There is a trend toward the use of predictive systems in communications networks. At the systems and network management level predictive capabilities are focused on anticipating network faults and performance degradation. Simultaneously, mobile communication networks are being developed with predictive location and tracking mechanisms. The interactions and synergies between these systems present a new set of problems. A new predictive network management framework is developed and examined. The interaction between a predictive mobile network and the proposed network management system is (...) discussed. The Rapidly Deployable Radio Network is used as a specific example to illustrate these interactions. (shrink)

This paper describes the design of a control and management network (orderwire) for a mobile wireless Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) network. This mobile wireless ATM network is part of the Rapidly Deployable Radio Network (RDRN). The orderwire system consists of a packet radio network which overlays the mobile wireless ATM network, each network element in this network uses Global Positioning System (GPS) information to control a beamforming antenna subsystem which provides for spatial reuse. This paper also proposes a novel Virtual (...) Network Configuration (VNC) algorithm for predictive network configuration. A mobile ATM Private Network-Network Interface (PNNI) based on VNC is also discussed. Finally, as a prelude to the system implementation, results of a Maisie simulation of the orderwire system are discussed. (shrink)

This paper extends a stochastic theory for buffer fill distribution for multiple “on‘ and “off‘ sources to a mobile environment. Queue fill distribution is described by a set of differential equations assuming sources alternate asynchronously between exponentially distributed periods in “on‘ and “off‘ states. This paper includes the probabilities that mobile sources have links to a given queue. The sources represent mobile user nodes, and the queue represents the capacity of a switch. This paper presents a method of analysis which (...) uses mobile parameters such as speed, call rates per unit area, cell area, and call duration and determines queue fill distribution at the ATM cell level. The analytic results are compared with simulation results. (shrink)

Part of Frost's continuing appeal to the "popular imagination" stems from his pronunciamentos on diverse topics: the metaphoric "pleasure of ulteriority," "the sound of sense," poems beginning in wisdom and ending in delight—"a momentary stay against confusion." These phrases along with favorite one-liners have made their way into our lexicon as memorable formulations both of Frost's ars poetica and of quotidian reality. Even schoolboys allegedly know the poet in these or similar terms. And why not? Yet the supposed (...) "commonness" of Frost is precisely what must be brought under radical scrutiny—including his formulaic statements of intent. Though these statements have been used effectively for critical purposes, the fact remains that they themselves are often problematic and tend toward the disconcertingly devious.1 That Frost's recourse to the rhetoric of irony and indirection is by no means confined to his poetry should not deter us from using his statements of intent to understand his poetry more fully. A cautionary "go slow," however, is in order. · 1. This is one reason I have difficulty accepting Elaine Barry's claims for Frost as a theorist. Having distinguished between Frost as "critical theorist" and as "practical critic," Barry concludes: "Robert Frost has left us a body of critical theory that is probably larger than that of any American poet. It has scope and depth, wit and subtlety—and a great sanity. In its significance, it bears favorable comparison with the formalized criticism of Eliot or Pound . . ." . Frost makes some most suggestive statements—often requiring de-metaphorization—about poetry, especially his own. But taken as a whole, those statements constitute, at best, only an approximation of "theory." That this is not merely semantic haggling over the definition of theory should be evident from Barry's favorable comparison of Frost to Pound and especially Eliot. Victor E. Vogt has recently completed a study on love, death, and the quotidian in modern American drama and is currently working on the moral and sociological aspects of dramatism. (shrink)

From social media to search engines to Wikipedia, the internet is thoroughly embedded in how we produce, locate, and share knowledge around the world. Who Should We Be Online? provides an account of online knowledge that takes seriously the role of sexist, racist, transphobic, colonial, and capitalist forms of oppression. Frost-Arnold argues against analyzing internet users as a collection of identical generic people with smartphones. The novel epistemology developed in this book recognizes that we are differently embodied beings interacting (...) within systems of dominance. Our social identities and global inequalities shape who we are, who we can be online, and what we know. Tackling problems of online content moderation, fake news, and hoaxes, Frost-Arnold shows that oppressive online structures and practices help fuel ignorance. But she also reveals how the internet provides opportunities for marginalized people and activists to share knowledge online. Drawing on feminist accounts of objectivity, veritistic social epistemology, epistemologies of ignorance, virtue epistemology, and the epistemic injustice literature, this book argues for a social epistemology that values truth and objectivity, while recognizing that inequalities shape our collective ability to attain these goals. Timely and interdisciplinary, Who Should We Be Online? weaves together internet studies scholarship from across the humanities, social sciences, and computer science. Presenting case studies of moderators, imposters, tricksters, fakers, and lurkers, this book both explains the problems with our current internet ecosystem and imagines liberatory online futures. (shrink)

In _Biocultural Creatures_, Samantha Frost brings feminist and political theory together with findings in the life sciences to recuperate the category of the human for politics. Challenging the idea of human exceptionalism as well as other theories of subjectivity that rest on a distinction between biology and culture, Frost proposes that humans are biocultural creatures who quite literally are cultured within the material, social, and symbolic worlds they inhabit. Through discussions about carbon, the functions of cell membranes, the (...) activity of genes and proteins, the work of oxygen, and the passage of time, Frost recasts questions about the nature of matter, identity, and embodiment. In doing so, she elucidates the imbrication of the biological and cultural within the corporeal self. In remapping the relation of humans to their habitats and arriving at the idea that humans are biocultural creatures, Frost provides new theoretical resources for responding to political and environmental crises and for thinking about how to transform the ways we live. (shrink)

In this article I argue that there are two different types of understanding: the understanding we get from explanations, and the understanding we get from unification. This claim is defended by first showing that explanation and unification are not as closely related as has sometimes been thought. A critical appraisal of recent proposals for understanding without explanation leads us to discuss the example of a purely classificatory biology: it turns out that such a science can give us understanding of the (...) world through unification of the phenomena, even though it does not give us any explanations. The two types of understanding identified in this paper, while strictly separate, do have in common that both consist in seeing how the individual phenomena of the universe hang together. Explanations give us connections between the phenomena through the asymmetric, ‘vertical’ relation of determination; unifications give us connections through the symmetric, ‘horizontal’ relation of kinship. We then arrive at a general definition of understanding as knowledge of connections between the phenomena, and indicate that there might be more than two types of understanding. (shrink)

In this innovative book, Gloria Frost reconstructs and analyses Aquinas's theories on efficient causation and causal powers, focusing specifically on natural causal powers and efficient causation in nature. Frost presents each element of Aquinas's theories one by one, comparing them with other theories, as well as examining the philosophical and interpretive ambiguities in Aquinas's thought and proposing fresh solutions to conceptual difficulties. Her discussion includes explanations of Aquinas's technical scholastic terminology in jargon-free prose, as well as background on (...) medieval scientific views - including ordinary language explanations of the medieval physical theories which Aquinas assumed in formulating his views on causation and causal powers. The resulting volume is a rich exploration of a central philosophical topic in medieval philosophy and beyond, and will be valuable especially for scholars and advanced students working on Aquinas and on medieval natural philosophy. (shrink)

Thomas Hobbes is an iconic figure who serves as an easy reference for pundits commenting on the brutality of war as well as for critics of a distinctly modern individualism in which calculating and rapacious self-interest is the cause of the violence, destruction, and exploitation endemic to the contemporary world. Frost's reading of Hobbes's philosophy shows us that underlying such visions of self and politics is another iconic figure: that of the Cartesian subject. What gives the iconic Hobbes his (...) hardcore individualism and its corollary accounts of instrumentalism, conflict, and absolutism is a Cartesian rendering of the self as split into mind and body. Carefully elaborating Hobbes's materialist ontology, _Lessons from a Materialist Thinker_ challenges both our implicit Cartesian assumptions about the self and the commonplace Hobbes that so readily figures violence in our political imagination. Through his materialism, Hobbes presents an alternative modern account of self-consciousness, reason, agency, power, freedom, and responsibility. In doing so, he shows that our fundamental intersubjectivity and interdependence require that we pursue peace above all else. (shrink)

Most questions commonly asked about international politics are ethical ones. Should the international community intervene in Bosnia? What do we owe the starving in Somalia? What should be done about the genocide in Rwanda? Yet, Mervyn Frost argues, ethics is accorded a marginal position within the academic study of international relations. In this book he examines the reasons given for this, and finds that they do not stand up to scrutiny. He goes on to evaluate those ethical theories which (...) do exist within the discipline - order based theories, utilitarian theories, and rights based theories - and finds them unconvincing. He elaborates his own ethical theory, constitutive theory, which is derived from Hegel, and highlights the way in which we constitute one another as moral beings through a process of reciprocal recognition within a hierarchy of institutions which include the family, civil society, the state, and the society of states. (shrink)

From social media to search engines to Wikipedia, the internet is thoroughly embedded in how we produce, locate, and share knowledge around the world. Who Should We Be Online? provides an account of online knowledge that takes seriously the role of sexist, racist, transphobic, colonial, and capitalist forms of oppression. Frost-Arnold argues against analyzing internet users as a collection of identical generic people with smartphones. The novel epistemology developed in this book recognizes that we are differently embodied beings interacting (...) within systems of dominance. Our social identities and global inequalities shape who we are, who we can be online, and what we know. -/- Tackling problems of online content moderation, fake news, and hoaxes, Frost-Arnold shows that oppressive online structures and practices help fuel ignorance. But she also reveals how the internet provides opportunities for marginalized people and activists to share knowledge online. Drawing on feminist accounts of objectivity, veritistic social epistemology, epistemologies of ignorance, virtue epistemology, and the epistemic injustice literature, this book argues for a social epistemology that values truth and objectivity, while recognizing that inequalities shape our collective ability to attain these goals. Timely and interdisciplinary, Who Should We Be Online? weaves together internet studies scholarship from across the humanities, social sciences, and computer science. Presenting case studies of moderators, imposters, tricksters, fakers, and lurkers, this book both explains the problems with our current internet ecosystem and imagines liberatory online futures. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that unification is neither necessary nor sufficient for explanation. Focusing on the versions of the unificationist theory of explanation of Kitcher and of Schurz and Lambert, I establish three theses. First, Kitcher’s criterion of unification is vitiated by the fact that it entails that every proposition can be explained by itself, a flaw that it is unable to overcome. Second, because neither Kitcher’s theory nor that of Schurz and Lambert can solve the problems of asymmetry (...) and accidental generalizations, it follows that unification is not sufficient to ground explanation. Third, some good explanations are disunifying, which entails that unification is not necessary for explanation either. (shrink)

Argues that many claims by theists are based on their misunderstanding of science. He looks at the specific parameters and shows that plausible reasons can be found for the values they have within the existing standard models of physics and cosmology.

Scriven’s paradox of predictability arises from the combination of two ideas: first, that everything in a deterministic universe is, in principle, predictable; second, that it is possible to create a system that falsifies any prediction that is made of it. Recently, the paradox has been used by Rummens and Cuypers to argue that there is a fundamental difference between embedded and external predictors; and by Ismael to argue against a governing conception of laws. The present paper defends a new diagnosis (...) of the roots of the paradox. First, it is argued that the unpredictability has to be understood in the light of Turing’s famous results about computability, in particular his proof that there is no solution to the ‘halting problem.’ This allows us to see that previous analyses of the paradox were either mistaken or not fully adequate. Second, the sense of paradox that nevertheless remains is traced to the idea that rational behaviour is not dependent on contingent environmental circumstances: that it is always up to us to engage in activities such as rational prediction or rational belief. The paradox of predictability teaches us that this idea, natural though it may be, is mistaken. (shrink)

In the paper below the authors describe three super-tasks. They show that although the abstract notion of a super-task may be, as Benacerraf suggested, a conceptual mismatch, the completion of the three super-tasks involved can be defined rather naturally, without leading to inconsistency, by means of a particular kinematical interpretation combined with a principle of continuity.

Two apparently mutually exclusive ideas about the relation between contrastive and non-contrastive explanations can be found in the literature. According to contrastivists, all explanation is contrastive explanation and the supposed existence of non-contrastive explanations can be revealed to be an illusion. According to non-contrastivists, on the other hand, contrastive explanation can be fully analysed in terms of non-contrastive explanation, and is thus not of fundamental importance. In the current article, I discuss the main arguments in favour of and against each (...) of the two positions. This discussion leads to the idea that contrastive explanations are to be understood as parts of a bigger, more complete non-contrastive explanation; but that all actual explanations explain only a limited set of contrasts. I conclude that, once the relation between contrastive and non-contrastive explanations is understood correctly, there remains no substantial issue to divide contrastivism and non-contrastivism. (shrink)

This provocative and original book challenges the commonplace that contemporary international interactions are best understood as struggles for power. Eschewing jargon and theoretical abstraction, Mervyn Frost argues that global politics and global civil society must be understood in ethical terms. International actors are always faced with the ethical question: So, what ought we to do in circumstances like these? Illustrating the centrality of ethics to our understanding of global politics and global civil society with detailed case studies, Frost (...) shows how international actors constitute one another in global social practices that are underpinned by specific ethical commitments. Case Studies examined include: The War on Iraq The 'Global War on Terror' Iran Human Rights Globalization and Migration The use of Private Military Companies. Global Ethics forces readers to confront their own necessary ethical engagement as citizens and rights holders in global society. Failure to understand international relations in ethical terms will lead to misguided action. This book should be read by all scholars and students of international relations as well as the general reader seeking an accessible account of the importance of ethical decisions in world affairs. (shrink)

Husserl's two notions of "definiteness" enabled him to clarify the problem of imaginary numbers. The exact meaning of these notions is a topic of much controversy. A "definite" axiom system has been interpreted as a syntactically complete theory, and also as a categorical one. I discuss whether and how far these readings manage to capture Husserl's goal of elucidating the problem of imaginary numbers, raising objections to both positions. Then, I suggest an interpretation of "absolute definiteness" as semantic completeness and (...) argue that this notion does not suffice to explain Husserl's solution to the problem of imaginary numbers. (shrink)

Many theists regard the claim that certain fundamental constants of nature are fine-tuned for life as the best scientific argument for the existence of God since Paley’s watch. Even atheist physicists find these so-called “anthropic coincidences” difficult to explain naturally and many think they need to invoke multiple universes and the so-called “anthropic principle” to do so. Certainly if there are many universes, fine-tuning is simple. Our universe is not fine-tuned for life. Life is fine-tuned to our universe. While multiple (...) universes are expected from modern cosmological theories, theists and some scientists object that invoking the unobservable is not science. Of course, God is unobservable too, so the best theists can claim is a standoff. (shrink)

Woodward’s interventionist theory of causation is beset by a problem of circularity: the analysis of causes is in terms of interventions, and the analysis of interventions is in terms of causes. This is not in itself an argument against the correctness of the analysis. But by requiring us to have causal knowledge prior to making any judgements about causation, Woodward’s theory does make it mysterious how we can ever start acquiring causal knowledge. We present a solution to this problem by (...) showing how the interventionist notion of causation can be rationally generated from a more primitive agency notion of causation. The agency notion is easily and non-circularly applicable, but fails when we attempt to capture causal relations between non-actions. We show that the interventionist notion of causation serves as an appropriate generalisation of the agency notion. Furthermore, the causal judgements based on the latter generally remain true when rephrased in terms of the former, which allows one to use the causal knowledge gained by applying the agency notion as a basis for applying Woodward’s interventionist theory. We then present an overview of relevant empirical evidence from developmental psychology which shows that our proposed rational reconstruction lines up neatly with the actual development of causal reasoning in children. This gives additional plausibility to our proposal. The article thus provides a solution to one of the main problems of interventionism while keeping Woodward’s analysis intact. (shrink)

In an earlier paper the authors discussed some super-tasks by means of a kinematical interpretation. In the present paper we show a semi-formal way that a more abstract treatment is possible. The core idea of our approach is simple: if a super-task can be considered as a union of (finite) tasks, it is natural to define the effect of the super-task as the union of the effects of the finite tasks it consists of. We show that this approach enables us (...) to handle two of the three super-tasks that we discussed earlier. We also argue that recent objections against our original kinematical interpretation do not hold water. One of our arguments is based on the construction of an elegant correspondence between the first of those three super-tasks and Zeno's Achilles and the Tortois. (shrink)

Elizabeth Anscombe’s classic paper Causality and Determination claims that causation can be perceived. It also defends causal singularism, the idea that the causal relation is fundamentally between the particular cause and effect, and does not depend on regularities holding elsewhere in the universe. But does the former furnish an argument for the latter? The present paper analyses a special type of causal experience involving emotional reactions to present stimuli; for instance, being frightened by a spider. It argues that such experiences (...) are strongly local, in the sense that they justify belief in a local causal relation independently of our knowledge about events elsewhere in the universe. If this analysis is correct, Humean regularity theories of causation are false; and all other non-singularist theories of causation face a difficult explanatory challenge. This means that the case for causal singularism comes out considerably strengthened. (shrink)

Sometimes Strauss argues as if he thought it possible to understand man without raising questions about his relations to other things, and hence about his place in the whole. But when they are viewed in their broader context, such arguments are seen not to be his final word. Man's humanity cannot be understood in its own terms alone. The human soul differs from everything else in that it is "... open to the whole and therefore more akin to the whole (...) than anything else is." In ordinary usage, "whole" implies completeness and autonomy. But the openness of the soul--i.e., of a part--to the whole can only mean that the whole is open to itself. The whole is, then, not, in the ordinary sense of the term, whole. Nor is the soul which is "open" to it. Stripped of myths, "... the human soul is... more akin to the whole than anything else is" because neither of them is whole. The same conclusion follows when one tries to understand the definition of the philosopher as the man animated by quest for knowledge of the whole. Qua philosopher he knows neither that there is a whole, nor what it might be if there were one. To define the philosopher as the man who knows that he does not know only paraphrases the difficulty. It does not solve it. For "know" is here used equivocally. The same equivocation is at play in the comment "... one cannot know that one does not know without knowing what one does not know". Admittedly "knowledge of ignorance is not ignorance." The philosopher believes and perhaps divines more than he actually knows. All men do. The essential difference between the philosopher and other men may well consist in the fact that the philosopher distinguishes more conscientiously than do others between what he knows and what he believes, and that he strives more single-mindedly than do they to transform as large a share of his beliefs as possible into knowledge. He may conceivably at some point be said to have reached the stage where his aspirations have become reasoned expectations. But that is as far as he can possibly go as long as he remains a philosopher and has not become a wise man or a god. Until and unless the philosopher knows, in the strong sense of the term, he can no more decide whether his aspirations could be fulfilled than he can swim before getting wet. (shrink)

Recent interest in the idea that there can be scientific understanding without explanation lends new relevance to Duhem's notion of natural classification. According to Duhem, a classification that is natural teaches us something about nature without being explanatory. However, Duhem's conception of naturalness leaves much to be desired. In this paper, I argue that we can measure the naturalness of classification by using an amended version of the notion of unification as defined by Schurz and Lambert. If this thesis is (...) correct, it both leads to a better conceptual understanding of scientific understanding, and also gives the nascent literature on this topic some much-needed precision. (shrink)

On the face of it, On Tyranny is a straightforward commentary on Xenophon's dialogue Hiero or Tyrannicus. As such it is a very model of thoroughness and learning. It amply repays careful study, and it goes a long way toward explaining Strauss's influence in training a generation of scholars. The dialogue proper takes up just under 20 pages. Its analysis runs to 90-odd pages, followed by another 30 pages of tightly packed notes that are largely devoted to parallels between the (...) Hiero, Xenophon's teaching as a whole, and the teachings of Plato, of Aristotle and, to a lesser extent, of Cicero. What at first appears as an exercise in textual analysis soon reveals itself as a much broader undertaking: the delineation of the main features of classical political philosophy. Strauss does not mean to deny that differences in perspective, procedure, and even conclusions separate the major representatives of classical political philosophy. He does want to maintain, however, that their agreements are more fundamental than are their differences. But even this is incidental to his main purpose: to understand classical political philosophy for the guidance it might provide in understanding the great moral and political problems that confront us here and now. He conceives of these problems in large measure as the consequence of modern philosophy, of what he calls "the modern project." But modern philosophy cannot be understood on its own terms alone any more than it can be understood by directly confronting it with the phenomena. For it does not owe its most characteristic features to such a confrontation. It owes them, rather, to the fact that, from its very outset, it defined itself in explicit contrast to classical philosophy. Modern philosophy is essentially derivative. It presupposes the tradition it opposes. Classical philosophy, and in particular classical political philosophy, on the other hand "... belongs to the fertile moment when all political traditions were shaken, and there was not yet in existence a tradition of political philosophy." Hence "only in the light of the quarrel between the ancients and the moderns can modernity be understood. By rediscovering the urgency of this quarrel we return to the origins of modernity." It further follows from this line of reasoning that the quarrel must be re-kindled if we are once again to gain access to the phenomena themselves. To this end historical studies become necessary which do not presuppose that the whole issue has, for all intents and purposes, been settled in favor of the moderns. The most basic and most constant assumption of Strauss's historical studies is, therefore, the assumption that classical philosophy is truer than are any of the teachings that criticize or reject it. The passion and the inventiveness with which he defends this assumption sufficiently prove that he does not put it forward merely for reasons of method or of rhetoric. Yet it seems to fall short of being his settled belief. By stressing his agreements with the ancients and his disagreements with the moderns, by holding the moderns responsible for the great problems that face us while calling for a restoration of classical political philosophy, he fosters the impression that his own views coincide fully with those of classical political philosophy. But even if classical political philosophy spoke with a single clear voice, the fact remains that "no competent man of our age would regard as simply true the complete teaching of any thinker of the past." Presumably only someone who thinks himself competent would issue such a warning. (shrink)

KANT HELD THAT NEWTON AND ROUSSEAU HAD REVEALED the ways of Providence: “After Newton and Rousseau, God is justified, and Pope’s thesis is henceforth true.”.

Coherence is a measure of how much our beliefs hang together. Understanding is achieved when we see that something is not just a brute, isolated fact. This suggests that it might be possible to use the extant probabilistic measures of coherence to formulate a measure of understanding. We attempt to do so, but it turns out that a coherence theory runs into trouble with the asymmetry of understanding. We identify four difficulties and show how they have been solved by a (...) unification approach to explanation. We also identify four advantages of the coherence approach, and assess the possibilities of reconciling the strengths of the two approaches.La coherencia es una medida sobre cuanta interdependencia hay entre nuestras creencias. La comprension se obtiene cuando vemos que algo no es un hecho bruto, aislado. Esto sugiere la posibilidad de usar las medidas probabilisticas de coherencia al uso para elaborar una medida de la comprension. Explorare esta posibilidad, a pesar de que una teoria de la coherencia tropieza con problemas aqui dado el caracter asimetrico de la comprension. Identifico cuatro dificultades al respecto y muestro como han sido resueltas mediante un enfoque de la explicacion basado en la nocion de unificacion. Tambien identifico cuatro ventajas en la aproximacion desde la coherencia y examino que perspectivas hay de reconciliar los puntos fuertes de ambos planteamientos. (shrink)

What are the laws of physics? -- The stuff that kicks back -- Point-of-view invariance -- Gauging the laws of physics -- Forces and broken symmetries -- Playing dice -- After the bang -- Out of the void -- The comprehensible cosmos -- Models of reality.

This article discusses Husserl’s “epoche” and “phenomenological reduction” and early Heidegger’s “fear” and “anxiety” from a conceptual and terminological point of view. The basis for comparing “epoche” and “fear” is their main function of neutralizing the world. The author also considers the way of correlating the epoche and anxiety as philosophical concepts with three types of realizable experience that served as their source. The main points and stages of the introduction of the term “epoche” are highlighted; the main functional differences (...) between the terms “epoche” and “phenomenological reduction” in various works of Husserl are indicated. A number of Husserl’s attempts to transform the methodological principles put forward by him into a description of a special experience of detachment, accessible through moral efforts, courage and honesty, are considered. In this regard, the transformation of Cartesian doubt into the procedure of “epoche” through the artificial procedure of “attempt at doubt” is analyzed. Three types of restrictions on the universality of the epoche are distinguished. Terminological and meaningful relationships between neutralization as a mode of consciousness and the epoche are considered. Two main differences are revealed, with the help of which Husserl tries to transform principles into experience: the difference between positional and neutral consciousness and the difference between an epoche and a quasi-epoche. Husserl’s interpretation of the epoche and reduction as a special experience has two main sources: first, the experience of the imagination, or fantasy, and in this sense the source of the epoche is the quasi-epoche, and not vice versa. Secondly, the postulate of the identity of sensation from the real and illusory object. Heidegger’s distinction between fear and anxiety is critically analyzed. The author comes to the conclusion that a common source of the phenomena of anxiety, fear, horror, fright, and so on consists in the collision and mutual penetration of various human worlds. It is impossible to distance oneself from this diversity; further, it is the true source of philosophical reflection. (shrink)

This article offers an appraisal of the social ministry of Pentecostal churches through fellowship, healing and livelihood creation in the township communities of the city of Tshwane. In meeting this aim the discussion advances a thesis of these churches as agents of social support and survival of the downcast. In particular, the article attempts to show how these churches exert themselves towards establishing not only moral responsibility, but also a context where the weakest and the least privileged can learn how (...) to survive. The squatter camp people are unique with the special challenges requiring distinctive consideration. Pentecostal churches believe that the lost people matter to God and are of importance to their congregations as well. The backyard Bible study ministries and mutual cooperation strategies are employed for mutual support. Making use of the existing empirical research data and available literature will show how Pentecostal churches in the townships support the laity and community in times of need. (shrink)

The essay is devoted to the reconstruction of the philosophy of art of Novalis, one of the prominent German Romantics, who presents it in his writings in a fragmentary way. Research of this type appears in scholarly literature for the first time; it utilizes a complex philosophical-aesthetic method of analysis of texts of the German thinker. Novalis appreciates art as one of the highest achievements of humanity, which elevates the human being from ordinary life to spiritual heights. Art is a (...) free expression of the artists' Ego. Art is simultaneously a “self-contemplating and a self-creating nature.” The creative principles of nature are transformed within the spiritual world of the artist and express themselves in art. The secrets of nature are revealed to the artist. The artists sees something great in the least significant things. The beautiful is the object of art and this creates kinship between all types of art. Artists (including painters) do not imitate the external world but they create by means of their internal world. All types of art gravitate towards mutual harmony and foreshadow a synthesis of the arts of sorts. Novalis positions poetry above all other arts. This is because according to him poetry establishes heavenly wisdom on earth, elevates the human being over everyday life, and serves as the foundation for all other arts. Philosophy is internally linked to poetry and serves as its theory. The philosopher must be a poet. The poet lives a special, contemplative life and is a wise and prophetic person. Novalis imagines the future Romantic age as fabulous, magical, poetic, ironic, alogical. “Intelligent chaos” will play a specific role in it. All earthly will be elevated to the heavenly. Novalis considers the novel as one of the principal forms of Romatic poetry and presents its chief characteristics. (shrink)