When considering the introduction of a new intervention in a budget constrained healthcare system, priority setting based on fair principles is fundamental. In many jurisdictions, a multi-criteria approach with several different considerations is employed, including severity and cost-effectiveness. Such multi-criteria approaches raise questions about how to balance different considerations against each other, and how to understand the logical or normative relations between them. For example, some jurisdictions make explicit reference to a large patient benefit as such a consideration. However, since (...) patient benefit is part of a cost-effectiveness assessment it is not clear how to balance considerations of greater patient benefit against considerations of severity and cost-effectiveness. The aim of this paper is to explore the role of a large patient benefit as an independent criterion for priority setting in a healthcare system also considering severity and cost-effectiveness. By taking the opportunity cost of new interventions (i.e., the health forgone in patients already receiving treatment) into account, we argue that patient benefit has a complex relationship to priority setting. More specifically, it cannot be reasonably concluded that large patient benefits should be given priority if severity, cost-effectiveness, and opportunity costs are held constant. Since we cannot find general support for taking patient benefit into account as an independent criterion from any of the most discussed theories about distributive justice: utilitarianism, prioritarianism, telic egalitarianism and sufficientarianism, it is reasonable to avoid doing so. Hence, given the complexity of the role of patient benefit, we conclude that in priority practice, a large patient benefit should not be considered as an independent criterion, on top of considerations of severity and cost-effectiveness. (shrink)

continent. 2.2 (2012): 155–158 Michel Serres. Biogea . Trans. Randolph Burks. Minneapolis: Univocal Publishing. 2012. 200 pp. | ISBN 9781937561086 | $22.95 Conveying to potential readers the significance of a book puts me at risk of glad handing. It’s not in my interest to laud the undeserving, especially on the pages of this journal. This is not a sales pitch, but rather an affirmation of a necessary work on very troubled terms: human, earth, nature, and the problematic world we made. (...) It is this world that aspirates the silence (so to speak), and therefore the subject which, along with the development of the “made world” exports the excess augmentation of the cosmically missing, this silence of the natural, et cetera. Had we learned from Locke that lesson of “labor,” to consume what we need… but perhaps we need more than what matters? Serres’ Biogea has several functions on this manner, if it is indeed a book to be consumed. First, readers searching for novelistic entertainment have a place to dwell. Biogea deserves a place in your back pocket; biographical generosity and poetic fluidity should satisfy most textual fetishes. For lay philosophers who want to refresh their acumen, Biogea deserves a place on the book shelf, one already reads a sorely needed postmodern tune-up here. Serres’ style is clearly French; he leaves few cheese crumbs on his words, rather preciseness and breathing in the work give way to a sweeping manner that breaks the narrative line of sight. A circular narrative and anachronistic fragmentation of terms allows an abyssal atmosphere to swell, if only to pump into the book the externality of its broader text. Biogea aspires to a higher standard and the book, at times, is thinking this negentropic problem too. Univocal, the publisher, has crafted a book appropriate for the hands to hold and the translations are an achievement of an otherwise difficult writer to translate. Terms are the conditions of a broader text. It is important to note that Serres’ content is as much a thinking of terminal ports. There is a regard for the transportation technology of the written word. For me, this is the mark of genius, a craftiness that tells of a book device that I may trust. Serres is an accomplished thinker and a necessary voice to check the putative trendiness of anti-postmodernist and market-driven theory of endless cultural liquidation. Offering interventions on subjectivity as an open system we are given a chance to affirm the human, not merely to discard it, but to engage its poetic image emotion, the calibratory silent sense of the analogic world; the terms on which we base our efforts. 1 The human is the center of its own negation, constantly mediating it. Something deeper at stake appears in the work then, and it is quite obvious from the onset. Certainly, a book is an intensification of possible text and those who brought this actual book into existence have captured a rarity in regards to the subject matter and artistic accomplishment. I mentioned terms as conditions, so let us understand Biogea as bio-yea, a yes to bios . An affirmation of living and accepting presence for all of its defiance of images, words, and things temporal. Therefore Serres’ existence and its existants plays parts; out of linearity and still like a porous bone pumping blood it manufactures into the fleshy life it becomes. Starting from a man named silence chaos emerges, or the man “Old Taciturn” takes up a journey anticipating a great flood. In other words, a development akin to the one in Genesis. In dealing with this ancestral occupation, fusing Genesis with contemporary philosophical terms, Serres initiates this anachronistic fragmentation under the forming subjectivity of his own autobiography. This mutation in the open system is precisely one of Serres’ terms. There an abyss is at work, stated, but also measured by heels on the ground—the abyss dispatching earthen tensions, that which plays our tunes, that which we abide by and recognize in volcanoes, rivers, oceans, earthquakes and weaponry in the battles of the world. Set in later stages of the book, such tensions are harnessed through scientific principles in an attempt to unify the terms of natural force if only to terminate the world. Thus the elevation of the earth into the world is clearly set forth. Here already, and few pages in, a resonance is set forth under appellations such as the river Garonne, a subjectivity as much as it is inhuman, the river is the inhuman that makes us human. I get the sense that Serres is taking up a challenge issued by Wallace Stevens; namely, that the great poems of heaven and hell have been written, but that only the poem of the earth has resisted composition. 2 On this level we cannot avoid the killing factor of silence, given that our cognition blocks its pure, radical obliteration. Thus a silence of attunement to the earth is in a novel dialectic of the rithmic and rhythm. A technological world, a triumph of termination is set forth. If a text imposes its will given the reader who authorizes it, it is made to convey or convect a presupposition to a reader or its inhabitant(s). Text is therefore both, in-content, contenting, contentedness, and in reading it, a way to navigate self-destruction (dis-content). Here then would one note that the “inhuman” reveals itself, “an aperiodic rhythm of lovers and beloved…the sea as our friend…but as our enemy…maternal vivifying sea.” The sea is an open book, or vaginal birth canal, where the engagement of text comes forth: “…woman sea, open vulva.” One sees like the sea, but only after it, when the uninhabitable truth of inhabiting it switches the polarity of the sailors soul: “I was seeing like the sea” (9-11). In other words, we are invited to embrace the nonsense of the visible. At this point I am taken to Jean-François Lyotard’s work The Inhuman , specifically the first entry on negentropy that would be congruent with Serres’ thematic. 3 The human being exports, deports, or transplants its relation through text, through the system— and this is its sense or relation to silence, to music. Unaware of Serres’ proximity to this work, the concept of gender interrelation as regards a solar catastrophe runs clear. It would be, on this basis, that Serres references his peers, the other texts that, as mentioned above, are discarded in philosophy today. For students of philosophy what we have here is perhaps a gift, a needed project. If silence and death are at work, there is a political valence to deal with, and here, much like the domain of the text and the dominion of the reader, we confront the world of natural, fluid violence. The anti-postmodernist critique is in part based on a weak idea that the loss of ideology, of a world vision, motivates the “correlationist” project. 4 Serres seems to offer another way to view this when he notes that whereas persons “sometimes kill,” it is clearly “the collective” that “always kills” (17). What is the collective today, if not an organizing function we never see yet acts in its favor in the name of truth? One feels a sense of enigma here, if only to link to what Stevens remarked of communism as a “grubby faith,” providing this applies for capitalism as well, namely any ideology of progress overly interested in absolutes. Here we get the sense that the inhuman, silence, this type of killing, always killing, could not be matched by human-made, political dynamos. Or that if it comes to an equilibrium, a catastrophe is never too far from us to read with our heels. We are left to note that the forces of nature presuppose and permeate political systems, the more these systems obtain force, the more the system takes upon itself the proper name of nature that motivates its dissemination, albeit falsely. This note, that in an age of ecocide and technological captivity (sustainability and transparency) political regimes won’t grow our soul-learning ears any larger than our tongues, stands clear to us. The promise of technological desubjectification is here pushed aside. Regarding politics, Serres illustrates this fact: Where did this corpse come from? Who was it? Who killed it? I don’t know. I won’t try to find out. I refuse to get vengeance for it. And I only see Garonne. For our victims, today, are the rivers, too. Their waters have irrigated my life, enchanted my thought, invigorated my body; I’ve known them to be threatening, untamable, as dangerous as the sea when it rages. Yes, murderous. They decided to control their courses; dams, sometimes senseless, destroying sites and valleys, reduced entire populations to servile displacements; programs for the irrigation of thirsty farmland, often beneficial of course, completed their drying up.(22) Serres enters into his idea concerning the captivity of language from the natural into a world system: For thousands of years, we have been licking things with our tongues, covering and daubing them so as to appropriate things for ourselves. If language boils down to a convention, this convention took place between the speakers without consulting the thing named, become as a result the property of those who covered it in this way with their drawn or voiced productions. Malfeasance analyzes these acts of appropriation. Thus every inert object, every living thing as well, sleeps under the covers of signs, a little in the way that, today, a thousand posters shouting messages and ugly riots of color drown, with their filthy flood, the landscapes, or better, exclude them from perception because the meaning, almost nil, of this false language and these base images forms an irresistible source of attraction to our neurons and eyes. This appropriation covers the world’s beauty with ugliness. (38-39) Technological concealment coming to bear, we begin to get a sense of another commentary on the condition of sensing, driving home the necessity of a text dealing with such subject matter to be what its terms insist. Thus toward new openings: The new opening. As low beneath our feet as you like, the Biogea opens us to another space, high enough for us to be able to acquire a wisdom there, that of redeveloping this same place differently from our fathers, this place that’s still politically cut up by old hatreds, beneath the flood of tears and blood that we call history. Without this soft place, spiritually very old, but newly conceived in this way, without the juridical construction of a common good, opposed to our filthy ownership, I don’t see how our planet, hard, will survive. Hardness that depends on a softness, material belonging that depends on this temporary rented location (51). Serres enters into a summit on the content and the structure of his work. Archimedes is brought in with the concept of three volcanoes. Meaning fire, but as well earth, water, air. For it was Archimedes’ war machines that sought to lift the earth, thus bringing in the question of principles of science: “can a principle be invented while controlling its consequences?” (66-7). May the earth be put in a sentence, terminated by terminology, appellations, gone wild? By means of these element-dominating laws, this old physicist began to tear nature away from the ancient myths; by a strange return, today we’re plunging our successes back into the anxieties and terrors from which that ancient physics was born. Yes, our new history of science and technology is plunging, today, as though in a loop, into the fundamental human myths from which Empedocles’ first laws came. A major progression and a regression on the nether side of the origins. Consequently, the contemporary time requires that we try to return to that unity in which the principles of hate and love are at the same time human, living, inert and global. We will never attain a deontology of our knowledge and actions without thinking the subjective, the objective, the collective, and the cognitive all together simultaneously. Here, hate and love are the result of these four components.(71) Working then on the concept of fire-starting mirrors to the atomic annihilation of the Second War, Serres works into the subjectivity in question on the matter of rhythm—say rithmic— precisely at that point: Knowledge is changing today. The all-political is dying; the monarchy of the sciences said to be hard is coming to a close. The science of the things of the world will have to communicate just as much as the things of the world do, which do it much better than humans do, who don’t always want to do it. Let’s celebrate two changes this morning. The first one strikes a new blow to our narcissism. No, knowledge and the world don’t resemble our analytical enjoyments of refined cutting up, of endless debates and of exclusions full of hate. They, on the contrary, form a bloc and a sum, alliance and alloys. Uniting the fields of knowledge among themselves the way the things are connected among themselves, the second newness puts into place sets united by interlacing, webs and simplexes that combine with the things of the world, themselves combined, the combined knowledge that understands them.(130-1) Biogea closes on its opening flood thematic, approaching the initial telos of Genesis. Here the trees are brought into a position with atmosphere, the opaque abyssal reservoir, the tomb of the sun, sea in the polarity of the earthen heaven and hell. The poem of the earth then is silent but deadly, indeed, as funny as that phrase is, mainly a tomb gas. The meaning of the living and the non-meaning of things converge in the muteness of the world; this meaning and non-meaning plunge there and come out, the ultimate eddy. Mundus patet: through a fissure, through an opening, a fault, a cleft come noises, calls as small as these apertures. I’m listening, attentive, I’m translating, I’m advancing in the scaled-down meaning and science. Mundus patet: should the world open greatly, it will launch me into its silence. The totality remains silent. Knowledge expanded in elation. White origin of meaning, fountain of joy. (198) Final Remarks One test of a review is the long term trajectory the referee thinks the book will have. I see Serres’ text lending greatly into the vision of Biogea . In fact, in the vision of the novel inquiries of Stephen Jay Gould’s work there is something to be thought on the level of the individual and the species; namely, that humanity and its uniqueness is in its deferral, its thinking and naming, a thinking surrounded by silence that filters into everything, that pulls us through the world, the kinetic pulse we recognize, and all of that we cleave away in the base philosophical maxim of difference itself. Unique individuals are spatial creatures: we dwell, and we ought to get good at it. Yet this is an imaginative space that, if you are crazy enough to believe it, de-term-ine the conditions of its own terms. That is why we are not merely creating spaces on the acceleration of time, or so this ignoramus thinks, to accidentally transcend. Imagination already has this insatiable silence that we drink up and fail to manifest. Space is timeless. The imagination itself, shared by humans for themselves, their objects, and the species as a whole, is a non-defined space of relation; a whole human trajectory as part of nature, and part of worlds that are the other side of thinking nature, the consequence of it, at least our attempt to do so. Our survival is based on our deliberation, our caution, our natural deconstructive sense toward this silence that is already part of the song, sung, singing of this century without end. Good books will let us inhabit this space and recognize a form of life. Serres’ text moves toward dwelling, as noted, in masterful and accessible ways. The pitched battles are the falling replays of anemic and dead politics. As soon as we realize there is humanity, we may be able to enjoy the end of it, our inhuman capability of listening to silence. NOTES 1. See Michel Serres. The Parasite . Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 2007. 2. Wallace Stevens, “Imagination as Value” [ca. 1945], in Collected Poetry and Prose . New York: The Library of America. 1997. 724-39. 3. Jean-François Lyotard. The Inhuman: Reflections on Time . Trans. Geoffrey Bennington & Rachel Bowlby. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. 1992. 4. See the introduction: Quentin Melliassoux. After Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency . Trans. Ray Brassier. New York: Continuum. 2008. EDITOR'S NOTE: This review was updated on August 8, 2012. Substantial edits include block quotes from the book under review as well as the inclusion of comments from the author. (shrink)

Thinking Tools is a regular feature that introduces pointers on thinking clearly and rigorously. Here we look at a particularly underhand way of avoiding answering a question. It is popular with politicians around the world.

A central question that arises when interpreting the U.S. Constitution is which theory of interpretation is the best? In his recent book, “How to Interpret the Constitution,” Cass Sunstein reviews various theories of constitutional interpretation currently in vogue and then offers what he believes would be the best approach going forward. In this Article, I want to take up a more basic question presupposed by the very idea of a theory of interpretation. That is, whether it is even (...) possible to arrive at more than a provisional understanding of what would be the best interpretation in any given area of study, including constitutional law. That said, I do believe some of the interpretations suggested by Cass Sunstein and elsewhere by myself and others to be more persuasive than most others, even if only partially so. For, as Sunstein himself points out, no theory seems perfect to figure out the Constitution’s meaning in every possible world in which we could imagine it to exist. So, we best just focus on our own world or what we take to matter in our world. In keeping with this idea, I plan to begin by looking first at how we might interpret the world around us based on our past experiences by considering a somewhat imaginative recent experience of my own. Next, I consider some recent studies in the neurosciences and a previous but highly influential article by the philosopher Donald Davidson concerning conceptual schemes and whether we could ever hope to make any sense of a scheme radically different from our own. Here it should be pointed out that I will use the word “scheme” when referring to a very broad system of thought for which there may not be much outside, versus when I use the word “framework,” as referencing something far narrower than a whole system of thought, even if what is referenced might purport to be a significant part of a still larger system. My goal is to eventually adopt John Rawls’ public reason method to separate out non-workable systems of thought as might be part of a particular religious or philosophical tradition that cannot be easily tied to any other system of thought easily imagined within a pluralistic society. I plan to do this by relating how Rawls’ public reason might allow for the creation of a moral interpretation of the Constitution adopting the moral theory of Alan Gewirth. The latter I adopt because its grounding does not presuppose any prior moral or religious framework. I then apply that interpretative method to five cases Sunstein believes are fixed points in our current constitutional understanding. In short, I plan to isolate out an area of human rights where even very different understandings of the world might be able to meet, while acknowledging that there will still be other areas that simply evade any common connection. I hope what I offer here to be of help for a theory of constitutional interpretation that focuses on morality, without having to compete with various religious frameworks going forward. (shrink)

In a recent paper, I launch an attack on a fundamental doctrine of legal positivism. I argue that nonnormative facts cannot themselves constitutively determine the content of the law. In a response published in this journal, Ram Neta defends the view that nonnormative social facts are sufficient to determine normative facts, including both moral and legal facts. Neta's paper provides a useful opportunity to address a spelled-out version of this view, which in various forms is widely held in philosophy of (...) law and other areas of philosophy. I begin by addressing Neta's attempts to show that descriptive facts can alone determine moral and legal facts. First, Neta's account of why it is wrong to break promises fails. In addition to other problems, it begs the question by taking for granted that a person's desires or other motivational states necessarily justify the actions that they motivate. Next, I turn to Neta's attempt to provide a counterexample to my view about law. In my original paper, I claim that the nature of the constitutive determination relation in the legal domain is what I call rationaldetermination. Roughly speaking, a full constitutive account of the legal facts must include reasons that explain the relation between the determining facts and the legal facts. The facts on which Neta's putative counterexample depends cannot be reasons of the required sort because they take for granted what they are supposed to explain—the way in which nonnormative social facts contribute to the content of the law. Finally, I address the larger issue of how far my argument applies to other domains. I consider and reject Neta's argument that purports to show that all normative domains have the relevant features of the legal domain. I then sketch a competing picture of some normative domains. (shrink)

In this exploration into the close relation between terror and law, I attempt first to show that the relation between terror and law is not a simple question of relating violence to law, but to the very process of constitution making. Second, laws relating to terror may or may not find a formal place in the constitution, but this relation is essential to the working of the basic law, of the foundational concept of the rule of law. Third, intelligence (...) gathering occupies a key place in this relation, and this activity, which has no mention in the constitution almost anywhere in the world, is the fulcrum on which reasons of state stand. Fourth, intelligence is the close monitoring of human movement, of the body, of the physical activities, and in this physical form of politics we have the meeting of the body and reasoning, terror and constitution, violence and law. And finally, the article describes a specifically Indian experience; yet may have larger significance in terms of retrieving the history of constitution making. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume Studies Volume 32, Number 1, April 2006, pp. 113-117 How Wide Is Hume's Circle? (A question raised by the exchange between Erin I. Kelly and Louis E. Loeb, Hume Studies, November 2004) ANNETTE C. BAIER Hume's version, in An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals, section 9,2 of the viewpoint from which moral assessments are made, and from which traits are recognized as virtues or vices, is (...) that it is one which activates a "universal principle of the human frame," the "principle of humanity." It displays "the force of many sympathies," and depends upon our possession of "some propensity to the good of mankind" (EPM 5.39; SBN 226). Does this represent a revision, on Hume's part, of his Treatise claim that sympathy with a person's "narrow circle" is what enables us to judge that person's moral goodness? A humanity-wide circle is scarcely "narrow," even if it is not wide enough for those who see our treatment of animals as relevant to our moral merit or demerit. The claim about sympathy with the narrow circle is made in the Treatise section "Of goodness and benevolence."3 It has recently been assuming the status of a definition of the Humean moral point of view, in some commentators' writings.4 If it had been so intended, then there would indeed be a revision in EPM, where there is no mention of narrow circles, merely two footnotes, 22 and 25, to the section "Why utility pleases," concerning the wisdom of confining our efforts to do good to those close to us, lest our efforts be "dissipated or lost for want of a properly limited object." But in fact Hume never claimed that sympathy with a Annette Baier formerly taught in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh, and is now retired. Email: [email protected]. 114 Annette C. Baier person's narrow circle was enough to enable us to recognize her bravery, her proper pride, her prudence, her good judgement, her wit, her integrity, her "justice" or her allegiance to lawful magistrates. It is needed only to judge her "goodness and benevolence. " (I take it that the title, "Of goodness and benevolence," is pleonastic, that the varieties of benevolence exhaust "goodness.") Just as benevolence is not the whole of virtue, for Hume, nor is "goodness." The section in which he uses the phrase, "narrow circle," begins with an explicit limitation of what is there to be discussed: "Having thus explained that praise and approbation for everything we call great in human affections, we now proceed to give an account of their goodness..." (T 3.3.3.1; SBN 602). "Good" is not, for Hume, the most general term of moral approbation. Just as we can judge some to be "too intrepid" (an ingredient in "greatness of mind"), so we can judge some to be "too good" (EPM 7.22; SBN 259). Hume's most general terms of approbation are "meritorious" and "estimable." He uses "good" in a restricted sense, for a person's possession of the group of virtues that come under "benevolence." In the Treatise 3.3.3.15 (SBN 581-82), he speaks not of one moral point of view, but of "steady and generalpoinrs of view" (my emphasis), and it is possible, indeed plausible, that sympathy with circles of different widths will be needed to recognize different virtues and groups of virtues. For some, such as justice, "extensive sympathy" (T 3.3.1.23; SBN 586) is needed. For others, such as affability, and other aspects of "goodness," we sympathize with the effects of the person's character on a less extensive circle. A good person is affable, generous, and kind, does well as friend, as parent, as neighbor, as colleague, as employer. She does considerate and helpful things to those she encounters, both those close to her, friends, family, and work-mates, and also to those to whom she is not so close, such as the needy in her own community, to whom she may give employment, or charity. Hume uses other phrases in Treatise 3.3 which are sometimes taken to refer to the same... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume Studies Volume 32, Number 1, April 2006, pp. 113-117 How Wide Is Hume's Circle? (A question raised by the exchange between Erin I. Kelly and Louis E. Loeb, Hume Studies, November 2004) ANNETTE C. BAIER Hume's version, in An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals, section 9,2 of the viewpoint from which moral assessments are made, and from which traits are recognized as virtues or vices, is (...) that it is one which activates a "universal principle of the human frame," the "principle of humanity." It displays "the force of many sympathies," and depends upon our possession of "some propensity to the good of mankind" (EPM 5.39; SBN 226). Does this represent a revision, on Hume's part, of his Treatise claim that sympathy with a person's "narrow circle" is what enables us to judge that person's moral goodness? A humanity-wide circle is scarcely "narrow," even if it is not wide enough for those who see our treatment of animals as relevant to our moral merit or demerit. The claim about sympathy with the narrow circle is made in the Treatise section "Of goodness and benevolence."3 It has recently been assuming the status of a definition of the Humean moral point of view, in some commentators' writings.4 If it had been so intended, then there would indeed be a revision in EPM, where there is no mention of narrow circles, merely two footnotes, 22 and 25, to the section "Why utility pleases," concerning the wisdom of confining our efforts to do good to those close to us, lest our efforts be "dissipated or lost for want of a properly limited object." But in fact Hume never claimed that sympathy with a Annette Baier formerly taught in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh, and is now retired. Email: [email protected]. 114 Annette C. Baier person's narrow circle was enough to enable us to recognize her bravery, her proper pride, her prudence, her good judgement, her wit, her integrity, her "justice" or her allegiance to lawful magistrates. It is needed only to judge her "goodness and benevolence. " (I take it that the title, "Of goodness and benevolence," is pleonastic, that the varieties of benevolence exhaust "goodness.") Just as benevolence is not the whole of virtue, for Hume, nor is "goodness." The section in which he uses the phrase, "narrow circle," begins with an explicit limitation of what is there to be discussed: "Having thus explained that praise and approbation for everything we call great in human affections, we now proceed to give an account of their goodness..." (T 3.3.3.1; SBN 602). "Good" is not, for Hume, the most general term of moral approbation. Just as we can judge some to be "too intrepid" (an ingredient in "greatness of mind"), so we can judge some to be "too good" (EPM 7.22; SBN 259). Hume's most general terms of approbation are "meritorious" and "estimable." He uses "good" in a restricted sense, for a person's possession of the group of virtues that come under "benevolence." In the Treatise 3.3.3.15 (SBN 581-82), he speaks not of one moral point of view, but of "steady and generalpoinrs of view" (my emphasis), and it is possible, indeed plausible, that sympathy with circles of different widths will be needed to recognize different virtues and groups of virtues. For some, such as justice, "extensive sympathy" (T 3.3.1.23; SBN 586) is needed. For others, such as affability, and other aspects of "goodness," we sympathize with the effects of the person's character on a less extensive circle. A good person is affable, generous, and kind, does well as friend, as parent, as neighbor, as colleague, as employer. She does considerate and helpful things to those she encounters, both those close to her, friends, family, and work-mates, and also to those to whom she is not so close, such as the needy in her own community, to whom she may give employment, or charity. Hume uses other phrases in Treatise 3.3 which are sometimes taken to refer to the same... (shrink)

It is a traditional empiricist doctrine that natural laws are universal truths. In order to overcome the obvious difficulties with this equation most empiricists qualify it by proposing to equate laws with universal truths that play a certain role, or have a certain function, within the larger scientific enterprise. This view is examined in detail and rejected; it fails to account for a variety of features that laws are acknowledged to have. An alternative view is advanced in which laws (...) are expressed by singular statements of fact describing the relationship between universal properties and magnitudes. (shrink)

Is the virtue of the good citizen the same as the virtue of the good man? Aristotle addresses this in Politics 3.4. His answer is twofold. On the one hand, (the account for Difference) they are not the same both because what the citizen’s virtue is depends on the constitution, on what preserves it, and on the role the citizen plays in it, and because the good citizens in the best constitution cannot all be good men, whereas the good man’s (...) virtue is uniform. On the other hand, (the account for Identity) the two virtues are identical in the good men in the best constitution, in which all are good citizens, each possessing the ability for ruling and for being ruled. This nuanced answer can be seen as Aristotle’s synthesis of a Periclean view (contribution to state blots out personal wrongs) and a Socratic view (no good citizen is without justice). Its nuances reflect the extent to which Aristotle’s conceptions of good citizenship and the best constitution accommodate deviations of what is probable from the human ideal set out in his ethical writings. In the present chapter, I will first address three puzzles regarding the nuances of Aristotle’s answer. Second, I will consider one question about its implication: Does Aristotle’s account for Difference turn out to entail something ultra-Periclean: that no one can simultaneously be a good man and a good citizen in any constitution other than the best? I shall argue the negative. (shrink)

Biobanks are repositories that store human biological materials and their associated data. They are rapidly becoming part of national and international networks and give rise to unique ethico-regulatory issues. Whether consent is informed and whether this term should be used when specimens are collected for biobank research is questionable. Where risks occur, they are usually social and relate to identifiability. Public trust and confidence are important for the success of this type of research. Consensus is growing that governance of biobanks (...) should be harmonised. Controlled specimen and data access agreements are essential. The South African National Health Act and its Regulations, that provide the foundation for the legal framework with regard to human tissue and research in South Africa, are silent on the issue of biobanks and the law lags behind while science and technology advance rapidly. The use of biobank assets will lead to significant benefits in human health and should be encouraged while taking account of the associated ethical, legal and social issues and working towards a balance between these two positions. (shrink)

The approach used by physics is based on the identification and study of ideal objects, which is also the basis of biophysics, in combination with von Neumann heuristic modeling and functional fractionation according to R.Rosen is discussed as a tool for studying the properties of consciousness. The object of the study is a kind of line of analog systems: the human brain, the vertebrate brain, the invertebrate brain and artificial neural networks capable of reflection, which is a key property characteristic (...) of consciousness. Reflection in the broad sense of the word, understood as an internal representation of the external world, is characteristic of a wide range of animals, and some of them (bumblebees, fish) even demonstrate reflection in the narrow sense of the word, understood as an inner self-representation. This complex behavior is realized by miniature brains of ~1 million neurons. The use of simple recurrent neural networks (RNNs) to obtain answers to general questions is illustrated. For example, it has been shown a small RNS is able to pass delayed matching to sample (DMTS) test, forming an individual dynamic representation of the received stimulus, allowing decoding by a special external neural detector.. It has been demonstrated in the reflexive game “even-odd”, the RNS has a huge advantage over a multi-layered neural network, with the same and a larger number of neurons – reflection defeats regression. It was found that the asymmetry of outcomes in the odd-even game, which was explained by various causes, including psychological ones – “it’s easier to catch up than to run away”, is reproduced in the game of two RNNs. Obviously, there are no psychological causes here and the advantage of the player playing for “even” is explained by the more complex strategy of the “odd” player – he needs to predict the opponent’s move and choose the opposite one. (shrink)

continent. 1.3 (2011): 201-207. “Poetry is experience, linked to a vital approach, to a movement which is accomplished in the serious, purposeful course of life. In order to write a single line, one must have exhausted life.” —Maurice Blanchot (1982, 89) Nikos Karouzos had a communist teacher for a father and an orthodox priest for a grandfather. From his four years up to his high school graduation he was incessantly educated, reading the entire private library of his granddad, comprising mainly (...) the Orthodox Church Fathers and the ancient classics. Later on in his life he sold the library for money, only to buy a little more time before he went broke again: “I carry sorrow like a cage/ I got no birds/ as I come back from her hair/ I see the profit emptied/ cool from terror.” (1993, Ι, 101) Nowadays—and ridiculously recently—we are more than apt to speak of a certain insouciance pertaining to the Greek form of expenditure: expenditure without any type of investment, sometimes not (even) symbolic. In the vaults of the European unconscious, this imprudent stance still conjures a “capital punishment” in the form of de-capitation, reflecting back the fear of excess and the terror of its consequences.1 Thus the Greek way of living is very close to what a stranger could have termed as “the Greek way of dying.” Yet, what is not often understood is that the Greek esprit , the same one that invented the maxim μηδ?ν ?γαν (“nothing in excess”), does not experience death solely as an imminent fear of bankruptcy. For it miraculously combines its unconditional acceptance with the promise of a resurrection that is always there in the scents of Spring, from Dionysus to the orthodox Christ: “Everyone resurrects himself through dying [….] Resurrection is the switching of mortalities.” (2002, 94) Hence, if an entire library was imprudently traded for a plate with seven olives, a sliced tomato and some fresh goat cheese, let us not be fooled: this is not the meal of the pauper, but that of “an aristocrat from God” (1993, II, 491) feeding his eloquent loudmouth, ridiculously cut open in an otherwise rock-solid caput . *** To speak of the Greek experience is to speak about a half-dead language that still utters in life what is seemingly excluded from it and thus forbidden to be talked about: death. Death as anything that is out of this world, as something that will never return . Still, along with an experience of death that recently waned as a worn-out academic fashion, the Greek experience is dead too. Nearly 2300 years of written words separating Homer from the fall of Byzantium equal 500 books on a library traded for money: “I am with the killed. Hence my deepest solitude. I do not feel this tremendous macho society, beyond from the fact that it is a ruthlessly consuming one. It is me who pays all the time .” (2002, 57) Let us do the math and see how much this dealing with the Greek experience is costing the poet and how much dealing with the Greek experience might cost us today. *** “I do not guarantee a single word.” (Karouzos, 1993, II, 454) Through its various dialects and forms, the Greek language speaks through an incessant historical dissemination. Anyone who is aware of this terrifying polymorphy and still calls himself a poet, must stand against a white sheet of paper, pen-in-hand, with a very particular duty: to be as fully inconsistent as possible. In the formally ironic uniqueness of the poem, the poet functions as “a band-aid for lesser and greater antinomies.” (1993, I, 251) Of course these antinomies are not exhausted in language—they are historical, political and, alas, existential. Yet, beyond appearances , it is language that ruthlessly encodes them through history, submitting the poet to the temptation of placing them one next to the other on a single white sheet. The closer their neighboring, the greater the scattering of the writer in the ironic uniqueness of the paper. In a work where poetic license is described as a “freedom-impasse” (2002, 51), this task is undertaken in full conscience of its personal consequences: “what I am interested in is to escape my individuality (envisioning the non-ego) […] Nevertheless, my dissociations never achieve duration.” (2002, 74-75) Hence, though poetry is the “deserted direction of will,” (1998, 62) the stance of the poet is not that of a Nietzschean “great man.”2 Whereas drunkenness provides a thread between the poem and the excess it both presupposes and infuses (“Poetry always enlarges. ‘Drunkenness’ is nothing more than that,” (2002, 85)), whereas language flashes in loudmouth spurts of déraison (“When I am alone I do something else. I utter words. For example, while having my ouzo and listening to music I am most likely capable of randomly shouting ‘Electricity!’” (2002, 138)), the poet never gives in to the double affirmation that would eventually risk the “element of pleasure in discourse.” (2002, 80)” It is exactly because the gap of the antinomies is so vast that poetry is not meant to be written with a hammer. Neither does writing consist in a reevaluation of those elements. In short, poetry is not an affirmation of difference, but the surprising beauty of chiming antinomies. We might never transcend them, but it is up to us to put them together. Yet again, this voisinage is not to be identified with the necessity of chance as an eternal return.4 On the contrary it is a return from that very return : Let us treat Yes as a No to No and No as a Yes […] And let us not forget that this pissed affirmation crumbled down Nietzsche’s intellect in the dark paths of this world. (2002, 88) This return from the “vicious circle” should in no way be taken as a form of artistic prudence. Rather it can be seen as a dribble of demonic inconsistency as Dionysus transforms himself into a Christ that is in turn de-theologized: “Who can forbid that? Every man is capable of his own theology, nothing can stop him.” (2002, 73-74) This is a turn towards an existential vision of the world, historically coinciding with a particular political defeat of the Left, to which the poet devoted all his life: after the defeat of the popular front I raised the question “why do we exist?” while others were asking “why we failed.” (2002, 57)5 But most of all it is a return to poetry that exceeds the existential question itself, going beyond the issue of faith. Poetry comes in as a question of return after a defeat that is confessed in full profanity. Though it accepts the necessity of the defeat, it does not affirm it. Though it negates it, the negation is not in the name of a promise to be delivered in the kingdom of heavens. Following a historical and existential defeat, poetry is born post mortem . It signals a return to Christ as “groundless religiousness in the surprise of the real as such” (2002, 72) which is at once a return to the refuge of childhood. It is not a question of endurance towards an eternal return. Rather it is a question on the possibility of an existential return. Returning in a world as someone who cannot enjoy any returns exactly because he is averse to guarantees. A return without returns. *** PHOTOCOPY OF HAPPINESS When I was young I used to pin down cicadas and step on ant nests. I used to stand there silent for hours. With threads I decapitated bees. Now I am a dead man breathing. (Karouzos, 1993, II, 336.) The return to the “paradise of childhood” (2002, 68) constitutes the devouring refuge of its own memory when defeat becomes the synonym of adulthood. The political struggles of a young communist in a country torn up by a civil war right after World War II fraught with incarcerations and exiles. Historically they resulted in the defeat of the communist movement in Greece and opened up a long turbulent road that would peak in the dictatorship of 1967. Existentially they led to a series of disillusionments: mental breakdown, divorce, abandonment of studies in law school. To the question “why do we exist” the answer was poetry. Still this exposé should not be read as a sweeping chronography of a man. For it actually happens to coincide with the historical fate of a nation that after its modern constitution never stopped dreaming of the glories of its past youth, in a present that was (and is) sweepingly disappointing. But isn’t this return to youth finally a way of compensating for a loss of youth that necessarily results in a losing adulthood? Will Greeks, the eternal children of Plato and Nietzsche, ever learn? How to return without dying, how to remember without wasting time? WE ARE IN THE OPEN MEANING Living the coldest mauve night right across Parthenon I went to take a piss on some foliage and I was enjoying the foliage as it was steaming. (Karouzos, 1993, II, 340) Beyond the historical tragedies of modern Greece and away from any personal disappointments, the relation that this land holds with language and history is mediated through the Greek light—whose omnipresence is the very condition of its transcendence. All historical contradictions from Dionysus to Christ took place under this light; all those disseminated dialects were spoken beneath its warmth. To paraphrase Lévinas,6 light is both the condition of the world and of our withdrawal from it—a withdrawal towards the invisibility of God, of the dead, of meta-physics, resulting from the temptation that all is still here, behind this light the visibility of which they once evaded: “birds, the allurement of God.” (1993, I, 17) Under that luminous sky, if Greeks can do anything at all, it is to envision a return that will never come. All they can do is write poetry—which is doing nothing; other than lending an ear to a disseminated language whispering a unity that cannot be promised, as an adulthood in defeat is ready to recognize. Trying “to trap the invisible in visibility” (1993, II, 483) they forget that they have grown up and one day they die—with the promise of return. Hence an additional meaning must be given to this return to childhood. It does not signal salvation but rather its promise. To the ears of an aged continent it means that the return to/of poetry is a losing game, a return without returns. “Europe, Europe… you are nothing more than the continuation of Barabbas.” (1993, I, 295) *** “Life is not there to verify theories.”7 The records show that Karouzos was finally given a second-class pension from the Greek government, at the time when he was being recognized by the literary press as one of Greece’s major contemporary poets. Being neither a bourgeois nor a nobelist, he proclaimed himself to be an anarcho-communist, unconditionally faithful to the utopia of a classless society. He also drank, heavily. “Capitalism made an animal out of man/ Marxism made an animal out of truth/ Shut up.” (1993, II, 369) Perhaps one of the most scandalous divides of our times has been the one between the living and the dead, the latent prohibition that the living should not be concerned with the dead based on the mere impossibility of the dead to be concerned with the living in the first place. What adds to this scandal is that this divide abuses anything that cannot return to us by subsuming it under the same futility. Hence death is no longer “loss” in the usual sense. It no more refers to the things we lost but to our “loss” (of time, money and well-being) as we insist to dwell on them. Death is a waste —of time. It is this waste that we find in the insouciance of Greek expenditure; the waste in dealing with a language that most of its historical part is no longer spoken (a dead language); the waste in translating a poet who is ex definitio untranslatable; the waste of his vision, his money, his life. The waste of dealing with anything that cannot return and that cannot bring in any returns . But it is also the waste of life that poetry itself presupposes, the waste of dealing with invisibility, with anything that is out of this world and thus invokes the fear of death that is in turn—and surprisingly— nowhere to be found. Instead of death, what is there, beyond the light, is the being without us (to recall the Lévinasian il y a ), the mumble of our own nothingness which constitutes the price to be paid for writing poetry under an evergreek light. To understand this to-and-fro, is to realize that poetry is something out of this world that nevertheless takes place in this world, by virtue of this world. But to ridiculously equate this to-and-fro with death as non-existence, is to exile poetry along with its own possibility from this same old world: I do not believe that poetry will ever disappear from this world. […] But I am also sure that it does not have many chances of playing, as you say, a redemptive role in our vertiginous technological future. Without being endangered as a creative need, it will be placed on the side of history. (2002, 32) It is mainly there that we would like to locate the meaning of Nikos Karouzos’s poetry today. If we are willing to include the Greek original it is because we consider that it will be both a waste of time for us to do so (since most of you cannot read Greek) and because it might induce you to the even larger waste of learning it. We would additionally be glad if this small introduction served as an equally wasteful, academically useless piece of reading, gesturing towards a taboo of investing in anything Greek—that is in anything dead among the living, in anything that will never come back and maybe was never here in the first place. This is the only way to reserve for ourselves the possibility of poetry and preserve the light of its promise. “To return: that is the miracle.” (1993, I, 17) Athens, Greece July 10, 2011 NOTES 1 “ Capitale (a Late Latin word based on caput “head”) emerged in the twelfth to thirteenth centuries in the sense of funds, stock of merchandise, sum of money or money carrying interest.[…] The word and the reality it stood for appear in the sermons of St. Bernardino of Siena (1380-1444) ‘… quamdam seminalem rationem lucrosi quam communiter capitale vocamus ’, ‘that prolific cause of wealth that we commonly call capital’” (Braudel, 1992, 232-233). 2 “A great man – a man whom nature has constructed and invented in the grand style – what is he? First : there is a long logic in all of his activity, hard to survey because of its length, and consequently misleading; he has the ability to extend his will across great stretches of his life and to despise and reject everything petty about him, including even the fairest, ‘divinest’ things in the world.” (Nietzsche, 1968, 505, §962) 3 Cf. Deleuze, 1986, 186-9. 4 “Return is the being of becoming, the unity of multiplicity, the necessity of chance: the being of difference as such or the eternal return.” (Deleuze, 189)5 In this 1982 interview Karouzos refers to the defeat of the communist movement in Greece after the civil war of 1946-1949 between the Governmental Army and the Democratic Army of Greece, the military division of the Greek communist party. Karouzos’s father was a member of the communist National Liberation front (EAM) members of which formed the mainl resistance movement (ELAS) in Greece during WWII. The poet was a member of the United Panhellenic Organization of Youth (EPON), which was a youth division of EAM. After the end of the war, ELAS was called to disarmament in view of the formation of a National Army. The members of EAM resigned from the government of national unity and a series of protests led to a 3 year civil war between ELAS and the Government Army. After the defeat of ELAS the Communist party was outlawed and many communists were exiled in deserted Greek islands. Karouzos, who took action in the Greek resistance and was active during the Greek civil war, was exiled in Icaria on 1947 and in Makronisos on 1953 where he was called two years earlier to do his military service. 6 “Existence in the world qua light, which makes desire possible, is then, in the midst of being, the possibility of detaching oneself from being. To enter into being is to link up with objects; it is in effect a bond that is already tainted with nullity. It is already to escape anonymity. In this world where everything seems to affirm our solidarity with the totality of existence, where we are caught up in the gears of a universal mechanism, our first feeling, our ineradicable illusion, is a feeling or illusion of freedom. To be in the world is this hesitation, this interval in existing, which we have seen in the analyses of fatigue and the present.” (Lévinas, 1988,43-4) 7from a TV interview. THE POETRY OF NIKOS KAROUZOS From Redwriter [ Ερυθρογρ?φος ], in Collected Works, Vol . II, Athens: Ikaros. 1993, 463-4. [Athens: Apopeira, 1990, 9-10.] JESUS ANTI-OEDIPUS* Why were we once saving till the fifth day the Paschal lamb? The scriptures say: with this victim’s meat we ought to cleanse all of our senses. To give life to the whitest wave miraculous odors in the extension of the chest. Ideals to death. For us to witness the illustrious dawns of Absinthe and for the soul to be a deeply carved ornament on the fore we named will. Then many deer running amidst the evergreen growth with watery hymns, then, the unintended angels descending with heights spiraling in their momentum offer themselves to the luminous Adventure. Whence the need for speech and our sufferings covered with flags like the glorified dead. An incorporeal finger pointing at the flamboyant and fragrant holocausts within the tired horizons and the exhausted breadths with joys of the mistletoe on fire and shivering all of the green-leaved love. Something would have chirped again had we not driven it away— maybe the ewe’s grass. Something would have called us to the eternal resurrection— maybe the grace of spring. But now our heart is fiercely blinded, withdrawn to the appearances of Hades. Silence and ice incessantly cover the Infant Spirit in thatched times. While the cherry trees are dreaming faintly glowing in absolute darkness there’s nothing the Babylonians can contemplate in labs with automatic colored lights. How to rejoice now in the fifth day of the lamb? We have forked the stars. We’ve gradually become supposedly sublime with plucked chimeras in our hands. Avenged relentlessly by science. *Though the poem appears in a 1990 collection, it was actually written in 1968. Hence the reader must be aware in not associating Karouzos’ Anti-Oedipus with the famous 1972 work of Deleuze and Guattari, given that the former precedes the latter. ΙΗΣΟΥΣ ΑΝΤΙ-ΟΙΔΙΠΟΥΣ Γιατ? κρατο?σαμε κ?ποτε ?ς την π?μπτη μ?ρα το πασχαλιν? πρ?βατο; Τα κε?μενα λ?νε: μ’ αυτο? του θ?ματος το κρ?ας ?πρεπε να καθαρ?σουμε ?λες τις αισθ?σεις. Για να δ?σουμε κ?μα στη ζω? λευκ?τατο θαυμ?σιες ευωδι?ς στην ?κταση του στ?θους. Ιδανικ? στο χ?ρο. Για να βλ?πουμε τα λαμπρ? χαρ?ματα του ?ψινθου και να ’ναι η ψυχ? στ?λισμα βαθυχ?ρακτο της πλ?ρης που την ε?παμε θ?ληση. Τ?τε πολλ?ς δορκ?δες τρ?χοντας αν?μεσα στην καταπρ?σινη φ?ση με τους υδ?τινους ?μνους, τ?τε, κατεβα?νοντας οι αθ?λητοι ?γγελοι με κυλινδο?μενο το ?ψος στην ορμ? τους χαρ?ζονται της αστραφτερ?ς Περιπ?τειας. ?θεν η μιλι? γι’ αυτ? χρει?ζεται και τα δειν? σκεπ?ζονται ωσ?ν τους τιμημ?νους νεκρο?ς με σημα?ες. Ασ?ματο δ?χτυλο δε?χνει τα φλογ?δη και μοσχοβ?λα ολοκαυτ?ματα στους κουρασμ?νους ορ?ζοντες στα εξουθενωμ?να πλ?τη καθ?ς αν?βουν οι χαρ?ς του νερα?δ?ξυλου και τρ?μει ολ?κληρη η πρασιν?φυλλη αγ?πη. Κ?τι θα κελαηδο?σε π?λι αν δεν το δι?χναμε— μπορε? της προβατ?νας το χορτ?ρι. Κ?τι θα μας καλο?σε στην απ?ραντη αν?σταση— μπορε? του ?αρος η χ?ρη. Μα η καρδι? μας ?γρια τυφλ?θηκε π?ρασε στα φαιν?μενα του ?δη. Σιγ? και π?γος αδι?κοπα σκεπ?ζει στους αχυρ?νιους καιρο?ς το Ν?πιο Πνε?μα. Την ?ρα που ονειρε?ονται οι βυσσινι?ς και λ?μπουν αμυδρ? μεσ’ στο απλ?τατο σκοτ?δι τ?ποτα δε στοχ?ζονται οι βαβυλ?νιοι στα εργαστ?ρια με τ’ αυτ?ματα χρωματιστ? φ?τα. Π?ς να χαρο?με πια την π?μπτη μ?ρα του προβ?του; Φουρκ?σαμε τ’ αστ?ρια. Γ?ναμε σιγ?-σιγ? δ?θεν υπ?ροχοι με μαδημ?νες χ?μαιρες στα χ?ρια. Μας ν?μεται σκληρ? η επιστ?μη. From: Redwriter [Ερυθρογρ?φος], in Collected Works, Vol. II, Athens: Ikaros. 1993, 472. [Athens: Apopeira, 1990, 18.] DIALECTΙCS OF SPRING Christ the straight angle; Christ the Pythagorean theorem. Christ the infinitesimal calculus from above the blessed Sets Christ. Christ the tessellation of massive particles Christ the zero mass. Hence we spray numbers and fields of lust. We are carabineers of diseased logic plus something— Observed means observer and Hekate The darkness luminous and light in the dark Astarte banqueters demons from today. ΔΙΑΛΕΚΤΙΚΗ ΤΟΥ ΕΑΡΟΣ Χριστ?ς η ορθ? γων?α· Χριστ?ς το πυθαγ?ριο θε?ρημα. Χριστ?ς ο απειροστικ?ς λογισμ?ς ?νωθεν ?λβια Χριστ?ς τα Σ?νολα. Χριστ?ς η ψηφιδογραφ?α στα μαζικ? σωμ?τια Χριστ?ς η μ?ζα μηδ?ν. ?ρα ψεκ?ζουμε αριθμο?ς και πεδ?α λαγνε?ας. Ε?μαστε τυφεκιοφ?ροι νοσο?σης λογικ?ς και κ?τι-- παρατηρο?μενο σημα?νει παρατηρητ?ς και Εκ?τη σκ?τος το π?μφωτο και φως εν τ? σκοτ?? η Αστ?ρτη συνδαιτημ?νες δα?μονες απ’ ?ρτι. From: Redwriter [Ερυθρογρ?φος], Athens: Apopeira, 1990, 18. [1993, II, 472]. CREDO (as we are used to say in Latin) Α I believe in one Poet expelled from heavens / fugitive from the god and vagabond, Empedocles / and here on earth / exile on the earth etc. of Baudelaire /. Β I believe in one Computer inside thunder and through matter. Γ Suffering undefiled / substantive / the Poet uplifts himself slow-burning suicidal implying lengthy sleeps. Δ Cutting down on prospective mistakes. Ε Of all things visible and invisible officiating the onion-peelings. Ζ The Poet has nothing / see the departed /. Η I believe in one Poet that says: madness I enjoy; he ridicules existence; let me light up from my mana. Θ Syntax he doesn’t care about when musicality commands him. Along with still more licenses, and Ts are played according to the concept sound anywhere. E.g. the winters here, he winters there; it will not come—I will not rest, etc. etc. Ι The Poet exercises thought until it’s stripped down. Κ And if he’s Greek he must always study the fineness of Attica, in light, mountains, fields and sea. For this fineness teaches language. Λ And if he’s deeply destined the Poet expresses the unexplainable of the explained; he happens to be a rightful heir to the scientist and his predecessor. Μ On the froth he does not last; the Poet blusters at the bottom of the pot. Ν Flamebred and never redeemed. Ξ The Poet must sometimes say: what a consumption of presence — be a bit lonely for a change! Ο The Poet is twilit. Π He is susceptible of deaths and resurrections. Ρ He looks from the corner of his eye and exists in a glance. Σ He follows behind the mother. Τ Eveningless when it comes to age. Υ I believe in one Poet who says: let the purities coincide. Until the Corinth of the Universe or even further. Φ In a higher despair. Χ In a brighter quintessence. Ψ In one sensation that lifts off. Ω Forgiving everyone. CREDO (ως ε?θισται να λ?με λατινιστ?) Α Πιστε?ω εις ?να Ποιητ?ν εκτ?ς ουρανο? / φυγ?ς θε?θεν και αλ?της, Εμπεδοκλ?ς / και επ? της γης / εξ?ριστος π?νω στη γη κ.λπ. του Βωδελα?ρου /. Β Πιστε?ω εις ?να Υπολογιστ?ν εντ?ς κεραυνο? και δια της ?λης. Γ Υποφ?ροντας ?χραντα / ουσιαστικ?ν / ο Ποιητ?ς ανατε?νεται βραδυφλεγ?ς αυτ?χειρας εξυπακο?οντας πολ?ωρους ?πνους. Δ Τα υποψ?φια λ?θη λιγοστε?οντας. Ε Ορατ?ν τε π?ντων και αορ?των ιερουργ?ντας την αποκρομμ?ωση. Ζ Ο Ποιτ?ς ?χει τ?ποτα / βλ?πε τους αναχωρ?σαντες /. Η Πιστε?ω εις ?να Ποιητ?ν που λ?ει: η τρ?λα μ’ αρ?σει· γελοιοποιε? την ?παρξη· ας αν?ψω απ’ τη μ?να μου. Θ Συνταχτικ? δεν το γνοι?ζεται στην προσταγ? της μουσικ?τητας. Μαζ? και μ’ ?λλες ακ?μη λευτερι?ς, και τα νυ πα?ζονται κατ? την ?ννοια ?χος οπουδ?ποτε. Π.χ. τον χειμ?να εδ?, το χειμ?να εκε?· δε θ? ’ρθει – δεν θα καταλαγι?σουμε, κ. λπ. κ.λπ. Ι Ο Ποιητ?ς γυμν?ζει τη σκ?ψη σε απογ?μνωση. Κ Κι αν ε?ναι ?λληνας οφε?λει να σπουδ?ζει π?ντοτε της Αττικ?ς τη λεπτ?τητα, σε φως, βουν?, χωρ?φια και θ?λασσα. Διδ?σκει γλ?σσα η λεπτ?τητα το?τη. Λ Κι αν ε?ναι βαθι? πεπρωμ?νος ο Ποιητ?ς εκφρ?ζει το ανεξ?γητο του εξηγητο?· τυγχ?νει ν?μιμος δι?δοχος του επιστ?μονα και προκ?τοχ?ς του. Μ Στον αφρ? δεν ?χει δι?ρκεια· στο πατοκ?ζανο μα?νεται ο Ποιητ?ς. Ν Φλογοδ?αιτος και ποτ? ξελυτρωμ?νος. Ξ Ο Ποιητ?ς κ?ποτε πρ?πει να λ?ει: μεγ?λη καταν?λωση παρουσ?ας – γενε?τε και λ?γο μοναξι?ρηδες! Ο Ο Ποιητ?ς ε?ναι αμφ?φλοξ. Π Επιδ?χεται θαν?τους και αναστ?σεις. Ρ Ακροθωρ?ζει και υπ?ρχει σε ξαφνοκο?ταγμα. Σ Ε?ναι ουραγ?ς της μητ?ρας. Τ Αν?σπερος απ? ηλικ?α. Υ Πιστε?ω εις ?να Ποιητ?ν που λ?ει: να συμπ?σουν οι αγν?τητες. Μ?χρι την Κ?ρινθο του Σ?μπαντος ? μακρ?τερα. Φ Σε αν?τερη απελπισ?α. Χ Σε φαειν?τερη πεμπτουσ?α. Ψ Σε μια α?σθηση που πτηνο?ται. Ω Συγχωρ?ντας τους π?ντες. From Large Sized Logic [ Λογικ? μεγ?λου σχ?ματος ], Athens: Erato, 1989, n.p. [1993, II, 521-3]. (shrink)

Stephen Law follows THE PHILOSOPHY FILES with a second book of philosophical conundrums for teenagers. This time he asks such questions as Do Miracles Happen? Why Do These Words Mean Something? and Do I Know the Sun will Rise Tomorrow? You can dip into the arguments that interest you, in eight chapters where the themes are set up in witty scenarios and then debated. There are wacky thought experiments to work out and a variety of characters appear - some of (...) them Martians. As in THE PHILOSOPHY FILES, there are hundreds of lively cartoons running through the book. Stephen Law is a brilliant communicator with a passion to make young people think for themselves. As the GUARDIAN said: 'It's philosophy in action rather than philosophy in aspic... a real philosophy book for kids - which students and adults could enjoy too - finally exists'. (shrink)

There is a lot of material in this book, and Duff handles most of it very well. It is unfortunate that he felt the need to tie his discussion of serious philosophical questions in the criminal law to larger overarching questions of philosophy. It is possible that current conceptions of intentional action implicate dualism (or Dualism), I suppose, but that would be a book-length discussion all of its own. It would begin with a careful discussion of just what dualism (...) is, and would track down the various ways in which particular substantive positions on intentional action rule out alternatives to dualism. Such a work might be interesting indeed. It would be interesting, for example, to see a discussion of a type of conceptual dualism that I suspect Duff would find congenial: a dualism that insisted upon the autonomy of purposive notions and rejected the causal analysis of intentional action. Would that sort of dualism make any difference at all for the criminal law? It might, and it might not. But in any event that is not what we find in this book, which, for all of its healthy enthusiasm for the place of philosophy in the law shows an excessive tolerance for makeweight arguments about the great questions. (shrink)

Augustus De Morgan was a British mathematician and logician. He formulated De Morgan's laws and introduced the term mathematical induction, making its idea rigorousFrom the introduction:"If I had before me a fly and an elephant, having never seen more than one such magnitude of either kind; and if the fly were to endeavor to persuade me that he was larger than the elephant, I might by possibility be placed in a difficulty. The apparently little creature might use such arguments (...) about the effect of distance, and might appeal to such laws of sight and hearing as I, if unlearned in those things, might be unable wholly to reject. But if there were a thousand flies, all buzzing, to appearance, about the great creature; and, to a fly, declaring, each one for himself, that he was bigger than the quadruped; and all giving different and frequently contradictory reasons; and each one despising and opposing the reasons of the others-I should feel quite at my ease. I should certainly say, My little friends, the case of each one of you is destroyed by the rest. I intend to show flies in the swarm, with a few larger animals, for reasons to be given.In every age of the world there has been an established system, which has been opposed from time to time by isolated and dissentient reformers. The established system has sometimes fallen, slowly and gradually: it has either been upset by the rising influence of some one man, or it has been sapped by gradual change of opinion in the many.I have insisted on the isolated character of the dissentients, as an element of the a priori probabilities of the case. Show me a schism, especially a growing schism, and it is another thing. The homeopathists, for instance, shall be, if any one so think, as wrong as St. John Long; but an organized opposition, supported by the efforts of many acting in concert, appealing to common arguments and experience, with perpetual succession and a common seal, as the Queen says in the charter, is, be the merit of the schism what it may, a thing wholly different from the case of the isolated opponent in the mode of opposition to it which reason points out.During the last two centuries and a half, physical knowledge has been gradually made to rest upon a basis which it had not before. It has become mathematical. The question now is, not whether this or that hypothesis is better or worse to the pure thought, but whether it accords with observed phenomena in those consequences which can be shown necessarily to follow from it, if it be true. Even in those sciences which are not yet under the dominion of mathematics, and perhaps never will be, a working copy of the mathematical process has been made. This is not known to the followers of those sciences who are not themselves mathematicians and who very often exalt their horns against the mathematics in consequence. They might as well be squaring the circle, for any sense they show in this particular.". (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:When Our Fathers Fall:A Thomistic-Confudan Approach to Lay Moral Correction of ClergyJoshua R. BrownIn this article, I seek to draw upon the resources of Thomas Aquinas and early Confucian philosophy in order to answer the following question: what are the responsibilities of lay Catholics to our priests and bishops as regards their personal moral rectification? This justifiably provokes two questions in reaction: why is this question worth (...) pursuing, and why pursue it via a comparative reading of Aquinas and Confucian philosophy?As to the first of these, the question I pose here is a specification of the larger responsibilities that fall to Christians according to the Scriptures. Galatians 5:1–2 puts the matter this way: "Brothers, even if a person is caught in some transgression, you who are spiritual should correct that one in a gentle spirit, looking to yourself, so that you may also not be tempted. Bear one another's burdens and so you will fulfill the law of Christ."1 In the theological tradition, "bearing one another's burdens" has been neatly and aptly represented in the principle of fraternal correction. The question I am focused on here, then, is how is fraternal correction properly offered from laity to clerics.Ultimately, articulating the shape or form of virtuous lay correction of clergy is actually a rather knotty problem. This is because the manner of the relationship between laity and clergy is not simply understood in terms [End Page 1025] of the bonds of Christian fraternity. Certainly, all Christians are brothers and sisters in Christ, for through His grace we have been adopted into the inheritance of the Kingdom of God as children of God (see Eph 5:1–5; 1 John 3:1–3). Yet the Church also recognizes that priests and bishops possess not simply a fraternal but also a paternal relationship to laity. As St. Paul again puts it to the church in Corinth, "I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. Therefore, I urge you, be imitators of me" (1 Cor 4:15–16).I propose here that, although fraternal correction is a still useful concept for understanding how laity can morally correct clergy, it has an obvious weakness in that it corresponds to a particular relational analogy, that of fraternity, within which the difference in authority is not as great as the parent–child bond. Thus, fraternal correction is exceptionally useful for understanding how relationships with more or less equal rank of authority can function in terms of moral remonstration, such as how a lay Christian might fraternally correct another lay Christian, or a cleric fraternally correct a cleric. However, when it comes to clergy–laity relations, the shape of fraternal correction is far less clear, for there is a just and genuine disparity between them in the order of ecclesial, magisterial authority underlying the relationship, even if there is equality in other important respects.I argue here that lay responsibilities for correcting clergy can be fruitfully understood in terms of filial remonstration as understood by the Confucian philosophical tradition. Of course, there is one tremendous dissimilarity between Confucian views on the responsibilities for filial remonstration and those pertaining to the laity–clergy relationship: the former occur within and flow from the natural foundation of the parent–child bond, while the latter are not based on blood relations and natural duties. Yet, the same can be said about the language of fraternal correction, which draws upon the analogous duties of blood-kin applied to the spiritual fraternity of the Christian life. And so, it must be admitted that although the father–child relationship is used only analogously to describe the priest–laity relationship, it also accurately depicts the reality of that relationship. As John Paul II observed, priestly celibacy entails "a singular sharing in God's fatherhood and in the fruitfulness of the Church."2 The call of the priest to the celibate life is thus a call to fatherhood, indeed, a call to imitate and participate in the paternity of the triune God in a special and spiritual way. It seems clear that only a materialistic conception of things that denies the spiritual its proper... (shrink)

For the average person, genetic testing has two very different faces. The rise of genetic testing is often promoted as the democratization of genetics by enabling individuals to gain insights into their unique makeup. At the same time, many have raised concerns that genetic testing and sequencing reveal intensely personal and private information. As these technologies become increasingly available as consumer products, the ethical, legal, and regulatory challenges presented by genomics are ever looming. Assembling multidisciplinary experts, this volume evaluates the (...) different models used to deliver consumer genetics and considers a number of key questions: How should we mediate privacy and other ethical concerns around genetic databases? Does aggregating data from genetic testing turn people into products by commercializing their data? How might this data reduce or exacerbate existing healthcare disparities? Contributing authors also provide guidance on protecting consumer privacy and safety while promoting innovation. (shrink)

The Secunda pars of the Summa theologiae provides Aquinas's mature and systematic account of human action. The Prima secundae represents his treatment of the moral life "in universali." After treating the end of man, and certain aspects of human action as such, he turns to what he calls the "principles of action." Well over half of the questions of the Prima secundae are devoted to these principles. The principles are divided into intrinsic and extrinsic principles, the latter being law and (...) grace. ;What does Aquinas mean when he calls law an extrinsic principle? And given that it is extrinsic, in just what sense can it be a principle of action without threatening the integrity of voluntary action? ;Many writers in the broader Thomistic tradition have de-emphasized the role of law in the moral life. Others, granting law a substantial role, deny its extrinsic character. A common thread can be discerned in these two positions: namely, an unwillingness or hesitancy to grant law as an extrinsic principle a major and unique role in the moral life. ;Three fundamental points concerning law as an extrinsic principle of action are central to this dissertation. First, for Aquinas law is, and always remains, essentially an extrinsic principle. Second, for Aquinas law is a foundational and essential principle of moral actions; indeed natural law provides the first principles of practical reasoning. Third, this understanding of law as an extrinsic principle does not threaten the voluntary or the profoundly personal character of human action. ;After reviewing the thoughts of some contemporary writers, I examine the nature and kinds of law in Aquinas and then its extrinsic character. A treatment of just how law acts as a real principle, indeed a cause of action, where I study the relation of law and prudence, is finally followed by a consideration of the end of law. (shrink)

Sexual and reproductive health is a challenge worldwide, and much progress is needed to reach the relevant UN Sustainable Development Goals. This paper presents cross-sectional data collected in Sierra Leone on sexual and gender-based violence, family planning, child, early and forced marriage, and female genital mutilation using an innovative method of measurement: situational judgment tests, as a subset of questions within a larger survey tool. For the SJTs, respondents saw hypothetical scenarios on these themes and had to indicate how (...) they would react. The objective is to give an impression of beliefs and norms on specific behaviors, which provide insights for social and behavior change interventions. Data was collected by enumerators traveling to villages randomly selected in six districts of the country. The sample is composed of 566 respondents. Results show that FGM in particular seem to be a priority topic, in comparison to the other topics for which the norms seem to be stronger against those practices. Age differences emerged and suggest priority groups to be targeted. In terms of validity of the measurement methods, situational judgment test answers correlated positively with other items in the survey, but the magnitude of the association is often small, and sometimes not significant. Thus, more studies are needed to further explore the validity of this measure by comparing against a reference value. Using SJTs could complement other data collection tools to perform community assessment, and orient the direction of the program in its planning phase. (shrink)

Law is a powerful force in human civilization. The growth and stability in society are generally linked with the gradual development of a system of legal rules, in addition to the instruments for their regular and effective enforcement. Law can be used to protect or harm the interest of man. This dimension raises the issue of the ‘validity of law’. The legal positivists posit that law is a ‘moral-neutral’ entity, and once it is enacted by the appropriate authority, it cannot (...) be adjudged immoral or unjust, by any standard outside the province of the law in question. The valid law for the legal positivists is law as enacted by the appropriate authority within agiven legal system. The Naturalists think otherwise. Cicero for instance believes that the validity of law is rooted on right reason in agreement with nature. In this paper I am more persuaded by the arguments of the Naturalists. I however present liberally the standpoints of the two opposing schools of thought – The naturalists and the positivists, with emphasis on the works of John Kelsen, Justice Homles, Cicero and Aquinas. (shrink)

In ‘What Has Philosophy to Learn from Tort Law?’, Bernard Williams reaffirms J. L. Austin’s suggestion that philosophy might learn from tort law ‘the difference between practical reality and philosophical frivolity’. Yet while Austin regarded tort law as just another repository of time-tested concepts, on a par with common sense as represented by a dictionary, Williams argues that ‘the use of certain ideas in the law does more to show that those ideas have strength than is done by the mere (...) fact that they are part of the currency of common sense’. But what does it mean to show that ideas or concepts ‘have strength’? How does conceptual strength relate to the distinction between practical reality and philosophical frivolity? And what special features of the law are supposed to make it a better test of conceptual strength than common sense? In this chapter, I reconstruct and develop Williams’s answers to these questions. I show why Williams believes that we need to test the concepts forming the currency of common sense against practical reality as embodied by legal practice; I identify seven features of tort law that make it particularly suitable to act as such a test; I distinguish three respects in which concepts can show strength, and unpack Williams’s metaphor of microwave-resistant concepts: concepts capable of holding and presenting material for intense critical scrutiny without succumbing to it themselves; lastly, I show how philosophy can learn to identify systematically weak concepts, and the limits of otherwise valuable concepts, by considering which concepts fail the test. (shrink)

Leuridan (2011) questions whether mechanisms can really replace laws at the heart of our thinking about science. In doing so, he enters a long-standing discussion about the relationship between the mech-anistic structures evident in the theories of contemporary biology and the laws of nature privileged especially in traditional empiricist traditions of the philosophy of science (see e.g. Wimsatt 1974; Bechtel and Abrahamsen 2005; Bogen 2005; Darden 2006; Glennan 1996; MDC 2000; Schaffner 1993; Tabery 2003; Weber 2005). In our view, Leuridan (...) misconstrues this discussion. His weak positive claim that mechanistic sciences appeal to generalizations is true but uninteresting. His stronger claim, that all causal claims require laws, is unsupported by his arguments. Though we proceed by criticizing Leuridan’s arguments, our greater purpose is to embellish his arguments in order to show how thinking about mechanisms enriches and transforms old philosophical debates about laws in biology and provides new insights into how generalizations afford prediction, explanation and control. (shrink)

This paper investigates force shift, a phenomenon in which the canonical discourse conventions, or force, associated with a clause type can be overridden to yield polar questions with the help of additional force-indicating devices. Previous studies attribute force shift to the presence of a complex question force component operating on semantic content. Based on utterance particles and particle clusters in Cantonese, we analyze force shift as resulting from compositional operations on force-bearing expressions. We propose that a simplex force, such (...) as assertion or question, denotes unanchored sentence acts, while a force-shifting particle like Cantonese _ho2_ is an anchoring function anchoring a sentence act to the speaker while querying whether or not the addressee can perform the sentence act. The proposed semantics makes predictions about _ho2_’s interactions with addressee-changing operations and imperatives, as well as about a larger family of force shift phenomena. (shrink)

Sample chapter from H. Asgeirsson, The Nature and Value of Vagueness in the Law (Hart Publishing, 2020), in which I present and partially defend a version of what has come to be called the communicative-content theory of law. Book abstract: Lawmaking is – paradigmatically – a type of speech act: people make law by saying things. It is natural to think, therefore, that the content of the law is determined by what lawmakers communicate. However, what they communicate is sometimes vague (...) and, even when it is clear, the content itself is sometimes vague. The monograph examines the nature and consequences of these two linguistic sources of indeterminacy in the law with the aim of providing plausible answers to three related questions: In virtue of what is the law vague? What might be good about vague law? How should courts resolve cases of vagueness? (shrink)

A new formulation of the Fine-Tuning Argument (FTA) for the existence of God is offered, which avoids a number of commonly raised objections. I argue that we can and should focus on the fundamental constants and initial conditions of the universe, and show how physics itself provides the probabilities that are needed by the argument. I explain how this formulation avoids a number of common objections, specifically the possibility of deeper physical laws, the multiverse, normalisability, whether God would fine-tune at (...) all, whether the universe is too fine-tuned, and whether the likelihood of God creating a life-permitting universe is inscrutable. (shrink)

Is there a God, should I eat meat, where does the universe come from, could I live for ever as a robot? These are the big questions readers will be wrestling with in this thoroughly enjoyable book. Dip into any chapter and you will find lively scenarios and dialogues to take you through philosophical puzzles ancient and modern, involving virtual reality, science fiction and a host of characters from this and other planets. The text is interspersed on every page with (...) lively cartoons, and there is a list of philosophical jargon at the end.. Stephen Law has a gift for communicating complex ideas. He offers few answers, but his unstuffy, highly personal approach will have the reader thinking and arguing with as much pleasure as he does himself. (shrink)

Many people are uncomfortable with the idea that pleasure from certain sources is genuinely beneficial. These sources can be sorted into two classes: ones that involve others’ pain; and ones that involve what seems to be damage rather than benefit to the person involved. Here’s an example of the latter: a woman who claims that she enjoys her work performing in hard-core pornographic films. Some find it hard to take such a claim at face value – they instinctively assume that (...) the woman is insincere or self-deceived.1 The reason seems a strongly paternalistic one: because the activity is assumed to be bad, it’s thought that only someone who was in some way damaged could genuinely like it. A statement from Brian Hill, the director of a documentary about such women, illustrates this: ‘I felt certain that she couldn’t enjoy what she does, that there must be some reason why she’s undergoing this kind of experience. But there was nothing: no messed-up childhood, no sense of pain or humiliation.’ Forced to conclude that the woman in question really does enjoy her work, Hill changes his view to imply that the pleasure gained cannot be truly beneficial: ‘When I hear a young woman talking about doing videos of fisting and asphyxiation, I have to wonder what it’s doing to her – even if she says that she’s having fun.’. (shrink)

Skeptical theism is a popular - if not universally theistically endorsed - response to the evidential problem of evil. Skeptical theists question how we can be in a position to know God lacks God-justifying reason to allow the evils we observe. In this paper I examine a criticism of skeptical theism: that the skeptical theists skepticism re divine reasons entails that, similarly, we cannot know God lacks God-justifying reason to deceive us about the external world and the past. This (...) in turn seems to supply us with a defeater for all our beliefs regarding the external world and past? Critics argue that either the skeptical theist abandon their skeptical theism, thereby resurrecting the evidential argument from evil, or else they must embrace seemingly absurd skeptical consequences, including skepticism about the external world and past. I look at various skeptical theist responses to this critique and find them all wanting. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Judith Butler’s “New Humanism”A Thing or Not a Thing, and So What?Sina KramerA few thinkers in the last few years, such as Stefan Dolgert and Miriam Leonard, but especially political theorist Bonnie Honig, have argued that Judith Butler’s most recent work (Antigone’s Claim, 2000; Undoing Gender, 2004; Precarious Life, 2005; Frames of War, 2009) institutes a new form of humanism, based on the universality of grief, mourning, vulnerability, and (...) precariousness that Butler describes in these texts. These critiques call into question an incipient foundationalism in the feminist political theory Butler produces in these texts, one seemingly at odds with her previous antifoundationalist commitments. In this article I will argue that, while these critiques oversimplify the relationship between politics and ethics or politics and ontology in their critique of Butler’s new mortalist humanism, the problem of the relation of politics to ethics or ontology—or, more exactly, the problem of the relation of politics to its outside, or to its conditions—remains nevertheless a real problem in Butler’s work. This is because, without a clear account of a method of rendering foundations contingent, or of rendering ontologies provisional, we tend to repeat the political move to establish an apolitical ground on which we can found a politic. This foundationalist move thus shields that ground from political critique and transformation—a move that Butler herself has done so much work to expose and displace.In this article, I ask whether feminist theory must repeat a recourse to foundations by examining the charge that Butler does so her in most recent work. The article will proceed as follows: in the first section, I examine the [End Page 25] charge that Butler is instituting a new humanism. In the second section, I look at some of Butler’s discussion of humanism, and look more closely at the relation between ethics and politics the question of humanism opens up in her work. In the third, I explore whether or not the charge that Butler is instituting a new humanism is correct. And in the fourth, I question what is at stake in this charge. Essentially, the article asks of this new humanist charge: Is this a thing or not a thing, and so what? I argue that, while the charge is somewhat overdetermined, it does point to a larger problem in Butler’s work, and that is the recourse to foundations, or to gesturing to an outside of or beyond of politics as the condition for altering political conditions. I will conclude by arguing that a greater attention to method can help to avoid the reification of the distinction between politics and its conditions that leads to the recourse of foundations.Butler’s New Mortalist HumanismIn her 2010 article “Antigone’s Two Laws: Tragedy and the Politics of Humanism”—as well as in her 2013 book Antigone, Interrupted—Bonnie Honig argues that Butler’s ethical turn institutes a new mortalist humanism, predicated on the “ontological fact of mortality, not the capacity to reason but the vulnerability to suffering” (Honig 2010, 1). She differentiates this new mortalist humanism, which she also diagnoses in the work of Nicole Loraux and Stephen White, from earlier rationalist forms of humanism that are based on the universal principle of human rationality, and from forms of antihumanism based on the “signs of a monstrous, dehumanizing animality” (Honig 2010, 3). Either form is problematic, Honig argues, insofar as they both seek to settle essentially political questions by recourse to a position beyond politics: through a stable and recognizably human figure who either secures its belonging to the polity by means of its rationality, or an exclusion rendered through the dehumanization of otherwise ostensibly human figures.This new mortalist humanism Honig diagnoses in Butler’s recent work falls into the same problem: in this version, Butler settles political questions by recourse to a principle of mortality, or the universal experience of mourning. This would seem to be contrary to Butler’s earlier commitments to a radical critique of foundationalism, especially in her famous critique of the naturalization of sex as the grounds for a political understanding of gender. This is... (shrink)

In her 2020 Agriculture, Food and Human Values Society presidential address, Molly Anderson outlined three ways to push beyond boundaries imposed on us and by us to work towards addressing global food system and societal problems. In this response essay, I draw on my experiences and my perspectives as a pre-tenure rural sociologist who is not from around here to highlight how I attempt to push beyond boundaries in my own work and to discuss challenges associated with the feasibility of (...) some of Molly’s call. I also build on Molly’s call for boundary work including a broadening of international collaborations through increased engagement in cross-national comparative research, pivoting from interacting with global social movements to interacting with key stakeholders, and deepening of anti-discrimination work through the use of an intersectionality lens. Arguing that Molly’s call for action is bold but needed, I close my essay with a set of questions that I hope can contribute to larger discussions on how we can help one another push beyond boundaries to work towards more fair and sustainable food systems. (shrink)

25 leading contemporary theorists of criminal law tackle a range of foundational issues about the proper aims and structure of the criminal law in a liberal democracy. The challenges facing criminal law are many. There are crises of over-criminalization and over-imprisonment; penal policy has become so politicized that it is difficult to find any clear consensus on what aims the criminal law can properly serve; governments seeking to protect their citizens in the face of a range of perceived threats have (...) pushed the outer limits of criminal law and blurred its boundaries. To think clearly about the future of criminal law, and its role in a liberal society, foundational questions about its proper scope, structure, and operations must be re-examined. What kinds of conduct should be criminalized? What are the principles of criminal responsibility? How should offences and defences be defined? The criminal process and the criminal trial need to be studied closely, and the purposes and modes of punishment should be scrutinized. Such a re-examination must draw on the resources of various disciplines-notably law, political and moral philosophy, criminology and history; it must examine both the inner logic of criminal law and its place in a larger legal and political structure; it must attend to the growing field of international criminal law, it must consider how the criminal law can respond to the challenges of a changing world.Topics covered in this volume include the question of criminalization and the proper scope of the criminal law; the grounds of criminal responsibility; the ways in which offences and defences should be defined; the criminal process and its values; criminal punishment; the relationship between international criminal law and domestic criminal law. Together, the essays provide a picture of the exciting state of criminal law theory today, and the basis for further research and debate in the coming years. (shrink)

Should the law recognize an individual's right not to be a genetic parent when genetic parenthood does not carry with it legal or gestational parenthood? If so, should we allow individuals to waive that right in advance, either by contract or a less formal means? How should the law's treatment of gestational and legal parenthood inform these questions? Developments in reproductive technology have brought these questions to the fore, most prominently in the preembryo disposition cases a number of courts have (...) confronted - disputes over the use of stored frozen preembryos that couples have fertilized in the course of In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) - but other examples abound.In this Article, I argue that in analyzing these cases it is essential to unbundle the possible rights not to be a genetic, gestational, and legal parent, and to recognize that the three rights do not stand and fall together. I show that we cannot move from the discourse surrounding the rights not to be a gestational and legal parent to a justification for a right not to be a genetic parent. Instead, I argue that the normative mooring of the right not to be a genetic parent is best understood as a way of protecting individuals from what I call "attributional parenthood," a harm that stems from the social assignment of the status of parent to the provider of genetic material that persists notwithstanding the fact that the legal system has declared him or her a non-parent.Using this framework, I argue for the recognition of the right not to be a genetic parent. However, I reject the claim, common among courts and commentators, that this right should not be capable of advance waiver. I instead conclude that we should permit advance waiver of the right through contract, with several interventions aimed at improving contractual consent. In preembryo disposition disputes where the parties have not contracted, I argue for a general default rule of non-use, perhaps with a sub-rule permitting use when non-use would mean the impossibility of one party ever having any genetic children. (shrink)

The question of whether there are laws of nature in ecology has developed substantially in the last 20 years. Many have attempted to rehabilitate ecology’s lawlike status through establishing that ecology possesses laws that robustly appear across many different ecological systems. I argue that there is still something missing, which explains why so many have been skeptical of ecology’s lawlike status. Community ecology has struggled to establish what I call a General Unificatory Theory. The lack of a GUT causes (...) problems for explanation as there are no guidelines for how to integrate the lower-level mathematical and causal models into a larger theory of how ecological assemblages are formed. I turn to a promising modern attempt to provide a unified higher-level explanation in ecology, presented by ecologist Mark Vellend, and advocate for philosophical engagement with its prospects for aiding ecological explanation. (shrink)

I take it as obvious that attempts to justify the criminal law must be sensitive to matters of criminalization—to what conduct is proscribed or permitted. I discuss three additional matters that should be addressed in order to justify the criminal law. First, we must have a rough idea of what degree of deviation is tolerable between the set of criminal laws we ought to have and the set we really have. Second, we need information about how the criminal law at (...) any given time and place is administered, since the law in action is bound to differ radically from the law on the books. Finally, we must have some basis for speculating what life would be like in the absence of a system of criminal justice—if the state ceased to impose punishments. (shrink)

This paper is a sequel to my 'Theological Misinterpretations of Current Physical Cosmology' (Foundations of Physics [1996], 26 (4); revised in Philo [1998], 1 (1)). There I argued that the Big Bang models of (classical) general relativity theory, as well as the original 1948 versions of the steady state cosmology, are each logically incompatible with the time-honored theological doctrine that perpetual divine creation ('creatio continuans') is required in each of these two theorized worlds. Furthermore, I challenged the perennial theological doctrine (...) that there must be a divine creative cause (as distinct from a transformative one) for the very existence of the world, a ratio essendi. This doctrine is the theistic reply to the question: 'Why is there something, rather than just nothing?' I begin my present paper by arguing against the response by the contemporary Oxford theist Richard Swinburne and by Leibniz to what is, in effect, my counter-question: 'But why should there be just nothing, rather than something?' Their response takes the form of claiming that the a priori probability of there being just nothing, vis-à-vis the existence of alternative states, is maximal, because the non-existence of the world is conceptually the simplest. On the basis of an analysis of the role of simplicity in scientific explanations, I show that this response is multiply flawed, and thus provides no basis for their three contentions that (i) if there is a world at all, then its 'normal', natural, spontaneous state is one of utter nothingness or total non-existence, so that (ii) the very existence of matter, energy and living beings constitutes a deviation from the allegedly 'normal', spontaneous state of 'nothingness', and (iii) that deviation must thus have a suitably potent (external) divine cause. Related defects turn out to vitiate the medieval Kalam Argument for the existence of God, as espoused by William Craig. Next I argue against the contention by such theists as Richard Swinburne and Philip L. Quinn that (i) the specific content of the scientifically most fundamental laws of nature, including the constants they contain, requires supra-scientific explanation, and (ii) a satisfactory explanation is provided by the hypothesis that the God of theism willed them to be exactly what they are. Furthermore, I contend that the theistic teleological gloss on the 'Anthropic Principle' is incoherent and explanatorily unavailing. Finally, I offer an array of considerations against Swinburne's attempt to show, via Bayes's theorem, that the existence of God is more probable than not. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 13.4 (2003) 393-406 [Access article in PDF] U.S. Defunding of UNFPA:A Moral Analysis Ronald M. Green Ethical decisions made inside the Beltway sometimes have global consequences. Nowhere is this more true than with respect to the decision by Secretary of State Colin Powell on 21 July 2002 to halt $34 million in U.S. funding for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). Behind this decision (...) lay the forces of America's abortion politics as well as tangled issues in law and bioethics.I became involved in this debate when, in early September 2003, I served as a member of a nine-person delegation of U.S. religious leaders and ethicists that traveled to China to meet with those associated with the UNFPA program there. The delegation was assembled by Frances Kissling, of Catholics for a Free Choice, which also provided support and funding for the necessary travel and administrative services. In China, our contacts included UNFPA administrators, Chinese government officials, and ordinary villagers touched by UNFPA efforts. In the middle of its week-long stay, the delegation left Beijing in three separate groups to travel to remote provincial regions (Hubei, Gansu, and Ningxia). Our goal was to respond to the Bush administration's defunding decision by deepening our understanding of the current Chinese population program and UNFPA's relationship to it. In the course of this enquiry, I encountered challenging questions that drew on my own training in ethics in novel ways. Historical Background UNFPA is the world's largest organization providing family planning and reproductive health services. It was established in 1969 as the United Nations Fund for Population Activities. In 1987, the Economic and Social Council decided to rename it the United Nations Population Fund, but to retain the original abbreviation-acronym. UNFPA works to improve access to and the quality of family planning services in more than 140 of the poorest countries in the world. It is also very active in providing services aimed at preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS. It does not provide abortion services, but works to prevent abortion through family planning and to help countries provide services for women suffering from the complications of unsafe abortion. [End Page 393]Although UNFPA is officially an agency of the United Nations, its budget, currently about $200 million per year, comes from voluntary payments by donors, including UN member states. U.S. funding has been irregular. In 1985, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a foreign operations appropriations measure that has come to be known as the "Kemp-Kasten Amendment." This measure, which has been repassed in substantially unchanged form every year since, forbids funding for "any organization or program which, as determined by the President of the United States, supports or participates in the management of a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization."1 From 1986 on, the Reagan and Bush administrations halted all U.S. funding for UNFPA activities around the world on the grounds that the agency's activities in China caused it to be involved in supporting or participating in the management of a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization, and, hence, put it in violation of Kemp-Kasten.Efforts by the People's Republic of China to slow the increase of its population date from the early 1970s when, in a striking departure from classical Marxist theory, which had insisted on the positive value of added labor power and denied the need for demographic controls, the government imposed a policy of delayed marriage and birth spacing. In 1979, these efforts intensified with the advent of the "one child policy." (In fact, this name is misleading since the number of children allowed a couple varies significantly from urban to rural areas, with rural residents and members of ethnic minorities permitted to have larger families.) To implement this program, the government established a National Family Planning Commission (now National Population and Family Planning Commission) which, among other things, set up a network of family planning service centers around the country, where birth control... (shrink)

Many philosophers of science and technology who see themselves as coming “after” Husserl also claim that their phenomenology is hermeneutical. Yet they neither practice the same sort of phenomenology, nor do they all have the same understanding of hermeneutics. Moreover, their differences often seem to be more a function of different pre-selected substantive commitments—say, to take a “material” turn or to be resolutely “empirical”—than the product of any serious effort to clarify what it is be hermeneutical. In this essay, after (...) some discussion of Dilthey’s reception among post-Husserlians (especially Patrick Heelan and Don Ihde), I consider how aspiring hermeneuts might make their own pre-possession of substantive and methodological commitments a hermeneutical topic. This is, of course, is not just a scholarly question of how post-Husserlian phenomenologists might make themselves more phenomenological. Without thoughtful self-awareness of these commitments, one’s assumptions about the use of technology, design, the place of science in the larger culture and in relation to conceptions of human flourishing—all of these assumptions are likely to pass through into technoscientific practice with insufficient critical consideration. (shrink)

We critically analyze Alexander Rosenberg’s argument based on the multiple realizability of biological properties that there are no biological laws. The argument is intuitive and suggestive. Nevertheless, a closer analysis reveals that the argument rests on dubious assumptions about the nature of natural selection, laws of nature, and multiple realizability. We also argue that the argument is limited in scope, since it applies to an outmoded account of laws and the applicability of the argument to other more promising accounts of (...) laws is questionable. Another concern of ours is that the relation between multiple realizability and natural selection is more complex than Rosenberg acknowledges. Finally, we claim that an explanation for why Rosenberg’s argument appears persuasive and appealing is that the argument is based on an inflated concept of multiple realizability that rests on unreliable intuitions concerning what counts as a different realization of the same property. Consequently, we argue that the argument is at best inconclusive and at worst false insofar as its implications for the existence of biological laws are concerned. (shrink)

A law is one of the basic concepts of the dialectical materialist conception of determinism as a philosophical theory of the objective interrelationship and mutual conditioning of phenomena in the material and mental world. A law establishes a rigorously determined connection among circumstances, i.e., a totality of derivative components and conditions of their actions and results. By overlooking the existence of two different levels—the concept and the objective reality corresponding to it—some philosophers erroneously interpret Marx's theses concerning the approximateness of (...) the realization of the laws of society. Let us take, for example, Marx's thesis that "In general, in capitalist production general laws are realized in a very confused and approximate way, merely as a prevailing tendency, as a kind of average among constant fluctuations that is never solidly established."1 Some investigators see this as an objectively existing social law in itself, attributing to it an "inexactitude" of operation, variation, and approximation, instead of seeing it as a specific application of a particular law. They thus forget that Marx said, in the Foreword to the very first volume of Capital: "The question does not specifically have to do with a greater or lesser degree of development of the social antagonisms that derive from the natural laws of capitalist production, but rather lies in these laws themselves, these trends, which operate and are realized with iron necessity.". (shrink)

Purpose. The article is aimed to reveal the essence of the eternal problem, comprehended by Augustine Aurelius in the culture of the early Middle Ages – the focus of the value orientations of the anthropological search. Theoretical basis. Only in the twentieth century, various aspects of Augustine’s creative legacy became the subject of scientific research by many authors. As the direction of their scientific research, the problem of the relationship of reason, faith, knowledge, which has risen sharply in medieval Christian (...) culture, has been considered. The logical outcome of these studies was the assertion that for Augustine Platonism was the main of the philosophical teachings of antiquity; that Augustine, being in line with Christian philosophy, considered the understanding of the aesthetic perfection of the Divine creation of the world as the sense of human life. The analysis of their works gives reason to argue that the definition of the human essence – the Augustine’s anthropological problems, was practically not addressed by representatives of domestic and foreign philosophical thought, and therefore remained undiscovered. Originality. The authors have proved that the definition of the human essence by Augustine is in the correlation with his answers to questions about the nature of the origin of man, about the secrets of being, etc. The ethical ideal of the thinker has been revealed, which is systematically formed in his works. Conclusions. The thesis has been substantiated that the anthropological views of Augustine Aurelius are in correlation with his epistemological judgments. Only by knowing the order of things in the universe, determined by the will of the Lord, we will know also the order of our value orientations. The basis of the philosophical comprehension of the human essence by Augustine Aurelius is a series of questions that constantly arise before mankind – about the nature of its appearance, about the secrets of human existence, the sense of life, death and immortality, etc. The ethical ideal of the thinker is an eternal city that is not based on human nature, it is too volatile, therefore it is only to a small extent subject to research, but on a Divine basis – the Christian idea. (shrink)

Questions concerning the aims and aspirations, criteria of success and even proper delineation of the subject matter of theories of law have given rise to some of the most intractable and contentious debates in contemporary legal philosophy. In this article, I outline my vision of the remit and character of legal philosophy, with particular emphasis on the methodological approach with which I am most concerned in my own work, and which I refer to here as ‘indirectly evaluative legal philosophy’. I (...) do so partly in response to some vehement criticisms of, and, in my view, significant mischaracterisations of, IELP and cognate approaches to theorising about law, which feature in some recent jurisprudential debates. My position supports a pluralistic methodological outlook which emphasises disciplinary and sub-disciplinary complementarity as an alternative to the febrile adversarialism sometimes afflicting our discipline. For, in my view, ours is a broad church, and all theoretical accounts able to illu.. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Daemonic Figures: Shakespeare and the Question of ConscienceEric SpencerDaemonic Figures: Shakespeare and the Question of Conscience, by Ned Lukacher; x & 228 pp. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994, $37.50 cloth, $15.95 paper.Daemonic Figures is a specialist’s book twice over. Profiting from it requires not only considerable familiarity with Heidegger, but also unquestioning acceptance of the rhetorical conventions and critical methods of contemporary theory. Lukacher uses these (...) conventions and methods to argue that conscience, properly understood, poses uncomfortable questions about the origins of self-knowledge, and leads to a mysterious but presumably enriching encounter with the limits of our certainty. Shakespeare enters the argument as the supreme example of a poet who discovers, through sensitivity to the ambiguities of language, how to peer without flinching into the Heideggerian abyss. Although the book relies too heavily on Heidegger’s unforgiving idiom, and pauses too seldom to justify suggestive but tenuous claims, at its heart lie hard, interesting questions about what having a conscience means.Lukacher wishes to restore to the idea of conscience all its paradoxical force. As a silent inner voice carrying a moral imperative from elsewhere, conscience immediately suggests an internally divided self. And although, according to Lukacher, Christian tradition locates the source of the imperative in God, and classical tradition in natural law, conscience remains irreducibly “uncanny,” because “the most intimate site of human habitation [i.e., the self] is also the strangest of places, for it is there that the (unfamiliar) god comes to presence through the language of moral judgment that tells us that we are and that because we are what we are we should act thus” (p. 7). For Lukacher, then, the question of conscience is the question of being, a question without an answer because it involves the unthinkable idea of something prior to and beyond being. The book argues that whatever speaks to us under the name of conscience must be both within and without any categories we have to explain it.Hence “daemonic figures”: drawing on the Greek notion of a realm of daimones dwelling between the human and divine worlds, Lukacher claims that the “daemon is the cipher, the name, and the figure for the incontrovertible [End Page 240] ghostliness, the familiar strangeness, that dwells between the perceptions and reflections of consciousness and the enigmatic ground of Being itself” (p. 2), or “the medium in which we come to ourselves as precisely that which is divided from itself... from the outset” (p. 6). And because, in Lukacher’s scheme, language articulates this daemonic mediation, we must seek in literary works which explore conscience—like Hamlet and Macbeth—traces of uncanniness welling up through ostensibly coherent words. Literary value accordingly involves “giving us the words with which to bring that enigmatic lack to presence” (p. 92). Simultaneously ubiquitous and inscrutable, conscience both calls to and evades us, and literature makes its home in such paradoxical territory.It follows that Lukacher seeks in texts brief flashes of something else in the midst of what’s apparently going on, a procedure which constantly risks arbitrary idiosyncrasy. For instance, in his chapter on Hamlet, Lukacher notes that the Player’s description of Priam’s death includes a line—“and with a hideous crash / Takes prisoner Pyrrhus’ ear”—whose sequence of sounds produces a ghostly authorial signature: sh... akes... Pyr... ear. And because this “countersignature” appears fragmented, in a context of hesitation, destruction and decline, Lukacher claims it creates an allegory of the “nonrelation at the heart of self-revelation” (p. 135). That is, it (and the larger drama of Hamlet’s revenge to which it obliquely gestures) reveals that at the heart of authorship, of authorized speech, of the moral law of conscience, lies “the silent play of the letter” (p. 135), the “daemonic figure” of dissolution in the midst of self-assertion, which unsettles all authorization. Hence Hamlet’s famous difficulties—he hears the whisper of Otherness in what ought to be a straightforward moral imperative to vengeance.Lukacher justifies this procedure by noting that “Derrida’s writing, no less than that of Heidegger [and presumably Shakespeare], relies on the invention of figures and metaphors through which... (shrink)

There is burgeoning interest in the field of “Islamic” bioethics within public and professional circles, and both healthcare practitioners and academic scholars deploy their respective expertise in attempts to cohere a discipline of inquiry that addresses the needs of contemporary bioethics stakeholders while using resources from within the Islamic ethico-legal tradition. This manuscript serves as an introduction to the present thematic issue dedicated to Islamic bioethics. Using the collection of papers as a guide the paper outlines several critical questions that (...) a comprehensive and cohesive Islamic bioethical theory must address: (i) What are the relationships between Islamic law (Sharīʿah), moral theology (uṣūl al-Fiqh), and Islamic bioethics? (ii) What is the relationship between an Islamic bioethics and the lived experiences of Muslims? and (iii) What is the relationship between Islamic bioethics and the state? This manuscript, and the papers in this special collection, provides insight into how Islamic bioethicists and Muslim communities are addressing some of these questions, and aims to spur further dialogue around these overaching questions as Islamic bioethics coalesces into a true field of scholarly and practical inquiry. (shrink)

From Kant’s first published work to recent articles in the physics literature, philosophers and physicists have long sought an answer to the question, why does space have three dimensions. In this paper, I will flesh out Kant’s claim with a brief detour through Gauss’ law. I then describe Büchel’s version of the common argument that stable orbits are possible only if space is three-dimensional. After examining objections by Russell and van Fraassen, I develop three original criticisms of my own. (...) These criticisms are relevant to both historical and contemporary proofs of the dimensionality of space (in particular, a recent one by Burgbacher, F. Lämmerzahl, C., and Macias). In general I argue that modern “proofs” of the dimensionality of space have gone off track. (shrink)

An important but unstudied event in US legal institutions is when judges question plaintiff and defense attorneys about the issue that brings them to an appeals hearing before a state supreme court. In this article I analyze judges' questioning during the oral argument phase of the New York Court of Appeals' hearing of Hernandez v. Robles, a case concerning whether the state was violating same-sex couples' constitutional rights by denying them access to marriage. The article's purpose is to show (...) how the content, format, and language style of judges' questioning turns constructs the judges as persons possessing particular attitudes, judicial philosophies, political leanings, and personalities. The article provides a quantitative overview of the 186 questioning turns and analyzes the discourse in selected episodes to evidence how features of questioning generate identity inferences. The conclusion considers how the oral argument phase of Appeals Court proceedings contributes to larger discourses of the law. (shrink)

Who is the 'I' that performs? The arts of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries have pushed us relentlessly to reconsider our notions of the self, expression, and communication: to ask ourselves, again and again, who we think we are and how we can speak meaningfully to one another. Although in other performing arts studies, especially of theatre, the performance of selfhood and identity continues to be a matter of lively debate in both practice and theory, the question of how (...) a sense of self is manifested through musical performance has been neglected. The authors of 'Voices, Bodies, Practices' are all musician-researchers: the book employs artistic research to explore how embodied performing "voices" can emerge from the interactions of individual performers and composers, musical materials, instruments, mediating technologies, and performance contexts. (shrink)

A fourteen year old is diagnosed with aplastic anemia. The teen and his parents are Jehovah’s Witnesses. An ethics consult is called on the day of admission by an ethically sophisticated social worker and attending. The patient and his parents see this diagnosis as “a test of their faith.” The ethical analysis focuses on the mature minor doctrine, i.e. whether the teen has the capacity to make this decision. The hospital chooses to take the case to court, with a result (...) that is at odds with the ethics consultation recommendations. Ethics was never deposed or otherwise invited to be involved with the hearing. Thus the larger question of the relation of ethics and law was brought into stark relief. (shrink)

People who are not Muslims but live under the rule of the Islamic state under certain conditions are called "non-Muslim". With the Prophet’s migration to Madinah, he encountered a non-Muslim community and clearly demonstrated his stance on them with the "Madinah Convention". As a result of the intense conquest movements that started with the Companions period, non-Muslim people became the citizen of the Islamic state. Legal arrangements have been made regarding these, and their status before the state and within the (...) society has been determined. These people, who were not forced to accept the Islamic faith, were also given the freedom of belief and worship. However, by limiting the framework of this freedom to the interests of the Islamic state and Muslim society, social security and peace were ensured, and the basic parameters of coexistence were tried to be established. Islamic states have evaluated the non-Muslim temples in the places taken by peace and the places taken as a result of war. While obtaining the consent of the non-Muslim people for the demolition of the temples or the conversion of them into mosques in the places taken by peace; In the dispositions on the temples located in the places taken by the war, they were treated more freely. In principle, the principle of not touching or repairing the temples of non-Muslims built before the conquest was preserved in almost all periods, and the construction of new temples was not viewed positively. Yes, as a requirement of religion, non-Muslims were freed in their beliefs and were not forced to become Muslims, taking into account the freedom of religion and conscience. However, in order for the Muslim community to preserve its religion, non-Muslims are not allowed to live their religion, culture and traditions in front of the public; Restrictions have also been imposed on their temples. In this context, a series of measures were taken, such as the demolition of some churches and the reduction of the number of existing temples. Despite this, it was also allowed to build new temples in case of necessity. In this case, the magnificent construction of the temples was not allowed, and they were required to comply with some criteria in architecture. In this study, starting from the time of the Prophet, an answer will be sought to the question of whether the policies carried out by the Islamic states towards the places of worship of non-Muslims are religious or political, with some examples of practice from different periods of the history of Islamic law. In this context, the status of the temples belonging to these people, who are defined as "dhimmis" in the Islamic state, rather than their general legal status, forms the basis of our study. Our study has been limited to Christian and Jewish temples. (shrink)