple store, which can be queried to support space domain awareness and the needs of spacecraft operators. This paper presents the core of the Space Object Ontology, discusses its advantages over other approaches to space object classification, and demonstrates its ability to combine diverse sets of data from multiple sources within an expandable framework. Finally, we show how the ontology provides benefits for enhancing and maintaining longterm space domain awareness. (shrink)

This volume contains the Arabic translations of a lost treatise by Alexander of Aphrodisias "On the Principles of the Universe" with English translation, introduction and commentary. It also includes an Arabic and Syriac glossary. The introduction and commentary deal in detail with the manuscripts, the translators and the exegetical tendencies of the text, as well as with its reception in Arabic philosophy. The main theme of the work is the motion of the heavenly bodies and their influence on the (...) physical world. (shrink)

After referring briefly to the fantasies regarding the origins of Christianity as elicited by the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947, the purpose of the contribution is to put the Jesus movement into relief in the context of first-century Judaism. The identity of the Qumranites is argued to be Essene scribes. The identity, ideology and practices of the latter are compared with those of Jesus of Nazareth and the movement he elicited using the following rubrics: Jesus, the teacher (...) of righteousness and the powers that be; asceticism versus itinerary charismaticism; caring versus lack of caring for the sick, poor and marginalised; elitist priests and scribes versus lower-class peasants; the interpretation of the law; religious and daily practices ; religious views or ideology. The result is a picture of Jesus in sharp relief versus Qumran and facets of the early church. (shrink)

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

Scotland has played an immense role in European high culture through the centuries, and among its cultural links none have been greater than those with France. This book shows that the links with France stretch back deep into the Middle Ages, and continue without a break into the 18th century, the Age of Enlightenment.

Hate speech law can be found throughout the world. But it is also the subject of numerous principled arguments, both for and against. These principles invoke a host of morally relevant features and practical considerations . The book develops and then critically examines these various principled arguments. It also attempts to de-homogenize hate speech law into different clusters of laws/regulations/codes that constrain uses of hate speech, so as to facilitate a more nuanced examination of the principled arguments. Finally, it argues (...) that it is morally fitting for judicial and legislative judgments about the overall warrant of hate speech law to reflect principled compromise. Principled compromise is characterized not merely by compromise over matters of principled concern but also by compromise which is itself governed by ideals of moral duty or civic virtue. (shrink)

Many introductions to this field start with the problem of justifying scientific knowledge but Alexander Bird begins by examining the subject matter, or metaphysics, of science. Using topical scientific debates he vividly elucidates what it is for the world to be governed by laws of nature. This idea provides the basis for explanations and causes and leads to a discussion of natural kinds and theoretical entities. With this foundation in place he goes on to consider the epistemological issues of (...) how science arrives at knowledge, favouring a treatment of scientific reasoning based on inference to the best explanation. Drawing on contemporary work in epistemology, Bird argues that scepticism about induction should not be a problem for science and examines the consequences of this position for controversies surrounding the ideas of scientific progress and scientific revolution. Bird's insightful treatment makes Philosophy of Science an ideal text for undergraduate courses. The guides to further reading provided in each chapter help the reader pursue interesting topics and facilitate the use of the book in conjunction with primary sources. (shrink)

Toy models are highly idealized and extremely simple models. Although they are omnipresent across scientific disciplines, toy models are a surprisingly under-appreciated subject in the philosophy of science. The main philosophical puzzle regarding toy models concerns what the epistemic goal of toy modelling is. One promising proposal for answering this question is the claim that the epistemic goal of toy models is to provide individual scientists with understanding. The aim of this article is to precisely articulate and to defend this (...) claim. In particular, we will distinguish between autonomous and embedded toy models, and then argue that important examples of autonomous toy models are sometimes best interpreted to provide how-possibly understanding, while embedded toy models yield how-actually understanding, if certain conditions are satisfied. _1_ Introduction _2_ Embedded and Autonomous Toy Models _2.1_ Embedded toy models _2.2_ Autonomous toy models _2.3_ Qualification _3_ A Theory of Understanding for Toy Models _3.1_ Preliminaries and requirements _3.2_ The refined simple view _4_ Two Kinds of Understanding with Toy Models _4.1_ Embedded toy models and how-actually understanding _4.2_ Against a how-actually interpretation of all autonomous toy models _4.3_ The how-possibly interpretation of some autonomous toy models _5_ Conclusion. (shrink)

George Berkeley (1685-1753) is the superstar of Irish Philosophy. He entered Trinity College, Dublin, in 1700 and became a fellow in 1707. In 1724 he resigned his Fellowship to become Dean of Derry, and in 1734 he was made Bishop of Cloyne. He settled in Oxford in 1752 and died the following year. The work of George Berkeley is marked by its diversity and range. His writings take in such topics as mathematics, psychology, politics, health, economics, deism and education, as (...) well as that with which he is most associated - philosophy. Whatever topic he dealt with, his grasp of the subject matter was always impressive and his criticisms of his contemporaries often acute. Among the most noteable of the British Empiricists, he took his starting point from Locke's new 'way of ideas', but he rejected abstract ideas and the possibility of real existence outside perception. It is for this doctrine that he is most known - that there is no such thing as matter, and that things are collections of ideas which can exist only in our minds and only for so long as they are perceived. This philosophy, summed up in his phrase 'to be is to be perceived', he termed 'immaterialism'. A.C. Fraser's collection includes a series of what were previously unpublished notes by Berkeley on all the main topics of his philosophy. This, the 1901 edition, was the first complete edition of his works. (shrink)

In the late Middle Ages the philosopher and mystic Meister Eckhart preached that to know the truth you must be the truth. But how to be the truth? Eckhart's answer comes in the form of an imperative: release yourself, let be. Only then will you be able to understand that the deepest meaning of being is releasement. Only then will you become who you truly are. This book interprets Eckhart's Latin and Middle High German writings under the banner of an (...) imperative of releasement, and then shows how the twentieth-century thinker Martin Heidegger creatively appropriates this idea at several stages of his career. Heidegger had a lifelong fascination with Eckhart, referring to him as "the old master of letters and life." Drawing on archival material and Heidegger's marginalia in his personal copies of Eckhart's writings, Moore argues that Eckhart was one of the most important figures in Heidegger's philosophy. This book also contains previously unpublished documents by Heidegger on Eckhart, as well as the first English translation of Nishitani Keiji's essay "Nietzsche's Zarathustra and Meister Eckhart," which he initially gave as a presentation in one of Heidegger's classes in 1938. (shrink)

I propose an approach to liar and Curry paradoxes inspired by the work of Roger Swyneshed in his treatise on insolubles (1330-1335). The keystone of the account is the idea that liar sentences and their ilk are false (and only false) and that the so-called ''capture'' direction of the T-schema should be restricted. The proposed account retains what I take to be the attractive features of Swyneshed's approach without leading to some worrying consequences Swyneshed accepts. The approach and the resulting (...) logic (called ''Swynish Logic'') are non-classical, but are consistent and compatible with many elements of the classical picture including modus ponens, modus tollens, and double-negation elimination and introduction. It is also compatible with bivalence and contravalence. My approach to these paradoxes is also immune to an important kind of revenge challenge that plagues some of its rivals. (shrink)

Toy models are highly idealized and extremely simple models. Although they are omnipresent across scientific disciplines, toy models are a surprisingly under-appreciated subject in the philosophy of science. The main philosophical puzzle regarding toy models is that it is an unsettled question what the epistemic goal of toy modeling is. One promising proposal for answering this question is the claim that the epistemic goal of toy models is to provide individual scientists with understanding. The aim of this paper is to (...) precisely articulate and to defend this claim. In particular, we will distinguish between autonomous and embedded toy models, and, then, argue that important examples of autonomous toy models are sometimes best interpreted to provide how-possibly understanding, while embedded toy models yield how-actually understanding, if certain conditions are satisfied. (shrink)

In ‘Finkish Dispositions’1 David Lewis proposes an analysis of dispositions which improves on the simple conditional analysis. In this paper I show that Lewis’ analysis still fails. I also argue that repairs are of no avail, and suggest why this is so.

In recent years, counterfeiting has grown exponentially and has now become a grave economic problem. The acquisition of counterfeits poses an ethical dilemma as it benefits the buyer and illegal seller at the cost of the legitimate producer and with fewer taxes being paid throughout the supply chain. Previous research reveals inconsistent and sometimes inconclusive findings regarding whether materialism is associated, positively or negatively, with intentions to purchase counterfeits. The current research seeks to resolve these inconsistencies by investigating previously ignored (...) interactions between three variables: risk of embarrassment, counterfeit detectability and product conspicuousness. First, risk of embarrassment mediates the relationship between materialism and counterfeit purchase intentions. Specifically, materialism negatively predicts counterfeit purchase intentions as mediated by risk of embarrassment. Second, this relationship only holds when the counterfeit can be easily detected. When it is not easily detected, materialism instead leads to positive purchase intentions. Third, these positive effects can be offset when the product is not highly visible. This research has important implications for marketers, manufacturers and academics and contributes to better understanding the antecedents of counterfeit purchases. (shrink)

Any serious student attempting to better understand the nature, methods, and justification of science will value Alex Rosenberg's and Lee McIntyre's updated and substantially revised Fourth Edition of Philosophy of Science: A Contemporary Introduction. Weaving lucid explanations with clear analyses, the volume is as a much-used, thematically-oriented introduction to the field.

Introduction -- What is personal responsibility? -- Ordinary language -- Common conceptions -- What do philosophers mean by responsibility? -- Personally responsible for what? -- What do philosophers think? part I -- Causes -- Capacity -- Control -- Choice versus brute luck -- Second-order attitudes -- Equality of opportunity -- Deservingness -- Reasonableness -- Reciprocity -- Equal shares -- Combining criteria -- What do philosophers think? part II -- Utility -- Self-respect -- Autonomy -- Human flourishing -- Natural duties and (...) special obligations -- A matter of perspectives -- Combining values -- What do politicians think? -- A brief typology -- International comparisons -- Welfare reform -- Healthcare reform -- Rights and responsibilities -- On the responsibilities of politicians -- What do ordinary people think? -- Why ask? -- Attitudes to welfare claimants -- When push comes to shove -- Perceptions and reality -- Further international comparisons -- The trouble with opinion surveys -- Four contemporary issues in focus -- Unemployment -- Health -- Drug abuse -- Personal debt and financial rewards -- So how do we decide? -- Getting the public involved -- Citizens juries -- Answering some potential criticisms. (shrink)

'A wonderfully assured and utterly riveting biography that captures not only the much-maligned Machiavelli, but also the spirit of his time and place. A monumental achievement.' - Jessie Childs, author of God's Traitors. 'A notorious fiend', 'generally odious', 'he seems hideous, and so he is.' Thanks to the invidious reputation of his most famous work, The Prince, Niccolò Machiavelli exerts a unique hold over the popular imagination. But was Machiavelli as sinister as he is often thought to be? Might he (...) not have been an infinitely more sympathetic figure, prone to political missteps, professional failures and personal dramas? Alexander Lee reveals the man behind the myth, following him from cradle to grave, from his father's penury and the abuse he suffered at a teacher's hands, to his marriage and his many affairs (with both men and women), to his political triumphs and, ultimately, his fall from grace and exile. In doing so, Lee uncovers hitherto unobserved connections between Machiavelli's life and thought. He also reveals the world through which Machiavelli moved: from the great halls of Renaissance Florence to the court of the Borgia pope, Alexander VI, from the dungeons of the Stinche prison to the Rucellai gardens, where he would begin work on some of his last great works. As much a portrait of an age as of a uniquely engaging man, Lee's gripping and definitive biography takes the reader into Machiavelli's world - and his work - more completely than ever before. (shrink)

A collection of essays by Alexander Rosenberg, the distinguished philosopher of science. The essays cover three broad areas related to Darwinian thought and naturalism: the first deals with the solution of philosophical problems such as reductionism, the second with the development of social theories, and the third with the intersection of evolutionary biology with economics, political philosophy, and public policy. Specific papers deal with naturalistic epistemology, the limits of reductionism, the biological justification of ethics, the so-called 'trolley problem' in (...) moral philosophy, the political philosophy of biological endowments, and the Human Genome Project and its implications for policy. Rosenberg's important writings on a variety of issues are here organized into a coherent philosophical framework which promises to be a significant and controversial contribution to scholarship in many areas. (shrink)

This paper maps the landscape for a range of views concerning the metaphysics of natural kinds. I consider a range of increasingly ontologically committed views concerning natural kinds and the possible arguments for them. I then ask how these relate to natural kind essentialism, arguing that essentialism requires commitment to kinds as entities. I conclude by examining the homeostatic property cluster view of kinds in the light of the general understanding of kinds developed.

In this paper I shall debate the thesis according to which in the Aristotelian treatise On Soul the sense of touch works as a kind of knot for the knowledge faculties and, implicitly, as a unity for the entire treatise: it has a primitive function in the feeding process, it also represents a starting point for both the faculty of motion and knowledge, then relates itself symmetrical to the sense of vision through the typology of the intermediaries and to the (...) intellect through the criterion of nonbeing, and finally reveals to the receiver a kind of truth that has no more the false as an alternative. On the other hand, the intellect recovers in its own faculty the sense of touch by recreating its functions in the connection between intellect and the indivisible intelligibles. Given these relations, the sense of touch represents the main connection of the treatise's large themes from the question of motion to that of knowledge and it is also literally (certain aristotelian remarksover the theme of earth being taken into consideration here) related to the living body. (shrink)

I argue that scientific progress is precisely the accumulation of scientific knowledge.

Many authors have argued in favour of an ontology of properties as powers, and it has been widely argued that this ontology allows us to address certain philosophical problems in novel and illuminating ways, for example, causation, representation, intentionality, free will and liberty. I argue that the ontology of powers, even if successful as an account of fundamental natural properties, does not provide the insight claimed as regards the aforementioned non-fundamental phenomena. I illustrate this argument by criticizing the powers theory (...) of causation presented by Mumford and Anjum and showing that related criticisms can be directed at other abuses of powers. (shrink)