In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Happiness of “Those Who Lack the Use of Reason”Miguel J. RomeroHuman beings would have been created uselessly and in vain were they unable to attain happiness, as would be the case with anything that cannot attain its ultimate end.(De Malo, q. 5, a. 1, ad 1)A STUDY OF “those who lack the use of reason” in the thought and spirit of St. Thomas Aquinas has much to (...) offer the patient reader. We better understand what it means to be a rational animal, the image of triune God, when we investigate why, exactly, “mindless persons” (amentes) are not exceptions or even outliers in Aquinas’s account of the creaturely dignity and perfectibility of the human being.Aquinas remarks with some regularity on persons afflicted with the condition amentia, which is variously and inconsistently interpreted (in translation) as “imbeciles,” “fools,” “madmen,” “lunatics,” “the demented,” or “the insane.” The amentes are persons who lack the use of reason in a profound and debilitating way; and, as I will show, the fact that we are sometimes found in this state informs Aquinas’s analysis of human nature and, in particular, Aquinas’s teaching on the good wrought by Christ for the members of his body. Our guiding question is this: Thinking with Aquinas, how do we account for the natural and supernatural happiness of those of us who lack the use of reason?My purpose in this article is to explore what Aquinas has to say about the happiness of persons who are baptized and [End Page 49] confirmed by the Church, and who have what neuro-psychologists would describe as a profound cognitive impairment. The question is particularly striking when we recall that, for Aquinas, the distinguishing aptitude of the human being (proper to our intellectual nature and coordinate with our creaturely perfection) is the operation of an incorruptible intellectual capacity—a capacity, however, that is only reduced from potentiality to act when the corruptible “internal sense organ” is disposed to receive, in terms of health and circumstance, a coordinated sense impression of material species. Thus, a further question emerges: According to Aquinas, what is the perfective effect of grace in this life upon the nature of a person who completely lacks the use of reason due to an organic corruption or disorder of the ‘internal sense organ’?The discussion is divided into five parts. I begin (part I) by locating those who “lack the use of reason” within the theological infrastructure of Aquinas’s moral psychology and I identify the main problematic. With respect to that problematic, the principal conceptual resources provided by Aquinas are then outlined and two challenges are identified (part II).The first challenge is methodological, concerning the speculative import of the sacramental life of the Church. Francisco de Vitoria’s Relectio de eo ad quod tenetur homo veniens ad usum rationis (1534) highlights for us (part III) a constellation of judgments relevant to interpreting Aquinas on these themes, in particular, Aquinas’s formulation of prerational intellectual acts vis-à-vis the participation and membership of “mindless persons” in the sacramental life of the Body of Christ.The second challenge is to show the continuity between Aquinas’s account of the human being and his practical remarks on those who lack the use of reason. Specifically, given the various ways that, and degrees to which, the human being can lack the use of reason, I trace (part IV) Aquinas’s analysis of the power and operation of intellect, focusing on the intellectual acts which can be impaired and, concurrently, the intellectual acts which cannot be impaired in a living human being. Aquinas’s remarks on those latter acts not only reflect the [End Page 50] significance of the doctrine of the image of God in his account of human nature, but, even more, they shed light on the prosthesis of sacramental grace in his understanding of the properly human happiness capacitated and purposed in all whom God has called in Christ—a call to discipleship and devotion that includes those of us who have a profound, lifelong cognitive impairment (Rom 8:28; 9:11; Eph 1:3-14; II Tim 1:8-11).I conclude... (shrink)

Counting models for a two conjunctive formula $F$, a problem known as $\sharp $2Sat, is a classic $\sharp $P complete problem. Given a 2-CF $F$ as input, its constraint graph $G$ is built. If $G$ is acyclic, then $\sharp $2Sat can be computed efficiently. In this paper, we address the case when $G$ has cycles. When $G$ is cyclic, we propose a decomposition on the constraint graph $G$ that allows the computation of $\sharp $2Sat in incremental way. Let $T$ be (...) a cactus graph of $G$ containing a maximal number of independent cycles, and let $\overline{T}=-E)$ be a subset of frond edges from $G$. The clauses in $\overline{T}$ are ordered in connected components $\{K_1, \ldots, K_r\}$. Each $, i=1,\ldots,r$ is a knot of the graph. The arrangement of the clauses of $\overline{T}$ allows the decomposition of $G$ in knots and provides a way of computing $\sharp $2Sat in an incremental way. Our procedure has a bottom-up orientation for the computation of $\sharp $2Sat. It begins with $F_0 = T$. In each iteration of the procedure, a new clause $C_i \in \overline{T}$ is considered in order to form $F_i = $ and then to compute $\sharp $2Sat$$ based on the computation of $\sharp $2Sat$$. (shrink)

This collection of essays, offered in honor of the distinguished career of prominent political philosophy professor Clifford Orwin, brings together internationally renowned scholars to provide a wide context and discuss various aspects of the virtue of “humanity” through the history of political philosophy.

The logic BN4 was defined by R.T. Brady as a four-valued extension of Routley and Meyer’s basic logic B. The system EF4 is defined as a companion to BN4 to represent the four-valued system of implication. The system Ł was defined by J. Łukasiewicz and it is a four-valued modal logic that validates what is known as strong Łukasiewicz-type modal paradoxes. The systems EF4-M and EF4-Ł are defined as alternatives to Ł without modal paradoxes. This paper aims to define a (...) Belnap-Dunn semantics for EF4, EF4-M and EF4-Ł. It is shown that EF4, EF4-M and EF4-Ł are strongly sound and complete w.r.t. their respective semantics and that EF4-M and EF4-Ł are free from strong Łukasiewicz-type modal paradoxes. (shrink)

Ship design needs to respond to and attract an ever more design conscious society. However, little research has been conducted into perceptions of beauty and pleasure and how such perceptions can be usefully absorbed into ship design. Aesthetic consideration, is seen as a distraction from the bespoke nature of the ship design process and is often avoided, second guessed or left for external consultancy. The ship design discipline requires the nurturing of its own aesthetic methods, for future development, and to (...) adapt some of the aesthetic ideals found in architecture, art and design. This paper argues that philosophy can be effective in interpreting what the passenger finds attractive and pleasurable. To illustrate the philosophical approach proposed, the `Elbe SWATH’ and the `Oasis of the Seas’ are investigated and compared using theoretical resources from the culturally focused philosophy of `Functional Beauty’. Conclusions suggest that the interpretation of the end users most valued appreciations can lead to design directives that deliver subjective qualities of beauty - beauty similar to those seen in the pure aims of the Elbe SWATH’s purposeful work craft, or comparable to nature’s beauty and purity in aim. (shrink)

This is an introduction to the Special Issue of Empedocles European Journal for the Philosophy of Communication focused on Latin American studies. The articles collected here were meticulously selected in light of previous discussions and conferences about Latin America that took place over the past year. The contributors transversally analyse several issues in current Latin American studies, particularly those related to philosophy, art, literature and visual studies. They propose alternative readings of Latin America taking into account its singularity and the (...) way in which traditional categories such as representation, power, modernity or gender, among others, are implicitly and explicitly used and criticized. (shrink)

Esta es una introducción al volumen especial de Empedocles: European Journal for the Philosophy of Communication enfocada en estudios latinoamericanos. Los trabajos que a continuación se presentan forman parte de una selección minuciosa llevada a cabo a propósito de varias conversaciones sobre Latinoamérica llevadas a cabo durante el último año. Los artículos en cuestión recorren transversalmente diversas áreas del pensamiento latinoamericano en la actualidad, particularmente las relacionadas con la filosofía, el arte, la literatura y los estudios visuales. Del mismo modo, (...) proponen lecturas alternativas de la realidad latinoamericana atendiendo a su autenticidad, su contexto y a la forma en la cual se interpretan y critican, implícita y explícitamente, categorías tradicionales como representación, poder, modernidad o género entre otras. (shrink)

Peut-on continuer à considérer les canons d’Elvire comme appartenant à un seul concile ? L’historiographie française la plus répandue jusqu'a ce jour a répondu affirmativement à cette question. Depuis la fin du siècle dernier, on assiste a un débat très anime sur l’authenticité et l’unité des Actes dits d’Elvire. Les différentes thèses se partagent entre deux approches totalement opposées : l’une soutient l’unité des Actes, sans refuser qu’ils aient pu être remanies au cours de leur transmission historique ; l’autre, a (...) la suite de l’article pionnier de M. Meigne (1975), défend le caractère composite des Actes, qui constitueraient une collection de dispositions juridiques hétérogènes. L’article présente l’état actuel de la recherche sur le concile d’Elvire ainsi que les enjeux principaux du débat. (shrink)

This chapter outlines David Lewis's favored foundational account of linguistic representation, and outlines and briefly evaluates variations and modifications. It gives an opinionated exegesis of Lewis's work on the foundations of reference: his interpretationism. The author looks at the way that the metaphysical distinction between natural and non‐natural properties came to play a central role in his thinking about language. Lewis's own deployment of this notion has implausible commitments. The chapter briefly considers a buck‐passing strategy involving fine‐grained linguistic conventions. Lewis (...) was no fan of primitive intentionality. Much of the Lewisian framework remains attractive. The overall select‐and‐project method, with its promise to deal even‐handedly with all linguistic intentionality, and its epistemic tractability, should be retained. Post‐Lewisian interpretationism results from emphasizing and retaining some of the virtues of Lewis's original proposal promises (e.g. universality and epistemic tractability), while compromising on others (e.g. metaphysical principle). (shrink)

Originally published in 1967. Representing the viewpoints of philosophers, psychologists, anthropologists, physicists, psychoanalysts, parapsychologists, psychiatrists and biologists, this volume discusses many aspects of ESP. The general theme is that the phenomena is very valid and can no longer be ignored.

We discuss the question of whether or not a general Weyl structure is a suitable mathematical model of space–time. This is an issue that has been in debate since Weyl formulated his unified field theory for the first time. We do not present the discussion from the point of view of a particular unification theory, but instead from a more general standpoint, in which the viability of such a structure as a model of space–time is investigated. Our starting point is (...) the well known axiomatic approach to space–time given by Elhers, Pirani and Schild. In this framework, we carry out an exhaustive analysis of what is required for a consistent definition for proper time and show that such a definition leads to the prediction of the so-called “second clock effect”. We take the view that if, based on experience, we were to reject space–time models predicting this effect, this could be incorporated as the last axiom in the EPS approach. Finally, we provide a proof that, in this case, we are led to a Weyl integrable space–time as the most general structure that would be suitable to model space–time. (shrink)

"And God said...." The author of this interesting study takes seriously the use of the italicized word in the biblical account of Creation. His thesis is that a modified version of the late J. L. Austin's analysis of "performatory" language can be used to reinterpret the traditional Christian claim that God "created" the world. The first half of the book is a purely philosophical analysis of self-involving language. Of particular importance is its clear distinction between, and logical mapping of, performative (...) and expressive language. In the second half this analysis is applied to biblical talk about Creation, an application which is made more valuable by the author's thorough grounding in biblical theology.—R. J. W. (shrink)