Specificity has been defined in the linguistic literature according to two different criteria: one corresponding to Quine's opaque and transparent contexts, and the other to criteria closely related to Donellan's referential/attributive distinction. The paper argues that only the former definition is a semantic one since it alone manifests linguistic correlates. The meaning changes involving referential/attributive factors are pragmatic in nature. In the concluding section is is argued that the semantics of specificity is completely independent of the relative scope interpretation of (...) an indefinite noun phrase in relation to other quantified nouns in the sentence. This is demonstrated using sentences which contain an indefinite interacting with both an opaque operator and a second quantifier. It is shown that such sentences can be four ways ambiguous. (shrink)

Summary This paper presents a case study that contributes to the current debate among historians of chemistry concerning the role and influence of pedagogy in science. Recently, Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent and her colleagues concluded that in nineteenth-century France, ?textbooks played an important role in discipline building and in creating theories?.1 Developing this idea further, this paper examines the dissemination of knowledge through face-to-face chemical lectures, showing that the influence of pedagogical strategy on theoretical content of the science is far from negligible. (...) The pedagogy of William Cullen was essentially responsible for the prevalence of the doctrine of affinity in British chemistry from the 1760s onwards. Cullen used his affinity theory as a pedagogical tool that to a large extent defined his discipline, and the pedagogical pyramid that he headed similarly ensured that the doctrine would remain at the heart of British chemistry. From a pedagogical tool, the doctrine of affinity was transformed over time into a chemical tool, offering British chemists a disciplinary common ground that both set and reinforced the boundaries to their discipline. 1A. Garcia-Belmar, B. Bensaude-Vincent and J.R. Bertomeu-Sánchez, ?The Power of Didactic Writings: French Chemistry Textbooks of the Nineteenth Century?, in Pedagogy and the Practice of Science: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, edited by D. Kaiser (Cambridge, MA, 2005), 243. (shrink)

Les rares réflexions de Karl Marx sur la société socialiste sont imprégnées de la volonté de se prémunir contre l’idéalisme du socialisme utopique. Marx pense l’émancipation à partir de la critique de la théorie économique classique et de celle des limites du libéralisme politique. Mill ne s’inscrit pas dans cette double critique marxiste. S’il radicalise certaines conclusions de l’économie ricardienne et affirme le caractère provisoire des rapports de production de son époque, il demeure prudent : il vise un dépassement du (...) salariat par le développement graduel de coopératives de production et se tient à grande distance du socialisme révolutionnaire considéré comme « davantage un produit du continent que de la Grande-Bretagne ». (shrink)

The topic of my dissertation is the treatment of the fallacies of composition and division during the scholastic period , the compounded/divided sense distinction which grew out of that treatment, and the philosophical use to which the distinction was put. For instance, a recognition of these fallacies during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries helped theologians deal with certain problems having to do with foreknowledge and human freedom. In addition, a recognition of the distinction between the compounded and divided senses of (...) propositions allowed medieval logicians after the first quarter of the fourteenth century to get clearer about what might broadly be described as the logic of propositional attitudes. ;In Chapter 1, I briefly summarize and compare theories of composition and division from Peter Abelard to Paul of Pergula . And in Chapters 2 and 3, I examine the treatments of composition and division presented by Lambert of Auxerra , Roger Bacon , and William Ockham . In these treatments, composition and division are viewed in terms of ambiguity. ;By the second quarter of the fourteenth century, one sees the discussion of composition and division move from a concern with ambiguous expressions to a concern with arguments comprised of unambiguous sentences having either the compounded sense or the divided sense in virtue of the sentence's word-order. "Infinitely fast does Socrates run; therefore, Socrates runs infinitely fast" is, according to William Heytesbury , invalid: the premise has the divided sense, and is possibly true; the conclusion has the compounded sense, and is impossible. With Heytesbury there is an increasing emphasis on the compounded/divided sense distinction in connection with verbs signifying mental acts or acts of will: 'know,' 'believe,' 'desire,' 'understand,' etc. In Chapter 4 I explain why these shifts may have occurred in the medieval treatment of composition and division. And in Chapter 5, I consider the effect of Heytesbury's treatment of composition and division on logicians and commentators who come after him. I focus in particular on the work of four fifteenth- through sixteenth-century Italian logicians and their views on epistemic logic. (shrink)

Descartes’ version of the Cosmological Argument in the Third Meditation is usually considered a failure, not because its conclusion doesn't follow from its premises, but because the truth of two of its premises is doubtful. One of these premises is that the objective reality of an idea is derived from a cause in which there is at least as much formal reality; the other, that only a being that possesses the qualities normally attributed to God could be responsible for the (...) idea of God. Typically there are two objections made in response to the first of these premises. First, we don't understand the concepts of formal and objective reality well enough to know whether or not the premise commands our assent. (shrink)

An obligation, in the sense in which it was of interest to medieval logicians from about the early thirteenth century to the end of the scholastic period, is, according to Paul of Venice, a relation limiting one to take some statement affirmatively or negatively. This relation is based on the actions of two individuals: one obligates the other by first putting forward a sentence which the respondent agrees to affirm or deny for a limited time. The sentence the respondent agrees (...) to affirm is called the positum; that which he agrees to deny, the depositum; and his act of agreeing, the admissio. After this relation is established between the opponent and respondent, the opponent proceeds by putting forward a series of sentences to which the respondent replies by granting, denying, or doubting — all in accordance with certain rules the two individuals have previously accepted as governing their exchange. If the respondent at any time grants what is inconsistent with the sentence he agreed to uphold, or responds in a way that violates the accepted rules, the exchange comes to an end. The respondent has failed in his obligation. (shrink)

The old controversy between Legal Positivism and Natural Justice turns out to be fruitless, if we comprehend law as a phenomenon of culture. Then, law is neither mere will nor mere reason. Law, as it is understood in the Western tradition, is rather a contingent system of rules which guides decisions (politics, on the other hand, are guided by aims). Culture, as it is conceived since the age of Enlightenment, can be described as “what results from autonomy”. Law being a (...) valuable phenomenon of culture (Kulturgut), two questions arise. (1) Is there any need for law? It depends on society’s demand for liberty. (2) What does the law need? Law requires autonomy, i.e., the right to enjoy its own culture.Resumen:La antigua controversia entre el positivismo jurídico y la justicia natural resulta estéril si comprendemos al derecho como un fenómeno de la cultura. Consecuentemente, el derecho no es mera voluntad, ni tampoco razón pura. El derecho, como se entiende en la tradición occidental, es más bien un sistema contingente de reglas para la decisión (la política, en cambio, se guía por objetivos). La cultura, tal como es concebida des- de la época de la Ilustración, puede describirse como “aquello que es resultado de la autonomía”. Como el derecho es un fenómeno valioso de la cultura (Kulturgut), entonces se plantean dos cuestiones: (1) ¿Hay necesidad del derecho? Ello depende de la demanda de libertad que tenga la sociedad. (2) ¿Qué necesita el derecho? El derecho requiere autonomía, es decir, el derecho a disfrutar de su propia cultura. (shrink)

The old controversy between Legal Positivism and Natural Justice turns out to be fruitless, if we comprehend law as a phenomenon of culture. Then, law is neither mere will nor mere reason. Law, as we understand it in the occidental tradition, is rather a contingent system of rules which guides decisions (politics, on the other hand, are guided by aims). Culture, as it is conceived since the age of Enlightenment, can be described as „what results from autonomy“. Law being a (...) valuable phenomenon of culture (Kulturgut), two questions arise. (1) Is there any need for law? It depends on the society’s demand for liberty. (2) What does the law need? Law requires autonomy, i. e. the right to enjoy its own culture. (shrink)

The contract review process can be a costly and time-consuming task for lawyers and clients alike, requiring significant effort to identify and evaluate the legal implications of individual clauses. To address this challenge, we propose the use of natural language processing techniques, specifically text classification based on deontic tags, to streamline the process. Our research question is whether natural language processing techniques, specifically dense vector embeddings, can help semi-automate the contract review process and reduce time and costs for legal professionals (...) reviewing deontic modalities in contracts. In this study, we create a domain-specific dataset and train both baseline and neural network models for contract sentence classification. This approach offers a more efficient and cost-effective solution for contract review, mimicking the work of a lawyer. Our approach achieves an accuracy of 0.90, showcasing its effectiveness in identifying and evaluating individual contract sentences. (shrink)

In Interpreting the Religious Experience, John Carmody and Denise Lardner Carmody attempt to provide a comprehensive overview of the nature of the major religions of the world. According to the Carmodys, religion is that aspect of a person’s life which concerns the ultimate structures and values of human life. If we accept this definition for the sake of argument, it follows that a people’s religion lies at the heart of that people’s concept of themselves, their world, and their relationship with (...) other peoples; and it follows that if one understands the nature of the world religions, one will be in a position to understand the nature of international conflict; presumably the problems of the USSR in Afghanistan as well as the problems of the Middle East and Ireland. The aim of the book’s authors might seem, therefore, to be providing the reader with materials to enable him to understand world politics better, and so to understand why the world is on the brink of ecological and nuclear disaster. Tracts of that sort are familiar. But it turns out, the authors’ aim is not so commonplace. They are out to analyze the religions of the world, sift the good from the bad, and propose a new religion which would enable the peoples of the world to have a proper respect for the world and for each other. (shrink)

Number processing abilities are important for academic and personal development. The course of initial specialization of ventral occipito-temporal cortex sensitivity to visual number processing is crucial for the acquisition of numeric and arithmetic skills. We examined the visual N1, the electrophysiological correlate of vOTC activation across five time points in kindergarten, middle and end of first grade, second grade, and fifth grade. A combination of cross-sectional and longitudinal EEG data of a total of 62 children at varying familial risk for (...) dyslexia were available to form groups of 23, 22, 27, 27, and 42 participants for each of the five time points. The children performed a target detection task which included visual presentation of single digits, false fonts, and letters to derive measures for coarse and fine digit sensitive processing across development. The N1 amplitude analyses indicated coarse and fine sensitivity characterized by a stronger N1 to digits than false fonts across all five time points, and stronger N1 to digits than letters at all but the second time point. In addition, lower arithmetic skills were associated with stronger coarse N1 digit sensitivity over the left hemisphere in second grade, possibly reflecting allocation of more attentional resources or stronger reliance on the verbal system in children with poorer arithmetic skills. To summarize, our results show persistent visual N1 sensitivity to digits that is already present early on in pre-school and remains stable until fifth grade. This pattern of digit sensitivity development clearly differs from the relatively sharp rise and fall of the visual N1 sensitivity to words or letters between kindergarten and middle of elementary school and suggests unique developmental trajectories for visual processing of written characters that are relevant to numeracy and literacy. (shrink)

One of four laws passed by Clodius early in 58 b.c. in some way modified the regulations governing obnuntiatio, the right possessed by magistrates and augurs to obstruct proceedings of the popular assemblies through announcement of unfavourable omens. The precise nature of the change is obscured by the fact that our main source, Cicero, describes it, as he does all of Clodius' legislation, in hyperbolic and polemical terms, alleging that it wholly abolished the right of obnuntiatio, a claim contradicted by (...) other evidence in his writings, which provide many examples of its continuing use. The later ancient sources repeat the substance of Cicero's main allegations and, accordingly, do little to help disentangle the facts from the hyperbole. Inadequate information about the earlier regulations relating to obnuntiatio, which were contained in two laws of the mid-second century, the Leges Aelia et Fufia, further hampers the search for the precise terms of Clodius' amendment. None of this, however, has discouraged speculation. The problem has exerted a peculiar fascination and has generated a succession of careful studies. Five main hypotheses have emerged: that the right of obnuntiatio was taken from curule magistrates; that it was taken from curule magistrates, but only in relation to legislative comitia; that it was taken from both curule magistrates and tribunes, but only in relation to legislative comitia; that it was abolished entirely, but soon restored by senatorial annulment of the reform; that it was left intact, but the assemblies were empowered to disallow it on any given occasion. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Tolle, LegeCommencement Address at the Dominican House of Studies, May 13, 2022Michael RootTolle, lege. Tolle, lege. "Take up, read." Few such simple words have had such a crucial impact on the history of Christian theology. In the summer of 386, Augustine of Hippo was a torn man. He had come to believe the Gospel, but he could not bring himself to break with sinful habits, habits so ingrained he (...) called them "necessities." His soul was torn between two wills within him, he said, each pointing in a different direction. Nothing seemed able to be able to break the interior logjam. He says that he willed that he would will the good, but not with a complete will, and so he remained paralyzed. After hearing a friend and mentor describe the conversion of Victorinus, a famous Roman teacher of rhetoric, and another friend speak of the monastic retreat of St. Anthony, the spiritual conflict within Augustine reached a fever pitch and he retreated to a corner of the garden in the house he was staying at. Suddenly, from over the wall, he heard a child chanting the words tolle, lege: "take up, read." He could not think of any childhood rhyme or chant that involved those words—they must be a sign from God. So, he rushed over to where a copy of St. Paul's letters was lying, opened it, and read at random. His eye fell on Romans 13:13: "Let us conduct ourselves becomingly as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy." As he himself puts in his Confessions: "No further wished I to read, nor was there need to do so. Instantly, in truth, at the end of this sentence, as if before a peaceful light streaming into my heart, all the dark shadows of doubt fled away" (8.12.29). [End Page 9]You who are graduating are now coming to the end of a process that has involved a great deal of taking up and reading. I trust that the taking up and reading has not been to cure you of reveling and drunkenness, not to mention the rest of St. Paul's list, but rather to form you, most immediately within the discipline of theology and for many of you, within the vocation of the priesthood and the Dominican Order. Some of what you have taken up and read has, I hope, been inspiring. I hope that at least on occasion you felt as if a peaceful light was streaming into your hearts. Some of what you read, I would guess, you found mind-numbingly boring. But it is all part of the process.Of course you did more than just take up and read. You thought about what you were reading. You compared it with other things you had read. You related it to your own experience. You discussed it with other students. You wrote about it in papers and on exams. The medieval university master had three tasks: legere, disputare, praedicare—read, dispute, and (in this context) present. You have done much the same thing—reading, arguing, presenting.Reading with this kind of attention does not leave us unaffected. We do not just learn new information; we come to inhabit a different world, with a different landscape and a different population. It makes a difference whether one's effective world includes only places like Washington, New York, and Elizabeth, New Jersey, or also Jerusalem, the old Jerusalem and the new Jerusalem, the North Africa of Augustine, and the Paris of Thomas Aquinas. The person whose imaginative world is mostly populated by characters from Friends and Game of Thrones will be a different sort of person from the one whose imaginative world includes Abraham, David, St. Paul, Dominic, and Alyosha Karamazov. It is as much an exaggeration to say you are what you read as to say you are what you eat. But at least for some of us (and if you are graduating from Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception, you are probably in this group), at least some of what we read changes not only what we... (shrink)

Mommsen invented the notion that the ancient sources provide clear evidence for placing the pre-Sullan laws affecting the iudicia publica in two distinct categories, i.e. laws affecting courts in general and laws affecting one court . Fraccaro demolished it, arguing that the term lex iudiciaria had no such precise meaning in the ancient authors and that all the laws to which it was applied, before the Lex Aurelia of 70, were, in fact, leges repetundarum.

The way of laws is as much a defining feature of the modern period as the way of ideas; but the way of laws is hardly without its forks. Both before and after Descartes, there are philosophers using the concept to carve out a very different position from his, one that is entirely disconnected from God or God’s will. I argue that Francis Bacon and Baruch Spinoza treat laws as dispositions that derive from a thing’s nature. This reading upends the (...) currently orthodox treatment of Spinoza’s laws as infinite modes, and calls for a re-conception of his metaphysics of causation. (shrink)

One of four laws passed by Clodius early in 58 b.c. in some way modified the regulations governing obnuntiatio, the right possessed by magistrates and augurs to obstruct proceedings of the popular assemblies through announcement of unfavourable omens. The precise nature of the change is obscured by the fact that our main source, Cicero, describes it, as he does all of Clodius' legislation, in hyperbolic and polemical terms, alleging that it wholly abolished the right of obnuntiatio, a claim contradicted by (...) other evidence in his writings, which provide many examples of its continuing use. The later ancient sources repeat the substance of Cicero's main allegations and, accordingly, do little to help disentangle the facts from the hyperbole. Inadequate information about the earlier regulations relating to obnuntiatio, which were contained in two laws of the mid-second century, the Leges Aelia et Fufia, further hampers the search for the precise terms of Clodius' amendment. None of this, however, has discouraged speculation. The problem has exerted a peculiar fascination and has generated a succession of careful studies. Five main hypotheses have emerged: that the right of obnuntiatio was taken from curule magistrates; that it was taken from curule magistrates, but only in relation to legislative comitia; that it was taken from both curule magistrates and tribunes, but only in relation to legislative comitia; that it was abolished entirely, but soon restored by senatorial annulment of the reform; that it was left intact, but the assemblies were empowered to disallow it on any given occasion. (shrink)

Mommsen invented the notion that the ancient sources provide clear evidence for placing the pre-Sullan laws affecting the iudicia publica in two distinct categories, i.e. laws affecting courts in general and laws affecting one court. Fraccaro demolished it, arguing that the term lex iudiciaria had no such precise meaning in the ancient authors and that all the laws to which it was applied, before the Lex Aurelia of 70, were, in fact, leges repetundarum.

With his clear and accessible prose, impeccable scholarship, and balanced Judgment, Roland Teske, SJ, has been an influential and important voice in Medieval philosophy for more than thirty years. This volume, in his honour, brings together more than a dozen essays on central metaphysical and theological themes in Augustine and other medieval thinkers. The authors, listed below, are noted scholars who draw upon Teskes work, reflect on it, go beyond it, and at times even disagree with it, but always in (...) a spirit of respectful co-operation, and always with the aim of getting at the truth. Essays on Augustine contributed by Gerald Bonner, Charles Brittain, Joseph Koterski, SJ, Joseph T. Lienhard, SJ, David Vincent Meconi, SJ, Ann A. Pang-White, Frederick Van Fleteren, Dorothea Weber, and James Wetzel. Essays on Bernard of Clairvaux, William of Auvergne, and other medieval themes contributed by John P. Doyle, William Harmless, SJ, John A. Laumakis, Edward P. Mahoney, and Philipp W. Rosemann. (shrink)

Multiple viewpoints have been expressed regarding the principle nulla poena sine lege. Some scholars advocate the inviolability of this maxim because it safeguards personal freedom—an opportunity to do everything not prohibited by law. However, its critics assert that rigid adherence to the principle nulla poena sine lege may do more harm than good. They argue that the maxim, while prohibiting judges from punishing non-criminal acts, makes it impossible for courts to deter them in a timely manner, which, in certain cases, (...) may have a detrimental effect on society. To determine the correct approach to nulla poena sine lege, the paper considers its history in continental criminal law and then analyses the principle theoretically. The examination reveals that two contradictory interests—the need to safeguard personal freedom and the need to combat lawful, yet socially harmful, acts through judicial punishment—cannot be completely ignored in practice. Therefore, the findings suggest a balancing between these interests and propose a way to achieve this compromise. (shrink)

Does language make moral cognition possible? Some authors like Andy Clark have argued for a positive answer whereby language and the ways people use it mark a fundamental divide between humans and all other animals with respect to moral thinking (Clark, Mind and morals: essays on cognitive science and ethics. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1996; Moral Epistemol Nat Can J Philos Suppl XXVI, 2000a; Moral Epistemol Nat Can J Philos Suppl XXVI, 2000b; Philosophy of mental representation. Oxford University Press, Oxford, (...) pp 37–43 and discussion, 44–61, 2002). I take issue with Clark’s view and argue that language is probably unnecessary for the emergence of moral cognition. I acknowledge, however, that humans unlike other animals seem to posses what Haugeland in Philosophy of mental representation. Oxford University Press, Oxford (2002) terms ‘norm-hungriness’: an idiosyncratic need or desire to create and abide by a multitude of norms. Our peculiar norm-hungriness, I suggest, depends on what can be called florid control rather than on language. (shrink)

In this article the influence of scientific attitudes of Prof. Mykolas Romeris upon modern administrative justice of Lithuania is investigated by historic and comparative aspects. In the first part of article the Professor’s ideas, stated in the fundamental monograph “Administrative Court”, published in Kaunas, in 1928, about the foundation of the Administrative court are reviewed. Here are also pointed out Prof. M. Romeris’ principal,alternative and critical notes concerning the draft of the Law of Administrative Court, made by the Seimas (Parliament) (...) Committee on April 1940. As due to historical circumstances of that time the Law was not passed, in the second part of this article the author proposes the analysis of which ideas of Prof. M. Romeris and to what ambit they were reflected in the Republic of Lithuania Law on the Proceedings of Administrative Cases enacted in 1999, and improved in 2000. The conclusion is made that in this case almost all principle attitudes of Prof. M. Romeris on the organizing the Administrative court and its competence were realized in this Law. It is also stated that the Law mentioned also embedded some other norms, e.g. the possibility to settle a dispute in a pretrial way in Administrative Disputes Commissions. (shrink)