The model theoretic `back and forth' construction of isomorphisms and automorphisms is based on the proof by Cantor that the theory of dense linear orderings without endpoints is ℵ 0 -categorical. However, Cantor's method is slightly different and for many other structures it yields an injection which is not surjective. The purpose here is to examine Cantor's method (here called `going forth') and to determine when it works and when it fails. Partial answers to this question are found, extending those (...) earlier given by Cameron. We also give fuller characterisations of when forth suffices for model theoretic classes such as structures containing Jordan sets for the automorphism group, and ℵ 0 -categorical ω-stable structures. The work is based on the author's Ph.D. thesis. (shrink)

Plotinus’ account of matter in Ennead III 6[26] 11-15 serves two purposes. The terms, evil and ugly, present the negative side of matter’s causality, providing for the change characteristic of the sensible world and the possibility of ontological evil and privation as well as of moral evil among human beings. The receptacle and other images from Plato’s Timaeus present the positive side of this causality, matter as allowing for the presence of forms in the bodies of the sensible world. Plotinus (...) explicitly articulates the linguistic problem surrounding the nature of matter, since language is derived from the corporeal and thus needs constant correction when applied to matter as incorporeal. His use of language, thus, always has two phases, first, capturing the nature of matter as aptly as possible, and second, highlighting the difference between matter and the image, analogy, or metaphor used to help explain it. (shrink)

After a period during which the theological categories of sin and forgiveness were ignored or trivialized, presently these notions are being rediscovered. What could their impact be on bioethics, either in the narrow sense of medical ethics, or in the more encompassing sense of the ethics of the life sciences? This essay begins with describing the processes of transcending and ethitization, which gave rise to the biblical notion of sin. It portrays the theological foundation of sin in terms of a (...) twofold refusal of proper relations to God and other humans. Through the practise of confession in the face of God (coram deo), sin is placed into a horizon of hope for forgiveness and reconciliation. The heuristic and hermeneutical significance of these categories results from their introducing a “surplus value,” which transcends biological and ethical considerations. This additional dimension is illustrated in view of care (cura) for the injured, and in view of individual as well as collective willingness to forgive. (shrink)

This article considers how legislators should respond to evidence that identifies a common and widely accepted parental practice as a potential source of harm to children, using domestic exposure to environmental tobacco smoke as a test case. It is claimed that children are parties to the Harm Principle, and that the State has an obligation to protect children from exposure to harm. Parental prerogative is limited by the need to avoid harming children. That said, there is considerable uncertainty about what (...) is harmful to children. Several sources of uncertainty, both empirical and conceptual, are explored, in order to demonstrate the complexity of the task legislators face. Seven considerations that are relevant to decisions about legislation of harmful parental practices are outlined, and these considerations are then employed to assess the case in favour of legislating to prohibit the exposure of children to environmental tobacco smoke in domestic settings. (shrink)

‘ANY state of mind in which anyone takes a great interest is very likely to be called “knowledge”, because no other word in psychology has such emotive virtue’, wrote Ogden and Richards apropos of those who claim that art affords us a kind of knowledge uniquely its own. While one may agree with the implications of this remark, and it is a salutary warning to anyone tempted to make extravagant claims for art, it does less than justice to the intentions (...) of those who make these claims. They are at least facing up to a real problem—a problem which has troubled philosophers since the time of Plato. For, beyond doubt, the arts have been held in high regard in every society with a well developed culture. To dismiss art as mere entertainment or pleasant deception or fantasy gratification or play only raises the question why intelligent and educated people take such trivial stuff seriously, why they consider it important and often find it profound. One way of meeting this problem is to say that art gives us a special kind of knowledge or insight which other branches of human learning—history, science and even philosophy—do not and cannot give us. This may not be a solution to the problem, but it is a view that deserves to be taken seriously, and I propose in this article to consider one aspect of it. (shrink)

Traditional Christian belief in the existence of human life after death within a transformed material universe should be capable of rational justification if one chooses carefully the philosophical scheme underlying those claims. One should not have to appeal simply to the power of a loving God to justify one's beliefs. A revision of Whitehead's metaphysical scheme is proposed that allows one to render these classical Christian beliefs at least plausible to a broad range of contemporary thinkers as a consequence of (...) a cosmology based on the principle of universal intersubjectivity and the need for a common ground between opposing subjectivities. (shrink)

The treatment of persons who frequently present to the healthcare system following repetitive foreign body ingestion has been addressed in the psychiatric literature. However, there has been little exploration of the ethical considerations regarding the treatment of these patients. The complexity of their medical and psychiatric presentation raises fundamental ethical questions regarding the duty to treat, patient autonomy, justice, and futility. Careful ethical analysis is particularly important in this context, since the frustration that medical professionals may feel in response may (...) lead to false assumptions that can negatively impact patient care. A careful exploration of these questions can increase awareness and understanding, which in turn can lead to improved treatment of patients who repetitively ingest foreign bodies. Care for patients who inflict self-harm, particularly by repetitive foreign body ingestion, is not futile. The patients have a right to treatment and are entitled to resources. Efforts should be made to provide a more comprehensive treatment approach to these patients. (shrink)

Before we take up the arguments directly, there is one general point about Socrates' position that he considered essential to everything he said in the Crito. Also, he thought that this point was easily missed. He calls it his "starting point." It is that "we ought neither to requite wrong with wrong nor to do evil to anyone, no matter what he may have done to us." And Socrates warns Crito not to accept this position too quickly or without full (...) consideration, "for I know that there are few who believe or ever will believe this". Yet this moral principle is so essential to his arguments that "those who believe this, and those who do not, have no common ground of discussion, but they must necessarily, in view of their opinions, despise one another". This position, never to harm others in any circumstance, is "the starting point of our discussion...". (shrink)

This article inquires whether or not religious beliefs are rational, that is to say, whether or not they can be rationally sustained. The point of the article is not to prove the existence of God, but rather simply to show whether or not religious language has real meaning. To do this, we shall examine the concept of belief in general. Then we shall look at religious beliefs in particular from two opposing points of view: on the one hand, from the (...) position of authors who claim that religious beliefs can in fact be sustained by rational evidence, and on the other hand, from the perspective of other authors who affirm that these beliefs cannot be rationally justified, because spiritual discourse refers to the ineffable, which deprives it of the means to verify or deny its propositions. (shrink)