Fundamental Matters Research Articles

The Political Problem of Religious Pluralism: And Why Philosophers Can’t Solve It by Thaddeus Kozinski

BOOK REVIEWS 501 reasonable hope of fetal survival and the cost of not aborting the fetus is another human life, a more nuanced moral analysis may be called for—albeit one that does not reduce to mere consequentialism and that recognizes that the fetus has a prima facie right to life. The rigor of Kaczor’s metaphysical and ethical arguments concerning when a person begins to exist and the moral rights that pertain to embryos and fetuses should help disarm many alternative views that have been popular in both scholarly and public arenas. Nevertheless, certain difficult questions persist even among those who agree with his overall view. Kaczor’s contribution should definitely move the debate forward in ways that will allow scholars to focus their attention on these and other related questions that have heretofore been relatively neglected in the literature. JASON T. EBERL Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis Indianapolis, Indiana The Political Problem of Religious Pluralism: And Why Philosophers Can't Solve It. By THADDEUS KOZINSKI, Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2010. Pp. 288. $53.00 (cloth). ISBN: 978-0-7391-4168-7. In this work Thaddeus Kozinski tackles the prickly problem of religious pluralism. His main target is liberal political theory, or more specifically the liberal solution to the problem of religious pluralism. We are told by liberal theorists that in order to respect the religious beliefs of others we should not rely on our personal religious beliefs in developing our political positions and advocating them, as to do so would involve imposing our personal beliefs on others who do not share them. Instead, liberal political theorists offer to provide a way of structuring and governing society (including our political debates), which is either compatible with all rival comprehensive doctrines (neutralist liberalism) or at least a wide range of such doctrines (perfectionist liberalism). Kozinski seeks to address this problem through an examination of three different philosophical proposals for how we ought to understand and deal with the problem of religious pluralism: those of John Rawls, Jacques Maritain, and Alasdair MacIntyre. All three take different positions on the liberal solution. Rawls is the liberal theorist par excellence, providing one of the most sophisticated defenses of liberalism. Maritain is a Thomist who attempts a synthesis of the Christian and liberal traditions to address the problem of pluralism. And MacIntyre, also a Thomist, offers perhaps the most unrelenting philosophical critique of modernity and liberal political theory. The work is divided into six chapters with a very clear exposition-critique structure. Each BOOK REVIEWS 502 chapter explaining the political philosophy of one of these three theorists is followed by a chapter of critique. Kozinski begins with Rawls in chapter 1. His focus is Rawls’s revised political theory, “political liberalism,” in which Rawls claims to have developed a "political" as opposed to a comprehensive theory of justice that all “reasonable” citizens will be able to affirm without having to give up or change their commitment to their existing comprehensive beliefs. This political conception is claimed to be “freestanding” (not dependent on any particular comprehensive doctrine) and therefore allows for the possibility of an “overlapping consensus” by those who affirm rival reasonable comprehensive doctrines. Rawls’s work is not particularly easy to navigate, so Kozinski must be congratulated for providing a good, clear summary of his arguments. In chapter 2, Kozinski develops a sophisticated philosophical and theological critique of Rawls, outlining and building on the most important criticisms of his political liberalism so far developed. Of particular importance is his discussion of the theological nature of Rawls’s political liberalism. Kozinski convincingly shows that Rawls’s political liberalism is guilty of relying not simply on controversial metaphysical positions—which Rawls claims to avoid and indeed must avoid for the success of his theory—but also on a controversial theological position. In brief, when considering fundamental political matters, Rawls requires that one’s theological beliefs be subordinated to what is considered most “reasonable” (understood in a Rawlsian way). This is a succinct critique of Rawls’s political liberalism. Kozinski next turns to the work of Catholic convert and philosopher Jacques Maritain, whose response to the problem of pluralism involves an attempt to effect a synthesis...

Rereading Vygotsky's Theses on Types of Internalization and Verbal Mediation

The Vygotskyan sociocultural approach to human development and cognition marked a new direction in psychology and created new, distinctive avenues for exploring fundamental matters of the mind. The complexity, diversity, and multilayered meaning of Vygotsky's formulations have in the history of psychology triggered scholastic debate, which has focused on the clarification, implications, and extension of the core explanatory constructs of his framework—mediation and internalization. The aim of this review is to offer a contemporary logico-semantic rereading of Vygotsky's formulations of these constructs with an emphasis on speech and, in particular, its dual mediatory role as a primary mediational means and a mediating process. Vygotsky's less renowned, and rather incomplete, propositions on the types of internalization are revived and examined in relation to the ontogenetic formation of speech. In this critical analysis, some ambiguous conceptual links between the notion of internalization types and the transformation of social speech into private speech and inner speech are explicated, debated, and refined. By addressing these conceptual links, the present examination extends the sociocultural account of semiotic mediation. The interpretations proposed highlight the logical cohesion and enhance the comprehensibility of Vygotsky's theoretical stance on human development.

A Dynamic Physical Rate Adaptation for Multimedia Quality-Based Communications in IEEE_802.11 Wireless Networks

Abstract Assuming that the IEEE802.11 Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) are based on a radio/infrared link, they are more sensitive to the channel variations and connection ruptures. Therefore the support for multimedia applications over WLANs becomes non-convenient due to the compliance failure in term of link rate and transmission delay performance. We studied link adaptation facets and the Quality of Service (QoS) requirements essential for successful multimedia transmissions. In fact, the efficiency of rate control diagrams is linked to the fast response for channel variation. The 802.11 physical layers provide multiple transmission rates (different modulation and coding schemes). The last 802.11g-version maintains 12 physical rates up to 54 Mbps at the 2.4 GHz band. As a result, Mobile Stations (MSs) are able to select the appropriate link rate depending on the required QoS and instantaneous channel conditions to enhance the overall system performance. Hence, the implemented link adaptation algorithm symbolizes a vital fraction to achieve highest transmission capability in WLANs. “When to decrease and when to increase the transmission rate?” Are the two fundamental matters that we will be faced when designing a new physical-rate control mechanism? Many research works focus on tuning channel estimation schemes to better detect when the channel condition was improved enough to accommodate a higher rate, and then adapts its transmission rate accordingly. However, those techniques usually entail modifications on the current 802.11 standard. Another way to perform link control is based on local Acknowledgment (Ack) information for the transmitter station. Consequently, two techniques where accepted by the standard due to their efficiency and implementation simplicity. We propose a new dynamic time-based link adaptation mechanism, called MAARF (Modified Adaptive Auto Rate Fallback). Beside the transmission frame results, the new model implements a Round Trip Time (RTT) technique to select adequately an instantaneous link rate. This proposed model is evaluated with most recent techniques adopted by the IEEE 802.11 standard: ARF (Auto Rate Fallback) and AARF (Adaptive ARF) schemes. Simulation results will be given to illustrate the link quality improvement of multimedia transmissions over Wi-Fi networks and to compare its performance with previous published results.

Analysing the Impact of the Treaty of Lisbon on the 'Final Provisions' of Earlier Treaties

Some of the most critically important provisions of the existing constitutive treaties of the European Union are to be found in their so-called final provisions – which deal with fundamental matters varying from the means by which the Treaty in question should be amended to what should be done if the Treaty sets an objective but fails to provide the necessary legal powers to achieve it. The purpose of this article is to examine the most significant changes which the Treaty of Lisbon effects to such provisions – more specifically, to the ‘Final Provisions’, which have been located up until now in Title VIII of the Treaty on European Union, and to the ‘General and Final Provisions’ to be found in Part VI of the Treaty establishing the European Community (the EC Treaty).

Virtue, progress and practice

Reader in Applied Philosophy, Department of Interdisciplinary Studies, MMU Cheshire, Crewe, UK and Visiting Professor of Philosophy as Applied to Medicine, University of Buckingham, Uk Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA, USA Associate Professor, Department of General Practice, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand Director, University of Toronto Joint Centre for Bioethics, Toronto, ON, Canada Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, Canada Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada Professor of Values in Health Care, Associate Director, Social Dimensions of Health Institute, University of Dundee, Dundee, UK

The draft FDA guideline on non‐inferiority clinical trials: a critical review from European pharmaceutical industry statisticians

The European Federation of Statisticians in the Pharmaceutical Industry (EFSPI) engages more than 2000 statisticians through its ten national organizations. Amongst other things, EFSPI is involved in reviewing regulatory guidelines under development, including the draft FDA guideline on non-inferiority clinical trials. This review resulted in several critical comments relating to as follows: (i) the lack of one single standard for proving efficacy of new drugs implied by the guideline; (ii) the problems with the suggested 'fraction of effect to be preserved'; (iii) the formulation of the primary hypothesis in a non-inferiority trial aiming at indirectly demonstrating a new drug is superior to placebo; and (iv) the preference in the guideline for the fixed-margin method over the synthesis method in the analysis. The presumed implications of this guideline, if implemented as is, are (i) increased confusion of how efficacy could be demonstrated when placebo control is not available, (ii) more complicated communication between pharmaceutical industry and FDA because of the apparent disagreements on fundamental statistical matters, and (iii) illogical consequences in the approval process because of which order drugs are approved rather than how they fulfill the regulatory requirements. We believe that the area is not yet ready for such a prescriptive regulatory guidance and that further research and experience are required until the methodology can be finally agreed. A strategy needs to be developed by regulatory agencies together with drug industry and academia for a long term solution for this topic.

The politics of urban assemblages

In this short response I would like to address some of the criticisms made by Neil Brenner, David Madden and David Wachsmuth (2011) to the programme of urban studies presented in the volume Urban Assemblages: How Actor-Network Theory Changes Urban Studies (Farías and Bender, 2009). I will do this by addressing some crucial differences between this approach and the project of critical urban studies, which, as Brenner et al. noted, is not thoroughly discussed in the aforementioned volume. I think there are four fundamental matters to be discussed: the style of cognitive engagement (inquiries or critique), the definitions of the object of study (cities or capitalism), the underlying conceptions of the social (assemblages or structures) and the envisaged political projects (democratization or revolution). Obviously these pairs of concepts don't represent clear-cut distinctions. They do, however, signalize differences of emphasis making up the politics of urban assemblages.

Human Rights and the European Court of Justice: Past and Present Tendencies

The purpose of this paper is to consider the ECJ’s jurisprudence as a specific story in the complex web of human rights in the European Union. I aim to do this in two parts. In the first, I analyse the principles that have guided the ECJ in its development of fundamental rights. These consist of largely jurisdictional issues: when and over which fundamental rights matters, and over whom can the Court exercise judgment? They encompass questions of the sources of inspiration the Court uses for interpreting human rights. The second part then assesses how particular human rights have been developed in the ECJ’s case law with specific attention paid to recent decisions. My approach here is to examine the jurisprudence in terms of the rights expressed in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. Although this is a fairly recent document (and I have some doubts over its reflection of rights protected over the history of the Union) it is represented by the EU as the most apt compilation of those rights it aims to promote if not respect. Its lack of legal enforceability until the Lisbon Treaty came into force at the end of 2009 has not prevented it shadowing the Court’s appreciation of fundamental rights.

Notes on wall crossing and instanton in compactified gauge theory with matter

We study the quantum effects on the Coulomb branch of N=2 SU(2) supersymmetric Yang-Mills with fundamental matters compactified on R^3 x S^1, and extract the explicit perturbative and leading non-perturbative corrections to the moduli space metric predicted from the recent work of Gaiotto, Moore and Neitzke on wall-crossing [1]. We verify the predicted metric by computing the leading weak coupling instanton contribution to the four fermion correlation using standard field theory techniques, and demonstrate perfect agreement. We also demonstrate how previously known three dimensional quantities can be recovered in appropriate small radius limit, and provide a simple geometric picture from brane construction.

O pensamento educacional de Santo Tomás de Aquino como consequência de sua teologia e de sua filosofia

Saint Thomas (1124/5-1274) is considered the highest scholastic thinker. His philosophy and theology have influenced as Christian as non-Christian orientation thinkers. Reflecting on convergences and divergences between reason and faith, he considers that philosophy and theology have, therefore, similarities and differences since they have, respectively, those objects as fundamental matters of study. Establishing the philosophy and theology common and particular fields, he promotes not only conciliation between them but also, and mainly, a symbiosis, because both reason and faith come from the same fountain (God), and they cannot, therefore, contradict each other. Orientated from those considerations, he weaves a reflection of educational character that is recorded in his work entitled On the teaching or De Magistro (On the master). Key words: education, philosophy, Saint Thomas Aquinate, theology.

O pensamento educacional de Santo Tomás de Aquino como consequência de sua teologia e de sua filosofia

Saint Thomas (1124/5-1274) is considered the highest scholastic thinker. His philosophy and theology have influenced as Christian as non-Christian orientation thinkers. Reflecting on convergences and divergences between reason and faith, he considers that philosophy and theology have, therefore, similarities and differences since they have, respectively, those objects as fundamental matters of study. Establishing the philosophy and theology common and particular fields, he promotes not only conciliation between them but also, and mainly, a symbiosis, because both reason and faith come from the same fountain (God), and they cannot, therefore, contradict each other. Orientated from those considerations, he weaves a reflection of educational character that is recorded in his work entitled On the teaching or De Magistro (On the master).Key words: education, philosophy, Saint Thomas Aquinate, theology.

Percepción de la inserción a la educación por parte de un grupo de adultos mayores de la localidad de Suba

El presente estudio tuvo como objetivo conocer la precepción sobre aprendizaje que tiene un grupo de adultos mayores de la localidad de Suba en este momento de la vida, para comprender qué les gustaría estudiar. Se realizó con 30 de ellos y se aplicó un enfoque cualitativo de tipo descriptivo, con técnicas como la entrevista, el grupo focal y la observación directa, para recolectar la información. A partir de la base referencial en Freire y Morín, Montero, y los procesos de aprendizaje como temáticas fundamentales para interpretar los resultados obtenidos, se llegó a la conclusión de que reconocer el interés del adulto mayor en un proceso de aprendizaje en la educación informal y para el trabajo, que sea lucrativa para beneficio propio y de sus familias.

Traditional Micronesian societies: adaptation, integration, and political organization

Traditional Micronesian Societies explores the extraordinary successes of the ancient voyaging peoples who first settled the Central Pacific islands some two thousand years ago. They and their descendants devised social and cultural adaptations that have enabled them to survive-and thrive-under the most demanding environmental conditions. The dispersed matrilineal clans so typical of Micronesian societies ensure that every individual, every local family and lineage, and every community maintain close relations with the peoples of many other islands. When hurricanes and droughts or political struggles force a group to move, they are sure of being taken in by kin residing elsewhere. Out of this common theme, shared patterns of land tenure, political rule, philosophy, and even personal character have flowed. To describe and explain Micronesian societies, the author begins with an overview of the region, including a brief consideration of the scholarly debate about whether Micronesia actually exists as a genuine and meaningful region. This is followed by an account of how Micronesia was originally settled, how its peoples adapted to conditions there, and how several basic adaptations diffused throughout the islands. He then considers the fundamental matters of descent (ideas about how individuals and groups are bound together through ties of kinship) and descent groups and the closely interlinked subjects of households, families, land, and labor. Because women form the core of the clans, their roles are particularly respected and their contributions to social life honored. Socio-political life, art, religion, and values are discussed in detail. Finally, the author examines a number of exceptions to these common Micronesian patterns of social life.

Optimal monetary rules under persistent shocks

The tug-o-war for supremacy between inflation targeting and monetary targeting is a classic, yet timely topic, in monetary economics. In this paper, we revisit this issue within the context of a pure-exchange, overlapping generations model in which spatial separation and random relocation create an endogenous demand for money. We study AR(1) shocks to both real output and the real interest rate. Irrespective of the nature of the shocks, the optimal inflation target is always positive. Under monetary targeting, shocks to output necessitate negative money growth rates; for shocks to real interest rates, money growth rates may be either positive or negative depending on the elasticity of consumption substitution. Also, for output shocks, monetary targeting welfare-dominates inflation targeting but the gap between the two vanishes as the shock process approaches a random walk. In sharp contrast, for shocks to the real interest rate, we prove that monetary targeting and inflation targeting are welfare-equivalent only in the limit as the shocks become i.i.d. The upshot is that persistence of the underlying fundamental uncertainty matters: depending on the nature of the shock, policy responses need to be either more or less aggressive as persistence increases.

Why equality? On justifying liberal egalitarianism

The debate over the nature of egalitarianism has come to dominate political philosophy. As ever more sophisticated attempts are made to describe the principles of an egalitarian distribution or to specify the good or goods that should be distributed equally, little is said about the fundamental basis of equality. In virtue of what should people be regarded as equal? Egalitarians have tended to dismiss this question of fundamental equality. In the first part of the paper I will examine some of these strategies of marginalisation and assess whether the issue of fundamental equality matters. Jeremy Waldron has criticised this strategy of avoidance in his recent book God, Locke and equality. He argues that Locke’s turn to a theistic grounding for fundamental equality provides a better approach to the problem than the approach taken by contemporary liberals such as John Rawls. I will examine Waldron’s critique of Rawls and show that it is wanting. I will conclude by suggesting that Rawls’s approach to the issue has a bearing on the way in which equality should be understood as a political value. This argument for the primacy of a political conception of egalitarianism has a bearing on the interconnection between core liberal values and the idea of the state that has been emphasised by Rawls, Dworkin and Nagel.

A Milestone in Polish CISG Jurisprudence and Its Significance to the World Trade Community

This comment analyzes a case from the Polish Supreme Court that, because of its rigorous discussion of many fundamental matters and embodiment of the Court’s effort to make its decision within the framework of the Vienna Convention, serves as a great contribution to the global CISG jurisprudence.

ABJM with flavors and FQHE

We add fundamental matters to the N=6 Chern-Simons theory (ABJM theory), and show that D6-branes wrapped over AdS_4 x S^3/Z_2 in type IIA superstring theory on AdS_4 x CP^3 give its dual description with N=3 supersymmetry. We confirm this by the arguments based on R-symmetry, supersymmetry, and brane configuration of ABJM theory. We also analyze the fluctuations of the D6-brane and compute the conformal dimensions of dual operators. In the presence of fractional branes, the ABJM theory can model the fractional quantum Hall effect (FQHE), with RR-fields regarded as the external electric-magnetic field. We show that an addition of the flavor D6-brane describes a class of fractional quantum Hall plateau transition.

The Fact of Diversity and Reasonable Pluralism

AbstractContemporary society involves a number of different persons, groups, and ways of life that are deeply divided and very often opposed on fundamental matters of deep concern. Today, many contemporary philosophers regard this 'fact of diversity' as a problem that needs to be addressed when assessing the principles employed to organize society. In this paper, I discuss the fact of diversity, as it is understood by the notion of reasonable pluralism, and explain why it is thought by some to challenge the stability of a society's political morality. I examine the leading attempt to offer an account of the stability of a political morality and I argue that John Rawls's attempt to account for the stability of Justice as Fairness fails for reasons applicable to all political moralities because the very notion of a stable political morality is implausible. Diversity, as reasonable pluralism understands it, is not a problem that can be solved either by identifying a stable political morality or by modifying a political morality in some way that will make it more stable. Instead, the fact of diversity indicates only that disagreements on all aspects of society's organization, including its organizing principles and matters of value, is a permanent feature of social life that cannot be ignored, wished away, or solved.

Lattice formulation of two-dimensional [formula omitted] SQCD with exact supersymmetry

We construct a lattice model for two-dimensional N = ( 2 , 2 ) supersymmetric QCD (SQCD), with the matter multiplets belonging to the fundamental or anti-fundamental representation of the gauge group U ( N ) or SU ( N ) . The construction is based on the topological field theory (twisted supercharge) formulation and exactly preserves one supercharge along the line of the papers [F. Sugino, JHEP 0401 (2004) 015; F. Sugino, JHEP 0403 (2004) 067; F. Sugino, JHEP 0501 (2005) 016; F. Sugino, Phys. Lett. B 635 (2006) 218] for pure supersymmetric Yang–Mills theories. In order to avoid the species doublers of the matter multiplets, we introduce the Wilson terms and the model is defined for the case of the number of the fundamental matters ( n + ) equal to that of the anti-fundamental matters ( n − ). If some of the matter multiplets decouple from the theory by sending the corresponding anti-holomorphic twisted masses to the infinity, we can analyze the general n + ≠ n − case, although the lattice model is defined for n + = n − . By computing the anomaly of the U ( 1 ) A R-symmetry in the lattice perturbation, we see that the decoupling is achieved and the anomaly for n + ≠ n − is correctly obtained.

Comments on “Note on varying speed of light theories”

In a recent note Ellis criticizes varying speed of light theories on the grounds of a number of foundational issues. His reflections provide us with an opportunity to clarify some fundamental matters pertaining to these theories.