Given Conciliar Christology and a compositionalist metaphysics of the incarnation, I explore whether ‘qua-propositions’ are capable of solving the coherence problem in Christology. I do this by probing the metaphysical aspect of qua-propositions, since ‘semantics presupposes metaphysics’. My proposal focuses on the fact that the Word accidentally owns an individual human nature. Due to that individuality, the human properties first characterise the individual human nature and, in a ‘next step’, this individual human nature characterises the Word. I call this ‘stepped (...) characterisation’. Subsequently, I show that stepped characterisation validates the use of qua-propositions in Conciliar Christology. Hence, qua-propositions are not merely ‘muddling the waters of logic’. (shrink)

In this contribution we investigate the conceptual coherence of penal substitution and its moral validity. After assessing two opposing modern contributions, we turn to Reformed and medieval scholasticism. This scholastic manoeuvre sheds additional light on the analytic questions at issue. Following Owen and Scotus in their use of a relational analysis of guilt and its punishment, we argue that penal substitution is conceptually and morally coherent, albeit not univocally vis-à-vis ordinary punishment. Absent from the case of substitution is personal deservedness; (...) herein we follow Murphy. However, this leaves open the conceptual possibility of representative deservedness. (shrink)

A model for the ideal state includes discussions of the nature and application of justice, the role of the philosopher in society, the goals of education, and the effects of art upon character.

In "Realism and Reason" Hilary Putnam has offered an apparently strong argument that the position of metaphysical realism provides an incoherent model of the relation of a correct scientific theory to the world. However, although Putnam's attack upon the notion of the "intended" interpretation of a scientific theory is sound, it is shown here that realism may be formulated in such a way that the realist need make no appeal to any "intended" interpretation of such a theory. Consequently, it can (...) be shown that realism is immune to Putnam's criticism and that attempts at reformulating this criticism are not likely to meet with success. (shrink)

Explaining the persistence of populations is an important quest in ecology, and is a modern manifestation of the balance of nature metaphor. Increasingly, however, ecologists see populations (and ecological systems generally) as not being in equilibrium or balance. The portrayal of ecological systems as “non-equilibrium” is seen as a strong alternative to deterministic or equilibrium ecology, but this approach fails to provide much theoretical or practical guidance, and warrants formalisation at a more fundamental level. This is available in adaptation theory, (...) which allows population persistence to be explained as an epiphenomenon stemming from the maintenance, survival, movement and reproduction of individual organisms. These processes take place within a physicochemical and biotic environment that persists through structured annual cycles, but which is also spatiotemporally dynamic and subject to stochastic variation. The focus is thus shifted from the overproduction of offspring and the consequent density dependent population pressure thought to follow, to the adaptations and ecological circumstances that support those relatively few individuals that do survive. (shrink)

Ecological theory is built upon assumptions about the fundamental nature of organism-environment interactions. We argue that two mutually exclusive sets of such assumptions are available and that they have given rise to alternative approaches to studying ecology. The fundamentally different premises of these approaches render them irreconcilable with one another. In this paper, we present the first logical formalisation of these two paradigms.The more widely-accepted approach - which we label the demographic paradigm - includes both population ecology and community ecology (...) (synecology). Demographic ecology assumes that the environment is relatively stable and that biotic processes, governed predominantly by resource availability, are the most important of ecological and evolutionary influences. Moreover, ecological processes are assumed to translate into directional selection pressures that drive significant evolutionary change on a local scale through the process of optimisation. (shrink)

Studies of coexistence are based ultimately on the assumption that competitive exclusion is a general and accredited phenomenon in nature. However, the ecological and evolutionary impact of interspecific competition is of questionable significance. Review of three reputed examples of competitive exclusion in the field (Aphytis wasps, red and grey squirrels, and triclads) demonstrates that the widely-accepted competition-based interpretations are unlikely, that alternative explanations are overlooked, and that all other reported cases need critical reinvestigation. Although interspecific competition does undoubtedly occur, the (...) evidence suggests it is usually too weak and intermittent a force to achieve competitive exclusion or any other ecologically-significant result, except perhaps rarely and on a minor scale. Coexistence and community structure are therefore not ecological conditions to be especially accounted for, especially since their inherently comparative methods generate information that is largely superficial. Alternative questions that relate directly to species, the units of diversity, are discussed and they emphasize the primary habitat requirements of species, which are fixed during speciation. Neither the comparative approach of coexistence studies, nor the investigation of pattern is likely to be profitable, since the acquisition of species-specific characteristics during speciation requires historical research. At least one alternative theory of ecology, based on the close adaptation of organisms to the environment, is available. (shrink)

In several works on modality, G. H. von Wright presents tree structures to explain possible worlds. Worlds that might have developed from an earlier world are possible relative to it. Actually possible worlds are possible relative to the world as it actually was at some point. Many logically consistent worlds are not actually possible. Transitions from node to node in a tree structure are probabilistic. Probabilities are often more useful than similarities between worlds in treating counterfactual conditionals.