Character-Principlism and the Particularity Objection

This paper is a response to particularist critics of the normative force of moral principles. The particularist critique, as I understand it, is a rejection not only of principle-based accounts of moral deliberation and justification, but also of accounts of character in which principles play a central role. I focus on the latter challenge and counter it with a view I call character-principlism .
I begin by discussing in a general way what motivates the particularity objection to principles and then contrast two views – both of which insist on the importance of attentiveness to particularity – about the relative normative status of principles and particular cases. I present some reasons for believing that we need a more normatively robust conception of the role of moral principles than the particularists provide. In the main portion of the paper, I discuss how character-principlism sees principles functioning in our lives and the lives we lead with others. I contrast this with some other accounts of desirable character that particularists can embrace, and argue that these are seriously flawed because, unlike character-principlism, they cannot satisfactorily explain how a person could possess the constancy of character that moral integrity requires.     

Superintuitionistic Companions of Classical Modal Logics

This paper investigates partitions of lattices of modal logics based on superintuitionistic logics which are defined by forming, for each superintuitionistic logic L and classical modal logic , the set L[] of L-companions of . Here L[] consists of those modal logics whose non-modal fragments coincide with L and which axiomatize if the law of excluded middle p V p is added. Questions addressed are, for instance, whether there exist logics with the disjunction property in L[], whether L[] contains a smallest element, and whether L[] contains lower covers of . Positive solutions as concerns the last question show that there are (uncountably many) superclean modal logics based on intuitionistic logic in the sense of Vakarelov [28]. Thus a number of problems stated in [28] are solved. As a technical tool the paper develops the splitting technique for lattices of modal logics based on superintuitionistic logics and ap plies duality theory from [34].     

Rules of Existential Quantification into "Intensional Contexts"

Propositional and notional attitudes are construed as relations (-in-intension) between individuals and constructions (rather than propositrions etc,). The apparatus of transparent intensional logic (Tichy) is applied to derive two rules that make it possible to export existential quantifiers without conceiving attitudes as relations to expressions (sententialism).     

6 15岁儿童对友谊特性的认知发展

研究目的：（１）考察我国儿童、青少年的友谊特性的认知发展规律和特点;（２）探讨儿童友谊特性的认知结构。研究采用结构访谈法,被试为来自北京市普通幼儿园、小学和中学的６岁、８岁、１０岁、１２岁和１５岁儿童共１００名（每个年龄组２０名,男女各半）。结果发现：（１）６—１５岁儿童对友谊特性的认知结构由５个维度组成,即：个人交流和冲突解决,榜样和竞争,互相欣赏,共同活动和互相帮助,亲密交往。（２）对６—１５岁儿童,友谊特性中的５个维度的重要性次序为：共同活动和互相帮助,个人交流和冲突解决,榜样和竞争,互相欣赏,亲密交往。（３）从发展上来看,对友谊特性不同维度的认知发展趋势有很大年龄差异。６—８岁儿童只能认识到友谊特性中一些外在的、行为的特征;以后才能逐渐认识到那些内在的、情感性的特征。但是,原来那些外在的特征并没有随着儿童年龄的增长而被取代,而是与内在的、情感性的特性结合在一起,在认识中逐渐深化。（４）小学六年级儿童在共同活动和游戏上表现出性别差异（男生高于女生）;而在冲突解决上,女生的认知水平高于男生。此外,初中三年级学生在互相欣赏方面,男生的认识水平高于女生     

Reviews

Russell,Robert John, Murphy, Nancey and Peacocke, Arthur R. (eds) Chaos and Complexity: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action
Tigue, John W. The Transformation of Consciousness in Myth: Integrating the Thought of Jung and Campbell     

The Question of God in an Age of Science: Constructions of Reality and Ultimate Reality in Theology and Science

Both science and theology have lately faced a crisis of authority. Their shared realization of the extent to which knowledge is underdetermined by the data and socially constructed provides a kind of common ground for reconsideration of their respective methods of inquiry as well as of the status of the claims they have warrant to make. Both fields are now consciously and critically employing a models approach. This article proposes criteria for assessing models and applies the criteria to one model from each field. The model of understanding evolution as a struggle for existence is considered from the field of science, and the traditional model for understanding the God-world relation as that of a king's relation to his kingdom is considered from the field of theology. Each of these models is evaluated with respect to its credibility, religious viability, and moral adequacy. In each case an alternative analogy is proposed and argued for.     

A History of the Extraterrestrial Life Debate

From antiquity to the present, humans have debated whether intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe. This presentation will survey this debate, examining the roles played in it by science, religion, philosophy, and other areas of human learning. One thesis that will be developed is that whether or not extraterrestrials exist, ideas about them have strongly influenced Western thought.     

Minds and Bodies: Human and Divine

Does God have a mind? Western theism has traditionally construed God as an intentional agent who acts on creation and in relation to humankind. God loves, punishes, and redeems. God's intentionality has traditionally been construed in analogy to human intentionality, which in turn has often presumed a supernatural dualism. Developments in cognitive science, however, render supernatural dualism suspect for explaining the human mind. How, then, can we speak of the mind of God? Borrowing from Daniel Dennett's intentional stance, I suggest that analogical reasoning regarding the mind of God be abandoned in favor of an ontologically agnostic approach that treats God as an intentional system. In this approach, God's purposive action is an explanatory feature of the believer's universe, a real pattern that informs our values and beliefs about the world and our place in it.     

Two Books for Teachers

Murphy, Nancey and Ellis, George F. R. On the Moral Nature of the Universe: Theology, Cosmology, and Ethics
Haught, John F. Science and Religion: From Conflict to Conversation     

Polanyi's Finalism

Although Michael Polanyi's model of science and his construal of the nature of the real are usually thought to be congenial to religion and although Polanyi himself says that "the stage on which we thus resume our full intellectual powers is borrowed from the Christian scheme of Fall and Redemption" (Polanyi 1958, 324), theologians have given little attention to the model of God he presents. The metaphysical and theological vision unfolded in part 4 of Personal Knowledge is a thoughtful alternative to materialist versions of neo-Darwinism and provides a platform for revisiting four long-standing controversies at the interface of science and religion: whether life and mind can be completely specified in terms of physical analysis, whether nature can be adequately understood without appeal to final causes, whether natural selection adequately explains life's diverse forms, and whether knowledge can be fully objectified. Through an exploration of Polanyi's contribution to these discussions, we undertake to show not only that his treatment of God as a cosmic field is strikingly original but also that in reinstating activity as a metaphysical category, he reconstructs our understanding of our creaturely hope and calling.