The collapse of the Saddam regime in March 2003 saw the publication of a number of articles or more encompassing works devoted to the situation of the Christian communities in Iraq. The majority of these focus on ecclesiastical issues and much less on political developments. However, it is clear that it would be artificial to separate the religious from the political: some religious leaders actively participate in the political debate and express views on the ethnic profile of their community, which (...) has consequences for the role they want their communities to play in the Iraqi society. The present article tries to describe and understand some political developments, focusing on three interrelated themes: the divided political landscape, the position of the Christians in Kurdistan and their relations with the Kurdish Regional Government and the Central Federal Government and the discussion on political and cultural “autonomy” for the Christian communities and the creation of a Christian “homeland”. (shrink)

At the forefront of international concerns about global legislation and regulation, a host of noted environmentalists and business ethicists examine ethical issues in consumption from the points of view of environmental sustainability, economic development, and free enterprise.

The US neutrino community gathered at the Workshop on the Intermediate Neutrino Program at Brookhaven National Laboratory February 4-6, 2015 to explore opportunities in neutrino physics over the next five to ten years. Scientists from particle, astroparticle and nuclear physics participated in the workshop. The workshop examined promising opportunities for neutrino physics in the intermediate term, including possible new small to mid-scale experiments, US contributions to large experiments, upgrades to existing experiments, R&D plans and theory. The workshop was organized into (...) two sets of parallel working group sessions, divided by physics topics and technology. Physics working groups covered topics on Sterile Neutrinos, Neutrino Mixing, Neutrino Interactions, Neutrino Properties and Astrophysical Neutrinos. Technology sessions were organized into Theory, Short-Baseline Accelerator Neutrinos, Reactor Neutrinos, Detector R&D and Source, Cyclotron and Meson Decay at Rest sessions.This report summarizes discussion and conclusions from the workshop. (shrink)

This article examines the methodology of a core branch of contemporary political theory or philosophy: “analytic” political theory. After distinguishing political theory from related fields, such as political science, moral philosophy, and legal theory, the article discusses the analysis of political concepts. It then turns to the notions of principles and theories, as distinct from concepts, and reviews the methods of assessing such principles and theories (e.g., the reflective-equilibrium method), for the purpose of justifying or criticizing them. Finally, it looks (...) at a recent debate on how abstract and idealized political theory should be, and assesses the significance of disagreement in political theory. The discussion is carried out from an angle inspired by the philosophy of science. (shrink)

The semantic puzzles posed by propositional attitude contexts have, since Frege, been understood primarily in terms of certain substitution puzzles. We will take as paradigmatic of such substitution puzzles cases in which two coreferential proper names cannot be intersubstituted salva veritate in the context of an attitude verb. Thus, for example, the following sentences differ in truth value: (1) Lois Lane believes Superman can fly. (2) Lois Lane believes Clark Kent can fly. despite the fact that "Superman" and "Clark Kent" (...) pick out the same individual.1 Equivalently, the following sentence may be true: (3) Lois Lane believes that Superman can fly, but that Clark Kent cannot fly. despite the coreferentiality of the names. (It will at times be convenient to appeal to this conjunctive attitude report in order to fix a single context of utterance.) Substitution failures such as these create a puzzle when conjoined with the assumptions (a) that attitude reports report a binary relation between an individual and some object of that individual's attitude and (b) that that object of the attitude is determined by the content of the complement sentence in the attitude report. If all of the terms in two complement sentences (e.g., "Superman can fly" and "Clark Kent can fly") have the same semantic content, then, prima facie, they ought to generate the same object of believe and, a fortiori, materially equivalent attitude reports. Frege, famously, attempts to defuse the puzzle by positing a semantic value of sense in addition to that of reference, and thereby distinguishing the semantic contents of the two complement sentences. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:258 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY To make this theme conspicuous to the reader, the author deals with three topics in Aristotle's first philosophy: the path from beings to the primary instance of being, the study of sensible substance, and the distinction between the potential and the actual. Grene's essay on the most perplexing of Aristotle's works is the least satisfactory in her study. Though she acknowledges that the path of (...) thg Aristotelian first philosopher is not easy, her analysis of the school X67oLmakes the road more facile than it, in fact, is. For example, what is the relation between Wisdom (the science of principles and causes), the science of being-qua-being, and the science of immovable substance? How can the latter be universal and, at the same time, have as its object one kind of being? Why does Aristotle dismiss substrate in the sense of compound of form and matter as a candidate for substance? It would seem to satisfy his criteria of thisness and separability better (or at least in more instances) than substrate in the sense of form. Finally, it is hard to avoid Ross's conclusion (Aristotle's Metaphysics, Vol. 1, pp. ci) that Aristotle in Book Z moves away from the view that the primary ontological units are sensible individuals toward the view that they are pure forms. The real is either the object of definition (and this appears to be Aristotle's view for the most part in Book Z) or it is the individual (the doctrine of the Categories); it cannot, on Aristotelian grounds, be both. Grene's resolution of the difficulty will not bear scrutiny. She says (p. 205): "Definition is of the universal. But the object of definition is the real substance, the being-what-it-is of the thing. This is substance and not universal." The incompatibility of the first and third sentences in this passage constitutes what Grene refers to (p. 205) as "a very perplexing situation indeed;" and they also reflect the "double meaning" which "pervades Aristotle's whole treatment of substance" (Ross, Aristotle, p. 166). It is the doctrine of the first sentence which comes to the fore in Book Z, for there Aristotle concludes (i) that ot~r is r6 I"L~Tv e~tL and maintains (ii) that rb rl ~v rival 'will belong to nothing which is not a species of a genus' (1030"12-13). And we hardly need be reminded that an Aristotelian species is not an individual. Grene, it seems to me, relieves our perplexity somewhat, but only by blurring the oscillation in Aristotle's mind on this point, e.g., when she implies that the unambiguous doctrine of Book Z is that "as far as the perceived world goes, the naturalist's specimen, the individual of a type, the member of a class, is the prototype of the real" (p. 205). In very readable prose Grene has given us a picture of Aristotle that is at once engaging and in most respects faithful to the interests and outlook of her model. She says in a bibliographical note that her book is "meant more for the undergraduate reader or the general public than for scholars already conversant both with the text and the tradition" (p. 257). I suggest that the account Grene has given us is stimulating and refreshing also for the scholar. JosxAtt B. GOULD,JR. Glaremont Graduate School La filosofia medievale: Antologia di testi. Edited by Nicola Abbagnan0. (Bari: Editori Laterza, 1963. Pp. 440. -----Coll. del Candelaio. L. 2700.) it is the purpose of this, the second volume in the Antologia di testi filosofici to appear under the general editorship of the fine Italian scholar, Nicola Abbagnano, to provide an introduction to the history of mediaeval philosophy through the presentation of selected primary source materials in Italian translation. The book could have been a significant addition to the sparse philosophical literature of the period that is now available BOOK REVIEWS 259 to the non-Latin reader; instead, it turns out to be a sort of catalogue of opinions on a wide variety of philosophical topics held by many of the thinkers active in the period: between St... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:258 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY To make this theme conspicuous to the reader, the author deals with three topics in Aristotle's first philosophy: the path from beings to the primary instance of being, the study of sensible substance, and the distinction between the potential and the actual. Grene's essay on the most perplexing of Aristotle's works is the least satisfactory in her study. Though she acknowledges that the path of (...) thg Aristotelian first philosopher is not easy, her analysis of the school X67oLmakes the road more facile than it, in fact, is. For example, what is the relation between Wisdom (the science of principles and causes), the science of being-qua-being, and the science of immovable substance? How can the latter be universal and, at the same time, have as its object one kind of being? Why does Aristotle dismiss substrate in the sense of compound of form and matter as a candidate for substance? It would seem to satisfy his criteria of thisness and separability better (or at least in more instances) than substrate in the sense of form. Finally, it is hard to avoid Ross's conclusion (Aristotle's Metaphysics, Vol. 1, pp. ci) that Aristotle in Book Z moves away from the view that the primary ontological units are sensible individuals toward the view that they are pure forms. The real is either the object of definition (and this appears to be Aristotle's view for the most part in Book Z) or it is the individual (the doctrine of the Categories); it cannot, on Aristotelian grounds, be both. Grene's resolution of the difficulty will not bear scrutiny. She says (p. 205): "Definition is of the universal. But the object of definition is the real substance, the being-what-it-is of the thing. This is substance and not universal." The incompatibility of the first and third sentences in this passage constitutes what Grene refers to (p. 205) as "a very perplexing situation indeed;" and they also reflect the "double meaning" which "pervades Aristotle's whole treatment of substance" (Ross, Aristotle, p. 166). It is the doctrine of the first sentence which comes to the fore in Book Z, for there Aristotle concludes (i) that ot~r is r6 I"L~Tv e~tL and maintains (ii) that rb rl ~v rival 'will belong to nothing which is not a species of a genus' (1030"12-13). And we hardly need be reminded that an Aristotelian species is not an individual. Grene, it seems to me, relieves our perplexity somewhat, but only by blurring the oscillation in Aristotle's mind on this point, e.g., when she implies that the unambiguous doctrine of Book Z is that "as far as the perceived world goes, the naturalist's specimen, the individual of a type, the member of a class, is the prototype of the real" (p. 205). In very readable prose Grene has given us a picture of Aristotle that is at once engaging and in most respects faithful to the interests and outlook of her model. She says in a bibliographical note that her book is "meant more for the undergraduate reader or the general public than for scholars already conversant both with the text and the tradition" (p. 257). I suggest that the account Grene has given us is stimulating and refreshing also for the scholar. JosxAtt B. GOULD,JR. Glaremont Graduate School La filosofia medievale: Antologia di testi. Edited by Nicola Abbagnan0. (Bari: Editori Laterza, 1963. Pp. 440. -----Coll. del Candelaio. L. 2700.) it is the purpose of this, the second volume in the Antologia di testi filosofici to appear under the general editorship of the fine Italian scholar, Nicola Abbagnano, to provide an introduction to the history of mediaeval philosophy through the presentation of selected primary source materials in Italian translation. The book could have been a significant addition to the sparse philosophical literature of the period that is now available BOOK REVIEWS 259 to the non-Latin reader; instead, it turns out to be a sort of catalogue of opinions on a wide variety of philosophical topics held by many of the thinkers active in the period: between St... (shrink)

This book offers an introduction to the Sophists of fifth-century Athens and a new overall interpretation of their thought. Since Plato first animadverted on their activities, the Sophists have commonly been presented as little better than intellectual mountebanks - a picture which Professor Kerferd forcefully challenges here. Interpreting the evidence with care, he shows them to have been part of an exciting and historically crucial intellectual movement. At the centre of their teaching was a form of relativism, most famously expressed (...) by Protagoras as 'Man is the measure of all things', and which they developed in a wide range of views - on knowledge and argument, virtue, government, society, and the gods. On all these subjects the Sophists did far more than simply provoke Plato to thought. Their contributions were substantial and serious; they inaugurated the debate on many central philosophical questions and decisively shifted the focus of philosophical attention from the cosmos to man. (shrink)

_An original and insightful account of nature and our place in it from one of France's preeminent historians of philosophy._.

Jelson Roberto de Oliveira, autor de “Compreender Hans Jonas”, é graduado em Filosofia pela Universidade Federal do Paraná, com especialização em Sociologia Política e mestrado em História da Filosofia Moderna e Contemporânea pela mesma universidade. Atualmente é professor da pós-graduação em Filosofia na PUC-PR, e coordenador do GT Hans Jonas, da Anpof, que reúne vários pesquisadores de nível nacional na área. Ética para a civilização tecnológica e A solidão como virtude moral em Nietzsche são alguns dos diversos títulos que compõem (...) o acervo de obras do autor. (shrink)

"It is the purpose of this article to attempt to re-examine the account of Thrasymachus' doctrine in Plato's Republic, and to show how it can form a self-consistent whole. [...] In this paper it is maintained that Thrasymachus is holding a form of [natural right]." Note: Volume 40 = new series 9.

Popular interest in the progress of physical science has increased very rapidly in the last few years. Perhaps the spectacular ‘mysteries’ of wireless and the intriguing paradoxes of the theory of relativity are the chief causes. For every home now has its Magic Box—a piece of pure physics; there is not a familiar thing in it, not even that sine qua non of all things that ‘work’—a wheel, only mysterious parts called condensers, grid-leaks, inductances, and thermionic valves. And surely, when (...) a Sunday newspaper produces a facsimile page of Einstein’s recent paper in German containing abstruse tensor equations, reverence for the mathematical physicist is nearing its zenith. (shrink)

There have been many attempts to undertand the connections between quantum theory and Whiteheadian process philosophy. However, due to the ontological considerations, it is very important to specify which interpretation of quantum theory one embraces before inquiring into the details of Whitehead`s philosophy of organism. In this article, I argue that Ghirardi-Rimini-Weber (GRW) collapse interpretation of quantum theory serves as a suitable point of departure for future endeavors. Comparisons with many-worlds interpretation and decoherence approach have also been provided.