bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Mackie's Moral ‘Scepticism’
Authors: Harrison Jonathan 
Published: January 2009

Gallant hero of romantic film, who has just killed his equally gallant antagonist in a duel: ‘Was I wrong, father?’ Father (Yul Brynner): ‘You were both wrong; and you were both right, too.’David Hume, speaking of moral sceptics, once said ‘And as reasoning is not the source, whence either disputant derives his tenets; it is in vain to expect, that any logic, which speaks not to the affections, will ever engage him to embrace sounder opinions‘. I am guilty of an inconsistency of some kind in quoting the above passage from Hume with approval for, though everything Hume wrote ought to be quoted with approval, it is inconsistent to approve of advice, and then immediately to disregard it. I am also guilty of an inconsistency of another kind. Once upon a time I myself defended a version of moral scepticism, but I can say in mitigation of this deplorable act that my tongue was partly in my cheek at the time, which is where one's tongue should be on the occasion of addressing the Joint Session of the Mind Association and the Aristotelian Society.
Causal Dependence and Multiplicity
Authors: Sanford David H. 
Published: January 2009

Ted Honderich's ‘Causes and If p, even if x, still q’ contains many good points I shall not discuss. My discussion is restricted to some of the points Honderich makes about causal priority in the final two sections of his paper. He considers several proposals, new and old, for accounting for causal priority before he presents a tentativeproposal of his own. He thinks that some of these proposals, besides having difficulties peculiar to themselves, share the deficiency of lacking the proper character. When we look for the difference between causal circumstances and causes, on the one hand, and their effects, on the other, he says,We are not pursuing any difference between these things. We arepursuing a difference of a certain character. What we are after has to do with what we say: that causes and causal circumstances make their effects happen, and not the other way on, and that causes and causal circumstances explain their effects, and not the other way on.
Moral Answerability
Authors: Cigman Ruth 
Published: January 2009

The Humean legacy in moral philosophy has given rise to the following familiar divergence of views:1. Moral questions are questions of feeling. Rational discussion can occur given the acceptance of unreasoned commitments to values or principles, but it must not be thought that these values or principles can themselves be justified rationally. Moral disagreements may be resolved through persuasion, but it is appropriate for rational persons to be permanently irreconcilable in their moral views.2. Moral questions are questions of fact and/or logic. They are therefore in principle resolvable through rational discussion, like any other questions of fact and/or logic. The idea that rational persons should be permanently unable to agree on moral questions, despite indefinitely lengthy discussion and enquiry, is unintelligible.
Socrates' Critique of Cognitivism
Authors: Matson Wallace I. , Leite Adam 
Published: January 2009

Ethics and lexicography would seem, prima facie, to have little to do with each other. Yet Aristotle testifies that Socrates pursued both:Socrates was busying himself about ethical matters and neglecting the world of nature as a whole but seeking the universal in these ethical matters, and fixed thought for the first time on definitions. Socrates occupied himself with the excellences of character, and in connection with them became the first to raise the problem of universal definitions.
The Aesthetics of Imperfection
Authors: Hamilton Andy 
Published: January 2009

Ferruccio Busoni'sSketch of a New Aesthetic of Musicappeared in 1910. Schoenberg, in his copy of the little book, wrote critical marginal comments which crystallize two opposed outlooks in musical aesthetics. Busoni writes:Notation, the writing out of compositions, is primarily an ingenious expedient for catching an inspiration, with the purpose of exploiting it later. But notation is to improvisation as the portrait is to the living model……What the composer's inspirationnecessarilyloses through notation, his interpreter should restore by his own…
Two Theories of Civilization
Authors: Newman Jay 
Published: January 2009

Once upon a time, when there was no psychoanalysis or cultural anthro-pology or meta-ethics, most philosophers believed that there was objective truth in such statements as, ‘Murder is wrong’, ‘One should not steal’, and ‘Heliogabalus was an evil man’. Many philosophers still believe that there is, and though their view is not wholly respectable in most English-speaking philosophical circles, it probably has the important merit of being true. There are serious reasons for worrying about the traditional view: it is not clear how an ‘ought’ can be derived from an ‘is’; there are problems s e in trying to translate evaluative terms into descriptive ones; reflective men disagree profoundly on ethical issues; ethical judgments appear to have an emotive component; etc. Still, there are also very good reasons for believing that murder is wrong and that Heliogabalus was an evil man. I shall not defend the objectivity of statements of the form, ‘X is good (bad, evil, right, wrong)’, for I am not at all worried about such statements passing out of the language of rational men. Even behaviourists and relativists and emotivists still make reasonably intelligent statements of this form. But I am worried about the future of a related class of statements, those of the form, ‘X is civilized (barbarous)’. These statements have been gradually disappearing from our discourse; perhaps they have been casualties of recent revolutions in social science and philosophy. And this state of affairs is a tragic one indeed, for not only is there a need for statements of this form, but of all ethical statements, these are the ones whose descriptive content is most incontrovertible. Non-cognitivistic moral philosophers generally dismiss statements about the ‘civilized’ and ‘barbarous’ along with statements about the ‘good’, ‘evil’, ‘right’, and ‘wrong’. But social scientists have made statements about the ‘civilized’ and ‘barbarous’ special objects of attack. They have even suggested that people who make such statements are narrow-minded, naive, and ‘ethnocentric’. ‘Ethnocentrism’, an eminent social scientist tells us, ‘is the technical name for this view of things in which one's own group is the center of everything, and all others are scaled and rated with reference to it.’ Ethnocentrism is innocent enough up to a point, but reflective men should be careful not to allow it to blind their moral sense. The noted anthropologist, Herskovits, has given us the following warning:Cultures are sometimes evaluated by the use of the designations ‘civilized’ and ‘primitive’. These terms have a deceptive simplicity, and attempts to document the differences implied in them have proved to be of unexpected difficulty.
Mental Conflict: Descartes
Authors: Gombay André 
Published: January 2009

In a famous text Descartes has written this:Whenever the thought of God's supreme power occurs to me, I cannot help feeling that he might easily, if he so wished, make me go wrong even in what I think I see most clearly with my mind's eye. On the other hand, whenever I turn to the matters themselves which I think I perceive very clearly, I am so convinced by them that I burst out: ‘let who will deceive me, he can never bring it about that I should be nothing at the time of thinking that I am something, nor that it be true that I never existed if it is true that I exist now; nor even that two and three together make more or less than five, or any such thing in which I see manifest contradiction’ (AT VII, 36; HR I, 158–159).
Hume's Idea of Necessary Connexion
Authors: Hanfling Oswald 
Published: January 2009

The following beliefs can be ascribed to Hume on the basis of his writings:(1) There is no more to our idea of cause and effect than constant conjunction and a resulting habit of mind.(2) There is more to it than that, namely the interaction of bodies.(3) Behind the constant conjunctions, including the interactions of bodies, there are ‘secret’ causes, not knowable by man.(4) The principle of causality (nothing happens without a cause) is true.(5) Our belief in the principle arises from experience.(6) There is no justification for believing in the principle.It is obvious that there are inconsistencies between these beliefs. (1) is contradicted by (2) and (3), and (3) appears to contradict (2). (4) and (5) are consistent, but (4) cannot be asserted consistently together with (6). There is apparently a contradiction between (5) and (6), although (as often happens when discussing Hume) the question arises whether ‘arising from experience’ is to be regarded as a justification. In the next section I shall offer support for ascribing these beliefs to Hume and in sections III-V I shall try to say why Hume wanted to hold all of them in one way or another and how they fit together in the context of his philosophy. What I shall say will I be broadly in line with Passmore's views about the diversity of Hume's intentions and Kemp Smith's thesis about Hume's primary interest in ethics.
Is it True What Haack Says About Tarski?
Authors: Jennings Richard C. 
Published: January 2009

In her paper ‘Is it True What They Say About Tarski?’, Susan Haack argues that Popper is wrong to regard Tarski's theory of truth as a correspondence theory of truth. For, she says:… Tarksi does not present his theory as a correspondence theory. In fact Tarski explicitly comments that the correspondence theory cannot be considered a satisfactory definition of truth. And later he observes that he was ‘by no means surprised’ to learn that, in a survey carried out by Naess, only 15 per cent agreed that truth is correspondence with reality, while 90 per cent agreed that ‘It is snowing’ is true if and only if it is snowing (p. 324).
Pride, Prejudice and Shyness
Authors: Ewin R. E. 
Published: January 2009

Those of us who were made to study Pride and Prejudice at school know that Darcy represents pride and Elizabeth represents prejudice. Those of us who have actually read the book know that the situation is a good deal more complicated than that. The motivation for a significant part of the action is Elizabeth's pride, a point that is made quite clearly and is recognized by Elizabeth herself in what sounds like a thoroughly rehearsed speech:‘How despicably have I acted!’ she cried.—‘I, who have prided myself on my discernment!—I, who have valued myself on my abilities! who have disdained the generous candour of my sister, and gratified my vanity, in useless or blameable distrust.—How humiliating is this discovery!—Yet, how just a humiliation!—Had I been in love, I could not have been more wretchedly blind. But vanity, not love, has been my folly.—Pleased with the preference of one, and offended by the neglect of the other, on the very beginning of our acquaintance, I have courted prepossession and ignorance, and driven reason away, where either were concerned. Till this moment, I never knew myself’ (pp. 236–7) (All page references are to the Penguin edition of the novel.)
Philosophy and Literature
Authors: Palmer Anthony 
Published: January 2009

My writing is simply a set of experiments in life—an endeavour to see what our thought and emotion may be capable of—what stores of motive, actual or hinted as possible, give promise of a better after which we may strive—what gains from past revelations and discipline we must strive to keep hold of as something more than shifting theory. I became more and more timid—with less daring to adopt any formula which does not get itself clothed for me in some human figure and individual experience, and perhaps that is a sign that if I help others to see at all it must be through the medium of art.George Eliot.In his inaugural lecture, given in Birkbeck College in 1987, Roger Scruton, who has done as much as anyone else in recent years to bring the importance of art in general and literature in particular to the attention of philosophers, contends that ‘philosophy severed from literary criticism is as monstrous a thing as literary criticism severed from philosophy’. The first, he argues, aims to be science: strives after theoretical truth which it can never attain; and results in banality clothed in pseudo-scientific technicalities: while the second is liable to find consolation in the kind of nonsense which pretends that in the study of literature we are confronted with nothing other than an author-less, unreadable, ‘text’. Philosophy, he maintains, ‘must return aesthetics to the place that Kant and Hegel made for it: a place at the centre of the subject, the paradigm of philosophy and the true test of all its claims’.
Reason, Passion, and Action: the Third Condition of the Voluntary
Authors: Chappell T. D. J. 
Published: January 2009

1. ‘Reason is and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can pretend to no other office, but to serve and obey them.’ (Hume, Treatise of Human Nature (THN) 2.3.3) Unfortunately, Hume uses ‘reason’ to mean ‘discovery of truth or falsehood‘ (THN 3.1.1) as well as discovery of logical relations. So suppose we avoid, as Hume I think does not, prejudging the question of how many ingredients are requisite for action, by separating these two claims out:A. Reason (= logical powers) is and ought only to be the slave of the passions.B. Reason (= belief(s)) is and ought only to be the slave of the passions.
Parables, Secrecy and Eschatology in Mark' Gospel
Authors: Mearns C. L. 
Published: January 2009

The hypothesis advanced in this paper is that Mark applies the motif of secrecy to the understanding of the parables in order to alter their eschatological reference. When Mark interprets the parables explicitly, he does so in such away as to support the overall imminent apocalyptic stance of his gospel. Our point of departure is Mark 4.10–12, one of the most contentious elements in the New Testament, which remains today a challenging crux for scholars. The text runs (RSV):And when he was alone, those who were about him with the twelve asked him concerning the parables. And he said to them, ‘To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables; so that they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand; lest they should turn again and be forgiven,’
Nec Tamen Consumebatur. Exodus 3 and the Non-Consumable Other in the Philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas.
Authors: Purcell Michael 
Published: January 2009

Brevard Childs, reflecting on the significance of Exodus 3 In the history of theology, comments:In the history of Christian theology most of the major theological problems have entered into the discussion of Exodus 3. In the early and medieval periods the interest focused on the issue of ontology and divine reality; in recent years on revelation as history or history as revelation. The amazing fact is how seminal this one passage continues to be for each new generation.
Focus of Unity: Ultimate and Penultimate Goals of the Christian Movement
Authors: Boyd Robin 
Published: January 2009

Ecumenical myopia?As a participant in the interchurch scene for many years I have become increasingly conscious of a phenomenon which I can best describe as ‘ecumenical myopia’. Myopia means short sightedness, and what I am thinking about is the tendency for ecumenical vision to fall short of its true objective: the lines of sight converge to a focus too soon, and from then on — as my schoolboy physics tells me — they cross each other and diverge in different directions into an obscure and unfocussed blur.
De-Scribing Church: Ecclesiology in Semiotic Dialogue
Authors: Jinkins Michael 
Published: January 2009

Vaclav Havel in a speech in 1989 speaks of the ‘weird fate’ which ‘can befall certain words’.At one moment in history, courageous, liberal-minded people can be thrown into prison because a particular word means something to them, and at another moment, the same kind of people can be thrown into prison because that same word has ceased to mean anything to them, because it has changed from the symbol of a better world into the mumbo jumbo of a doltish dictator.
‘Person’ and ‘Being’ in John Zizioulas' Trinitarian Theology: Conversations with Thomas Torrance and Thomas Aquinas
Authors: Colle Ralph Del 
Published: January 2009

The 318 Fathers at the First Council of Nicaea (325) began their profession of faith in the second article of the creed as follows:Confessing that: We believe in one God … And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father as only begotten, that is, from the essence of the Father, [ek tes ousias tou patros].
Are Aging OECD Welfare States on the Path to Gerontocracy?
Authors: TEPE MARKUS , VANHUYSSE PIETER 
Published: January 2009

ABSTRACTSince 1990 the age of the average OECD median voter has increased three times faster than in the preceding 30 years. We use panel data from 1980–2002 to investigate the effects of population aging on both the program size and the benefit generosity of public pensions in 18 OECD countries. Population aging is accompanied by cutting smaller slices out of larger cakes: it increases aggregate spending on pensions but freezes or decreases the generosity of individual benefits. Controlling for political, institutional and time-period effects, we find that public pension efforts are significantly mediated by welfare regime type. Moreover, since the late 1980s pension effort has more fully adopted a retrenchment logic. It is the politics of fiscal and electoral straitjackets, not gerontocracy, which shape public pension spending today. While population aging is accelerating, contrary to alarmist political economy predictions democracies are not yet dominated by a new distributive politics of elderly power.
Comparing the Dynamics of Change in Food Safety and Pharmaceutical Policy in Spain
Authors: CHAQUÉS LAURA , PALAU ANNA 
Published: January 2009

ABSTRACTComparative analysis shows that while policy windows and policy entrepreneurs are important, they are insufficient to account for policy change. An understanding of the institutional setting is key to explaining the speed and the magnitude of policy dynamics. In both food safety and pharmaceutical policy in Spain, a redefinition of policy image has involved a transformation of the policy subsystem. In the case of food safety such a paradigm shift has represented a dramatic change, in the case of pharmaceuticals it has meant a gradual process that has developed over a decade. Periods of stability in the pharmaceutical sector reflect the ability of a closed policy community to control problem framing. By contrast, rapid changes in food safety policies are the result of crisis situations governed by a relatively loose policy network. The European Union has been a key policy venue that can transform an institutional framework towards one that is more pluralistic and expert oriented.
Did nature also choose arsenic?
Authors: Wolfe-Simon Felisa , Davies Paul C.W. , Anbar Ariel D. 
Published: January 2009

AbstractAll known life requires phosphorus (P) in the form of inorganic phosphate (PO43−or Pi) and phosphate-containing organic molecules. Piserves as the backbone of the nucleic acids that constitute genetic material and as the major repository of chemical energy for metabolism in polyphosphate bonds. Arsenic (As) lies directly below P on the periodic table and so the two elements share many chemical properties, although their chemistries are sufficiently dissimilar that As cannot directly replace P in modern biochemistry. Arsenic is toxic because As and P are similar enough that organisms attempt this substitution. We hypothesize that ancient biochemical systems, analogous to but distinct from those known today, could have utilized arsenate in the equivalent biological role as phosphate. Organisms utilizing such ‘weird life’ biochemical pathways may have supported a ‘shadow biosphere’ at the time of the origin and early evolution of life on Earth or on other planets. Such organisms may even persist on Earth today, undetected, in unusual niches.
Ricci iterations on Kähler classes
Authors: Keller Julien 
Published: January 2009

AbstractIn this paper we consider the dynamical system involved by the Ricci operator on the space of Kähler metrics of a Fano manifold. Nadel has defined an iteration scheme given by the Ricci operator and asked whether it has some non-trivial periodic points. First, we prove that no such periodic points can exist. We define the inverse of the Ricci operator and consider the dynamical behaviour of its iterates for a Fano Kähler–Einstein manifold. Then we define a finite-dimensional procedure to give an approximation of Kähler–Einstein metrics using this iterative procedure and apply it on ℂℙ2 blown up in three points.
Patient‐rated changes in fatigue over a 12‐month period predict poor outcome in chronic heart failure
Authors: Smith Otto R.F. , Denollet Johan , Schiffer Angélique A. , Kupper Nina , Gidron Yori 
Published: January 2009

AimsLittle is known about the factors that are associated with changes in fatigue in chronic heart failure (CHF). Moreover, it is unclear whether these changes have prognostic impact. The aim of this study was to examine these issues.Methods and resultsThree hundred and eighty‐seven CHF patients were assessed twice (at baseline and at 12‐month follow‐up) for exertion and general fatigue. Regression models were developed to assess whether baseline characteristics predicted changes in fatigue and to assess the effect of changes in fatigue on cardiac events occurring beyond 12‐months of follow‐up. An increase in exertion fatigue over a 12‐month period was predicted by higher left ventricular ejection fraction (P = 0.02) and cognitive‐affective depressive symptoms (P = 0.03) at baseline, and not having a biventricular pacemaker shortly after baseline (P = 0.02), whereas an increase in general fatigue was only predicted by cognitive‐affective depressive symptoms (P = 0.002). One hundred and forty‐three patients (37%) experienced an event (readmitted, 117; death, 26). An increase in exertion fatigue was associated with a near two‐fold increased risk of events beyond 12‐months of follow‐up (hazard ratio = 1.78; 95% confidence interval 1.18–2.68, P = 0.006), while controlling for standard cardiac risk factors.ConclusionBaseline clinical and psychosocial factors predicted changes in fatigue. Increased exertion fatigue independently predicted an increased risk of cardiac re‐admission or death.