The Mathematical Intelligencer recently published a note by Y. Sergeyev that challenges both mathematics and intelligence. We examine Sergeyev’s claims concerning his purported Infinity computer. We compare his grossone system with the classical Levi-Civita fields and with the hyperreal framework of A. Robinson, and analyze the related algorithmic issues inevitably arising in any genuine computer implementation. We show that Sergeyev’s grossone system is unnecessary and vague, and that whatever consistent subsystem could be salvaged is subsumed entirely within a stronger and (...) clearer system. Lou Kauffman, who published an article on a grossone, places it squarely outside the historical panorama of ideas dealing with infinity and infinitesimals. (shrink)

Morphological EvoDevo is a field of biological inquiry in which explicit relations between evolutionary patterns and growth or morphogenetic processes are made. Historically, morphological EvoDevo results from the coming together of several traditions, notably Naturphilosophie, embryology, the study of heterochrony, and developmental constraints. A special feature binding different approaches to morphological EvoDevo is the use of formalisms and mathematical models. Here we will introduce anatomical network analysis, a new approach centered on connectivity patterns formed by anatomical parts, with its own (...) concepts and tools specifically designed for the study of morphological EvoDevo questions. Riedl’s concept of burden is tightly related to the use of anatomical networks, providing a nexus between the evolutionary patterns and the structural constraints that shape them. (shrink)

Higher education is seeing renewed calls for strengthening ethics education, yet there remains a dearth of research on the state of ethics education across undergraduate curricula. Research about ethics in higher education tends to be localized and often isolated to fields of graduate study. In contribution to a contemporary, landscape understanding of ethics education, we collected data on the placement and prevalence of ethics instruction within the general education curricula at 507 major U.S. colleges and universities. Our findings suggest that (...) 1) most schools in our study’s population do not explicitly require ethics as a part of their general education curricula; and 2) a school’s religiosity and research status are positively associated with explicitly requiring ethics instruction for its undergraduate student body. (shrink)

This paper reports the policy-responses of different Philippine higher education institutions (HEIs) to the novel coronavirus, COVD-19 pandemic. It compares these responses with those made by HEIs in Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam. Publicly available data and news reports were used to gauge the general public’s reaction to these policies and how the Philippines’ responses fare with its Southeast Asian neighbors. The paper observes that despite the innovations made by Philippine HEIs in terms of alternative learning modes and technologies for delivering (...) education, there are still gaps and challenges in their responses. It recommends that policy-responses and learning innovations should be grounded on a deeper understanding of distance education and should be sensitive to the call of the times. (shrink)

In an 1896 article for Kindergarten Magazine, John Dewey explained that the "child comes to school to do; to cook, to sew, to work with wood and tools in simple constructive acts; within and about these acts cluster the studies—writing, reading, arithmetic, etc."1 With this statement, Dewey encapsulated a key principle in the elementary education pedagogy he was at that time developing at the University of Chicago's Laboratory School. This school, which Dewey founded in 1896, explicitly experimented with new pedagogical (...) techniques. Ultimately, the Laboratory School's emphasis on occupations would become the most distinctive aspect of Dewey's and his colleagues' experimentation with educational... (shrink)

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

Most scholars suggest that Plato's academy served as a training ground for future statesmen in order that philosophy might influence politics. Yet scholars deny that later Platonic academies maintained this same political focus. It is assumed that they transformed into monastic asylums, allowing philosophers to escape worldly affairs. This article challenges the conventional reading through an interpretation of a commentary on Plato's Gorgias, written by an Alexandrian Neoplatonist who upholds his predecessor's political focus. He argues that the philosopher must be (...) concerned with the health of regimes and should accomplish this task by teaching statesmen, who can either advise those in power or pursue their own political ambitions. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 35.3 (2002) 208-222 [Access article in PDF] Writing, Illness and Affirmation Jeremiah Dyehouse My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely to bear what is necessary, still less conceal it—all idealism is mendaciousness in the face of what is necessary—but love it. —Friedrich Nietzsche In (...) her widely circulated book On Death and Dying, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, M.D., addresses herself to a changed historical context for work in medicine. In societies with increasingly effective medical care, she argues, doctors and nurses find themselves working with patients whose health problems range from imperceptible yet terminal sicknesses to psychosomatic ailments. Today, especially, it is easy to see the reality of her description of this situation: forms of terminal cancer can be detected earlier and earlier in a patient's life, rendering the disconcerting reality of a terminal illness with few or no symptoms. Equally strange for doctors and patients today are forms of environmental illness like chronic fatigue syndrome, a condition suffered by many but still disputed by doctors and researchers. To this situation of medical risk, personal suffering, and therapeutic care, Kübler-Ross prescribes a communicative engagement with the dying. This engagement, she argues, not only teaches doctors about death and dying, but it also provides respite for those who must experience these events.The problem of communicating with the dying, the main focus of Kübler-Ross's book, is nevertheless eclipsed by the other, more notable aspect of On Death and Dying. For out of this book emerged the now very popular understanding of the stages of death, the normal sequence of an individual's emotional reconciliation to dying: the processes of denial and isolation, anger, bargaining, depression—the whole series of intrapsychic processes leading up to a final acceptance of death and dying. Now we live amongst a whole panoply of staged progresses towards the acceptance of trauma: trauma associated not only with death and dying but also with substance abuse, catastrophe, and forms of violence. It is perhaps worth recalling, however, that the most famous of these stage models, the five stages [End Page 208] of death, emerged out of Kübler-Ross's attempt to learn what the dying can teach the living about communication.In what follows, I assume that writing about illness is another, more popular form of Kübler-Ross's descriptive and communicative project. To write pathography, as Anne Hunsaker Hawkins calls narratives of illness and dying in her survey of these texts, Reconstructing Illness: Studies in Pathography, is to engage with what sickness and dying teach about life and writing. As might be guessed, most pathographies orbit familiar centers of gravity: agency for the dying, reconciliation for the living, the whole leaden project of acceptance. Even so, pathography is not always and everywhere engaged in such projects. Pathography, as Hawkins demonstrates, is a highly variable project. Literary pathography is quite different from popular pathography, and texts within these categories differ with respect to the purpose of their writing. Pathography is conceived as a communicative engagement with sickness and dying, with the sick and the dying, but is hardly unified in its aims or its functions. It is a form of writing that not just potentially but actually admits a diversity of purposes and produces a variety of effects.It is my purpose here to propose a typology for pathographies. Although pathography as a genre of writing takes a bewildering variety of forms, these writings can be grouped according to their effects. I divide pathography into three types, according to the kind of response they offer to sickness and dying, to the sick and the dying. First, I treat pathography as a process of passive acceptance, the bearing of a burden proposed by the necessities of illness and death. Next, I characterize pathographies that approach the writing of illness or dying as a process of active acceptance. This type of pathography uses writing about illness and dying as a process for the... (shrink)

The following three papers focus on compassion, an issue well worth our consideration in our contemporary age, and most especially during our recent national tragedy. It is hoped that these philosophical discussions of compassion may help us as we, on personal and societal levels, come to grips with immense human suffering. The topic of compassion brings us into an exploration of a cluster of related philosophical issues and is thus a good stepping off point for inquiry. The role of the (...) first paper is that of stage setting, to simply layout an approach to compassion presented by Aristotle and developed by Martha Nussbaum. This approach served as the introductory consideration in a course on compassion, taught by the first two commentators. Initially we wondered if we could sustain discussion on this narrow topic over fourteen weeks, but found the course left students with numerous questions worth their further consideration. So too in these papers, a number of issues will remain untouched, such as the relation of compassion and public policy and specific approaches to the cultivating of compassion, both of which are explored at length by Martha Nussbaum. This first paper frames our discussion, by presenting in outline form key points addressed in Martha Nussbaum’s Aristotelian discussion of the emotion of compassion, and touches upon issues developed in the next two papers. (shrink)

In Education After Dewey, Paul Fairfield advocates a philosophy of education that combines John Dewey’s thinking with ideas drawn from continental European philosophy and 20th century social theory. In particular, Fairfield argues that putting Dewey in conversation with philosophers such as Hans-Georg Gadamer and Martin Heidegger can lead to needed improvements in contemporary ideas about education. Education after Dewey seeks to rehabilitate Dewey’s thought for students of European philosophy and for humanities educators. It argues for the merits, and concedes the (...) limitations, of Dewey’s educational emphasis on experience. The many connections that Fairfield establishes between Dewey’s educational thinking and .. (shrink)

Since its enactment in AD 313, the Edict of Milan, an edict that freed Christianity from empire-wide persecution, Constantine’s declaration has received a significant amount of attention within Christendom. Most of the discussion has centered on Constantine’s conversion, the precursor to the actual edict, with many suggesting that Constantine was acting more as a politician than a Christian. While this line of inquiry is legitimate, perhaps a better approach to the question may be more helpful to present-day Christians. That is, (...) while it is logical to deduce that every prudent politician will ignore the largest religious movement in his/her time at his/her own peril, Christians of every age will be better served if they critically evaluate their reception of each and every major policy that is clearly aimed at their benefit. With this background, this paper will attempt to critically examine the reception of Constantine’s edict by the Church in the years immediately following its enactment. Two early exhibits will be brought to bear here: the Donatist controversy and the Arian controversy. In so doing, the thesis that while Christians had every reason to celebrate the enactment of the edict, down the road, an uncritical adoption of the emperor’s policies and favors towards the church opened a door for an unhealthy marriage between earthly powers and the church that proved detrimental in the ensuing years, will be defended. As such, the Church’s reception of the Edict of Milan continues to be a lesson to Christians of every age in their relationship with the political leadership of their time. (shrink)

In akrasia, an agent intentionally acts against her own judgment about what it is best to do. This presents many puzzles for the understanding of human motivation. The Socrates of Plato's Protagoras, for example, denies this is possible because he claims that all action is motivated by an agent's belief about what is best. Plato himself seems to reject this view in the Republic, appealing to three distinct sources of motivation. This paper takes Plato's side in the general debate, arguing (...) for a new tripartite moral psychology. Because the akratic acts for a reason but against the conclusion of her practical reasoning, there must be a way of acting for reasons other than through reasoning about them. This way is desire. But once there is a division between reason and desire, a third capacity is needed to solve conflicts that can arise between them, the will. (shrink)

Purpose: This research intended to conduct a theological appraisal of the church’s teachings on human sexuality and the role she has in mitigating the problems ensuing from a lack of understanding or misuse of human sexuality. The researcher discussed the problem of sexuality by examining the views of authors who agreed with the fact that there was a problem in the way society had understood and harnessed human sexuality. The response and teaching of the church were a central concern of (...) the researcher. The researcher discussed the problem of condemning the victims of sexual perversion and further expressed the need for the church to redefine her methods of reclaiming people from unhealthy and unbiblical sexual habits. Methodology: This study used a qualitative design. The researcher collected data from individuals from three selected churches in Nairobi County, Kenya with semi-structured interviews as the sole instrument of data collection. The analyses of the data were done using thematic and descriptive analysis methods. The three churches included Christ is The Answer Ministries (CITAM) Valley Road, African Inland Church, Milimani and Ufalme Church, Nairobi. Findings: The findings revealed that the church had not done enough in teaching about human sexuality and in giving a practical solution to church members who struggled with sexual perversions. This left Christians with unorthodox sources of information and education on the subject such as media and the internet. Unique contribution to theory and practice: The researcher recommends that the church should treat human sexuality as an important area that should not be shunned but should be addressed with passion. Correct biblical guidance on recovery and freedom from addictions should be offered by church pastors to all persons that have sexual addictions and the ones that have the potential of struggling with sexual perversions. The church should work to enhance psycho-social therapies to help members of their congregation and others who have sexual addictions. (shrink)

In September 2008, 10 years after the untimely death of Pere Alberch (1954–1998), the 20th Altenberg Workshop in Theoretical Biology gathered a group of Pere’s students, col- laborators, and colleagues (Figure 1) to celebrate his contribu- tions to the origins of EvoDevo. Hosted by the Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research (KLI) outside Vienna, the group met for two days of discussion. The meeting was organized in tandem with a congress held in May 2008 at the Cavanilles Institute (...) for Biodiversity and Evolutionary Biology (ICBiBE) in Valencia, Spain. The talks at the KLI were equal parts: nostalgic remembrance, excitement over new ways of thinking about old problems, and an unrepressed vitriol against the resurgence of reductionist thinking in EvoDevo. Here we highlight some of the key aspects of Pere’s life and work that informed and infused the talks. (shrink)

Jc Beall’s off-topic interpretation of Weak Kleene logic offers a logic of ‘true-and-topic’ preservation. However, Nissim Francez has recently argued that being ‘off-topic’ is a relational and not an _absolute_ semantic property; as such, it fails to satisfy the conditions of truth-functionality. For Francez, this means that it ‘cannot serve as an interpretation of a truth-value’. In this paper, I propose a two-layered _re_interpretation of Beall’s off-topic semantics. This two-layered framework has two crucial features: a sentential topic-tagging device and a (...) two-layered evaluation tool. I show that this framework results in a logic that preserves Beall’s key insight and addresses Francez’s concerns. (shrink)

Can God change the past? The standard Aquinas line answers this question negatively: God cannot change the past since such an act implies a contradiction; thus is not within the purview of God's omnipotence. While the Aquinas line is well-known, there are other, non-standard solutions to this question. In this paper, I look into such answers. In particular, I explore those answers that employ the resources of gappy and glutty logics. I show how these solutions are motivated and how each (...) offers an alternative conception of what it is for God to be omnipotent. Finally, I consider and reply to potential issues that may be raised against these non-standard answers. (shrink)

Both Rousseau and Kant wrote their works with the intention of contributing to the well-being of humans. The ways in which Kant followed Rousseau to achieve this aim were many and go beyond those easily recognized. This article presents evidence for Rousseau’s influence in the Discipline of Pure Reason chapter of the Doctrine of Method in the First Critique. Both Rousseau and Kant emphasized discipline as a necessary part of a proper education that leads to a well-ordered life. Kant’s form (...) of discipline is modeled on the education given to Emile. This approach to the Discipline chapter also affords an enlightening view of Kant’s position in Dreams of a Spirit-Seer. (shrink)

In this article, I examine a Latin paraphrase of Aristotle's De caelo known as the Liber celi et mundi. The text was translated from Arabic in the third quarter of the twelfth century, and thus pre-dates all four Latin translations of De caelo in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. It was probably written by the ninth century Arab, Hunayn ibn Ishaq. I show the weakness of a previous theory that the Liber celi et mundi derives indirectly from Themistius's paraphrase of (...) De caelo. The text was translated into Latin by Dominicus Gundissalinus and his Jewish colleague, Johannes Hispanus. From c.1250, it was mis-attributed to Avicenna, and there is evidence that it had earlier been attributed to Aristotle by certain English writers. I consider the function of the Liber cell el mundi within the corpus of early Aristotelian translations, and the date of its expulsion from the corpus. (shrink)

I examine chapters I and II of the Dialectic of Pure Practical Reason from the Critique of Practical Reason, to show that Kant resolved the antimony of practical reason by first giving an accurate representation of the cause of a properly moral act and then recognizing that this accurate representation raised further problems, problems that were anticipated by Rousseau, especially in his Reveries of a Solitary Walker. Rousseau’s reveries allowed Kant to explore, and to some extent overcome, the darker implications (...) of their common understanding of virtue. In the second Critique this takes the form of explaining how one can understand and existentially achieve one’s own satisfaction based on contentment with oneself rather than enjoyment. (shrink)

A word from the wise is not to be discarded, O Phaedrus, but it is to be examined.The Socratic project is founded on the fallibility of those reputed to be wise, and the necessity of examining their wisdom. The importance of fallibility is clear enough in the Apology, in Socrates’s insistence that he is only wiser than others because he acknowledges his own ignorance. In Phaedrus, it is the basis of his distinction between the sophoi, the wise or learned, and (...) the philosophoi, the friends, allies or comrades of wisdom. This distinction suggests that we can maintain a relation to wisdom, we can be on the side of wisdom, but we cannot incarnate or possess wisdom. Those called sophoi are therefore more properly called... (shrink)

In “God of the Gaps: A Neglected Reply to God’s Stone Problem”, Jc Beall and A. J. Cotnoir offer a gappy solution to the paradox of (unrestricted) omnipotence that is typified by the classic stone problem. Andrew Tedder and Guillermo Badia, however, have recently argued that this solution could not be extended to a more serious Curry-like version of the paradox. In this paper, we show that such a gappy solution does extend to it.

Theodore Sider’s puzzle in Hell and Vagueness has generated some interesting responses in the past few years. In this paper, I explore yet another possible solution out of the conundrum. This solution implies three ways of denying a binary conception of the afterlife. I argue that while these solutions might first seem tenable, they might still succumb to a Sideresque revenge puzzle.

As the subtitle suggests, this book serves as a guide through Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. Those familiar with Yirmiyahu Yovel’s excellent work will find the usual clarity of writing and acuity...

Name der Zeitschrift: Kant-Studien Jahrgang: 106 Heft: 2 Seiten: 169-200.

KantObservations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime’ reveal a deep concern with the way in which the human drives to equality and unity lead inevitably to a drive for honour and its attendant delusions. He developed his thinking about these problems in the context of his reading of Rousseau. In his published Dreams of a Spirit-Seer, Kant tries to overcome the influence of the drive for honour by appealing to a metaphysics that is critical of itself. The (...) problem is how to distinguish what is grounded in reason when that reason is so easily influenced by others. (shrink)

Papers from Binghamton University's Conferences on Medieval Latin Philosophy, 1995-2000, on St. Thomas Aquinas' oeuvre. The essays examine his sources within the Neoplatonic and Islamicist traditions, major themes in his writing, and his reflections on time and thought.

Sally Haslanger is Ford Professor of Philosophy and Women's and Gender Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a leading contemporary feminist philosopher. She has worked on analytic metaphysics, epistemology, and ancient philosophy. Her areas of interest are social and political philosophy, feminist theory, and critical race theory. Her 2012 book, Resisting Reality: Social Construction and Social Critique, collects papers published over the course of twenty years that link work in contemporary metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophy of language with social (...) and political issues concerning gender, race, and the family. It was awarded the 2014 Joseph B. Gittler Prize for “outstanding scholarly contribution in the field of the philosophy of one or more of the social sciences.” In this interview, done in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and the #BlackLivesMatter movement, we discuss her ideas on social practices, social structure, and structural explanation. We also delve into her debunking project of elucidating the notion of ideology in a way that links it with contemporary work in epistemology, philosophy of language, and philosophy of mind, and to do justice to the materiality of social practices and social structures. (shrink)

The “central aim” of this book is “to offer a nuanced and wide-ranging analysis of the complex and manifold ways in which British Romantic writers engaged with Rousseau” (3). To accomplish this, th...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Roger Bacon and the Origins of “Perspectiva” in the Middle Ages: A Critical Edition and English Translation of Bacon’s “Perspectiva” with Introduction and Notes by David C. LindbergJeremiah HackettDavid C. Lindberg. Roger Bacon and the Origins of “Perspectiva” in the Middle Ages: A Critical Edition and English Translation of Bacon’s “Perspectiva” with Introduction and Notes. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996. Pp. cxi + 411. NP.This new critical edition of (...) the Perspectiva (= Opus maius, Part Five) of Roger Bacon is a landmark in Roger Bacon studies and in medieval philosophy. One needs to be able to depend on critical texts. In the case of Bacon’s Perspectiva, no such printed text existed. Professor David C. Lindberg in this new critical edition of the Perspectiva has rectified this absurd situation. And he has done a magnificent service to scholarship. He has produced the first adequate text and translation of this major philosophical text by Roger Bacon. To appreciate his achievement, a review of the previous editions is in order.Prior to Lindberg’s critical edition, there have been three Latin editions: Combach (1614), Jebb (1733, 1750), Bridges (1879 Bridges (1900). Combach used a single Oxford manuscript which is no longer extant. Jebb claimed to have used four manuscripts, but appears to have relied on Combach’s text. In 1897, Bridges used two manuscripts (Dublin and Oxford) and consulted three others. These two Mss. were late and not very reliable. Lindberg’s judgment on the inadequacy of these editions, especially that of Bridges, is, alas, only too true: “My text, found below, corrects the texts of Combach, Jebb, and Bridges in perhaps a thousand readings (my italics)—many of modest significance, but others crucial to an understanding of Bacon’s intent.”Further, a major difficulty arose in regard to the important geometical figures [End Page 133] which are closely linked to the argument in the text. The printed editions were much less adequate than the scribal manuscripts.There is just one translation of the Perspectiva into English, that done by Robert Belle Burke (Philadelphia, 1928). This translation, based on Bridges’s deficient text, was very unsatisfactory.Lindberg used twenty-three of the thirty-nine extant manuscripts, and has examined all of the thirty-nine manuscripts. This enabled him to identify five manuscript families. Six early manuscripts representative of the major families were used as the base text and were fully transcribed. Three manuscripts represent version 1; the four other families are represented by one manuscript each. Eight more manuscripts were used with some frequency, and sparing use was made of another nine manuscripts. A further sixteen manuscripts were not used since they were very late or were fragments.The relationship between the manuscripts is so complex that the editor declined to construct a stemma codicum. He did this with good reason. Bacon had a working practice of producing multiple versions of the same text and this makes for difficulties. In the case of the Perspectiva, however, it would appear that the major differences in text seem to be limited to the Preface and to section 1.9.1. Examples of these are provided in Appendix 1 and 2 of the edition. It would seem then that a stable text of the Perspectiva existed from the beginning, and that minor editorial changes were made only in the Preface and at 1.9.1. Further, in the introduction (xiii), Lindberg notes: “It [the Perspectiva] may have been written about 1263, as Easton guesses.” Still, a question remains open: To what extent was the text itself altered by Bacon between 1263 and 1268 in preparation for Pope Clement IV? Was there not an evolution in the text by way of correction, emmendation, addition?An examination of MS. P (Paris, Bibliothèque National, MS Lat. 7434) [= 18 in Lindberg’s list, p. ciii] would, in my estimation, provide grounds for the belief that family 5 (“Hic aliqua dicenda sunt de perspectiva”) may well be an edited version of family 1 (“Positis radicibus”). That is, the (“Hic aliqua dicenda”) may have been intended as part of the text and not just as a Preface. Further, I now believe that the traditional dating of... (shrink)