Search Results (248)

Feminist biblical criticism of Proverbs 1–9 has decried the figure of “Dame Folly” as reinforcing pejorative stereotypes of women that blame women for “the world’s sin and corruption.” To be sure, in the history of Christian biblical interpretation, Proverbs has been read in precisely this way—and with tragic consequences. In fact, Proverbs was used as fuel for the witch-hunting craze that infected the Christian West in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, with its particular focus on women as being especially “addicted” to heresy and “evil superstitions.” Nonetheless, as this essay demonstrates, a reading which denigrates all women universally as blameworthy is not really native to post-exilic Judaism or biblical literature in general before the Hellenistic period. Instead, it emerges with the influence of Hellenism and the misogynist stereotypes endemic to Greek literature, mythology, and even philosophy that distort and blur the lens through which Hellenistic Jews (and later Greco-Roman Christians) read their Scriptures. Through a reading of Proverbs in its own language, its own post-exilic Jewish world, and its own literary context, this essay both recovers the wise women of Israel, so esteemed and valued in post-exilic Judaism, and uncovers the identity of the real fool of Proverbs 9. Full article

In this article, the philosophical (critical) continuity between ancient Greek skepticism (Pyrrhonism) and postmodern political theory is pointed out. This continuity (philosophical reincarnation) is demonstrated by referring to Sextus Empiricus’ writings on Pyrrhonism, as well as two different approaches that are considered to reflect postmodern political theory in its most salient features, such as anti-fundamentalism: Chantal Mouffe’s “project of radical democracy” and the “art of doubt” in Ulrich Beck’s “reflexive” modernity. The content of the identified continuity is basically the following: Just as the Pyrrhonian philosopher aspires to achieve serenity of spirit by suspending judgment through doubt (“epoche” and “ataraksia”) [epəkē –αταραξία], the postmodern theorist aims to end organized political violence by doubting all modern truth allegations. In other words, the individual hope of the Pyrrhonian philosopher is reproduced in the postmodern mind as a socio-political ideal. In Michel Foucault’s terms, the “regime of truth” or the “politics of truth” is an option that often leads to the “terror of truth”. The politics of doubt, on the other hand, is a peaceful, tolerant alternative. According to the postmodern theorist, skepticism is a highly strategic element of a pluralist (libertarian) democratic order. The intellectual way to make modern democracy even more democratic is, first and foremost, through a skepticism that makes absolutely no concessions to truth allegations. In this respect, the most uncompromising skeptic in the history of philosophy is the Pyrrhonian philosopher. Pyrrhonism is the summit of anti-dogmatism. This means that the postmodern theorist is not so much a postmodern agent. In other words, postmodern political theory is the theory of an innovation that is already obsolete. Full article

Large language models (LLMs) increasingly serve as decision-support systems across linguistically diverse populations, yet whether they reason consistently across languages remains underexplored. We investigate whether LLMs exhibit language-dependent preferences in distributive justice scenarios and whether domain persona prompting can reduce cross-linguistic inconsistencies. Using six behavioral economics scenarios adapted from canonical social preferences research, we evaluate Gemini 2.0 Flash across English and Korean in both baseline and persona-injected conditions, yielding 1,201,200 observations across ten professional domains. Results reveal substantial baseline cross-linguistic divergence: five of six scenarios exhibit significant language effects (9–56 percentage point gaps), including complete preference reversals. Domain persona injection reduces these gaps by 62.7% on average, with normative disciplines (sociology, economics, law, philosophy, and history) demonstrating greater effectiveness than technical domains. Systematic boundary conditions emerge: scenarios presenting isolated ethical conflict resist intervention. These findings parallel human foreign-language effects in moral psychology while demonstrating that computational agents are more amenable to alignment interventions. We propose a compensatory integration framework explaining when professional framing succeeds or fails, providing practical guidance for multilingual LLM deployment, and establishing cross-linguistic consistency as a critical alignment metric. Full article

Robert Henricks’ Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching: A Translation of the Startling New Documents Found at Guodian marks a milestone in Daoist studies and translation history as the first complete English translation of the Guodian Laozi. However, systematic research on Henricks’ version remains limited, particularly regarding its philological foundation and translation strategies. Drawing on the concept of representation, this paper addresses the gap through a descriptive case study of Henricks’ work. By examining Henricks’ philological readings of dating, authorship, chapter divisions, textual variants, and philosophical thoughts, the study shows how he reconstructs and represents Daoist knowledge embedded in the Guodian Laozi. The findings suggest that Henricks, as both a translator and researcher, integrates rigorous philological studies with extensive paratexts, producing a version that both faithfully represents the text and offers new insights into its formation and philosophy. His translation has demonstrated the necessity of philological approaches for rendering Daoist and other ancient Chinese classics. Full article

From the perspective of environmental history, which examines the interplay between socio-economic development and the natural environment, this paper discusses the evolution of Japanese landscapes. These landscapes evolved in somewhat different ways, absorbing influences from China and the West. Following the country’s opening up in the late 19th century, various forest management techniques were introduced from Europe and America. This paper examines the environmental history of the changes to the landscape that accompanied rapid Westernisation and the guidance provided by “Forest aesthetics” in forest operations—a crucial element of the landscape. Proposed by H. von Salisch, forest aesthetics is a forest management philosophy that provided guidelines for sustainability before the concept of ecosystems emerged. Although Japan is a small nation comprising elongated islands, mountains cover 67% of its land area. Its north-south orientation means that each region has unique forests and ways of life. This overview examines historical information concerning the formation of gardens and artificial forests, landscape transformations, and perceptions of forests across different eras. Using primarily secondary sources dating from around the 11th century, it demonstrates that, even in Japan, which is subject to natural disturbances under a monsoon climate, the sustainability of gardens and forests could be achieved by emulating the nature advocated for by forest aesthetics as closely as possible. This approach also considered hunting. Full article

This study restores the late Western Han thinker Yan Zun to his rightful place in the history of Daoist thought. Despite the deep influence of his Laozi zhigui, its fractured transmission has led to modern neglect. This paper illuminates Yan Zun’s overlooked philosophy through a comparative analysis of four readings of Daodejing Chapter 42, a passage famous for its generative ambiguity. It juxtaposes Laozi’s Yangsheng phenomenology of co-presence, Heshang Gong’s Huang-Lao typological metaphysics, and Wang Bi’s Xuanxue radical metaphysics. Situated against this fully developed philosophical backdrop, Yan Zun’s commentary emerges as a sophisticated synthesis. By distinguishing between xu (emptiness) for an ontological non-being and wu (nothingness) for a generative cosmology, Yan Zun forges a unique “onto-cosmology.” He integrates a transcendent Dao as non-being with an immanent Dao as cosmogonic source, a creative tension his successors would later dissect. This analysis recovers Yan Zun both as a lost Daodejing commentator and as the architect of a pivotal, synthetic path in Daoist philosophy. Full article

Architectural discourse is a specialised language whose key terms shift with context, which complicates empirical claims about meaning. This study addresses this problem by testing whether a rigorously audited, reproducible NLP framework can recover a core theoretical distinction in architectural language, specifically the conceptual versus physical split, using Japanese terms as a focused case. The objective is to evaluate contextual embeddings against static baselines under controlled conditions and to release an end-to-end pipeline that others can rerun exactly. We assemble a ~1.98-million-word corpus spanning architecture, history, philosophy, and theology; train Word2Vec (CBOW, Skip-gram) and a fine-tuned BERT on the same sentences; derive embeddings; and cluster terms with k-means and Agglomerative methods. Internal validity is assessed using the Adjusted Rand Index against a phenomenological gold standard split; external validity is correlated with WordSim-353; robustness is examined through a negative-control relabelling and a definitional audit comparing FULL and CLEAN corpora; seeds, versions, and artefacts are pinned for exact reruns in the archived environment; and identity across different hardware is not claimed. The study finds that BERT cleanly recovers the split with ARI 0.852 (FULL) and 0.718 (CLEAN). BERT and CBOW show no seed variation. Both Word2Vec models hover near chance, but Skip-gram shows instability across seeds. We provide a transparent, reusable methodology, with released assets, that enables falsifiable and scalable claims about architectural semantics. Full article

I will consider, first, the positive charge of energeia in Aristotle, who identified it with the actuality of the actual. Then, I will pay attention to the negative charge that re-signifies the term, bestowing on it the exact opposite sense of potentiality. Rather than a radical correction of Aristotle, this polarizing modern signification unfolds in the field prepared in, if also rejected by, Greek Antiquity and unblocks the electric current of the concept of energy, a directional flow of charged particles of meaning from the positive to the negative pole. Still, the flow does not just happen by itself: the equivalent of electromotive force (EMF) is a fresh glance at the history of philosophy, not as a field dotted with static monuments to past intellectual achievements, but as an electric, or electromagnetic, semantic field. Only by grasping the conceptual circuitry of energy as a whole is it possible to appreciate the complex relation of this concept to the history of philosophical and theological thought and to the present. Full article

Religion has played a significant role in shaping social cohesion by providing stability and support that transcends the human capacity to resolve individual desires, aspirations, and concerns while contributing to national identity and unity. Religion has also become an inseparable element of human history, and the human desire to embody religious imagery has been with human history. Art has historically visualized the complex and subtle relationship between humans and religion directly and profoundly. In this way, religious works have provided a lens for examining how religious ideas permeate everyday life and influence cultural practices. This study explores how Buddhist philosophy and esthetics have influenced and coexisted in contemporary Korean artistic expression to emphasize the rich intersections between Buddhism and modern and contemporary Korean artworks. The concept of consilience, which refers to the integration of knowledge across diverse domains, aims to explain how Buddhist thought has transcended human conflict and promoted harmonious coexistence within Korean visual culture. The dynamic interplay between traditional Buddhist values and contemporary visual practices produces a rich cultural synthesis that highlights the importance of preserving Korea’s artistic heritage and expands and fosters the development of global visual culture today. Full article

The idea that the Qur’an is miraculous is common in Islamic apologetics, but has received little attention in Western philosophy of religion. Despite the common claim that the supposed miracle of the Qur’an is distinct in not requiring testimonial support, testimonial considerations are central for many claims about Qur’anic inimitability. This article clarifies and evaluates the logic of such arguments for the purpose of fostering inter-religious understanding and raising the intellectual level of discourse. The analysis focuses on three different versions of the literary miracle claim: (1) arguments from early Muslim history, (2) arguments from Muslim aesthetic experience, and (3) arguments from Qur’anic literary features. Using recent advances in social epistemology and critical Islamic studies, the article explores how religious testimonial inferences can be evaluated and the difficulties involved in arguing for a literary miracle. Full article

This article critiques penal philosophy and practice in contemporary society through the lens of historical–ecclesial tradition. The article opens with a discussion of the penitential rituals in the first Christian monasteries and the eventual adoption of some of these rituals in the earliest state penitentiaries in the U.S. It is argued that a nonviolent and coherent penal ideology was advocated from the inception of Christian monasticism and subsequently maintained over the centuries due to three paradigmatic values and commitments. These values and commitments, which form the basis of the critique, are a theological metanarrative, a moral ontology, and a belief in sin as an existential fact. These tenets are used to interrogate the traditional justifications of punishment that have guided government policy throughout modern history, in the U.S. and abroad. Full article

This contribution provides an overview of clinical ethics, examining the evolution of the field and its philosophical foundations. The evolution from the mid-1970s to the present day highlights clinical ethics as an interdisciplinary field where experts often collaborate to solve complex medical problems. Clinical ethics is embedded in medical practice, positioned at the intersection of medicine and philosophy, and grounded in various ethical and bioethical theories. Some problems in clinical ethics stem from underlying shortcomings within the healthcare system, while future challenges for the field are also underlined. Full article

For human beings, accepting loss and absence is a constant effort, particularly when it comes to accepting their own finitude, which becomes apparent as time passes and people leave us. This is closely linked to nostalgia and the processes of remembrance. While there are many nuances, we can distinguish between constructive and destructive nostalgia. The former cannot accept absence or the passage of time and deludes itself into thinking that it can recover what has been lost. The latter recognizes the temptation to recover everything, but knows that this is impossible, and accepts that the past can only be preserved by transforming it into something else. Contemporary technologies that use algorithms can exacerbate the former tendency by manipulating memory processes and distorting the meaning of the virtual. The aim of this contribution is to shed light on the dynamics and implications of nostalgia as it is influenced by algorithms. To this end, it is divided into three stages. In the first stage, nostalgia is examined for its “restraining” power in relation to deterministically progressive philosophies of history, also through a reference to the original philosophical meaning of the term ‘virtual’. In the second stage, the relation to progress is thematized through a reflection on technologies and artificial intelligence, which uses algorithms and devours our data. In the third stage, it will be shown how thinking about nostalgia and artificial and algorithmic ‘intelligence(s)’ can be a valuable test case for distinguishing between the uses and abuses of nostalgia, between constructive nostalgia and destructive nostalgia. Full article

This work aims to summarize the history and mutations of Lindy’s Law (or the Lindy Effect)—a mathematical distribution that originated from television commentary—and to first test this principle in the context of a recent new iteration: Lindy’s Law as a proxy to describe the significance of longevity as a factor in the retention of scientific theories. Full article

As artificial intelligence (AI) systems continue to outperform humans in an increasing range of specialised tasks, a fundamental question emerges at the intersection of philosophy, cognitive science, and engineering: should we aim to build AIs that think like humans, or should we embrace non-human-like architectures that may be more efficient or powerful, even if they diverge radically from biological intelligence? This paper draws on a compelling analogy from the history of aviation: the fact that aeroplanes, while inspired by birds, do not fly like birds. Instead of flapping wings or mimicking avian anatomy, engineers developed fixed-wing aircraft governed by aerodynamic principles that enabled superior performance. This decoupling of function from the biological form invites us to ask whether intelligence, like flight, can be achieved without replicating the mechanisms of the human brain. We explore this analogy through three main lenses. First, we consider the philosophical implications: What does it mean for an entity to be intelligent if it does not share our cognitive processes? Can we meaningfully compare different forms of intelligence across radically different substrates? Second, we examine engineering trade-offs in building AIs modelled on human cognition (e.g., through neural–symbolic systems or cognitive architectures) versus those designed for performance alone (e.g., deep learning models). Finally, we explore the ethical consequences of diverging from human-like thinking in AI systems. If AIs do not think like us, how can we ensure alignment, predictability, and shared moral frameworks? By critically evaluating these questions, this paper advocates for a pragmatic and pluralistic approach to AI design: one that values human-like understanding where it is useful (e.g., for interpretability or human–AI interaction) but also recognises the potential of novel architectures unconstrained by biological precedent. Intelligence may ultimately be a broader concept than the human example suggests, and embracing this plurality may be key to building robust and beneficial AI systems. Full article