PHILOSOPHY 100 Fall 2010 Writing Assignment 2 Due Monday, December 6
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Testimony Using the Term “Reasonable Scientific Certainty”
NATIONAL COMMISSION ON FORENSIC SCIENCE Testimony Using the Term “Reasonable Scientific Certainty” Subcommittee Reporting and Testimony Type of Work Product Views Document Statement of the Issue It is the view of the National Commission on Forensic Science (NCFS) that legal professionals should not require that forensic discipline testimony be admitted conditioned upon the expert witness testifying that a conclusion is held to a “reasonable scientific certainty,” a “reasonable degree of scientific certainty,” or a “reasonable degree of [discipline] certainty.” The legal community should recognize that medical professionals and other scientists do not routinely use “to a reasonable scientific certainty” when expressing conclusions outside of the courts. Such terms have no scientific meaning and may mislead factfinders [jurors or judges] when deciding whether guilt has been proved beyond a reasonable doubt. Forensic science service providers should not endorse or promote the use of this terminology. The Commission recognizes the right of each jurisdiction to determine admissibility standards but expresses this view as part of its mandate to “develop proposed guidance concerning the intersection of forensic science and the courtroom.” Forensics experts are often required to testify that the opinions or facts stated are offered “to a reasonable scientific certainty” or to a “reasonable degree of [discipline] certainty.” Outside of the courts, this phrasing is not routinely used in scientific disciplines, a point acknowledged in the Daubert decision (“it would be unreasonable to conclude that the subject of scientific testimony must be ‘known’ to a certainty; arguably, there are no certainties in science.”). Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharms., 509 U.S. 579, 590 (1993). -
From Just War to Just Intervention Susan J
New England Journal of Public Policy Volume 19 | Issue 1 Article 5 9-21-2003 From Just War to Just Intervention Susan J. Atwood University of Minnesota - Twin Cities Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarworks.umb.edu/nejpp Part of the International Relations Commons, Military, War and Peace Commons, and the Religion Commons Recommended Citation Atwood, Susan J. (2003) "From Just War to Just Intervention," New England Journal of Public Policy: Vol. 19: Iss. 1, Article 5. Available at: http://scholarworks.umb.edu/nejpp/vol19/iss1/5 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks at UMass Boston. It has been accepted for inclusion in New England Journal of Public Policy by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks at UMass Boston. For more information, please contact [email protected]. From Just War to Just Intervention Susan J. Atwood What is Just War? What is Just Intervention? This paper examines the evolution of the criteria for Just War from its origins in the early Christian church to the twenty-first century. The end of the Cold War era has expanded the discussion to include grounds for intervention. Indeed, in the 1990s, a number of multilat- eral interventions took place on humanitarian grounds. But the debate is ongoing about whether the criteria applied in the Just War theory — proper authority, just cause, and right intent — remain valid in an era of Just Intervention. The author examines as case studies some multilateral interven- tions and the lessons learned from them as we seek to develop the framework of international law to address the evolving theory and current practice of Just Intervention. -
Al-Ghazali and Descartes from Doubt to Certainty: a Phenomenological Approach
AL-GHAZALI AND DESCARTES FROM DOUBT TO CERTAINTY: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL APPROACH Mohammad Alwahaib Abstract: This paper clarifies the philosophical connection between Al-Ghazali and Descartes, with the goal to articulate similarities and differences in their famous journeys from doubt to certainty. As such, its primary focus is on the chain of their reasoning, starting from their conceptions of truth and doubt arguments, until their arrival at truth. Both philosophers agreed on the ambiguous character of ordinary everyday knowledge and decided to set forth in undermining its foundations. As such, most scholars tend to agree that the doubt arguments used by Descartes and Al-Ghazali are similar, but identify their departures from doubt as radically different: while Descartes found his way out of doubt through the cogito and so reason, Al-Ghazali ended his philosophical journey as a Sufi in a sheer state of passivity, waiting for the truth to be revealed to him by God. This paper proves this is not the case. Under close textual scrutiny and through the use of basic Husserlian-phenomenological concepts, I show that Al-Ghazali's position was misunderstood, thus disclosing his true philosophic nature. I. Introduction This paper clarifies the philosophical relation between Al-Ghazali, a Muslim philosopher (1058--1111), and the French philosopher Rene Descartes (1596--1650), with the objective of articulating the similarities and differences in their famous journeys from doubt to certainty. Historical evidence on whether Descartes did in fact read or had knowledge of Al-Ghazali’s work will not be discussed in this paper. Instead, this paper focuses primarily on the chain of their reasoning, starting from their conceptions of truth and the arguments used by each to destroy or deconstruct the pillars of our knowledge and thus reach truth. -
Mathematical Scepticism: the Cartesian Approach Luciano Floridi
Mathematical Scepticism: the Cartesian Approach1 Luciano Floridi Wolfson College, Oxford, OX2 6UD, UK [email protected] - www.wolfson.ox.ac.uk/~floridi Introduction Paris, 15 February 1665: Molière’s Don Juan is first performed in the Palais-Royal Hall. Third Act, First Scene: the most daring of Don Juan’s intellectual adventures takes place. In a dialogue with his servant Sganarelle, Don Juan makes explicit his atheist philosophy: SGANARELLE. I want to get to the bottom of what you really think. Is it possible that you don’t believe in Heaven at all? D. JUAN. Let that question alone. SGANARELLE. That means you don’t. And Hell? D. JUAN. Enough. SGANARELLE. Ditto. What about the devil then? D. JUAN. Oh, of course. SGANARELLE. As little. Do you believe in an after life? D. JUAN. Ha! ha! ha! SGANARELLE. Here is a man I shall have a job to convert. […] SGANARELLE. But everybody must believe in something. What do you believe in? D. JUAN. What do I believe? SGANARELLE. Yes. D. JUAN. I believe that two and two make four, Sganarelle, and four and four make eight. SGANARELLE. That’s a fine thing to believe! What fine article of faith! Your religion is then nothing but arithmetic. Some people do have queer ideas in their heads, and those that have been educated are often the silliest. I never studied, thank God, and no one can boast he taught me anything. But, to my poor way of thinking, my eyes are better than books. I know very well that this world we see around us is not a mushroom grown up in a single night. -
Cicero and St. Augustine's Just War Theory: Classical Influences on a Christian Idea Berit Van Neste University of South Florida
University of South Florida Scholar Commons Graduate Theses and Dissertations Graduate School 4-12-2006 Cicero and St. Augustine's Just War Theory: Classical Influences on a Christian Idea Berit Van Neste University of South Florida Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd Part of the American Studies Commons, and the Religion Commons Scholar Commons Citation Neste, Berit Van, "Cicero and St. Augustine's Just War Theory: Classical Influences on a Christian Idea" (2006). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/3782 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Cicero and St. Augustine's Just War Theory: Classical Influences on a Christian Idea by Berit Van Neste A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Department of Religious Studies College of Arts and Sciences University of South Florida Major Professor: James F. Strange, Ph.D. Paul G. Schneider, Ph.D. Michael J. Decker, Ph.D. Date of Approval: April 12, 2006 Keywords: theology, philosophy, politics, patristic, medieval © Copyright 2006 , Berit Van Neste For Elizabeth and Calista Table of Contents Abstract ii Chapter 1 1 Introduction 1 Cicero’s Influence on Augustine 7 Chapter 2 13 Justice 13 Natural and Temporal Law 19 Commonwealth 34 Chapter 3 49 Just War 49 Chapter 4 60 Conclusion 60 References 64 i Cicero and St. -
On Certainty (Uber Gewissheit) Ed
Ludwig Wittgenstein On Certainty (Uber Gewissheit) ed. G.E.M.Anscombe and G.H.von Wright Translated by Denis Paul and G.E.M.Anscombe Basil Blackwell, Oxford 1969-1975 Preface What we publish here belongs to the last year and a half of Wittgenstein's life. In the middle of 1949 he visited the United States at the invitation of Norman Malcolm, staying at Malcolm's house in Ithaca. Malcolm acted as a goad to his interest in Moore's 'defence of common sense', that is to say his claim to know a number of propositions for sure, such as "Here is one hand, and here is another", and "The earth existed for a long time before my birth", and "I have never been far from the earth's surface". The first of these comes in Moore's 'Proof of the External World'. The two others are in his 'Defence of Common Sense'; Wittgenstein had long been interested in these and had said to Moore that this was his best article. Moore had agreed. This book contains the whole of what Wittgenstein wrote on this topic from that time until his death. It is all first-draft material, which he did not live to excerpt and polish. The material falls into four parts; we have shown the divisions at #65, #192, #299. What we believe to be the first part was written on twenty loose sheets of lined foolscap, undated. These Wittgenstein left in his room in G.E.M.Anscombe's house in Oxford, where he lived (apart from a visit to Norway in the autumn) from April 1950 to February 1951. -
Value in Experience, Thoughts on Radical Empiricism; Reflections on Frankenberry and Stone1
Value In Experience, Thoughts on Radical Empiricism; Reflections on Frankenberry and Stone1 David W. Tarbell Modern philosophy, going back to Descartes and Locke, has given preferred status to the kind of judgments that we find within the mathematical sciences and has made it difficult to support judgments of value and meaning. In Chapter Four of his book, The Minimalist Vision of Transcendence, Jerome Stone describes what he calls a "Generous Empiricism." He is building on the tradition of radical empiricism, and presents a transactional understanding of experience that allows him to support empirically grounded value judgments. I argue that a critique from the perspective of Heidegger and others of the continental tradition may present problems to Stone's approach. I then propose a modification of Stone's notion that I think would answer such criticisms. This leads me to the notion that our value judgments have an aesthetic component, and that we can find pragmatic support for the belief that there is an aesthetic tendency in the world of which we are a part. There is something divine and possibly transcendent in that thought. I. The Value Problem: One of the factors affecting the moral, ethical, and political climate of our present culture is diversity of judgment on matters of value. Some have said that the presence of so much diversity argues against our ability to resolve questions of truth in these areas. Their positions vary among skepticism, denying that we can know moral truth, nihilism, questioning that there is such a thing as moral truth, or relativism, claiming that moral truth is conditional on social and/or cultural circumstances. -
Three Theories of Just War: Understanding Warfare As a Social Tool Through Comparative Analysis of Western, Chinese, and Islamic Classical Theories of War
THREE THEORIES OF JUST WAR: UNDERSTANDING WARFARE AS A SOCIAL TOOL THROUGH COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF WESTERN, CHINESE, AND ISLAMIC CLASSICAL THEORIES OF WAR A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE DIVISION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI‘I AT MĀNOA IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENT FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS IN PHILOSOPHY MAY 2012 By Faruk Rahmanović Thesis Committee: Tamara Albertini, Chairperson Roger T. Ames James D. Frankel Brien Hallett Keywords: War, Just War, Augustine, Sunzi, Sun Bin, Jihad, Qur’an DEDICATION To my parents, Ahmet and Nidžara Rahmanović. To my wife, Majda, who continues to put up with me. To Professor Keith W. Krasemann, for teaching me to ask the right questions. And to Professor Martin J. Tracey, for his tireless commitment to my success. 1 ABSTRACT The purpose of this analysis was to discover the extent to which dictates of war theory ideals can be considered universal, by comparing the Western (European), Classical Chinese, and Islamic models. It also examined the contextual elements that drove war theory development within each civilization, and the impact of such elements on the differences arising in war theory comparison. These theories were chosen for their differences in major contextual elements, in order to limit the impact of contextual similarities on the war theories. The results revealed a great degree of similarities in the conception of warfare as a social tool of the state, utilized as a sometimes necessary, albeit tragic, means of establishing peace justice and harmony. What differences did arise, were relatively minor, and came primarily from the differing conceptions of morality and justice within each civilization – thus indicating a great degree of universality to the conception of warfare. -
To a Moral Certainty: Theories of Knowledge and Anglo-American Juries 1600-1850 Barbara J
Hastings Law Journal Volume 38 | Issue 1 Article 2 1-1986 To A Moral Certainty: Theories of Knowledge and Anglo-American Juries 1600-1850 Barbara J. Shapiro Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.uchastings.edu/hastings_law_journal Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Barbara J. Shapiro, To A Moral Certainty: Theories of Knowledge and Anglo-American Juries 1600-1850, 38 Hastings L.J. 153 (1986). Available at: https://repository.uchastings.edu/hastings_law_journal/vol38/iss1/2 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Journals at UC Hastings Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Hastings Law Journal by an authorized editor of UC Hastings Scholarship Repository. "To A Moral Certainty": Theories of Knowledge and Anglo-American Juries 1600-1850 by BARBARA J. SHAPIRO* In many American jurisdictions the jury is instructed that the prose- cution must prove the defendant's guilt "beyond a reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty." At first glance, "to a moral certainty" appears to be one of those typical redundancies of common law that seek to cure ambiguity by compounding it. Because it troubles us that "beyond rea- sonable doubt" conveys no very precise meaning, we add a second phrase, "to a moral certainty," but it conveys even less meaning and makes our whole problem worse. Only a few quite well-educated older people who have read a great deal of nineteenth-century literature are likely even to have said, "I am morally certain that you left your coat in the restaurant" or "Are you morally certain that you came into the room before he did?" It is the kind of phrase that a screenwriter might put in the mouth of a country storekeeper to suggest a slightly bookish, straight-laced, religious old man still living in an earlier age. -
Augustine's Certainty in Speaking About Hell and His Reserve In
Chapter 2 Augustine’s Certainty in Speaking about Hell and His Reserve in Explaining Christ’s Descent into Hell Paul J. J. van Geest 1 Introduction About two years after Augustine was ordained to the priesthood – in 391, when he was 37 years old – a controversy arose surrounding Origen, one of the most admired and authoritative Christian authors in those days.1 Origen was ac- cused of denying that punishment in hell is for all eternity. We may deduce just from the titles of the works that Augustine wrote before or around this time, such as De ordine, De beata vita, Contra Academicos or a volume of De libero arbitrio, that he was not particularly interested in this matter. It was not until his ordination as a bishop, in 395, that Augustine began to formulate thoughts on hell and Christ’s descent there. At this time the subdeacon Asterius and the deacon Presidius, who acted as Jerome’s messengers, explained to him the ob- jectionable nature of Origen’s points of view.2 Then Augustine asked Jerome, in Epistula 40, to send him a list of Origen’s ‘errors’.3 By reading Contra Rufinum, Augustine subsequently learned that Jerome considered Origen’s ideas on the restoration of everything and everyone (ἀποκατάστασις) to be incompatible with the apostolic faith in hell and its eternal pain. It turned out that Jerome thought that this was the onset of heresy (haec maxime haeretica).4 1 Cf. L. Clark, The Origen Controversy: The Cultural Construction of an Early Christian Debate (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), passim. -
Ratio, Reason, Rationalism (Ideae)
Ratio, reason, rationalism (ideae) for Saint Augustine through the Ages: an Encyclopedia, edited Allan Fitzgerald, Eerdmans, 1999, 696-702. Reason, as Augustine understood it, has been obscured to us by fundamental changes in the relations between reason and revelation, and between philosophy, theology and religion. There is now mutual incomprehension and indifference, division and opposition between them. In Augustine, there was, across religious divisions, a common reason in respect even to theological questions (c.Acad. 3,20,43; conf. 7; ciu.dei 8 & 10). Within the Christian religion, reason, faith and understanding were different modes of apprehending a single truth. The end of religion was to pass from faith to understanding, i.e. to intellectual vision. Reason was necessary for faith to have an object and to assist in the passage to vision (sol. 1,6,13-7,14; quant. 33,76; lib.arb. 2,2,5-6; doc.chr. 2,12,17; praed.sanct. 2,5; s. 118,1; ep. 120,3; trin. 8,5,8; 12,12,25; 14,1,3). For Augustine, reason (ratio) characterizes the human, and it, or mind (mens), is the best part of soul (c.Acad. 1,2,5; retr. 1,1,2). It proceeds and ends by self-knowledge and the knowledge of God, which are inescapably intertwined, and include the knowledge of all else (uera rel. 39,72; conf. 7,1-2 & X; en.Ps. 41,6- 8;145,5; trin. 14,12,15f.). Augustine can say that he wants to know only God and the soul (sol. 1,2,7). -
Beyond the Edge of Certainty: Reflections on the Rise of Physical Conventionalism
Beyond the Edge of Certainty: Reflections on the Rise of Physical Conventionalism Helmut Pulte Abstract. Until today, conventionalism is mainly regarded from the point of view of geometry, both in historical as in philosophical perspective. This paper, which corresponds in a certain way with earlier studies of J. Giedymin, aims at a broader interpretation. The importance of the so-called ‘physics of principles’, rooted in the tradition of analytical mechanics, for Poincaré’s conventionalism is emphasized. It is argued that important elements of phys- ical conventionalism can already be found in this tradition that underwent a fundamental change in the course of the 19th century. Résumé. Jusqu’à présent, le conventionnalisme a toujours été considéré à point de vue de la géométrie, que ce soit dans une perspective historique ou philosophique. Cet article, qui reprend dans une certaine mesure les travaux antérieurs de J. Giedymin, vise une interprétation plus large. L’importance de la ‘physique des principes’, qui s’inscrit dans une tradition de la mécanique an- alytique est mise en valeur par le conventionnalisme de Poincaré. J’y défends la thèse selon laquelle d’importants éléments du conventionnalisme physique peuvent déjà être trouvés dans cette tradition qui a subi un changement fon- damental au cours du 19ème siècle. Zusammenfassung. Der Konventionalismus wird auch heute noch in aller Regel — sowohl in philosophischer als auch historischer Perspektive — vom Standpunkt der Geometrie aus betrachtet. Dieser Beitrag, der in mancher Hin- sicht an frühere Untersuchungen J. Giedymins anknüpft, zielt auf eine breitere Interpretation ab. Die Bedeutung der sogenannten ‘Physik der Prinzipien’, die ihre Wurzeln in der Tradition der analytischen Mechanik hat, für Poincaré’s Konventionalismus wird unterstrichen.