First order formulas in a relational signature can be considered as operations on the relations of an underlying set, giving rise to multisorted algebras we call first order algebras. We present universal axioms so that an algebra satisfies the axioms iff it embeds into a first order algebra. Importantly, our argument is modular and also works for, e.g., the positive existential algebras and the quantifier-free algebras. We also explain the relationship to theories, and indicate how to add in function symbols.

An action is a pair of sets, C and S, and a function \. Rothschild and Yalcin gave a simple axiomatic characterization of those actions arising from set intersection, i.e. for which the elements of C and S can be identified with sets in such a way that elements of S act on elements of C by intersection. We introduce and axiomatically characterize two natural classes of actions which arise from set intersection and union. In the first class, the \-actions, (...) each element of S is identified with a pair of sets \\), which act on a set c by intersection with \ and union with \. In the second class, the \-biactions, each element of S is labeled as an intersection or a union, and acts accordingly on C. We give intuitive examples of these actions, one involving conversations and another a university’s changing student body. The examples give some motivation for considering these actions, and also help give intuitive readings of the axioms. The class of \-actions is closely related to a class of single-sorted algebras, which was previously treated by Margolis et al., albeit in another guise, and we note this connection. Along the way, we make some useful, though very general, observations about axiomatization and representation problems for classes of algebras. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Call for New Theological Reflection on the Sacramental Character of Marriage and the Thought of St. ThomasLawrence J. WelchTheologians across the theological spectrum have called attention to the urgent need for a new reflection on the theological and sacramental character of marriage. Peter Hünermann, known for his strong criticism of magisterial teachings on marriage, and the late Cardinal Carlo Caffarra, known for his equally strong defense of them, (...) have both drawn attention to this need. At an international symposium in September 2015, held in Rome prior to the Ordinary Synod of Bishops on Marriage and the Family, Hünermann gave a presentation entitled "On the Specific Theological Character of the Sacrament of Matrimony."1 The symposium aimed at providing a critical and scholarly discussion of new and constructive perspectives for the Church doctrine on marriage and family life in time for the 2015 synod on the family.2 Some of Hünermann's work from this paper also came to be known from an interview in Commonweal magazine where he summarized some of the main points of his symposium presentation.3 In the interview, he also revealed that before the 2015 synod he [End Page 845] was invited to speak with Pope Francis about the theology of marriage. Understandably, this meeting heightened interest in the German theologian's thought.Hünermann argues that "the specific character of the sacrament of marriage, which is very closely connected to the dying of the marriage bond,... has scarcely been the object of theological reflection, [and] is almost unknown in the consciousness of the bishops." 4 Hünermann appeals to St. Thomas as a way forward for understanding the theological character of marriage. This appeal is situated within a wider examination5 that offers an elaboration and new interpretation of "the specific dogmatic characteristics of the sacrament of matrimony that emerge in today's situation from a critical comparison of the encyclical Casti connubii and the Catholic theological tradition, especially the theology of St. Thomas."6 Sharply critical of the encyclical, Hünermann sees it as having saddled the Church with a legalistic concept of marriage elevated above history that is too far removed from the Catholic theological tradition and St. Thomas's theology of marriage.The year before his death, Cardinal Caffarra gave the 2016 graduation address at the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family in Washington, DC.7 Among the challenges he identified for the institute to address was the [End Page 846] need for theological reflection on the sacramental character of marriage. Referring to his earlier work, he pointed out that theology after the Council of Trent "lost the awareness of sacramental ontology, of the real transformation produced by the sacrament in the persons of the spouses [res et sacramentum]."8 Furthermore, according to Caffarra, the "theology of the conjugal covenant was supplanted by the notion of a contract, as a human act by which two persons commit to one another." The sacramental character was thought of as consisting of the assurance of divine graces given to fulfill the contract. Caffarra claimed that, "consequently, the words of Jesus 'What God has joined together, let not man put asunder,' lost all their realistic force. Absolute indissolubility, once the sacrament was perfected [=a ratified, consummated marriage], became essentially indefensible."9The primary interest of this paper is to respond to the call for a renewed theological reflection on the specific character of the sacrament of marriage. I wish to take up Caffarra's suggestion to focus on the sacramental character (res et sacramentum) on the one hand, and on the other hand, Hünermann's suggestion that a kind of ressourcement from St. Thomas Aquinas's theology of marriage can be of great help for a fresh theological reflection on the specific character of the sacrament of marriage. Although I agree with Hünermann that a renewed consideration of the thought of St. Thomas can be a way forward, I differ from him on how it can be. Hünermann notices that St. Thomas speaks of the grace of the sacrament of marriage as a helping grace.10 St. Thomas does indeed speak this way of the... (shrink)

The tendency to reciprocate – to return good for good and evil for evil – is a potent force in human life, and the concept of reciprocity is closely connected to fundamental notions of ‘justice’, ‘obligation’ or ‘duty’, ‘gratitude’ and ‘equality’. In _Reciprocity_, first published in 1986,_ _Lawrence Becker presents a sustained argument about reciprocity, beginning with the strategy for developing a moral theory of the virtues. He considers the concept of reciprocity in detail, contending that it is a basic (...) virtue that provides the basis for parental authority, obligations to future generations, and obedience to law. Throughout the first two parts of the book, Becker intersperses short pieces of his own narrative fiction to enrich reflection on the philosophical arguments. The final part is devoted to extensive bibliographical essays, ranging over anthropology, psychology, political theory and law, as well as the relevant ethics and political philosophy. (shrink)

The Heythrop Journal, Volume 63, Issue 4, Page 817-827, July 2022.

The Heythrop Journal, Volume 63, Issue 4, Page 817-827, July 2022.

"This volume provides a long-needed anthology of major writings related to the subject of violence.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1956.

In Justice for Hedgehogs, Dworkin defends a one-system understanding of law. According to this view, law is morality…more exactly, law is a branch of political morality. I have a special interest in the claim, because Dworkin argues that one of its principal consequences is that it undermines arguments I have made about the valid legal status of precepts that are not properly enforceable by courts. In this chapter, I look critically at both Dworkin’s defense of the one system view and (...) his claim that one can embrace the idea of judicially underenforced legal norms only by rejecting any moralized view of law and embracing positivism. (shrink)

In this paper, I want eventually to get around to proposing a criterion of identity for events which are changes in physical objects, where events are construed as comprising a distinct metaphysical category of thing. The proposal will be preceded by a discussion of what I take to be a mistaken suggestion for such a criterion; I will do that because I think that seeing what it takes to show why that suggestion fails helps to motivate a theory about what (...) it is to be an event; and that theory wi II supply the conceptual foundations for my proposal concerning the criterion of identity for events. Before that suggestion is discussed, however, I want to discuss briefly an aspect of the question, Why do we have to give a criterion of identity for events, or for objects of any sort whatsoever? I want to have a brief look at the connection between identity criteria and the idea of a kind of object. (shrink)

I argue that physicians can save women from life-threatening pregnancies by performing a craniotomy, placentectomy, or salpingotomy without intending death or harm. To support this conclusion, I defend the relevance thesis about intentions (a person intends X only if X explains the action). I then criticize the identity thesis (if a person intends X and knows X is Y then the person intends Y) and three mistakenly strict moral principles: (1) one may not intend something that is a serious harm (...) for an innocent person, (2) one may not intend to terminate pregnancy before viability, which would prohibit, and (3) one may not act on a person’s body in a harmful way in order to benefit another person. (1) would prohibit procuring organs from living donors, (2) would prohibit treating hepatic pregnancies and other ectopic pregnancies, and (3) would prohibit procuring organs from living donors and performing many prenatal surgeries. (shrink)

Ackermann’s function can be expressed using an iterative algorithm, which essentially takes the form of a term rewriting system. Although the termination of this algorithm is far from obvious, its equivalence to the traditional recursive formulation—and therefore its totality—has a simple proof in Isabelle/HOL. This is a small example of formalising mathematics using a proof assistant, with a focus on the treatment of difficult recursions.

This essay explores themes raised by Scott Soames in Chapter Twelve of The World Philosophy Made. Soames’s key contribution is the articulation of a general theory of legal interpretation and more specific theory, Constitutional Deferentialism, that is a form of public meaning originalism. His development of the connections between the philosophy of language and legal interpretation have been especially important and influential.

In this article, I challenge the semiological interpretation of Kant’s Religion, particularly as advanced in recent years by James DiCenso and Allen Wood. As I here argue, their interpretations are neither compatible with broader aspects of Kant’s positive philosophy of religion, nor with how Kant himself describes the project of the Religion. Kant wrote the Religion in order to explore the compatibility between his theologically affirmative pure rational system of religion and Christian doctrines, particularly as understood by the Lutherans and (...) Lutheran Pietists of his era, rather than as a treatise on how to make Christian theology compatible with contemporary secularism. (shrink)

COVID-19 forced many institutions of higher learning to make a sudden switch from face-to-face classes to emergency remote learning. This move was welcomed with mixed reactions by first year students. The purpose of this study was to investigate first year students’ experiences of emergency remote learning amidst the time of the global pandemic of COVID-19 in the United Arab Emirates. The study adopted a qualitative approach within an interpretivist paradigm and it was conducted as an exploratory case study in a (...) federal university. Three hundred and ninety two open-ended questionnaires were completed by first year students about their experiences of emergency remote learning. Data was analysed using content analysis. It was concluded that the best way to judge the validity of emergency remote learning is by taking context into consideration. The use of different online teaching strategies help cater for diverse needs of first year students and reduce dropout rates. (shrink)

This chapter elaborates on an intuitive criterion much discussed by ancient Greek philosophers regarding the conditions under which an object can be said to change. Heraclitus and Parmenides both denied the possibility of change. Heraclitus believed that changes are constantly occurring. Consequently, he needed to sever the connection between the idea that a thing changes and the idea that a change occurs, a connection expressed by the claim that a change occurs just in case a thing changes. Heraclitus was a (...) temporal parts theorist; therefore, to accept his view means abandoning the idea that the things that come into and go out of existence are also things that can alter. Parmenides, on the other hand, believed that nothing can become what it is not; therefore, nothing can change. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article investigates a virtue-centered approach to normative legal theory in the context of legislation. The core idea of such a theory is that the fundamental aim of law should be the promotion of human flourishing, where a flourishing human life is understood as a life of rational and social activities that express the human excellences. Law can promote flourishing in several ways. Because peace and prosperity are conducive to human flourishing, legislation should aim at the establishment and maintenance of (...) these conditions. The human excellences are developed in childhood and young adulthood by stable and nurturing families and by educational institutions: therefore, the law should support and foster families and schools. Although some critics have argued that an aretaic theory of legislation must support so-called “vice laws,” this is not the case. A virtue-centered approach must take into account the effects produced by criminalization of alcohol, drugs, gambling, and prosti... (shrink)

Vedānta Deśika produced his monumental poetic biography of Kṛṣṇa in a time when Kṛṣṇa-centered devotionalism was expanding to become perhaps the dominant mode of bhakti across South Asia. Central to this phenomenon is the growing popularity of the Bhāgavatapurāṇa, and especially of its exploration of Kṛṣṇa’s erotic play with the gopīs in his youth. Troubled by the unrestrained and seemingly adharmic sexuality of Kṛṣṇa, Deśika used the literary techniques and narrative paradigms of the mahākāvya to assimilate but also domesticate this (...) increasingly important Bhāgavata episode: Kṛṣṇa’s eroticism remains central but confined within more conventional marital norms and is thus made dharmically and theologically acceptable. Once he has resolved these dharmic problems, however, Deśika is happy to explore the soteriological, devotional, and paradoxical dimensions of erotic love with Kṛṣṇa. (shrink)

The purpose of this short paper is to lay the foundations for a more comprehensive analysis of Kant's Normative Epistemology. In particular, this paper will examine the claims made regarding the threshold between knowledge and opinion, the scope of content germane to the latter, and more broadly, the place of opinion within Kant’s general taxonomy of propositional attitudes. We shall begin with an overview of the knowledge-belief-opinion triad and its governing nomenclature. We shall then turn to a more detailed analysis (...) of opinion’s form, content, and norms. (shrink)

It is widely claimed that the second Critique’s argument for the postulate of immortality is relevantly different from the first Critique’s argument for the postulate. It is also widely claimed that after the second Critique, Kant distances himself from its particular version of the argument, and even the postulate altogether. It is the purpose of this article to challenge these claims, arguing instead that (a) there is overwhelming textual evidence showing that Kant did not abandon the postulate; (b) the second (...) Critique does not contain a substantially different argument for the postulate than how it is argued for in the first Critique; and (c) the philosophical objections levied against the second Critique’s argument, including its putative substitution of holiness for virtue, become moot once its argument is better understood. (shrink)

The place of the written Constitution in our constitutional practice is defined secondarily, from outside the text, not commanded by the text. Like moral readers of our constitutional practice, originalists of all stripes have to argue from outside the text. This makes the new originalist turn to the theory of language come too early; the place of such theory is necessarily subordinate to a convincing moral account of our practice as a whole. To lament the existence of constitutional provisions that (...) do not provide legible descriptions of encompassing states of affairs —as the new originalists implicitly do— is to badly misunderstand a morally salient element of our constitutional practice. The non-encompassing provisions of the Constitution are not incomplete, and hence failed instructions; rather they are complete, successful delegations of authority to constitutionally responsible officials. A delegatory constitutional instruction hands off responsibility and authority; in order to do that, it must be non-encompassing. This is a virtue, not a liability of the written Constitution. The purpose of our constitutional practice is justice-seeking. It aims at better aligning our institutions, policies, laws and the political community as a whole, with the requirements of justice. It aims, that is, at our making moral progress as a political community. Delegations of constitutional authority and responsibility invite the partnership of contemporary constitutional actors, in the justice-seeking enterprise, including and especially courts. Our constitutional courts are common law courts; they are, that is, reason-giving and precedent- drawn, features that make them worthy partners in that enterprise. (shrink)

There are broad and narrow senses of hermeneutic application as well as of hermeneutic praxis. The broad sense of hermeneutic application means using what one has already understood in some later situation. Hermeneutic praxis in the narrow sense refers to an interpreter using a hermeneutic theory to interpret written or spoken language. The narrow sense of hermeneutic application is discussed by Hans‐Georg Gadamer in Truth and Method as the central problem of philosophical hermeneutics. Friedrich Schleiermacher had noted that the lax (...) practice of hermeneutics, which had been previously the main form of hermeneutics, assumes that understanding usually succeeds and that interpretation is only called for in difficult cases where misinterpretation might occur. Usually, after one has understood, interpreted, and applied an order to the concrete situation, one would carry out that order as it was understood. This action that follows from understanding is hermeneutic praxis in the broad sense. (shrink)

Some of what is true about the world is thought, by some, to be true of necessity. Other truths about the world are merely contingently true, it is said. Next we get a familiar distinguishing of necessity into its various kinds. Anything whose contrary would contradict the laws of logic is logically necessary. Anything compatible with these laws is logically contingent. There are, of course, grave problems in finding a principled way of discriminating the logical truths from all the others. (...) Some propositions are not logically necessary but are metaphysically necessary. For Kant, I suppose, the alleged facts that every event had a cause, and that in any change a substance remained unchanged would be such facts. So, I suppose, would be the necessary but synthetic truths of geometry and arithmetic. For more contemporary philosophers genuine identity statements, either singular or general, might have such a status. (shrink)

Given the central role played by space and time both in our ordinary experience and in our attempts to understand the world by means of scientific theory, it is no surprise that attempts to understand space and time form a central locus of the interaction of philosophy and the physical sciences.

Despite over one-hundred years of effort, the origin of temporal asymmetry in the physical world still eludes us. While much has been learned about the role played by fundamental instabilities in microdynamics, by the imperfect isolation of systems and by cosmological facts in the origin of the behavior described by kinetic theory and thermodynamics, important puzzles still remain which continue to make the origins of asymmetric thermal behavior out of dynamically time symmetric underlying laws mysterious to us.

I present the strict definition of intended effects and pose two questions for its critics: Apart from rationalizing moral intuitions about the craniotomy and other controversial cases, why classify an effect as intended if it does not explain the action? What definition of intended effects can people use to guide their actions? These questions show that broad definitions of intended effects have no basis in action theory and are too vague to guide people’s actions. I suggest that broad definitions seem (...) plausible because people confuse what someone intends and what someone is responsible for causing. (shrink)