Theory Of Nothing Research Articles

Rereading qahal as Deuteronomist history works: Literal and ideological criticism approach

Some biblical scholars understand Deuteronomy to be the end of the Pentateuch. Before the nation of Israel became a confederate system, the socio-political reality could usually be seen in the composition, interaction, and behavior of relationships in society, which were assumed to be political elements. The Israeli confederation which is like the ambition centered on Yahweh is what the author refers to as Israel's "Qahal". Martin Noth explains Qahal Israel in Deuteronomist Historical Works, which began with a period of wandering under the leadership of Musa, then became an immigrant in the Land of Canaan, followed by Saul's leadership where Israel asked the king to directly lead the Israelites. In the leadership of David and Solomon, which originally had 12 tribes, eventually split into two nations. With this monarchical system, God hates, because he does not reject God as the government in their life. The purpose of this study was to find the location of the Deuteronomy and Eating Qahal books in the book of laws. The research method uses critical research with a study of literature and ideological sources using Martin Noth's theory which is an early thesis in Deuteronomic History Works. The novelty of this research is the existence of a new meaning where the main message of Deuteronomic history works, namely Israel is forced to turn to God, confess His sins, and return to submit and obey His word because they have been chosen to be God's people (2 Ki 17:13).

A Theory of No-Thing

A Theory of No-Thing

Pragmatic nihilism: how a Theory of Nothing can help health psychology progress

ABSTRACTHealth psychology developed a plethora of theories to explain and change a wide variety of behaviours. Several attempts have been undertaken to build integrative theories, some even striving for a Theory of Everything. We argue against these efforts, arguing that instead a ‘pragmatic nihilism’ perspective may be more fruitful to understand and change health behaviours. The first tenet of pragmatic nihilism is that psychological variables are usefully considered as metaphors rather than referring to entities that exist in the mind. As a consequence, the second tenet emphasizes theories' definitions and guidelines for the operationalisation of those variables. The third tenet of pragmatic nihilism is that each operationalisation represents an intersection of a variety of dimensions, such as behavioural specificity and duration, and most importantly, psychological aggregation level. Any operationalisation thus represents a number of choices regarding these dimensions. Pragmatic nihilism has two implications. First, it provides a foundation that enables integrating theories in a more flexible and accurate manner than made possible by integrative theories. Second, it emphasizes the importance of operationalisations, underlining the importance of investing in the careful development of measurement instruments, thorough reporting of measurement instruments' specifics and performance, and full disclosure of the instruments themselves.

The Role Functionalist Theory of Absences

Functionalist theories have been proposed for just about everything: mental states, dispositions, moral properties, truth, causation, and much else. The time has come for a functionalist theory of nothing. Or, more accurately, a role functionalist theory of those absences (omissions, negative events) that are causes and effects.

About the oscillatory possibilities of the dynamical systems

This paper may be ultimately described as an attempt to make feasible the evolutionary emergence of novelty in a supposedly deterministic world whose behavior is associated with that of the mathematical dynamical systems. It means philosophical implications that the paper needs to address, subsidiarily at least. The work was motivated by the observation of complex oscillatory behaviors in a family of physical devices and related mathematical models, for which there is no known explanation in the mainstream of nonlinear dynamics. The paper begins by describing a nonlinear mechanism of oscillatory mode mixing explaining such behaviors and, through its generalization to richer nonlinear vector fields, establishes a generic dynamical scenario with extraordinary oscillatory possibilities, including expansive growing scalability toward high dimensionalities and through nonlinear multiplicities. The scenario is then used to tentatively explain complex oscillatory behaviors observed in nature like those of turbulent fluids and living brains. Finally, by considering the scenario as a dynamic substrate underlying generic aspects of both the functioning and the genesis of complex behaviors in a supposedly deterministic world, a theoretical framework covering the evolutionary development of structural transformations in the time evolution of that world is built up. The analysis includes attempts to clarify the roles of items often invoked apropos of pathways to complexity like chaos, pattern formation, externally-driven bifurcations, hysteresis, irreversibility, and order through random fluctuations. Thermodynamics, as the exclusive field of physics in providing generic evolutionary criteria, is briefly and synthetically considered from the dynamical systems point of view by trying to elucidate its explanatory possibilities concerning the emergence of complexity. Quantum mechanics gets involved in two different ways: the lack of a dynamical systems perspective in the currently accepted interpretations of that fundamental theory and the indeterminacy issues, and both questions are discussed to point out their consequences. The reported evolutionary framework is far from a complete theory but includes both the elements and the skeleton for its tentative building within feasible philosophical grounds. In the lack of alternatives, one should imagine how it could be one of such theories and how it could be built, in order to evaluate our approach. In particular, notice that our approach is to a theory of nothing of the physical world but of the underlying reasons for its ordered and creative functioning, which we interpret to be independent of that world, i.e., a theory of what the Catalan expression ”l’entrellat del món” describes so well.

The theory of nothing

Early architects paid much attention to the relationship between space and time: the earliest buildings had structures linked to the cycle of the heavenly clock. Indeed, the notion of time emerges naturally from the diurnal rise and fall of the Sun as well as the more leisurely progression of the seasons. Space, on the other hand, is defined by the relationship between objects, implicit as a void. What is more, there is no natural scale, no spatial equivalent of the length of the day.

The Trouble with Kings: The Composition of the Book of Kings in the Deuteronomistic History

This book analyzes the book of Kings on the basis of Noth's compositional model for the Deuteronomistic History, while also taking account of recent literary critical treatments of Kings. Consistent with Noth's theory, McKenzie sees Kings and the DH as originally being the work of a single author/editor that has received numerous later additions, some of them quite extensive. He dates Dtr, with Cross, to the reign of Josiah, seeing the final two and one-half chapters of Kings as an addition. But he believes that tensions among the additions to Kings show they are not the result of systematic editing (e.g., Dtr2).

Hezekiah and the Books of Kings: A Contribution to the Debate about the Composition of the Deuteronomistic History (review)

Hebrew Studies 31 (1990) 229 Reviews HEZEKIAH AND THE BOOKS OF KINGS: A CONTRIBUTION TO THE DEBATE ABOUT THE COMPOSITION OF THE DEUTERONOMISTIC HISTORY. By lain W. Provan. BZAW 172. Pp. xiii + 218. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. 1988. Cloth. In the last few decades. the analysis of Deuteronomy and the Fonner Prophets has been more controversial in rhetoric than in reality. Martin Noth's vision of a unified exilic history, a Deuteronomistic History (DtrH). remains a centerpiece of all mainstream theories. From this basis. recent scholarship begins, discerning earlier editions, histories of redaction. and soon. Noth's theory was that an exilic historian had composed DtrH whole (using diverse, earlier written sources). Additions, mostly minor, then accrued in transmission. Today there are essentially four schools of thought on the matter. Some scholars (as J. Van Seters and H. D. Hoffmann) adhere to the thesis of a single (exilic) edition with additions but not reeditions (they also tend to deny that the historian. here H[Dtr], was restricted by written sources). Continental scholars, for the most part. follow Rudolf Smend in isolating editions (Prophetic. Nomistic) of-rather than scribal additions to-Noth's unified original (e.g., W. Dietrich, T. Veijola, T. D. M. Mellinger). Most Albrightians (such as R. G. Boling. R. E. Friedman, R. D. Nelson. and others, including A. D. H. Mayes and A. G. Auld) follow Frank Moore Cross. Cross resuscitated a nineteenth-century hypothesis that a history written to sustain Josiah's refonns was updated by an exilic editor (here. E[Dtr]x). Typically. passages assigned to the "Nomistic" redactor by Smend's followers coincide with those attributed by Cross to E(Dtr)x. The fourth school of thought began from an article (since expanded in other studies) by Helga Weippert. These scholars (A. Lemaire, A. F. Campbell. this reviewer) discern behind the Josianic historian (H[Dtr]jos) an Hezekian edition of the history. Again, there is no serious conflict with Cross's view. Since 1983 J. B. Peckham has argued, in a book and several articles. that fonnal features-such as sequences of verbal fonns-indicate only two editions of DtrH. namely. the Hezekian and the exilic (the latter is inescapable, since the last events reported date to 561-560 B.C.E.). Provan attempts an improvement on this economical approach. He defends the thesis that the "Hezekian" history covered the period from the United Monarchy down through Hezekiah, but he dates this history to Josiah's period. Hebrew Studies 31 (1990) 230 Reviews To respond to Provan's discussion in detail would require a monographic treatment (which testifies to the quality of his argument). It is worthwhile, however, to indicate his points d'appui, chiefly thematic. He begins soundly by reassessing Weippert's arguments for authorial fluctuation in the regnal evaluation formulary of kings before Hezekiah and correctly infers that these evaluations ("he did evil/he did right" in YHWH's sight, with expansions) are of a piece (Rehoboam's excepted). He then examines the treatment of the "high places" in Kings, defending the important conclusion that the early historian (H[Dtr]hez) recognized them as Yahwistic, while the later E(Dtr)x regarded them as "idolatrous" (Le., apostate, since Provan identifies the two). Provan's third investigation concerns the status of David in Kings. With Cross, he concludes that the various references to a perpetual Davidic fief in Jerusalem must be preexilic-David as a "promissory figure" is Josianic (i.e., the references to YHWH's forbearance toward evil kings "for the sake of David" end before Hezekiah's regnal account). Nearly all evaluative comparisons of Judahite kings to David are also preexilic-the only one after Hezekiah's regnal account comes in 2 Kgs 22:2 in connection with Josiah. Finally, Provan considers the regnal formulae which clearly punc tuate at Hezekiah (although he does miss the fact that Kings changes its formulary for naming queen-mothers after Hezekiah). He fmishes by contemplating the exilic redaction and by attempting to ascertain just where the Josianic-Hezekian edition took up the history (namely, with Samuel, not Judges). For a dissertation (it was directed by the gifted British scholar, H. G. M. Williamson) this...