Abstract not available

This paper reconsiders what implications quantum decoherence has for Karen Barad’s agential realism. In contrast with the recent claim of Thomas Everth and Laura Gurney (2022), this paper argues that decoherence supports rather than defeats the holist, relational ontology of agential realism. Indeed, decoherence offers an explanation for how a quantum system can remain entangled and superposed in principle

Using ideas proposed in Aboutness and developed in ‘If-thenism’, Stephen Yablo has tried to improve on classical if-thenism in mathematics, a view initially put forward by Bertrand Russell in his Principles of Mathematics. Yablo’s stated goal is to provide a reading of a sentence like ‘The number of planets is eight’ with a sort of content on which it fails to imply ‘Numbers exist’. After presenting

Abstract not available

On September 8, 2021, the Robert E. Lee Monument in Richmond, Virginia was removed—the final Confederate monument to be toppled on Monument Avenue, the one-and-a-half-mile boulevard dedicated to Confederate memory. Two years prior, Kehinde Wiley unveiled Rumors of War, a 27-foot-tall and 16- foot-wide bronze statue showing a young Black man with dreadlocks atop a horse in a hoodie, ripped jeans, and

The article exemplifies the field of an historical geography of religion, specifically focusing on the spatial aspect of inter-denominational relations. It analyses the impact of routes and distances on religious practice, arguing that space played a pivotal role in administering church services. Three case studies from different regions of Eastern Europe – Bukovina (today divided between Romania and

This research uses 3D drawing techniques to create a re-composition of the lost April 11 Memorial, a contested monument which commemorated the deportation of Armenian intellectuals from Istanbul in 1915. We use the only photograph of the monument remaining in the public record as a witness to inform this re-composition and multiply the possibilities of remembering through the medium of drawing. The

Symmetry-based inferences have permeated many discussions in philosophy of physics and metaphysics of science. It is claimed that symmetries in our physical theories would allow us to draw metaphysical conclusions about the world, a view that I call ‘symmetry inferentialism’. This paper is critical to this view. I claim that (a) it assumes a philosophically questionable characterization of the relevant

Abstract not available

Abstract not available

This article traces the development of the colonial cartography of Freetown, Sierra Leone across the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The historiography of colonial cartography has centred the surveyor and the map in the capture and control of land. This article, instead, describes colonial cartography in the accretion of a variety of forms of spatial representation created by diverse

Published in Theology and Science (Vol. 21, No. 2, 2023)

Published in Theology and Science (Vol. 21, No. 2, 2023)

Published in Theology and Science (Vol. 21, No. 2, 2023)

ABSTRACT The aim of this article is to show that the dialogue between science and religion is not limited to the objective, methodological plane. Georges Lemaître shows that the spiritual and the intellectual paths are not parallel, in the sense that they do not meet. In the sphere of the development of one’s personality and relationships with the world, other people and God—everything becomes an argument

Published in Theology and Science (Ahead of Print, 2023)

Published in Theology and Science (Ahead of Print, 2023)

Whether truth is absolute or relative has been a widely discussed topic for over two thousand years in epistemology and the philosophy of science. However, this issue has not yet been discussed systematically with respect to linguistics. The present paper attempts to make the first step toward filling this gap. It raises the following question in Sect. 1: What kind of relationship is there between

Drawing on analysis of press reporting, museum display and a large-scale survey undertaken in Bristol in the aftermath of the 2020 toppling of the Colston statue, this article examines the shifting meanings given to the statue across a range of material and imagined sites. It works with two ways that history and geography intersect: the history of the sites/aftersites of this statue, and the materiality

ABSTRACT Since the Enlightenment, reductionism has been an important part of the development of science and civilization. The process of abstracting features of the world and reducing them to their most basic components has greatly increased our grasp of the physical and chemical rules that govern physical reality at all levels. However, central aspects of reductionism have been challenged with the

Who gets to contribute to knowledge production of an epistemic community? Scholarship has focussed on unjustified forms of exclusion. Here I study justified forms of exclusion by investigating the phenomenon of so-called ‘cranks’ in mathematics. I argue that workload-management concerns justify the exclusion of these outsiders from mathematical knowledge-making practices. My discussion reveals three

Exploring the premise that environmental injustices date back centuries, this article provides an overview of the long trajectory of degradation narratives on Réunion, from the earliest colonial concerns in the late seventeenth century to the contemporary National Park. Through a historical political ecology approach, we identify distinct phases where degradation narratives became prominent, and sometimes

Technologies are undeniably having a decisive, transformative impact on Earth, yet the currently prevailing empirically orientated approaches in the philosophy of technology seem unable to get to conceptual grips with this fact. Some thinkers have therefore been trying to develop alternative methods capable of clarifying it. This paper focuses on Vincent Blok’s call for rehabilitating an ontologically

Ludwig Boltzmann’s Bildtheorie has been portrayed as a pre-cursor of the semantic view of theories and as such, the word “Bild” is translated as model. But this anachronistic understanding of Boltzmann’s use of Bilder fails to account for the wide range of roles they play in his understanding of scientific methodology. When the concept of Bild is understood historically in Viennese thought, a much

The organisation of fields and fences in agriculture that emerged during the Middle Ages and the early modern period was a complex system that combined individual ownership of and communal practices in arable land, meadows and pastures. It was adapted for small and mid-size family-based farming and was a different way to organise agriculture than the medieval estates (demesnes) and the larger coherent

The extension of legal protection to natural areas has often been artificially confined within the borders of given countries. The border between Poland and Slovakia offers a very good example of this. While the very beginnings of this trend date back to the eighteenth century, it was here in the 1930s that early cross-border cooperation made its appearance. The solutions arrived at justifying their

This article discusses explanations behind theory choice, that is, ultimately, what leads people to accept a certain claim as valid. There has been a recent debate as to how closure was achieved in the continental-drift discussion. The controversy had found its usual explanation under rationalist terms: Wegener’s 1912 continental-drift theory was accepted 50 years later only after the plate tectonic

The humanistic disciplines aim to offer explanations of a wide variety of phenomena. Philosophical theories of explanation have focused mostly on explanations in the natural sciences; a much discussed theory of explanation is the causal theory of explanation. Recently it has come to be recognized that the sciences sometimes offer respectable explanations that are non-causal. This paper broadens the

The provision of water in the arid Tafilalt – the largest natural oasis in Morocco – changed little over a span of centuries, though the network of surface canals and khettara (qanats) gradually expanded to yield more water to a growing oasis. The introduction of newer water technologies (pumped wells and dams) in the 1970s reduced the availability of water to the oasis but has not diminished reliance

The science of physics has been extremely successful over the last four centuries, mainly for one reason: It does everything it can to disregard anything that has to do with non-physical parts of reality. Although the human body is a physical body, large parts of what distinguishes human beings, sometimes briefly called the human condition, does not belong to the physical domain. This implies that

ABSTRACT In this article, we develop the intersection of Shīʿī Islamic philosophy and extraterrestrial life. We explain the view of Ḥukamā (Islamic Philosophers) and what implications it holds for asserting a plurality of worlds and life forms. In addition to this, we bring Shīʿī hadīth sources which also suggest the existence of other life forms outside the earth. Combining the philosophical and textual

In the first decade of the twenty-first century, CSIRO’s role broadened toward national mission-oriented research, less directly focused on supporting Australian industry. In terms of its legislated mandate, it deliberately placed increased emphasis on ‘contributing to the achievement of national objectives’ and less emphasis on ‘assisting Australian industry’. This change was accompanied by an organisational

Published in Theology and Science (Vol. 21, No. 2, 2023)

Atlas Maritimus & Commercialis (1728) is a vast conspectus of the coasts, ports and harbours around the globe, containing a section on sailing directions and over fifty engraved charts. It was first conceived as a means of promoting a new map projection system, for which a group of undertakers (cartographers, booksellers, engravers and a mathematician) obtained a patent in 1721. The enterprise was

This review discusses the temporary exhibition, Tiny Traces: African & Asian Children at London's Foundling Hospital, which offers an insight into the lives of children from the African and Asian diasporas at the Foundling Hospital in Georgian London. Presenting the findings of new research undertaken in the Hospital's archive, the exhibition reveals the untold stories of fourteen African and Asian

Published in Theology and Science (Vol. 21, No. 2, 2023)

Published in Theology and Science (Vol. 21, No. 2, 2023)

ABSTRACT Settlement of the Outer Planets of the Solar System will take humans far away from the Sun, its warmth, and the light on which humans depend. Most settlements will be small mining enclaves or research stations until well into the future. Lengthy travel times will satisfy the human needs for hope, patience, acceptance, self-study, and contemplation of God's role in the universe. The authors

ABSTRACT In this article, I argue that given the possibility and prospect of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), panentheism, as a form of theism with a stronger emphasis on the immanence of God, parallels the anti-anthropocentrism implied by AGI. I discuss some general issues related to the categorization of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Next, both anthropomorphism and anthropocentrism will be

ABSTRACT To gain traction with the sciences, kenotic theologies tend to construe divine and creaturely causation in univocal, and so competitive, terms. Insofar as they share this framework with theories of divine design, or “contrivance,” I argue that they can inadvertently sustain their polemical foil. To move beyond such a stalled dialectic, this essay presents an account of non-contrastive transcendence

ABSTRACT In this article, I show why the Christian faith, which is, among other things, a response to the need for life’s meaning and an anticipation of eternal life, will not become superfluous in case digital immortality is achieved. I also deepen a view that emerges from this debate, which is the view of both Christian religion and transhumanism as promises of happiness. I argue that they differ

ABSTRACT The present article focuses on the explanation and theoretical exploration of the foundations and reasoning of three Muslim thinkers in contemporary Iran (Seyyed Hossain Nasr, Morteza Motahhari, and Mehdi Bazargan), according to the Ten Models of Ted Peters, regarding the relationship between religion and science. The study results indicate that there are commonalities among Christian and

ABSTRACT Several contributors to the collected volume, Interactive World, Interactive God, by Carol Albright, et al., examine emergence as a type of interaction from scientific and theological perspectives. In reviewing, two extensions are proposed. Systems theory can organize those investigations, and the phenomena they study, into a multilevel architecture built upon distinctions between weak emergence

I identify two versions of the scientific anti-realist’s selectionist explanation for the success of science: Bas van Fraassen’s original and K. Brad Wray’s newer interpretation. In Wray’s version, psycho-social factors internal to the scientific community – viz. scientists’ interests, goals, and preferences – explain the theory-selection practices that explain theory-success. I argue that, if Wray’s

Climate scientists have proposed two methods to link extreme weather events and anthropogenic climate forcing: the probabilistic and the storyline approach. Proponents of the first approach have raised the criticism that the storyline approach could be overstating the role of anthropogenic climate change. This issue has important implications because, in certain contexts, decision-makers might seek

Abstract not available

Abstract not available

In this paper I shall defend the idea that there is an abstract and general core meaning of objectivity, and what is seen as a variety of concepts or conceptions of objectivity are in fact criteria of, or means to achieve, objectivity. I shall then discuss the ideal of value-free science and its relation to the objectivity of science; its status can be at best a criterion of, or means for, objectivity

This article explores the role of space in facilitating forms of political power, as shown in the destruction of landscape in the center of Israel by the Hiriya landfill. That failed infrastructure wrecked the delicate legacies of mankind and nature, thus sealing the area’s fate as a city’s repellent dumping ground that attracted all kinds of liminal activities. After the 1948 war, which resulted in