kerekh 1-2. Maʼamarim rishon ṿe-sheni -- kerekh 3-4. Maʼamarim shelishi u-reviʻi -- kerekh 5. Maʼamar ḥamishi u-firḳe mavo.

Advances in medical capability should be accompanied by discussion of their ethical implications. In the military medical context there is a growing interest in developing prophylactic interventions that will mitigate the effects of trauma and improve survival. The ethics of this novel capability are currently unexplored. This paper describes the concept of trauma prophylaxis and outlines some of the ethical issues that need to be considered, including within concept development, research and implementation. Trauma prophylaxis can be divided into interventions that (...) do not and those that do have medical enhancement as an unintended side effect of their prophylactic action. We conclude that type 1 interventions have much in common with established military medical prophylaxis, and the potentially enhancing qualities of type 2 interventions raise different issues. We welcome further debate on both interventions. (shrink)

We report on the small-scale (0.5 13 h - 1M, a large-scale bias of ~2.0 and a satellite fraction of 12 ± 2 per cent. Thus, these galaxies occupy haloes with average masses in between those of the higher redshift BOSS CMASS sample and the original SDSS I/II luminous red galaxy sample © 2012 The Authors Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society © doi:10.1093/mnras/sts314.

We present a one per cent measurement of the cosmic distance scale from the detections of the baryon acoustic oscillations in the clustering of galaxies from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey, which is part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III. Our results come from the Data Release 11 sample, containing nearly one million galaxies and covering approximately 8500 square degrees and the redshift range 0.2 < z < 0.7. We also compare these results with those from the publicly released (...) DR9 and DR10 samples. Assuming a concordance Λ cold dark matter cosmological model, the DR11 sample covers a volume of 13 Gpc3 and is the largest region of the Universe ever surveyed at this density. We measure the correlation function and power spectrum, including density-field reconstruction of the BAO feature. The acoustic features are detected at a significance of over 7σ in both the correlation function and power spectrum. Fitting for the position of the acoustic features measures the distance relative to the sound horizon at the drag epoch, rd, which has a value of rd,fid = 149.28 Mpc in our fiducial cosmology. We find DV = at z = 0.32 and DV = at z = 0.57. At 1.0 per cent, this latter measure is the most precise distance constraint ever obtained from a galaxy survey. Separating the clustering along and transverse to the line of sight yields measurements at z = 0.57 of DA = and H =. Our measurements of the distance scale are in good agreement with previous BAO measurements and with the predictions from cosmic microwave background data for a spatially flat CDM model with a cosmological constant. © 2014 The Author Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. (shrink)

This present study seeks to clarify the character and functions of the Neo-Babylonian empire in its relationship to subjugated populations, and in particular to the population of Judah.

Sergei Eisenstein’s 110th anniversary celebrated in 2008 calls for a re-assessment of his overall heritage, which until now has been customarily perceived in Western film scholarship as - in Annette Michelson’s words - ’indissolubly linked to the project of construction of socialism’ - a view shared from Marie Seton to Jacques Aumont, from Kristin Thompson to Ian Christie and from David Bordwell to Anna Bohn. Not only did Eisenstein’s output magnificently and persuasively outlive this project, but from (...) our vantage point at the beginning of the twenty- first century we can see its position within the complex tapestry of the cultural, philosophical, political and aesthetic developments of the twentieth century from a different angle. Drawing on the recently published in Russia Eisenstein’s magnum opus Method and the author’s research on still unpublished Eisenstein’s writings of the same period, including his diaries, the present paper positions the discussion of Eisenstein’s theory-and-practice between two diametrically opposed philosophical poles - utopia and event. I argue that while Eisenstein’s theoretical writings were encompassed by a number of utopian ideas, which were, nevertheless quite different from the utopian projects of bolshevism, it is his cinematography, which now - in the context of an on-going discussion in continental philosophy - can be defined as ’cinema of event’ that demonstrates the biggest and radical discrepancy between Eisenstein’s work and both ideology and art of socialism - the world of ‘realized utopia.’ . (shrink)

David Enoch develops, argues for, and defends a strongly realist and objectivist view of ethics and normativity more broadly. This view--according to which there are perfectly objective, universal, moral and other normative truths that are not in any way reducible to other, natural truths--is familiar, but this book is the first in-detail development of the positive motivations for the view into reasonably precise arguments. And when the book turns to defend Robust Realism against traditional objections, it mobilizes the original (...) positive arguments for the view to help with fending off the objections. (shrink)

David Shoemaker presents a new pluralistic theory of responsibility, based on the idea of quality of will. His approach is motivated by our ambivalence to real-life cases of marginal agency, such as those caused by clinical depression, dementia, scrupulosity, psychopathy, autism, intellectual disability, and poor formative circumstances. Our ambivalent responses suggest that such agents are responsible in some ways but not others. Shoemaker develops a theory to account for our ambivalence, via close examination of several categories of pancultural emotional (...) responsibility responses and their appropriateness conditions. The result is three distinct types of responsibility, each with its own set of required capacities: attributability, answerability, and accountability. Attributability is about the having and expressing of various traits of character, and it is the target of a range of aretaic sentiments and emotional practices organized around disdain and admiration. Answerability is about one’s capacity to govern one’s actions and attitudes by one’s evaluative judgments about the worth of various practical reasons, and it is the target of a range of sentiments and emotional practices organized around regret and pride. Accountability is about one’s ability to regard others, both evaluatively and emotionally, and it is the target of a range of sentiments and emotional practices organized around anger and gratitude. In Part One of the book, this tripartite theory is developed and defended. In Part Two of the book, the tripartite theory’s predictions about specific marginal cases are tested, once certain empirical details about the nature of those agents have been filled in and discussed. (shrink)

Consciousness and Mind presents David Rosenthal's influential work on the nature of consciousness. Central to that work is Rosenthal's higher-order-thought theory of consciousness, according to which a sensation, thought, or other mental state is conscious if one has a higher-order thought that one is in that state. The first four essays develop various aspects of that theory. The next three essays present Rosenthal's homomorphism theory of mental qualities and qualitative consciousness, and show how that theory fits with and helps (...) sustain the HOT theory. A crucial feature of homomorphism theory is that it individuates and taxonomizes mental qualities independently of the way we're conscious of them, and indeed independently of our being conscious of them at all. So the theory accommodates the qualitative character not only of conscious sensations and perceptions, but also of those which fall outside our stream of consciousness. Rosenthal argues that, because this account of mental qualities makes no appeal to consciousness, it enables us to dispel such traditional quandaries as the alleged conceivability of undetectable quality inversion, and to disarm various apparent obstacles to explaining qualitative consciousness and understanding its nature. Six further essays build on the HOT theory to explain various important features of consciousness, among them the complex connections that hold in humans between consciousness and speech, the self-interpretative aspect of consciousness, and the compelling sense we have that consciousness is unified. Two of the essays, one an extended treatment of homomorphism theory, appear here for the first time. There is also a substantive introduction, which draws out the connections between the essays and highlights their implications. (shrink)

This article reflected a comparison of 1 and 2 Chronicles with its source documents. It transpires that the history of Israel and Judah is selectively retold by the authors of Chronicles with deliberate omissions and additions reflecting a certain emphasis. While the northern kingdom is negatively portrayed, the southern kingdom is positively evaluated. David is idealised as the perfect king. He is credited with founding the religious cult, which is contradicting the view in Exodus. The Jerusalem temple cult (...) is legitimised and asserted as representing the only accurate religion. Chronicles 1 and 2 secured the temple elite’s position by legitimising their actions, functioning in this community as a discourse of power for as long as the (second) temple existed. Being a discourse of power, it set margins and excluded various groups usually considered part of the people of YHWH. The destruction of the (second) temple led to the disempowerment of this text, opening the way for it to be included in the Hebrew canon. The key insights of this article were that 1 and 2 Chronicles were used as a discourse of power, but the power block was lifted once the second temple was destroyed.Contribution: This article fitted into the scope of the journal by using historical-critical methods but also concepts from poststructuralism, namely the concept of powers behind texts and in language. (shrink)

We call beliefs reasonable or unreasonable, justified or unjustified. What does this imply about belief? Does this imply that we are responsible for our beliefs and that we should be blamed for our unreasonable convictions? Or does it imply that we are in control of our beliefs and that what we believe is up to us? Reason Without Freedom argues that the major problems of epistemology have their roots in concerns about our control over and responsibility for belief. David (...) Owens focuses on the arguments of Descartes, Locke and Hume - the founders of epistemology - and presents a critical discussion of the current trends in contemporary epistemology. He proposes that the problems we confront today - scepticism, the analysis of knowlege, and debates on epistemic justification - can be tackled only once we have understood the moral psychology of belief. This can be resolved when we realise that our responsibility for beliefs is profoundly different from our rationality and agency, and that memory and testimony can preserve justified belief without preserving the evidence which might be used to justify it. Reason Without Freedom should be of value to those interested in contemporary epistemology, philosophy of mind and action, ethics, and the history of 17th and 18th century. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:WORKING WARFARE AND ITS RESTRICTIONS IN THE JEWiSH TRADITION Reuven Kimelman Brandeis University The test case for any political theory of checks and balances is war. It also tests the outer limits of the ethical deployment of power. I. Types of Wars The Jewish ethics of war focuses on two issues: its legitimation and its conduct. The Talmud classifies wars according to their source oflegitimation. Biblically mandated wars are (...) termed mandatory (milhemet mitzvah or milhemet hovah). Wars undertaken at the discretion of the Sanhédrin are termed discretionary (milhemet reshut). There are three types of mandatory wars: Joshua's war of conquest againstthe seven Canaanite nations, the war againstAmaleq, anddefensive wars against an already launched attack. Discretionary wars are usually expansionary efforts undertaken to enhance the political prestige of the government or to secure economic gain. The first type of mandatory war is only of historical interest as the Canaanite nations lost their national identity already in ancient times. This ruling, which appears repeatedly in rabbinic literature, is part ofa tendency to blunt the impact of the seven-nations policy. The Bible points out that these policies were not implemented even during the zenith of ancient Israel's power (Kings 9:20; 2 Chr 8:7-9; see also Judges 1:21-33, Ps 106:34). Indeed, an ancient Midrash explicitly excludes the possibility of transferring the seven-nations ruling to other non-Jewish residents of the Land ofIsrael. Maimonides is just as explicit in emphasizing that all trace 44Reuven Kimmelman of them has vanished. By limiting the jurisdiction of the seven-nations ruling to the conditions ofancient Canaan it was effectively removed from the postbiblical ethical agendaand vitiated as aprecedent forcontemporary practice. The second category ofmandatory war, against Amaleq, has also been rendered operationally defunct by comparing them with the Canaanites, or by postponing the battle to the immediate premessianic struggle, or by viewing them as a metaphor for genocidal evil. The two remaining categories, reactive defensive wars (which are classified as mandatory) and expansionary wars (which are classified as discretionary) remain intact. So, for example, King David's response to the Philistine attackaredesignated mandatory, whereashis wars "to expandthe border of Israel" are designated discretionary. Intermediate wars such as preventive, anticipatory, or preemptive defy so neat a classification. Not only are the classifications debated in the Talmud, but commentators disagree on the categorization of the differing positions in the Talmud. The major clash occurs between the eleventh century Franco-German scholar Rashi and the thirteenth century Franco-Provencal scholar Meiri. According to Rashi, the majority position considers preemptive action to be discretionary whereas the minority position expounded by Rabbi Judah considers it to be mandatory. According to Meiri, a preemptive strike, against an enemy who it is feared might attack or who is already known to be preparing for war is deemed mandatory by the majority ofthe rabbis, but discretionaryby Rabbi Judah. Accordingly, Rabbi Judah defines a counterattack as mandatory only in response to an already launched attack. A similar reading of Maimonides also limits the mandatory classification to a defensive war launched in response to an attack. With these distinctions between mandatory and discretionary wars in mind, we should be able to investigate the Jewish concerns with the problematics ofwarby focusing on preemptive strikes, declarations ofwar, ethics of warfare, and draftability. II. Preemptive Strikes as Self-Defense Not only Machiavellians view the security and survival ofthe state as nonnegotiable. National self-defense is as much amoral right as is personal self-preservation. Whereas it is clear that offensive war cannot be subsumed under the inalienable right of self-defense, the moral status of pre-emptive attacks is not as clear. Is the moral category of self-defense Working Warfare and Its Restrictions in the Jewish Tradition 45 limited to an already launched attack? The majority talmudic position, according to Rashi, and that of Rabbi Judah, according to Meiri, would answer in the affirmative. Their position is seconded by Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, which states: "Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherentright ofindividual ofcollective self-defense ifan armed attack occurs against a member." The minority position of Rabbi Judah, according to Rashi, and the... (shrink)

Books V and VI of Aristotle's Politics constitute a manual on practical politics. In the fifth book Aristotle examines the causes of faction and constitutional change and suggests remedies for political instability. In the sixth book he offers practical advice to the statesman who wishes to establish, preserve, or reform a democracy or an oligarchy. He discusses many political issues, theoretical and practical, which are still widely debated today--revolution and reform, democracy and tyranny, freedom and equality. David Keyt presents (...) a clear and accurate new translation of these books, together with a commentary which, though primarily philosophical, also supplies a key to Aristotle's many historical references. It is intended to guide readers towards a proper understanding of this classic text in the history of political thought, and does not assumes knowledge of Greek or of ancient history and politics. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:"And They Sang A New Song":Reading John's Revelation From The Position Of The LambJ.A. Jackson (bio) and Allen H. Redmon (bio)Then one of the elders said to me, "Do not weep. See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and the seven seals." Then I saw between the throne and the four living creatures (...) and among the elders a Lamb standing as if it had been slaughtered.—Revelation 5:5–6In an interview with Markus Müller, René Girard asserts the importance of taking into account the apocalypticism of Christianity. Apocalypse, Girard reminds us, "means revelation: apocalypto means to open up and to show the truth. But it also means absolute violence, so the apocalypse is a violent revelation and a revelation of violence" (Girard 1996). That the Revelation is a violent revelation has been well established. Despite textual evidence that would beg those who approach the text to do just the opposite, readers have fixated on the violence of the Revelation since its inception, finding in it God's final retribution against those who persecute the Church.1 Commentators such as Dennis E. Johnson, William Hendricksen, and George Elden Ladd have produced recent, full-length commentaries that champion the appearance of a Christ in Revelation ready to establish himself as a military champion and exact his revenge on those who persecute him (see, for example, Johnson 2001; Hendricksen 1998; and Ladd 1993). These accounts, and those that follow suit, are blinded by the violent revelation of John's apocalyptic narrative and fail to see the poem's revelation of violence—the other, prophetic half of what Girard rightly contends exists in Christian apocalypse.This error is understandable to some extent. Read in its own light and apart from the Gospel revelation as understood by those familiar with mimetic [End Page 99] theory, one has no hermeneutical principle for recognizing the end to which John is writing. The victims of the text can be ignored in the precise way that all victims are disregarded when the scapegoat mechanism functions properly. Such should not be the case in the Revelation, though, a text in which the scapegoat mechanism is exposed and pushed to its logical conclusions. John offers his reader a glimpse into the way this mechanism will function when all that is left is wall-to-wall violence, when one is left with only two alternatives: succumb to the mechanism and reciprocate its violence, or extricate oneself through nonreciprocation (and potentially die).In the margins of the violent revelation in John's apocalyptic vision, a revelation of violence emerges that can expose humankind's potential to annihilate itself and the mechanism with which it will do so. When read through the lens of mimetic theory, one discovers that John's narrative delivers a revelation of violence, an explicit naming and unmasking of the sacrificial mechanism that can capture for the reader not only the machinations of the sacrificial apparatus but one's own potential participation in it as well. As such, the poem can posit itself as a commandment (a Thou-shall-not-murder) that ultimately refuses the temptation to respond to violence in violence.The fact that John uses the apocalyptic to present this directive should not be surprising. Girard writes: "Only through the mediation of the scapegoat mechanism can violence become its own remedy, and the victimage mechanism can only be triggered by the frenetic paroxysm of the 'crisis.' This means that the violence, having lost its vitality and bite, will paradoxically be more terrible than before its decline. As the whole of humanity makes the vain effort to reinstate its reconciliatory and sacrificial virtues, this violence will without doubt tend to multiply its victims, just as happened in the time of the prophets" (Girard 1978, 195–96). While Girard's commentary on biblical eschatology and apocalypse refers mainly to the scapegoat mechanism as it applies to and is revealed in the Gospel texts, we see the immediacy and the frenzy of the apocalyptic and the ubiquitous violent mimetic appropriations also performed in John's Revelation.2 John captures... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 42.1 (2004) 105-107 [Access article in PDF] Richard H. Popkin. The History of Scepticism: From Savonarola to Bayle. Revised and Expanded Edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Pp. xxiv + 415. Cloth, $74.00. Paper, $24.95. Richard Popkin tells the story that once a long time ago when he asked a question at a conference that made reference to late-eighteenth-century skeptics like Maimon (...) and Platner, Myles Burnyeat turned to the audience and asked, "Does anyone else read these people that Popkin reads?" The answer, by the time we get to this, the fourth edition of a book that first appeared in 1960, is that lots of people are reading the people that Popkin reads. Now [End Page 105] Myles Burnyeat is quoted on the cover of this volume for graciously saying "I regard it as one of the seminal books in the history of ideas." In one of the three Festschriften that have been published in Popkin's honor, David Katz even reports that some of those who work in areas Popkin pioneered refer to themselves as "Popkinites" (James E. Force and David S. Katz, eds., Everything Connects [Leiden and Boston: Brill, 1999], ix).Popkin was also founding editor of this journal, and his name has been footnoted in numerous articles over the years, so it will not be unknown to many. But readers will want to know what is new in this latest version of the classic work. For openers, it is roughly fifty percent longer, now 18 chapters instead of the 12 chapters of the last version. The original book was subtitled "From Erasmus to Descartes" and the later California edition subtitle became "From Erasmus to Spinoza." This edition pushes the envelope in both directions: back to Savonarola and forward to Pierre Bayle.The Savonarola connection comes from the unlikely discovery that the famous monk collected manuscripts of Sextus Empiricus and was planning to have them translated as tools for use against pagan philosophy and in favor of revealed religion. This brings out one of Popkin's favorite points: that what we think of as philosophical skepticism was part and parcel of religious debate early on. Among other new findings in this edition, Popkin finds clues that Leone Ebreo (Judah Abravanel) may have helped Gianfrancesco Pico read anti-Aristotelian Hebrew texts. Jews could use this sort of skepticism against the dogmatic Christians who tried to refute them.The religious connection is fundamental throughout the text. In his new introduction, Popkin admits that "I am more in sympathy with those who used the sceptical and fideist views of the nouveaux pyrrhoniens for religious rather than secular purposes" (p. xxiii). He has developed this sympathy into research on millenarianism in volumes such as Popkin and David S. Katz, Messianic Revolution: Radical Religious Politics to the End of the Second Millennium (New York: Hill and Wang, 1998) and Popkin, et al., eds., Millenarianism and Messianism in Early Modern European Culture, 4 vols. (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2001).Other new materials follow the discussion of Descartes with a chapter on Henry More, Pascal, and the Quietists and another one on Hobbes's political and practical answer to skepticism. There are new chapters on Wilkins, Boyle, and Glanvill of the Royal Society, and on late seventeenth-century metaphysics. New material on Simon Foucher and Pierre-Daniel Huet is followed by the concluding chapter on Pierre Bayle as a "super sceptic."The book has never been uncontroversial. Although they could follow the skeptical undercutting of the Bible in Spinoza, many scholars could not see how the master of the geometrical method in ethics could be anything but a dogmatist in the final analysis. (Popkin has an answer.) The same doubt will now apply to the treatment of Pierre Bayle in this version. To Popkin, as we have seen, Bayle is a "super sceptic" who "carried scepticism to its ultimate extreme" (300); to Gianluca Mori (Bayle philosophe, Paris: Champion, 1999) and others, he is a dogmatic philosophical atheist as well as moral rigorist. To his credit... (shrink)

In his classic work, _Wholeness and the Implicate Order_, David Bohm develops a theory of quantum physics which treats the totality of existence, including matter and consciousness, as an unbroken whole. David Bohm presents a rational and scientific theory which explains cosmology and the nature of reality; written clearly, and without the use of technical jargon, it is essential reading for those interested in physics, philosophy, psychology and the connection between consciousness and matter. David Bohm was one (...) of the foremost scientific thinkers and distinguished theoretical physicists of his generation. His best-known works include: _Quantum Theory_,_Causality and Chance in Modern Physics_ and _The Undivided Universe_. (shrink)

The world is configured in ways that seem systematically hospitable to life forms, especially the human race. Is this the outcome of divine planning or simply of the laws of physics? Ancient Greeks and Romans famously disagreed on whether the cosmos was the product of design or accident. In this book, David Sedley examines this question and illuminates new historical perspectives on the pantheon of thinkers who laid the foundations of Western philosophy and science. Versions of what we call (...) the "creationist" option were widely favored by the major thinkers of classical antiquity, including Plato, whose ideas on the subject prepared the ground for Aristotle's celebrated teleology. But Aristotle aligned himself with the anti-creationist lobby, whose most militant members—the atomists—sought to show how a world just like ours would form inevitably by sheer accident, given only the infinity of space and matter. This stimulating study explores seven major thinkers and philosophical movements enmeshed in the debate: Anaxagoras, Empedocles, Socrates, Plato, the atomists, Aristotle, and the Stoics. (shrink)

David O. Brink offers a reconstruction and assessment of John Stuart Mill's contributions to the utilitarian and liberal traditions. Brink defends interpretations of key elements in Mill's moral and political thought, and shows how a perfectionist reading of his conception of happiness has a significant impact on other aspects of his philosophy.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Suffering of Economic Injustice:A Christian PerspectiveUlrich DuchrowTogether we are facing a global kairos of humanity because these years are decisive for whether our civilization will irreversibly continue to produce death or whether we find a way out toward a life-enhancing new culture. So let me try to make a humble contribution to our common search for liberation from suffering toward life through justice.suffering caused by economic injustice in (...) the axial age and in the capitalist civilization of modernityWe do not need to spend much time on describing the sufferings caused by economic injustice. They cry to high heaven every day. Jean Ziegler, the former UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, speaks of more than 60 million people dying of hunger and its consequences every year, especially children, although there is more than enough to feed them. That is an annual World War II against the poor. He continues to say: “A child that dies of hunger is murdered.” He calls this a daily crime against humanity.1 Others call it structural genocide.2 All these victims are human beings with a human face, according to biblical tradition created in the image of God. So we are talking about murdering living images of God, about blasphemy.Also, the blue planet Earth’s suffering is growing dramatically. The extinction of species is accelerating, desertification is expanding, the poisoning of water and soil is increasing, and climate change is producing irreversible effects like lifting the sea level, devouring islands in the Pacific and growing parts of Bangladesh, creating weather disasters everywhere, and possibly increasing temperature in parts of Africa by ten degrees. We all know this, but so far we have not been able to make the necessary changes in global economics and politics to stop or at least slow it.Often forgotten are the psychological and spiritual sufferings and diseases of a growing number of people. In India an average of more than fifty farmers, driven into debt beyond their means, commit suicide daily out of despair.3 Workers suffer increasing stress and anxiety, and middle-class people fall into depression, projected to be the second most common illness in 2020, according the World Health Organization. So what are the roots of all of this? [End Page 27]My thesis is that what we are experiencing now started nearly three thousand years ago within what is called the Axial Age, beginning in the eighth century bce, in the whole of Eurasia from Greece to China. At that time a new economy started to appear in daily life, built on money and private property. It had tremendous social as well as psychological and spiritual effects. To analyze what happened then helps us understand what is happening today. Looking at the responses to this development by the different faiths and philosophies in Israel/Judah, India, China, and Greece may also help us to better understand the tasks and possibilities of engaged Buddhists and liberation theologians in our age.The philosopher Karl Jaspers coined the term “Axial Age.”4 According to him, the experience of violent crises between 800 and 200 bce might have prompted the parallel efforts of the prophets, the Buddha, Confucius, Daoism, and Greek philosophy to find new foundations for living together. He characterized the new approach as intellectual and spiritual (geistig), looking only marginally at the economic and political context. Recently Karen Armstrong and, based on her findings, Jeremy Rifkin took up this theory, looking particularly at war and violence as causes for the responses within the different cultures.5 Also José María Vigil, who is present here, has just published a chapter in his book on Theology of Axiality and Axial Theology.6 As far as the sociohistoric context of the Axial Age is concerned my thesis comes nearest to what David Graeber has worked out in his book Debt: The First 5,000 Years,7 although he is not very interested in the religious responses. Combining his insights with my own research,8 let me summarize how the new economy affects ancient societies.Money as unit of account was used in the palaces and temples of Mesopotamia as early... (shrink)

When is it right to go to war? The most persuasive answer to this question has always been 'in self-defense'. In a penetrating new analysis, bringing together moral philosophy, political science, and law, David Rodin shows what's wrong with this answer. He proposes a comprehensive new theory of the right of self-defense which resolves many of the perplexing questions that have dogged both jurists and moral philosophers. By applying the theory of self-defense to international relations, Rodin produces a far-reaching (...) critique of the canonical Just War theory. The simple analogy between self-defense and national defense - between the individual and the state - needs to be fundamentally rethought, and with it many of the basic elements of international law and the ethics of international relations. (shrink)

Can we conceive of a market economy that fulfils the ideals of socialism? In this book, David Miller provides a comprehensive examination, from the standpoint of political theory, of an economy in which market mechanisms retain a central role, but in which capitalist patterns of ownership have been superseded.

David Spurrett, David Papineau; A note on the completeness of ‘physics’, Analysis, Volume 59, Issue 1, 1 January 1999, Pages 25–29, https://doi.org/10.1093/anal.

More attention has been devoted to providing evolutionary accounts of the development of beliefs, or belief-like states, than for desires or preferences. Here I articulate and defend an evolutionary rationale for the development of psychologically real preference states. Preferences token or represent the expected values available actions given discriminated states of world and agent. The argument is an application of the ‘environmental complexity thesis’ found in Godfrey-Smith and Sterelny, although my conclusions differ from Sterelny’s. I argue that tokening expected utilities (...) can, under specified general conditions, be a powerful design solution to the problem of efficiently allocating the capacities of an agent. Preferences are for efficient action selection, and count as a ‘fuel for success’ in the sense urged by Godfrey-Smith for true beliefs. They will tend to be favoured by selection when environments are complex in ways that matter to an organism, and when organisms have large behavioural repertoires with heterogeneous returns and costs.The rationale suggested here is conditional, especially on contingencies in what design options are available to selection and on trade-offs associated with the costs of generating and processing representations of value. The unqualified efficiency rationale for preferences suggests that organisms should represent expected utilities in a comprehensive and consistent way, but none of them do. In the final stages of the paper I consider some of the ways design trade-offs compromise the implementation of preferences in organisms that have them. (shrink)

Stawarczyk, Bezdek, and Zacks offer neuroscience evidence for a midline default network core, which appears to coordinate internal, top‐down mentation with externally‐triggered, bottom‐up attention in a push‐pull relationship. The network may enable the flexible pursuance of thoughts tuned into or detached from the current environment.

Aware that the representational thesis is more plausible for the attitudinal than for the phenomenal, Dretske courageously focuses on sensory experience, where progress in our philosophical understanding of the mental has lagged. His view, essentially, is that what makes any mental state what it is is not so much what it's like as what it's about.

A Treatise of Human Nature, David Hume's comprehensive attempt to base philosophy on a new, observationally grounded study of human nature, is one of the most important texts in Western philosophy. It is also the focal point of current attempts to understand 18th-century western philosophy. The Treatise addresses many of the most fundamental philosophical issues: causation, existence, freedom and necessity, and morality. The volume also includes Humes own abstract of the Treatise, a substantial introduction, extensive annotations, a glossary, a (...) comprehensive index, and suggestions for further reading. (shrink)

Stamos squarely confronts the problem of determining what a biological species is, whether species are real, and the nature of their reality. He critically considers the evolution of the major contemporary views of species and also offers his own solution to the species problem.

David Wiggins; IV*—Moral Cognitivism, Moral Relativism and Motivating Moral Beliefs, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 91, Issue 1, 1 June 1991, P.

Margaret Cavendish was a philosopher, poet, scientist, novelist, and playwright of the seventeenth century. Her work is important for a number of reasons. It presents an early and compelling version of the naturalism that is found in current-day philosophy; it offers important insights that bear on recent discussions of the nature and characteristics of intelligence and the question of whether or not the bodies that surround us are intelligent or have an intelligent cause; it anticipates some of the central views (...) and arguments that are more commonly associated with figures like Thomas Hobbes and David Hume. This is the first full account of Cavendish’s philosophy and covers the whole span of her work. David Cunning begins with an overview of Cavendish’s life and work before assessing her contribution to a wide range of philosophical subjects, including her arguments concerning materialism, experimentation, the existence of God, social and political philosophy and free will and compatibilism. Setting Cavendish in both historical and philosophical context, he argues that like Spinoza she builds on central tenets of Descartes’ philosophy and develops them in a direction that Descartes himself would avoid. She defends a plenum metaphysics according to which all individuals are causally interdependent, and according to which the physical universe is a larger individual that constitutes all of reality. Cavendish is essential reading for students of seventeenth-century philosophy, early modern philosophy and seventeenth-century literature. (shrink)

Environmental Health Ethics illuminates the conflicts between protecting the environment and promoting human health. In this study, David B. Resnik develops a method for making ethical decisions on environmental health issues. He applies this method to various issues, including pesticide use, antibiotic resistance, nutrition policy, vegetarianism, urban development, occupational safety, disaster preparedness and global climate change. Resnik provides readers with the scientific and technical background necessary to understand these issues. He explains that environmental health controversies cannot simply be reduced (...) to humanity versus environment and explores the ways in which human values and concerns - health, economic development, rights and justice - interact with environmental protection. (shrink)

In these inspiring lectures David Bohm explores Albert Einstein’s celebrated _Theory of Relativity_ that transformed forever the way we think about time and space. Yet for Bohm the implications of the theory were far more revolutionary both in scope and impact even than this. Stepping back from dense theoretical and scientific detail in this eye-opening work, Bohm describes how the notion of relativity strikes at the heart of our very conception of the universe, regardless of whether we are physicists (...) or philosophers. (shrink)

While procreation is ubiquitous, attention to the ethical issues involved in creating children is relatively rare. In Debating Procreation, David Benatar and David Wasserman take opposing views on this important question. David Benatar argues for the anti-natalist view that it is always wrong to bring new people into existence. He argues that coming into existence is always a serious harm and that even if it were not always so, the risk of serious harm is sufficiently great to (...) make procreation wrong. In addition to these "philanthropic" arguments, he advances the "misanthropic" one that because humans are so defective and cause vast amounts of harm, it is wrong to create more of them.David Wasserman defends procreation against the anti-natalist challenge. He outlines a variety of moderate pro-natalist positions, which all see procreation as often permissible but never required. After criticizing the main anti-natalist arguments, he reviews those pronatalist positions. He argues that constraints on procreation are best understood in terms of the role morality of prospective parents, considers different views of that role morality, and argues for one that imposes only limited constraints based on the well-being of the future child. He then argues that the expected good of a future child and of the parent-child relationship can provide a strong justification for procreation in the face of expected adversities without giving individuals any moral reason to procreate. (shrink)

Despite the recent ferocious public debate about belief, the concept most central to the discussion—God—frequently remains vaguely and obscurely described. Are those engaged in these arguments even talking about the same thing? In a wide-ranging response to this confusion, esteemed scholar David Bentley Hart pursues a clarification of how the word “God” functions in the world’s great theistic faiths. Ranging broadly across Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Vedantic and Bhaktic Hinduism, Sikhism, and Buddhism, Hart explores how these great intellectual traditions treat (...) humanity’s knowledge of the divine mysteries. Constructing his argument around three principal metaphysical “moments”—being, consciousness, and bliss—the author demonstrates an essential continuity between our fundamental experience of reality and the ultimate reality to which that experience inevitably points. Thoroughly dismissing such blatant misconceptions as the deists' concept of God, as well as the fundamentalist view of the Bible as an objective historical record, Hart provides a welcome antidote to simplistic manifestoes. In doing so, he plumbs the depths of humanity’s experience of the world as powerful evidence for the reality of God and captures the beauty and poetry of traditional reflection upon the divine. (shrink)

In response to a recent argument by David Bloor, I argue that denying absolutes does not necessarily lead to relativism, that one can be a fallibilist without being a relativist. At issue are the empirical natural sciences and what might be called “framework relativism”, that is, the idea that there is always a conceptual scheme or set of practices in use, and all observations are theory-laden relative to the framework. My strategy is to look at the elements that define (...) a relativist stance and show where the pragmatic fallibilist disagrees. Defending the pragmatic notion of experience will be central, given that relativists reject the idea that experience can play a role in objectively justifying belief. We can reject all absolutes and start from the premise that everything is historical, contingent, and situated. One of the lessons of pragmatism is that universal and fixed principles are not necessary for objective knowledge. (shrink)

In response to a recent argument by David Bloor, I argue that denying absolutes does not necessarily lead to relativism, that one can be a fallibilist without being a relativist. At issue are the empirical natural sciences and what might be called “framework relativism”, that is, the idea that there is always a conceptual scheme or set of practices in use, and all observations are theory-laden relative to the framework. My strategy is to look at the elements that define (...) a relativist stance and show where the pragmatic fallibilist disagrees. Defending the pragmatic notion of experience will be central, given that relativists reject the idea that experience can play a role in objectively justifying belief. We can reject all absolutes and start from the premise that everything is historical, contingent, and situated. One of the lessons of pragmatism is that universal and fixed principles are not necessary for objective knowledge. (shrink)

_Professionalism and Ethics in Teaching_ presents a thought-provoking and stimulating study of the moral dimensions of the teaching professions. After discussing the moral implications of professionalism, Carr explores the relationship of education theory to teaching practice and the impact of this relationship on professional expertise. He then identifies and examines some central ethical and moral issues in education and teaching. Finally David Carr gives a detailed analysis of a range of issues concerning the role of the teacher and the (...) managements of educational issues. _Professionalism and Ethics in Teaching_ presents a thought-provoking and stimulating study of the moral dimensions of the teaching professions. (shrink)

[A slightly revised version of this paper has been accepted by the BJPS] More attention has been devoted to providing evolutionary scenarios accounting for the development of beliefs, or belief-like states, than for desires or preferences. Here I articulate and defend an evolutionary rationale for the development of psychologically real preference states. Preferences token or represent the expected values of discriminated states, available actions, or action-state pairings. The argument is an application the ‘environmental complexity thesis’ found in Godfrey-Smith and Sterelny, (...) although my conclusions differ from Sterelny’s. I argue that tokening expected utilities can, under specified general conditions, be a powerful design solution to the problem of allocating the capacities of an agent in an efficient way. Preferences are for efficient action selection, and are a ‘fuel for success’ in the sense urged by Godfrey-Smith for true beliefs. They will tend to be favoured by selection when environments are complex in ways that matter to an organism, and when organisms have rich behavioural repertoires with heterogenous returns and costs. The rationale suggested here is conditional, especially on contingencies in what design options are available to selection and on trade-offs associated with the costs of generating and processing representations of value. The unqualified efficiency rationale for preferences suggests that organisms should represent expected utilities in a comprehensive and consistent way, but none of them do. In the final stages of the paper I consider some of the ways in which design trade-offs compromise the implementation of preferences in organisms that have them. (shrink)