LITMIR.BIZ

Artificial intelligence (AI) permeates Google searches, the personal assistants in our smartphones, and is all over our newsfeeds. Watson's machine learning has already started to revolutionize many important industries including oncology, law, finance, and entertainment. The idea that man is about to increase his immediate surroundings with exponential gains in the level of intelligence over the coming generations is based upon a technological revolution and the potential for artificial superintelligence (ASI). It is within this context that there is a prevailing need for a discussion of its ethical implications. As a Christian ethicist, Paul Golata believes that the need for this conversation to be informed by Christian principles is imperative. ASI is a move toward the proper handling of information. However, how a society interprets and applies this information is actually more pertinent than the raw amount of information it possesses. This important ethical conversation is being led by humanistic thinkers who assume that all of reality is just matter in motion and that mind is nothing more than electrochemical activity in the «wetware» of human brains. The Ethics of Superintelligent Design critically examines and challenges some of the most important trajectories of ASI while upholding the authority and inerrancy of the Bible, the supernatural creation account, a realistic view of the state of humanity, and biblical ethics.

Подробнее

What do we mean when we say that something is? What is the meaning of human experience? These two most elementary philosophical questions have perplexed thinkers for thousands of years. Being and Intelligibility explores them from the simple premise that all entities are essentially logical in their being. The book develops its three central theses: that the beingness of beings, called «Being,» and the intelligibility of Being are one and the same; that nothingness (i.e., absolute not-Being) is self-contradictory and unintelligible and, therefore, Being is logically necessary; and that the fullness of human rational experience cannot be explained in materially reducible terms and requires recognition of the existence of transcendent reality, which includes God (as self-grounding good will), moral obligation and freedom, and the souls of men. Being and Intelligibility thoroughly investigates the implications of the essential logicality of Being, including that human Being shows itself to itself from within itself as a substantive, persistent, morally obligated unity among the ordered manifold of its life experiences, whose essential Being is orientation toward God.

Подробнее

Throughout this book, Louis Roy illustrates his conviction that Christianity consists in the most profound experience to which human beings are invited by God. This experience involves meaning and truth, hope and love, suffering and joy, solidarity and critique. It is a space of freedom, where diverse persons seek the light and make their decisions, interacting with the intellectual and affective resources of their culture. Faith is understood as a personal and communal adventure–a sequence of real life experiences. The book proposes an articulate and coherent vision of the Christian faith. It surveys the complementary dimensions of Christian experience. It points to various paths, traveled by different people. It offers an actualization for our time, that is, a road map that is at the same time flexible and in keeping with truth. It engages in a dialogue with psychology and with non-Christian views, for example on meditation and on reincarnation. The book is addressed to a large audience of educated readers, who are likely to be very interested in its biblical, philosophical, psychological, sociological, interreligious, and pastoral components. Its originality consists in bringing together the interactions between several disciplines, in a practical way.

Подробнее

Calvinist determinism destroys moral responsibility and makes God the author of sin. These two accusations are not new, and were arguably anticipated by Paul in Romans 9, but they remain today the most important objections offered against Calvinist/determinist views of human free will. This book is a philosophically rigorous and comprehensive defense of Calvinism against these two families of arguments. With respect to human moral responsibility, it discusses whether determinism destroys «free will,» turns humans into pets or puppets, and involves or is analogous to coercion and manipulation. It responds to the consequence argument and direct argument for incompatibilism, the principle of alternate possibilities, the «ought implies can» maxim, and related claims. With respect to the authorship of sin, it discusses whether Calvinist determinism improperly involves God in evil. Does it mean that «God sins,» or «causes sin,» or «wills sin» in problematic ways? «Does God intend our sin, or (merely) permit sin?» In each case the coherence of the Calvinist view is defended against its most potent objections, to reject the claim that Calvinism is «excusing sinners and blaming God.»

Подробнее

It is natural for us to wonder what should I do, and why? And although a combination of common sense and upbringing aids us in answering our questions, it is also natural for us to seek answers that are grounded in something deeper and more enduring than our personal dispositions and those of our parents. We seek a genuinely good life and the practical wisdom necessary to arrive at happiness. In this Introduction to Ethics, Brian Besong presents a comprehensive and contemporary introduction to the practical wisdom handed down to us by Aristotle, St. Thomas Aquinas, and many others–a position now commonly called «natural law.» Written as a beginner's guide, the book systematically explores a range of moral issues including moral knowledge, happiness, right and wrong action, and virtues, to name a few. Introduction to Ethics explains in a lively way how natural law provides principled and persuasive answers to our most fundamental moral questions.

Подробнее

Recent years have witnessed an astonishing cultural and legal shift when it comes to homosexuality and same-sex marriage. Many Christians see these changes as a defeat for Christian values, often painting Christian opponents as sell-outs to secular culture. But can there be a genuinely Christian case for same-sex marriage? This book makes that case. While sensitive to scriptural issues, it focuses on a question that cannot be answered by Scripture alone: What does love for our gay and lesbian neighbors demand? This question calls us to pair theological, philosophical, and scriptural reflection with something else: attention to gay and lesbian lives. We must attend to the psychological research and, more importantly, to the stories our gay and lesbian neighbors tell us about themselves and their experience. Love does not permit us to plug our ears with Bible verses. While this book argues that Christian love calls us to make same-sex marriage available, the deeper conclusion is that Christian values prevail when we wrestle with these questions in a spirit of love: love for those with whom we disagree, and love for those most affected by the decisions we reach.

Подробнее

Postmodern Theology consists in a sharp-edged retrospective and reflection on the forty-year history of the most important movement in contemporary religious thought that is only now passing from the scene. The author, Dr. Carl Raschke, is generally credited with having sparked the movement, even if he did not always happen to be its leading spokesperson. Not only has a comprehensive survey of postmodern theology in all its different phases and complexity not been published prior to the appearance of this book, but it is even more remarkable for someone who both «launched» it and had a central role in shepherding it along to offer what may be termed a «movement memoir.»
Postmodern Theology surveys and summarizes the major figures and trends that have given currency to such familiar expressions as «deconstruction,» «deconstructive theology,» «radical theology,» «a/theology,» «God is dead,» and of course, «postmodernism» itself. Dr. Raschke also contextualizes the emergence of these catchy phrases from a frothy soup of new intellectual theories and philosophical innovations, which were international in scope but customized for both academic and popular religious writers–mainly in Britain and America–from the late 1960s onward.

Подробнее

Sexual exploitation was and is a critical feature of enslavement. Across many different societies, slaves were considered to own neither their bodies nor their children, even if many struggled to resist. At the same time, paradoxes abound: for example, in some societies to bear the children of a master was a potential route to manumission for some women. Sex, Power, and Slavery is the first history of slavery and bondage to take sexuality seriously. Twenty-six authors from diverse scholarly backgrounds look at the vexed, traumatic intersections of the histories of slavery and of sexuality. They argue that such intersections mattered profoundly and, indeed, that slavery cannot be understood without adequate attention to sexuality. Sex, Power, and Slavery brings into conversation historians of the slave trade, art historians, and scholars of childhood and contemporary sex trafficking. The book merges work on the Atlantic world and the Indian Ocean world and enables rich comparisons and parallels between these diverse areas. Contributors : David Brion Davis, Martin Klein, Richard Hellie, Abdul Sheriff, Griet Vankeerberghen, E. Ann McDougall, Matthew S. Hopper, Marie Rodet, George La Rue, Ulrike Schmieder, Tara Iniss, Mariana Candido, James Francis Warren, Johanna Ransmeier, Roseline Uyanga with Marie-Luise Ermisch, Francesca Ann Louise Mitchell, Shigeru Sato, Gabeba Baderoon, Charmaine Nelson, Ana Lucia Araujo, Brian Lewis, Ronaldo Vainfas, Salah Trabelsi, Joost Coté, Sandra Evers, and Subho Basu

Подробнее

From the frozen landscapes of the Antarctic to the haunted houses of childhood, the memory of places we experience is fundamental to a sense of self. Drawing on influences as diverse as Merleau-Ponty, Freud, and J. G. Ballard, The Memory of Place charts the memorial landscape that is written into the body and its experience of the world. Dylan Trigg’s The Memory of Place offers a lively and original intervention into contemporary debates within “place studies,” an interdisciplinary field at the intersection of philosophy, geography, architecture, urban design, and environmental studies. Through a series of provocative investigations, Trigg analyzes monuments in the representation of public memory; “transitional” contexts, such as airports and highway rest stops; and the “ruins” of both memory and place in sites such as Auschwitz. While developing these original analyses, Trigg engages in thoughtful and innovative ways with the philosophical and literary tradition, from Gaston Bachelard to Pierre Nora, H. P. Lovecraft to Martin Heidegger. Breathing a strange new life into phenomenology, The Memory of Place argues that the eerie disquiet of the uncanny is at the core of the remembering body, and thus of ourselves. The result is a compelling and novel rethinking of memory and place that should spark new conversations across the field of place studies. Edward S. Casey, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Stony Brook University and widely recognized as the leading scholar on phenomenology of place, calls The Memory of Place “genuinely unique and a signal addition to phenomenological literature. It fills a significant gap, and it does so with eloquence and force.” He predicts that Trigg’s book will be “immediately recognized as a major original work in phenomenology.”

Подробнее

Classical phenomenology has suffered from an individualist bias and a neglect of the communicative structure of experience, especially the phenomenological importance of the addressee, the inseparability of I and You, and the nature of the alternation between them. Beata Stawarska remedies this neglect by bringing relevant contributions from cognate empirical disciplines—such as sociolinguistics and developmental psychology, as well as the dialogic tradition in philosophy—to bear on phenomenological inquiry. Taken together, these contributions substantiate an alternative view of primary I-You connectedness and help foreground the dialogic dimension of both prediscursive and discursive experience. Between You and I suggests that phenomenology is best practiced in a dialogical engagement with other disciplines.

Подробнее