scholarly journals Fundamental Operations of Language

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 01-13
Author(s):  
Noam Chomsky
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Computational Efficiency ◽  
Natural Laws ◽  
Computational Operation ◽  
The Mind ◽  
General Architecture

20 years ago, in lectures in Brasilia, I suggested that we might someday discover that the Faculty of Language (FL) is “beautifully designed, a near-perfect solution to the conditions imposed by the general architecture of the mind-brain in which it is inserted, another illustration of how natural laws work out in wondrous ways,” so that language is rather like a snowflake, and the near-perfect design can be expected to impose inefficiency of use. I added that “these are fables,” with the redeeming value that they “might even turn out to have some elements of validity. In the years since, solid reasons have been found to suggest that these hopes were understated, and that the “fable” – the Strong Minimalist Thesis – appears to have considerable validity. A number of striking and puzzling properties of FL – “universals of language” in the contemporary sense – have been shown to derive from the simplest computational operation, Merge, along with conditions of computational efficiency that are in effect part of natural law. And as anticipated, they do indeed impose communicative inefficiency.

scholarly journals RUDOLF VON JHERING E A GENELOGIA DA ÉTICA: O DEVIR HISTÓRICO COMO DETERMINANTE DA PROCEDÊNCIA DO SENTIMENTO JURÍDICO * RUDOLF VON JHERING AND THE GENELOGIA ETHICS: THE BECOMING HISTORY AS DETERMINING THE ORIGIN OF THE LEGAL SENSE

2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 101
Author(s):  
Henrique Garbellini Carnio
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Historical Development ◽  
Philosophy Of Law ◽  
Natural Laws ◽  
Em 12 ◽  
The Absolute ◽  
The Law ◽  
Legal Sense ◽  
The Way

<p><strong>Resumo:</strong> O presente artigo tem como base a conferência dada por Rudolf von Jhering em 12 de março de 1884 para a Sociedade Jurídica de Viena, intitulada "Sobre o nascimento do sentimento jurídico". O objetivo é demonstrar algumas reflexões surpreendentes e pouco conhecidas deste importante jurista, enfatizando, em especial, a importância que ele atribui ao devir histórico na formação do sentimento jurídico, apostando que o sentido do direito é modelado pela história e não proveniente das leis naturais eternas. Jhering, propondo uma tarefa genealógica, defende de forma contundente um historicismo ético e jurídico que o distancia de um relativismo absoluto como o das clássicas posições jusnaturalistas, completamente ahistóricas, que se revela extremamente interessante para as reflexões atuais sobre a filosofia do direito.</p><p><strong>Palavras-chave:</strong> Rudolf von Jhering; sentimento jurídico; historicismo ético-político.</p><p><strong>Abstract:</strong> This article is based on a lecture given by Rudolf von Jhering on March 12, 1884 for the Law Society of Vienna, entitled "About the birth of the legal feeling." The objective is to demonstrate some surprising and little-known reflections of this important jurist, emphasizing, in particular, the importance he attaches to the historical development in the formation of the legal feeling, betting that the sense of law is shaped by history and not from the eternal natural laws. Jhering proposing a genealogical task, forcefully defends an ethical and legal historicism that distances him of the absolute relativism as the way of classic natural law positions, completely ahistorical, that reveals itself highly interesting for the current reflections on the philosophy of law.</p><p><strong>Keywords:</strong> Rudolf von Jhering; legal feeling; ethical and political historicism.</p>

PREFERENCES VS. DESIRES: DEBATING THE FUNDAMENTAL STRUCTURE OF CONATIVE STATES

2015 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 239-257 ◽  
Author(s):  
Armin W. Schulz
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Rational Choice ◽  
Computational Efficiency ◽  
Rational Choice Theory ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Fundamental Structure ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Theoretical Considerations

Abstract:I address an overlooked question about the structure of the cognitive/conative model of the mind that underlies much of the work in economics, psychology and philosophy: namely, whether conative states are fundamentally monistic (desire-like) or comparative (preference-like). I argue that two seemingly promising sets of theoretical considerations – namely, the structure of Rational Choice Theory, and considerations of computational efficiency – are unable to resolve this debate. Given this, I suggest that a consideration that speaks in favour of the preference-based view is the fact that it makes it easier to explain certain empirically observed patterns in decision making.

Pirates, Kings and Reasons to Ad: Moral Motivation and the Role of Sanctions in Locke's Moral Theory

2007 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia Sheridan
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
Moral Motivation ◽  
Moral Good ◽  
Natural Laws ◽  
Law Of Nature ◽  
Human Understanding ◽  
Moral Duties ◽  
Moral Rules

Locke's moral theory consists of two explicit and distinct elements — a broadly rationalist theory of natural law and a hedonistic conception of moral good. The rationalist account, which we find most prominently in his early Essays on the Law of Nature, is generally taken to consist in three things. First, Locke holds that our moral rules are founded on universal, divine natural laws. Second, such moral laws are taken to be discoverable by reason. Third, by dint of their divine authorship, moral laws are obligatory and rationally discernible as such. Locke's hedonism, which is developed most fully in his later Essay Concerning Human Understanding, consists in the view that all good amounts to pleasure, with specifically moral good taken to consist in the pleasurable consequences of discharging one's moral duties.

scholarly journals Themis and Dike – Justice in Greek Myth and Tradition

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-39
Author(s):  
Isidora Fürst
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Ancient Greece ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Greek Myth ◽  
Natural Laws ◽  
Greek Culture ◽  
Moral Power ◽  
Legislative Reforms ◽  
And Behavior

The understanding of law in Ancient Greece was based on the religious interpretations of human nature and natural laws. Two Greek goddesses were representatives of justice and fairness. In the ancient sources Themis is presented as a goddess and prophetess, one of the Titans and the daughter of Gea and Uranus. She is a symbol of divine order, justice, natural law and good customs. Dike, the daughter of Themis, is the goddess of justice and truth, the protector of rights and courts of justice, the arbiter, the symbol of honor, the goddess of revenge and punishment. In early Greek culture and poetry, the terms themis and dike represented justice in the meaning of cosmic order, natural law, and legality. The paper analyses the Hellenic notions of justice, fairness and legality embodied in the phenomena of themis and dike. Nomos (law) is just only if it is in harmony with themis, and law is valid only if it is just. The paper presents the doctrines of Hellenic writers, poets and playwrights on justice and law, with special reference to the influence of mythology on Hellenic law. Publius Ovidius Naso’s work „Metamorphosis”, which speaks about Themis’ role in the creation of the world and the salvation of the human race is one of the greatest sources about this goddess. In Homer’s „Iliad” and „Odyssey”, epics that sing of the heroic spirit, justice is shown in the motives, intentions and behavior of the participants in the event, mostly heroes. The poet Hesiod, famous for the poems „Theogony” and „Works and Days”, moves away from the heroic virtues of people and portrays the gods as bearers of moral power and guardians of justice. In the light of legislative reforms, Solon’s dike represents the progress and well-being of society through economic reforms, which is why justice and injustice refer only to legal and illegal acquisition of wealth and its effect on the community. Aeschylus’ „Oresteia” shows the principle of justice based on talion, according to which the punishment has to be identical with the committed crime. One of the greatest Ancient Greek playwrights, Sophocles, based his play „Antigone” on the conflict between the laws of men and the laws of gods. According to Herodotus, the greatest Ancient Greek historian, the actions of the gods govern human destinies and historical events. The idea of justice in Ancient Greece was all throughout its transformation based of the universial concept of natural balance.

Between Life and Violent Death

2019 ◽  
pp. 67-80
Author(s):  
Fred Dallmayr
Keyword(s):  
Social Norms ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
Violent Death ◽  
Civil State ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
Natural Laws ◽  
The Core

The chapter considers the origin and meaning of “natural law” and “natural rightness,” the core of right conduct, whose origin is sometimes placed in the cogito. This chapter emphasizes, instead, the role of contextual “relationality” in rules, whether “positive” social norms or “divine” rules, such as the Mosaic “laws” which were not imposed unilaterally by a divine potentate but reflected the people’s experience and “common sense” of right conduct. The chapter extends this argument to the work of Thomas Hobbes for whom transit from the “state of nature” to the “civil state” depended on reciprocal and relational “natural laws,” which he called “immutable and eternal” because they originate at the experiential boundary between life and death. Relationality prevails even when human norms are set aside in favor of “higher” rules—as revealed by Antigone of Thebes who appealed beyond state rules to the relationality between brother and sister.

Forester, bricoleur and country bumpkin: rethinking knowledge and habit in Aquinas's ethics

2006 ◽  
Vol 59 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-174
Author(s):  
Craig Hovey
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Moral Agent ◽  
Moral Knowledge ◽  
Image Of God ◽  
Habits Of Mind ◽  
Divine Simplicity ◽  
Apparent Paradox ◽  
System Building ◽  
Eternal Law ◽  
The Mind

The ways that Thomism has historically thought about knowledge and habit in Thomas Aquinas's ethics have become increasingly destabilised. This article briefly documents this destabilisation before considering three images that have emerged in recent engagements with the ethics of Aquinas on moral knowledge and action. The three images are brought to bear on a discussion of what Aquinas may have meant by calling synderesis a ‘natural habit’. The first image is John Milbank's and Catherine Pickstock's image of God as country bumpkin and it follows Aquinas's own description of the way God knows particulars out of divine simplicity. They argue that human knowledge of particulars comes from participation in the mind of God. This is participation in eternal law from which natural law is derived and so natural law cannot constitute a separate, sufficient system of moral knowledge. With the second image, the bricoleur, Jeffrey Stout argues that system-building was far from the kind of work that Aquinas was about, despite appearances that have disguised how freely Aquinas himself made use of the moral resources at his disposal. The third image, the forester, is deployed by Charles Pinches intentionally to improve on some of the problems with Stout's image. The Christian moral agent develops habits of mind that both aid in right perception, and hence right knowledge, and depend on right perception for right action. A discussion of this apparent paradox reveals something of the complexity of theoretical knowledge and practical skills that are involved in moral reasoning for Aquinas.

John Locke: Natural Law and Innate Ideas

Dialogue ◽  
1980 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 531-545 ◽  
Author(s):  
S.B. Drury
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
John Locke ◽  
Natural Laws ◽  
Human Understanding ◽  
Innate Ideas ◽  
Essay Concerning Human Understanding

In the seventeenth century, the concept of natural law was linked with that of “innate ideas”. Natural laws were said to be ideas imprinted by nature or by God on men's minds and were the very foundation of religion and morality. Locke's attack on innate ideas in the first book of his Essay Concerning Human Understanding is therefore considered to be an assault on natural law. Modern critics like Peter Laslett, W. von Leyden and Philip Abrams are of the opinion that Locke's critique of innate ideas in the Essay cannot be reconciled with the concept of natural law in the Two Treatises of Government.

Thomasius (Thomas), Christian (1655–1728)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Knud Haakonssen
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
God's Will ◽  
The Public ◽  
German Enlightenment ◽  
Modern Natural ◽  
Natural Law Theory ◽  
Law And Morality ◽  
The Mind

Christian Thomasius’ stature as the ‘founder’ of the German Enlightenment has been the source of much debate. His many essays dealing with issues in moral enlightenment and law reform (bigamy, witchcraft, torture, heresy, adultery, the use of the vernacular and so on) certainly single him out from other seventeenth-century writers. He was the public philosopher par excellence, a suitable match for August Hermann Francke, the great public theologian. Both men spent most of their career in Halle (in Brandenburg), and it was there that Francke institutionalized pietism, just as Thomasius propagated secular natural law theory. Despite many tensions, pietism and modern natural law thereby fused into a social duty-ethics that was of the greatest importance in shaping the modern Prussian state. The basis for natural law was God’s will and it was the attempt to follow this law that made humanity a moral species. Since humankind could not have any certain knowledge of the content of God’s law, the natural powers of the mind would have to be relied upon, and Thomasius’ thought was an investigation into the nature and social effect of these powers. His best-known result was a series of linked divisions between law and morality, between public and private spheres, between external and internal obligation, and between action and intention.

Miracles

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Basinger
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Single Event ◽  
Natural Explanation ◽  
Natural Laws ◽  
Divine Intervention ◽  
Tremendous Amount ◽  
Time Continuum ◽  
Independent Confirmation ◽  
Objective Research ◽  
Do So

Does God at times miraculously intervene in earthly affairs? That is, do some events occur because God has entered our space-time continuum and directly modified or circumvented the relevant natural laws? Few philosophers today deny that this is possible. But many question whether we could ever justifiably maintain that such intervention has taken place. According to some philosophers, it is not even necessary to grant that the types of events believers label miracles – for instance, healings or resurrections – actually occur as reported. Since the evidence supporting the occurrence of such events is the personal testimony of a few, possibly biased, individuals, while the basis for doubt is the massive amount of objective research upon which the relevant laws are based, it is always justifiable, according to this view, to conclude that such reports are erroneous. Others contend, however, that the presence of some forms of evidence – for instance, independent confirmation from reputable sources – could make it most reasonable in some cases to acknowledge that even the most unexpected of events had actually occurred. Some philosophers also deny that we could ever justifiably conclude that an event could not have been produced by natural causes alone. Since we will never be in a position to identify all that nature can produce, they declare, it will always be most reasonable for the scientist facing a currently unexplainable counterinstance to a natural law to continue to look for a natural explanation. Many believers, however, are quite willing to grant that nature could in principle produce any event, since what they wish to maintain is only that nature does not do so in the case of miraculous interventions. Finally, while many philosophers acknowledge that belief in direct divine intervention may at times be justifiable for those who already believe that God exists, some also argue that no single event or series of events could ever compel all thoughtful individuals to acknowledge the existence of a perfectly good supernatural causal agent, given all we experience – for instance, the tremendous amount of horrific evil in our world. Many believers, though, are also willing to grant this point.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document