Natural Law Research Articles

Tracing biomimicry from the ancient Chinese wisdom: a case study at Lushan UNESCO Global Geopark

ABSTRACT This paper uses the Lushan UNESCO Global Geopark as a sample to explore the application of biomimicry based on ancient Chinese methods. Based on systematic literature on biomimicry terminology and practice, we identify five main approaches borrowed from ancient China. These practices apply to architecture and landscape, including orientation, building planning, and structural design. Emphasis on preserving local knowledge related to genius loci contributes to the sense of place of UNESCO Geoparks. The Lushan UNESCO Global Geopark is an architectural sample of the application of this approach. According to the sample, ancient Chinese biomimicry closely linked itself to its environment by using nature as a model, understanding the meaning of nature and interpreting topography and climate; discovering the laws of nature and using methods that take advantage of natural conditions, and realizing techniques for the harmonious coexistence of architecture and the site’s environment.

Structural Stressing State Characteristics for Unbonded Prestressed Concrete Continuous Slabs Under Different Fire Conditions

ABSTRACTThis paper reveals the general working law of unbonded prestressed concrete (UPC) continuous slabs under different fire conditions by applying the structural stressing state theory. Firstly, the experimental deflection data are transformed into generalized work of force (GWF) values to represent the structural stressing state and the corresponding characteristic parameters. Then, the Mann–Kendall criterion is adopted to detect the mutation points where the characteristic parameter curves show a trend change with increasing temperature. Accordingly, it is verified that the evolutions of stressing state modes also present the corresponding mutation characteristics. The stressing state mutations reveal the linear‐elastic branch (LEB) points, elastoplastic branch (EPB) points, and failure starting (FS) points of the continuous slab's working process, complying with the natural law from quantitative change to qualitative change of a system. Finally, the formula is fitted to calculate the failure loads with a verification, and the existing failure loads were redefined to provide a new and valuable reference for analyzing the working behavior of UPC continuous slabs in fire.

Religion, Culture, and Peace: The Social Doctrine of Benedict XVI

This article situates the papacy of Benedict XVI at the crossroads of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, focusing on theological, cultural, and political developments. It brings out his subtle critique of modernity, his opposition to relativism, and his appeal for a renewed dialogue between Christianity and Enlightenment rationality. It is his sense of faith and reason that, in mutual purifying, forms his support of the public role of religion in peacemaking and moral order. Through moments like the Regensburg Address and his inter-religious dialogues, Benedict XVI emerges as a defender of the place of religion in society while rejecting both religious fundamentalism and secularist reductionism. The paper also examines how Benedict grounded human rights in natural law, thereby differentiating those from other fundamental rights emanating from more contemporary sociopolitical claims. The article places his papacy within the larger frame of Catholic social doctrine, focusing on the role of the Church in promoting peace through cultural and interreligious dialogue, particularly with Islam.

Interpretation of Law in the Political and Legal Thought of Western Europe during the 12th–13th Centuries

This article explores the views of two outstanding medieval thinkers, John of Salisbury and Thomas Aquinas, on law (its types, functions, and purpose). Their intellectual reflections were based on the theoretical political knowledge and historical context of the time and played a key role in the development of “scientia politica” during the 12th–13th centuries. Both thinkers distinguished between Divine, natural, and human (civil) laws, emphasizing their interconnectedness and interdependence within society. The obtained results show that they had a Christian worldview, where the king, guided by the three laws and the principles of justice, was destined to lead his subjects toward the “common good”, ensuring their freedom and happiness.

‘By parity of Reason’: Universalizability, Impartiality and Reciprocity in Cumberland’s Theory of Natural Law

Abstract According to Richard Cumberland, men’s natural law obligation to promote the common good does not derive from self-interest, but there is really no conflict between private and public happiness because the former is contained in the latter. The aim of this paper is to disentangle the various arguments supposed to support this claim and to focus specifically on the ‘parity of reason’ argument which draws upon the principle of treating like cases alike. I will show that Cumberland tends to confuse the principle with a more substantive Golden Rule-like principle requiring that we treat others like ourselves and that he appeals to ideas of both impartiality and reciprocity in doing so. Moreover, I will argue that Cumberland’s failure to fully grasp the distinction between these three concepts derives from the way in which the overall structure of his argument integrates the perspective of human rational agents with the perspective of God.

Comprehensible dynamics of quanta: from the quantum of action to the 2nd law of thermodynamics

The 2nd law of thermodynamics is derived from the principle of least action, positing that the quantum of action is the indivisible and indestructible basic building block of everything. On their least-time paths to balance, the quanta move from the system to its surroundings, or vice versa, so that the kinetic, potential, and dissipated energy tally. When re-expressed in logarithmic terms, this current toward more probable states with decreasing free energy equates to the principle of increasing entropy, the 2nd law of thermodynamics, including path-independent dynamic and path dependent geometric phase shifts. Despite being exact, the equation of evolution to entropy maximum, equivalent to free energy minimum, cannot be solved because evolution, consuming its own driving forces, becomes path dependent. Thus, the future remains open within free energy bounds. As discussed, the entropy derived from the statistical physics of open quantum systems sums states distinguishable in energy; whereas, Boltzmann’s entropy enumerates microstates indistinguishable in energy. Consequently, the statistical physics of open systems differs from that of closed systems: The irreversible evolution in the state space toward thermodynamic balance contrasts with the steady-state revolution in phase space between conceivable configurations. This concrete comprehension explains, among other things, that increasing disorder is not a law of nature itself but a consequence of the law to attain balance with incoherent surroundings in the least time.

On Lie symmetries, soliton interaction nature and conservation laws of Broer-Kaup-Kupershmidt system in shallow water of uniform depth

Abstract The exact solutions of nonlinear partial differential equations are significant to analyze the soliton nature of physical phenomena. Therefore, the Lie symmetry method is introduced to obtain exact solutions of the Broer-Kaup-Kupershmidt system. It represents two-dimensional propagation of nonlinear and dispersive long gravity waves in shallow water with uniform depth. The present work is devoted to derive symmetry reductions, soliton solutions, and conserved vectors under one-parameter Lie group transformations. Meanwhile, the invariance property of Lie groups validates the reducibility of the system. Therefore, a continual process of reductions transmutes the test system into a system of ordinary differential equations. Thus, this integrability property leads to generalized exact solutions with parametric constraints. These solutions entail all three arbitrary functions, f 1(y), f 2(t), f 3(t) existing in infinitesimals and various free parameters. On account of existing functions and free parameters, the obtained solutions are more admirable than those of preceding works (Kassem and Rasheed 2019 Chinese J. Phys. 57 90–104, Kumar et al 2022 Math. Comput. Simulat. 196 319–35, Tanwar and Kumar 2024 J. Ocean Eng. Sci. 9 199–206) and helpful to describe significant physical nature under wide parametric ranges. The deductions of previous results on imposing the particular values to arbitrary functions and constants ensure the generalness and novelty of derived results. Moreover, adjoint equations and conserved quantities associated with Lagrangian formulation have been evolved via Lie symmetries. We numerically simulate these solutions to analyze their physical nature. Consequently, soliton fusion and fission, line solitons, doubly solitons, multisolitons, and bright and dark soliton nature are discussed, which validate the physical relevance of the solutions.

Impurity, Moral Substantiality, and Social Control: A Gender Perspective

The notion of impurity is identified in numerous belief systems, ranging from certain religions to nationalisms. Understanding its nature and functioning beyond its concrete objects is therefore a fundamental anthropological question. This work is grounded in anthropology, though it may be of interest to scholars from other disciplines. Impurity has been highlighted by numerous authors in ethnographic and theoretical texts, but a comparison of these various works indicates a lack of theoretical development. We will therefore begin by presenting the various explanations attributed to it, before proposing that the notion of impurity is primarily a knowledge of natural laws causing illness, death, and misfortune, based on the observation of contagion and implying an ontology of moral substantiality. I propose this concept to designate an ontology in which everything is a substance (bodily fluids and food, but also glances, words, and thoughts) and at the same time a moral value, without distinguishing between materiality and symbolism, a proposal inspired by McKim Marriott’s substance-codes (1976). This knowledge has then become a tool of social control, aiming to protect reproduction (social, cosmic, and ontological), through its effective language combining a somatopsychological aspect (disgust reaction) and social rejection.

Democracy, Disagreement, and Authority: A Response to the Symposium on Common Good Constitutionalism

Abstract In this response to a recent symposium on Common Good Constitutionalism in the American Journal of Jurisprudence, I principally take up themes related to democracy, disagreement, pluralism, and authority. I emphasize that the classical legal tradition is teleological, oriented to performance standards rather than design standards. Thus it does not attempt to prescribe an identical set of constitutional and institutional arrangements for all polities everywhere, but asks whether constitutional arrangements are ordered to the common good and (thus) compatible with natural and divine law. Subject to those conditions, political authority is natural, inevitable, inescapable, and good. The possibility of social and political disagreement is just a precondition for all law, not an objection to the classical legal framework. None of this entails judicial supremacism in any form, which the classical legal tradition squarely rejects.

Indigenous Data Sovereignty: Applying It By, With, For, and Through Indigenous Evaluators and Evaluations

Indigenous data sovereignty (IDS) is a relatively recent term and global movement that originated from the Global Indigenous Data Alliance (GIDA) in 2015 when the formal international network was created. The global North and South have representation in the GIDA through the nation-states including the Maiam nayri Wingara Collective (Australia), Te Mana Raraunga Maori Data Sovereignty Network (Aotearoa New Zealand), and the United States Indigenous Data Sovereignty Network. IDS is founded on time-immemorial knowledge, wisdom, and lifeways of Indigenous peoples and First Nations globally including Tribal treaties, Tribal constitutions, the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and other human and natural rights laws. The authors share an overview of IDS; the experiences they had presenting and learning at the 2024 IDS Conference in Tucson, Arizona, USA; and examples and applications of IDS to their direct evaluation, editorial, and publication policy work. They conclude the article with their reflections on how the field of evaluation should be aware and inclusive as it moves forward into the future applying IDS to evaluative thinking, theory, policies, funding, and practice.

From Science to Utopia: Marcuse and Critical Utopianism

The article examines the concept of utopia in its post-Marxist context. Since the 1970s—against the backdrop of the failures of May 68, the self-exposures of the USSR, and the decline of the workers’ movement, as well as in accordance with the immanent history of the logic of the history of philosophy itself—the concept of utopia has been running through new areas of meaning and is extremely dialectical in two modes: temporal and ontological. The first transforms utopia from never-being into “past”, the second provides two inversions, considering it as 1) a dystopia, the other of utopia, which is declared to be the hidden truth of utopia; and — when it is fundamentally possible according to its own concept — 2) as impossible, in connection with which utopia and its concept return to the discourse as a kind of empty place around which modern pessimism circles, correctly believing that the future is unimaginable. The time of ends, from the end of the grand narratives of disappointed radicals (Lyotard) to the end of politics (see Rancière’s analysis), is, however, picked up by Marcuse, who suggests considering utopia as ahistorical. The author introduces this strange ahistorical or even anti-historicalism as historical, relying on the conceptualized phenomenon of the desynchronization of the “base” (the development of productive forces to the degree necessary for social revolution) and the “superstructure”, which runs into a limit, since it cannot represent the restrained base, which has broken out of the formational “scientific” logic. When Marcuse writes that a utopia in the strict sense can now be called a project that violates the laws of nature, he means the “impossible” into which utopia turns after the catastrophes of the 20th century, betraying the truth of its concept contained in the simple possibility of another world. More than 50 years after “The End of Utopia” and almost 30 years after the ontological turn in philosophy, we can say that utopia is still unimaginable — in the strict sense is what violates the laws of logic. This thesis opens up the possibilities of a new dialectic and its alliance with transcendentalism, which the author considers as a critique of plastic reason in the spirit of Malabou, constructing time and time again the assumptions-concepts that it needs and which are “practically necessary” according to Kant.

Matter and Mathematics: An Essentialist Account of the Laws of Nature by Andrew Younan (review)

Matter and Mathematics: An Essentialist Account of the Laws of Nature by Andrew Younan (review)

F.A. HAYEKS’S THIRD THEORY OF LAW: AN APPROACH TO THE SUBJECT

F.A. Hayek has presented a comprehensive lecture on modern liberalism in his opus mag-num Law, Legislation, Liberty. In the course of the book not only the political theory of the liberal order was presented, but also legal theory that matches the principles of the former. New legal theory and the new understanding of the very concept of the law as constructed in an opposition to the legal positivism and natural law. This article indicates the crucial ideas concerning the third theory and provides am layout for an approach to further inves-tigation of this proposed hypothesis and subject of study.

BEING AS A SYMBOLIC REALITY: A SOCIOCULTURAL CROSS-SECTION OF THE ANALYSIS

The study focuses on the consideration of the symbolic nature of being, presented both at the level of the culture of society and at the level of the human symbolic nature. It is noted that the world cannot be understood exclusively empirically. It is symbols that can explain everything that cannot be explained by the laws of nature. After all, the essence of human knowledge is completely revealed through them. The focus of the article is on the study of the ancient interpretation of the nature of symbolism. This tradition is most thoroughly revealed in Plato’s concept of eidos. Introduced into scientific circulation by the ancient tradition of Heraclitus, Anaxagoras, Democritus, Plato, and Aristotle, symbolism establishes a philosophical coordinate system of thinking. This system reveals the real nature of being and highlights the epistemological potential of its analysis. Eidos, idea, form – those elements of symbolic reality that project the relief of the material world. Eidos, idea – is the ideal beginning, the archetype of a thing, which underlies all categories of being. Both “idea” and “eidos” represent aspects of the ideal-objective nature of meaning. However, if the idea is the archetype that we carry in our souls, then eidos is the logical structure of this idea. This means that eidos has a differential nature, and idea – an integral nature. Ideas-eidos are those constituents on the basis of which, according to Plato, the material world is born.Eidos form the world and are outside it. They manifest in time, but themselves are outside of time. They are unchanging, eternal, unlike things in the material world, which appear and perish. According to Plato, knowledge of the thing essence is not reduced only to sensuality – «correct thought» or «the connection of correct thought with content». In this sense, the process of cognition is revealed as communication (κοινόνία). That is, the interaction between the eidos of an object and the human soul, the result of which is the imprint of an idea in our soul – noema. Such Platonic reflection lays the foundations of the methodological platform within which the religious philosophical tradition unfolds. Within the framework of the latter, the semantic basis of being is “living knowledge” (G.Shpet, S.Frank), “holistic knowledge”, truth.In turn, man himself acts as a certain symbolic reality that responds to the ideal nature of being. Since it is through the symbol that the essence is revealed, and not the imprint of the world in the human imagination. Through the symbol, man discovers the world around him, and therefore himself.

Critical Examination of International Law Theories

This paper examines the complex web of international law and various theories that address its creation, evolution, and usage. This paper critically evaluates many theories to understand what state sovereignty entails, the role played by international institutions, and how compliance has been enforced. By scrutinizing these theories, this paper endeavors to reveal the epistemological structures that underpin the evolution of the science of international law, which may contribute to clarifying the topical discourse concerning the legitimacy, effectiveness, and malleability of the discipline in the context of modern global processes. Glass adventure is initiated by analyzing natural law theory to investigate the presence of universal norms that apply to all inhabitants of the world within the sphere of human relations. The paper then moves to positivist theories, focusing on the state’s consent and formal sources of law as pillars of international legal duties. Moreover, the paper analyzes the realist, fictional, and functional theories of international law. This analysis aims to advance the knowledge of the theoretical underpinnings that influence the development of international law in the modern global environment.

The Laws of Nature: Rewriting the Myth of Demeter and Persephone in Peter Greenaway’s The Draughtsman’s Contract

Abstract This article considers the rewriting of the myth of Demeter and Persephone contained in Peter Greenaway’s 1982 film, The Draughtsman’s Contract. Via a reconsideration of the various versions of the myth present in both the film and its classical sources, the article argues that the film uses the myth to offer a nuanced meditation on the situation of women in both the seventeenth century (when the film is set) and the late twentieth century (when the film was made). Reflecting back across the centuries, the film highlights how interpretations of the myth of Demeter and Persephone have tended to be defined by particular social, legal, and technological formations, rather than by any kind of natural order (for which the myth itself provides a speculative aetiology). In Greenaway’s film, within the limits of their social and material situations, the female characters rewrite the terms of the myth to achieve a qualified autonomy within a deeply patriarchal society.

A Constituição de 1824

Brazilian constitutionalism was similar in many aspects, in the diferent projects presented in the country, to European and North America ones. In this way, there were many symmetries, from the philosophical and scientific background of a world governed by natural laws, to the idea of a social contract, the affirmation of rights, the abolition of the Societé des Ordres and the organization of the State. There were, however, singularities or Brazilian adaptations. Such as the concept of political representation shared between the Nation and the Emperor and the proposal of a “Poder Moderador”. In the Constitution of 1824, a model of moderate monarchy prevailed, without republicanism nor a return to the Old Regime. It was a compromisse solution that considered three of the challenges faced at the time of Independence: slavery, large estates and foreign dependance.

Tanggung Jawab Notaris atas Kelalaian Penomoran Ganda pada Akta Otentik

A notary can commit negligence with the same numbering of two different notary deeds or what is often called double numbering. This is certainly detrimental to the credibility of the authentic deed. This certainly violates the obligations of Notaries as stated in Article 16 and 17 of the UUJN. The purpose of this study is to analyze and describe the responsibility of notaries for negligence in double numbering in authentic deeds and the validity of authentic deeds with double numbering. This research is processed with a normative juridical approach method, namely by looking at law as a set of regulations/rules or doctrines that have a normative nature (law in book). As a result of the problem, the Notary is responsible for his negligence in giving a double deed numbering on the authentic deed he made. Sanctions that can ensnare Notaries are in the form of administrative sanctions, civil sanctions, and/or criminal sanctions. However, even if there is a double numbering on the deed, it does not necessarily invalidate the validity of a deed. As long as the contents of the deed have met the conditions for the validity of an agreement as stipulated in Article 1320 of the Civil Code, the deed still has binding legal force.

Solusi dan Langkah Kongkrit dalam Penyelesaian Sengketa Pertanahan di Indonesia

The existence of a conflict of interest in land causes land disputes. In order to realize the welfare of the community in the use and control of land, it is hoped that there will be improvements, both in the field of land use and land arrangement, with the realization of these improvements it is hoped that legal certainty in land in Indonesia will be born. The purpose of this study is to find out and describe solutions and concrete steps in resolving land disputes in Indonesia and dispute resolution mechanisms that can be taken both by litigation and non-litigation. This research is processed with a normative juridical approach method, namely by looking at law as a set of regulations/rules or doctrines that have a normative nature (law in book). The results of land disputes have complex roots, both from a legal and institutional perspective, laws and regulations need to be clarified and strengthened so that there are no legal weaknesses and loopholes that cause disputes. Dispute resolution can be done both by litigation and non-litigation.

TRANSFORMATION OF SOCIETY AND EDUCATION THROUGH TIME

The development of humanity and society, we are talking about space (planet Earth) and a period of about 25 billion years. In physics, spacetime is any mathematical model that fuses the three dimensions of space and the one dimension of time into a single four-dimensional continuum. There were permanent changes in this spacetime, but they were slow, homogeneous, unified and merged with the environment. With technology, man initiated this change process monotonously, homogeneously and continuously. This process, if it mostly obeyed the laws of nature, took place in harmony with the other users of our natural space, but the space changed from a natural to a social environment gradually.