Download or read book Defending Probabilism written by Julia Fleming and published by Georgetown University Press. This book was released on 2006-11-01 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through the centuries, at the heart of Catholic moral theology is a fundamental question: How do we behave responsibly in the face of moral uncertainty? Attempts to resolve problems of everyday life led to the growth of a variety of moral systems, one of which emerged in the early 17th century and was known as "probabilism." This method of solving difficult moral cases allowed the believer to rely upon a view that was judged defensible in terms of its arguments or the authorities behind it, even if the opposite opinion was supported by stronger arguments or more authorities. The theologian Juan Caramuel, a Spanish Cistercian monk whom Alphonso Liguori famously characterized as "the prince of laxists," has been regarded as one of the more extreme—and notorious—proponents of probabilism. As the only full-length English study of Caramuel's theological method, Defending Probabilism seeks to reappraise Caramuel's legacy, claiming that his model of moral thinking, if better understood, can actually be of help to the Church today. Considered one of the most erudite theologians of his age, a scientist and scholar who published works on everything from astronomy and architecture to printing and Gregorian chant, Caramuel strove throughout his life to understand probabilism's theological and philosophical foundations as part of his broader analysis of the nature of human knowledge. In applying Caramuel's legacy to our own time, Defending Probabilism calls for a reconsideration of the value of provisional moral knowledge. Fleming's study shows that history matters, and that to attain any position on moral certitude is a difficult and painstaking process.
Download or read book The Debate on Probable Opinions in the Scholastic Tradition written by Rudolf Schuessler and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2019-03-25 with total page 539 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A portrait of scholastic approaches to a qualified disagreement of opinions, focusing on the antagonism of scholastic probabilism and anti-probabilism in the early modern era.
Download or read book The Probabilistic Foundations of Rational Learning written by Simon M. Huttegger and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-10-19 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: According to Bayesian epistemology, rational learning from experience is consistent learning, that is learning should incorporate new information consistently into one's old system of beliefs. Simon M. Huttegger argues that this core idea can be transferred to situations where the learner's informational inputs are much more limited than Bayesianism assumes, thereby significantly expanding the reach of a Bayesian type of epistemology. What results from this is a unified account of probabilistic learning in the tradition of Richard Jeffrey's 'radical probabilism'. Along the way, Huttegger addresses a number of debates in epistemology and the philosophy of science, including the status of prior probabilities, whether Bayes' rule is the only legitimate form of learning from experience, and whether rational agents can have sustained disagreements. His book will be of interest to students and scholars of epistemology, of game and decision theory, and of cognitive, economic, and computer sciences.
Download or read book Probabilistic Knowledge written by Sarah Moss and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-02-09 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traditional philosophical discussions of knowledge have focused on the epistemic status of full beliefs. Sarah Moss argues that in addition to full beliefs, credences can constitute knowledge. For instance, your 0.4 credence that it is raining outside can constitute knowledge, in just the same way that your full beliefs can. In addition, you can know that it might be raining, and that if it is raining then it is probably cloudy, where this knowledge is not knowledge of propositions, but of probabilistic contents. The notion of probabilistic content introduced in this book plays a central role not only in epistemology, but in the philosophy of mind and language as well. Just as tradition holds that you believe and assert propositions, you can believe and assert probabilistic contents. Accepting that we can believe, assert, and know probabilistic contents has significant consequences for many philosophical debates, including debates about the relationship between full belief and credence, the semantics of epistemic modals and conditionals, the contents of perceptual experience, peer disagreement, pragmatic encroachment, perceptual dogmatism, and transformative experience. In addition, accepting probabilistic knowledge can help us discredit negative evaluations of female speech, explain why merely statistical evidence is insufficient for legal proof, and identify epistemic norms violated by acts of racial profiling. Hence the central theses of this book not only help us better understand the nature of our own mental states, but also help us better understand the nature of our responsibilities to each other.
Download or read book Quantum Probability for Probabilists written by Paul-Andre Meyer and published by Springer. This book was released on 2013-11-11 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These notes contain all the material accumulated over six years in Strasbourg to teach "Quantum Probability" to myself and to an audience of commutative probabilists. The text, a first version of which appeared in successive volumes of the Seminaire de Probabilite8, has been augmented and carefully rewritten, and translated into international English. Still, it remains true "Lecture Notes" material, and I have resisted suggestions to publish it as a monograph. Being a non-specialist, it is important for me to keep the moderate right to error one has in lectures. The origin of the text also explains the addition "for probabilists" in the title : though much of the material is accessible to the general public, I did not care to redefine Brownian motion or the Ito integral. More precisely than "Quantum Probability" , the main topic is "Quantum Stochastic Calculus" , a field which has recently got official recognition as 81825 in the Math.
Download or read book The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Theology written by Alan Richardson and published by Westminster John Knox Press. This book was released on 1983-01-01 with total page 642 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Westminter Dictionary of Christian Theology is an important reference for any pastor, scholar, or student of theology. The articles are clearly written, historically informative, and conceptually clarifying. The entries are arranged alphabetically for ease of use.
Download or read book Jesuit Civil Wars written by Jean-Pascal Gay and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-05-06 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Founded in 1540, the Society of Jesus quickly established itself as one of the most dynamic, influential but divisive orders within early-modern Catholicism. Yet whilst the order's role in combating Protestantism, reforming the Catholic Church and advising rulers during its first century has been well documented, much less is understood about its later years. Covering the generalate of Tirso González (1687-1705), this book offers a window onto Jesuit politics and theology during the late seventeenth century. González's generalate was dominated by two crises - one political, the other theological - both of which were to have important ramifications for the Jesuits and the wider Catholic world. The first of these was the confrontation between Louis XIV and the Papacy over the question of control of the church in France. González strongly and publicly supported Pope Innocent XI's primacy over the French clergy, despite widespread opposition from many French Jesuits who took a more 'Gallican' position. The second crisis revolved around González's opposition to the theory of 'Probabilism', to which the bulk of Jesuits subscribed. His publication of a book opposing a theological position that was deeply ingrained within the order, provided another fracture line that was to generate much heat. Whilst both crises were essentially matters for the Jesuits, this study demonstrates how they developed and played themselves out on a wide, international and increasingly public stage, showing how contending identities were forged from apparently narrow but intense and durable conflicts. As such, the book not only illuminates the role and theology of González, but also the tensions within late seventeenth-century Catholicism. It contends that, by the end of the century, Catholic confessional culture appears unable to resolve its contradictory relationship to the individual, which it empowers and dismisses at the same time.
Download or read book Transformations in Medieval and Early Modern Rights Discourse written by Virpi Mäkinen and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2006 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rights language is a fundamental feature of the modern world. Virtually all significant social and political struggles are waged, and have been waged for over a century now, in terms of rights claims. In some ways, it is precisely the birth of modern rights language that ushers in modernity in terms of moral and political thought, and the struggle for a modern way of life seems for many synonymous with the fight for a universal recognition of equal, individual human rights. Where did modern rights language come from? What kinds of rights discourses is it rooted in? What is the specific nature of modern rights discourse; when and where were medieval and ancient notions of rights transformed into it? Can one in fact find any single such transformation of medieval into modern rights discourse? The present volume brings together some of the most central scholars in the history of medieval and early-modern rights discourse. Through the different angles taken by its authors, the volume brings to light the multifaceted nature of rights languages in the medieval and early modern world.
Download or read book Moral Philosophy on the Threshold of Modernity written by Jill Kraye and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2006-03-30 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the past twenty years the transition from the late Middle Ages to the early modern era has received increasing attention from experts in the history of philosophy. In part, this new interest arises from claims, made in literature aimed at a less specialist readership, that this transition was responsible for the subsequent philosophical and theological problems of the Enlightenment. Philosophers like Alasdair MacIntyre and theologians like John Milbank display a certain nostalgia for the medieval synthesis of Thomas Aquinas and, consequently, evaluate the period from 1300 to 1700 in rather negative terms. Other historians of philosophy writing for the general public, such as Charles Taylor, take a more positive view of the Reformation but nevertheless conclude that modernity has been shaped by 1 conflicts which stem from early modern times. Ethics and moral thought occupy a central place in these theories. It is assumed that we have lost something – the concept of virtue, for instance, or the source of common morality. Yet those who put forward such notions do not treat the history of ethics in detail. From the historian’s perspective, their far-reaching theoretical assumptions are based on a quite small body of textual evidence. In reality, there was a rich variety of approaches to moral thinking and ethical theories during the period from 1400 to 1600.
Download or read book The Ontology of Spacetime written by and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2006-07-10 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book contains selected papers from the First International Conference on the Ontology of Spacetime. Its fourteen chapters address two main questions: first, what is the current status of the substantivalism/relationalism debate, and second, what about the prospects of presentism and becoming within present-day physics and its philosophy? The overall tenor of the four chapters of the book’s first part is that the prospects of spacetime substantivalism are bleak, although different possible positions remain with respect to the ontological status of spacetime. Part II and Part III of the book are devoted to presentism, eternalism, and becoming, from two different perspectives. In the six chapters of Part II it is argued, in different ways, that relativity theory does not have essential consequences for these issues. It certainly is true that the structure of time is different, according to relativity theory, from the one in classical theory. But that does not mean that a decision is forced between presentism and eternalism, or that becoming has proved to be an impossible concept. It may even be asked whether presentism and eternalism really offer different ontological perspectives at all. The writers of the last four chapters, in Part III, disagree. They argue that relativity theory is incompatible with becoming and presentism. Several of them come up with proposals to go beyond relativity, in order to restore the prospects of presentism. · Space and time in present-day physics and philosophy · Introduction from scratch of the debates surrounding time · Broad spectrum of approaches, coherently represented
Download or read book Epistemic Dilemmas written by Kevin McCain and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2021-10-21 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book features original essays by leading epistemologists that address questions related to epistemic dilemmas from a variety of new, sometimes unexpected, angles. It seems plausible that there can be "no win" moral situations in which no matter what one does one fails some moral obligation. Is there an epistemic analog to moral dilemmas? Are there epistemically dilemmic situations—situations in which we are doomed to violate an epistemic requirement? If there are, when exactly do they arise and what can we learn from them? The contributors to this volume cover a wide variety of positions on epistemic dilemmas. The coverage ranges from discussions of the nature of epistemic dilemmas to arguments that there are no such things to suggestions for how to resolve (or at least live with) epistemic dilemmas to proposals for how thinking about epistemic dilemmas can be used to inform theorizing in other areas of epistemology. Epistemic Dilemmas will be of interest to scholars and advanced students in epistemology working on the nature of justification and evidential support, higher-order requirements, or suspension of judgment.
Download or read book Saint Cicero and the Jesuits written by Robert A. Maryks and published by Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.. This book was released on 2008 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the past decade various historians have examined the consequences of Ignatius Loyola's decision to involve his newly approved Society of Jesus in various educational enterprises. The first Jesuits emphasized the importance of spiritual conversation, preaching, and reconciliation, horizontally and vertically. In this monograph, Maryks argues that Jesuit interest in classical learning prompted them to re-examine their own concepts of conscience and confession, leading them to increasingly abandon traditional concepts of putting the demands of the law above the calls of their own conscience. By integrating concepts of theology and classical humanism, this book offers a compelling account of how diverse forces could act upon a religious order to alter the central beliefs they held and promulgated.
Download or read book The Catholic Encyclopedia written by Charles George Herbermann and published by . This book was released on 1913 with total page 886 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A Companion to the Spanish Scholastics written by Harald Ernst Braun and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2021-12-13 with total page 643 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A much-needed survey of the entire field of early modern Spanish scholastic thought. Each chapter is grounded in primary sources and the relevant historiography, includes a useful bibliography, and serves as a point of departure for future research.
Download or read book Voicing Dissent in Seventeenth Century Spain written by Patricia Manning and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2009-09-29 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book combines archival and rare book research with a case study of the fiction of Baltasar Gracián to investigate the degree to which the Spanish elite circumvented Inquisitorial and state publication controls in early modern Spain.
Download or read book Decision Theory as Philosophy written by Mark Kaplan and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1996 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kaplan presents an accessible new variant on Bayesian decision theory.
Download or read book Conscience on Stage written by Hilaire Kallendorf and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2007-01-01 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is no accident that some variation of the question 'What should I do?' appears in over three-quarters of the comedic plays of the Spanish Golden Age. Casuistical dialogue was a concern, even an obsession, of Spanish playwrights during the seventeenth century, many of whom were educated by Jesuit casuists. Conscience on Stage is a study of casuistry or case morality as the foundation for a poetics of seventeenth-century Spanish >em>comedias. Hilaire Kallendorf examines the Jesuit upbringing and casuistical education of major playwrights of the Spanish Golden Age, many of whom were also priests, and introduces the vocabulary of casuistry, as expressed in both confessors' manuals and in stage plays. Engaging issues of class, gender, and age to explore scenes of advice-giving and receiving, she demonstrates how the culture-specific construct of 'conscience' in early modern Spain can be recovered by means of a Foucauldian genealogy, which enlists the skills of philology at the service of a larger vision of the history of ideas. This study outlines and reiterates the relationship of theatre to casuistry, the Jesuit contributions to Spanish literary theory and practice, and the importance of casuistry for the study of early modern subjectivity.
