Many people believe in angels and evil spirits, and popular culture abounds in talk about encounters with such entities. Yet the question of the existence of such spirits is ignored in the academy. Even the Christian Church, which one might expect to show keen interest in transcendent realities, does not appear to be paying much attention. In this book Phillip Wiebe defends the plausibility of the traditional Christian claim that spirits are real. Wiebe examines descriptions of encounters with both (...) good and evil transcendent beings in biblical times and in later Christian history, along with recent accounts of similar experiences. He argues that invisible beings can be postulated to explain events just as unobservable objects are postulated in many scientific theories. Beyond supporting claims for the existence of lesser spirits such as demons and angels, this empirical approach yields important results for assessing common arguments surrounding the existence of God - a question that has become artificially separated from the question of spirits as such. Grounding his argument in a wide range of phenomena - from near death experiences to demonic possession - Wiebe offers a sophisticated case for belief in God on philosophical and epistemological grounds. (shrink)
This paper addresses the question of what existential assumptions are needed for the Aristotelian interpretation of the relationships between the four categorical propositions. The particular relationships in question are those unique to the Aristotelian logic, namely, contrariety, subcontrariety, subaltemation, conversion by limitation, and contraposition by limitation. The views of several recent authors of logic textbooks are surveyed. While most construe the Aristotelian logic as capable of being preserved by assuming that the subject class has a member, Irving Copi construes that (...) logic as requiring that four assumptions about class membership be made. These are that the subject, predicate, complement of subject, and complement of predicate classes all have members. It is argued that only three assumptions about class membership are needed, viz., that subject, predicate, and complement of predicate classes have members. (shrink)
Accession Number: ATLA0001712249; Hosting Book Page Citation: p 503-522.; Language(s): English; General Note: Bibliography: p 519-522.; Issued by ATLA: 20130825; Publication Type: Essay.
This paper critically examines the claim advanced by a number of important apologists for Christian theism that the biblical reports of miracles obtain confirmation from the accuracy of the reports of ordinary events in the biblical writings.An informal argument from analogy is first presented to show the implausibility of this claim, and then formal arguments using the theory of confirmation are considered. Several possible formal interpretations of the apologists’ position are considered and rejected.The paper concludes with several comments about the (...) problem which miracle reports encounter with respect to challenging scientific worldviews, and makes suggestions about the kinds of strategies which would need to be employed to render such reports credible. (shrink)
Finite spirits can be plausibly viewed as entities postulated by a theory, comparable to the position on mental states and processes developed in the latter part of the twentieth century. This position is developed here by reference to the account in the synoptic gospels of the exorcism of the Gadarene demoniacs. The role played by specifying causal relationships between postulated entities and objects whose existence is not in doubt is examined. Also, various features of theories are discussed in relation to (...) this example, viz. theory-laden description, classifying theories as naturalistic or supernaturalistic, kinds of evidence, and the importance of the method of hypothesis (or abduction) in critically scrutinizing the claims of religion. (Published Online August 11 2004). (shrink)
_Time, Memory, and the Verbal Arts: Essays on the Thought of Walter Ong_ Edited by Dennis L. Weeks and Jane Hoogestraat Selinsgrove: Susquehanna University Press, 1999 ISBN: 1-57591-009-8 247 pp.
Confirmation theorists have frequently expressed an interest in evidence which strengthens a hypothesis or in evidence which makes a hypothesis firmer. A number of criteria have been offered, including the instantial criterion, the prediction criteria, and Hempel's satisfaction criterion. All of these criteria are dyadic, but the concept of strengthening evidence is triadic, for it makes explicit reference to an evidence report and a hypothesis, and implicit reference to prior evidence in the light of which a new evidence report must (...) be evaluated. I argue that the approach to strengthening evidence reflected in these criteria is inadequate, that is, that dydic criteria can be of only limited value in connection with a triadic concept. I discuss the possibility that these criteria have been offered for the concept of initially strengthening evidence. The latter explanation is rejected, and other explanations for having failed to consider prior evidence are discussed. (shrink)
Indigenous peoples have for millennia observed and lived in deference to the same universe as scientists who meticulously record and measure information, but their deep knowledge of the natural world remains unacknowledged by the greater society. This article relates some of that knowledge to physics concepts, particularly relativity and quantum theory, as an initial step toward conveying certain realities of the American Indian world into a Western scientific context such that their meaning is not lost. Modern physics has not only (...) revealed a cosmic order that is vastly different from the classical realm but one that also closely corresponds to the conceptual world of the American Indian. The author emphasizes the work and concepts articulated by Einstein and Bohm because of the evidence they provide for the latter's notion of the cosmos as an "unbroken whole," which is also a prominent concept among tribal peoples. In view of how American Indian traditions carry human experiences beyond the physical into the spiritual realm, emphasizing practical survival skills and intuition rather than measurement, the author believes that the places where tribal and Western systems of knowledge meet can become important gateways to realms that are currently unfamiliar to the Western world. (shrink)
Historians have generally concluded that the Council of Constance, although it successfully ended the Great Schism by reuniting the church, failed in its effort to reform the church. The council's negotiations concerning papal taxation of the clergy have often been singled out as an example of incomplete and abortive reform efforts: those reforms that were enacted were merely cosmetic; the rest failed because the cardinals and the newly elected pope were able to outmaneuver the reformers by exploiting the divisions among (...) the nations at the council. I intend to challenge this interpretation by arguing that the council did enact major reforms of papal taxation. Further, I will show that papal opposition was not the sole or even the principal cause for the failure of other proposed tax reforms, and that the national divisions at the council were generally significant only when they coincided with other, more concrete differences of interest. (shrink)
It is definitely a welcome contribution to Nietzsche scholarship that a volume on Beyond Good and Evil has been published in the German series Klassiker Auslegen, established by Ottfried Höffe. The series aims at providing cooperative commentaries by leading scholars in the field on the most important works in the history of philosophy. As with the other “classics” that have been covered, the order of contributions follows the order of the original publication; in the case of Beyond Good and Evil, (...) there is one contribution for each of the nine chapters, plus one contribution each analyzing the “preface” and “aftersong” and a general introduction by the editor. All the contributions aim at... (shrink)
“Democratization” has recently become a popular trope in Western public discourses on medicine, where it refers to patient participation in the gathering and distribution of health-related data using various digital technologies, in order to improve healthcare technically and socially. We critically analyze the usage of the term from the perspective of the “politics of buzzwords.” Our claim is that the phrase works primarily to publicly justify the dramatic increase in the application of information and data technologies in healthcare and therefore (...) fosters the corresponding industry. As a buzzword, “democratizing healthcare” is characterized by vagueness, which is why it receives meaning only through a word collective—a group of words that provide it with a context and are often used together with it. We examine key terms associated with “democratization” in the healthcare discourse—participation, empowerment, and personalized medicine—and show that the buzzword receives rhetorical power through the ambiguous reference to these concepts. As a consequence, the idea of “democracy” becomes diluted into meaning merely “access to,” and “healthcare” is reduced to the notion of a preventive, nonacute, monitored form of medical care. (shrink)
Various captivity-related health problems have been described as arising in the farming of sea turtles at the Cayman Turtle Farm (CTF). Our study included a desktop review of turtle farming, direct onsite inspection at the CTF, assessment of visual materials and reports provided by investigators from the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA), and a limited analysis of water quality for potential pathogens. In particular, we assessed physical and behavioural condition of animals for signs of stress, injury and (...) disease. During the onsite inspection we identified three distinct signs of physical injury and disease, six distinct signs of abnormal and problematic arousal- and discomfort-related behaviour; and three distinct signs of normal quiescence- and comfort-related behaviour. On evaluation of evidence provided by the WSPA we identified ten distinct signs of physical injury and disease, and management- or genetic-related conditions; six distinct signs of abnormal and problematic arousal- and discomfort-related behaviour; and three distinct signs of normal quiescence- and comfort-related behaviour. We conclude that sea turtles at the CTF manifested important physical and behavioural signs that are indicative of problematic management and captivity-related stress, and the limitations of sea turtle adaptive plasticity in captivity. The problematic physical and behavioural signs, in our view, related to the inherent nature of intensive turtle propagation which in particular involves overt- and crypto-overcrowding and understimulating environments, and an associated failure to meet all the physical, biological and innate behavioural needs of sea turtles. (shrink)
Throughout the biological and biomedical sciences there is a growing need for, prescriptive ‘minimum information’ (MI) checklists specifying the key information to include when reporting experimental results are beginning to find favor with experimentalists, analysts, publishers and funders alike. Such checklists aim to ensure that methods, data, analyses and results are described to a level sufficient to support the unambiguous interpretation, sophisticated search, reanalysis and experimental corroboration and reuse of data sets, facilitating the extraction of maximum value from data sets (...) them. However, such ‘minimum information’ MI checklists are usually developed independently by groups working within representatives of particular biologically- or technologically-delineated domains. Consequently, an overview of the full range of checklists can be difficult to establish without intensive searching, and even tracking thetheir individual evolution of single checklists may be a non-trivial exercise. Checklists are also inevitably partially redundant when measured one against another, and where they overlap is far from straightforward. Furthermore, conflicts in scope and arbitrary decisions on wording and sub-structuring make integration difficult. This presents inhibit their use in combination. Overall, these issues present significant difficulties for the users of checklists, especially those in areas such as systems biology, who routinely combine information from multiple biological domains and technology platforms. To address all of the above, we present MIBBI (Minimum Information for Biological and Biomedical Investigations); a web-based communal resource for such checklists, designed to act as a ‘one-stop shop’ for those exploring the range of extant checklist projects, and to foster collaborative, integrative development and ultimately promote gradual integration of checklists. (shrink)
