761 research outputs found

    The ‘Power’-ful Trinity

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    This paper proposes a new orthodox Latin Trinitarian model of the Trinity, through employing current work from the metaphysics of powers. It outlines theses defended within the contemporary powers literature that form the backbone of the account and then shows how they can be combined to provide an orthodox metaphysics of the Trinity. Having done this it addresses a further element required for orthodoxy, the ontological priority of the Father, and then notes a particular benefit that comes along with the model. The paper concludes by posing and answering some objections one might raise against the account

    Fine-tuned of necessity?

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    This paper seeks to explicate and analyze an alternative response to fine-tuning arguments from those that are typically given—namely, design or brute contingency. The response I explore is based on necessity, the necessitarian response. After showing how necessity blocks the argument, I explicate the reply I claim necessitarians can give and suggest how its three requirements can be met: firstly, that laws are metaphysically necessary; secondly, that constants are metaphysically necessary; and thirdly, that the fundamental properties that determine the laws and constants are necessary. After discussing each in turn, I end the paper by assessing how the response fares when running the fine-tuning argument in two ways, as an inference to best explanation and as a Bayesian argument

    If anyone is in Christ – new creation!

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    This paper investigates the metaphysical transformation that occurs when a believer becomes a new creation, something which hasn’t yet been explored in the literature. I start by setting out what this ontological transformation involves, and then provide two models as to how it might go. The first is a type of substratism, based on a theory of mixing, whilst the second thinks about this transformation in terms of replacementism. Throughout the paper I seek to resolve difficulties that both of these models bring, whilst also showing how other aspects of Christian thought can also be explained by these models

    Dis-positioning Euthyphro

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    The Euthyphro objection is often perceived, rightly or wrongly, as the king objection to theistic meta-ethics. This paper proposes a response that hasn’t been much explored within the contemporary literature, based on the metaphysics of dispositions and natural law theory. The paper will first contend that there is a parallel between ways theists conceptualise God’s role in creating laws of nature and the ways God creates goods. Drawing upon these parallels I propose a possible response to the dilemma, where this response parallels the dispositionalist response as to how God creates laws of nature. I do this by first explicating a natural law theory of goodness, then suggesting how the ontology of dispositions can be used in a novel way to account for goods, and finally by explaining how all this relates to the dilemma. I conclude the paper by posing some objections to myself and providing some replies

    Wherein lies the debate? Concerning whether God is a person

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    Within contemporary philosophy of religion there are three main ways in which God is conceptualised in relation to personhood: (1) God is a person and so personal (PP). (2) God is non-personal, and so is not a person (NPNP). (3) God is a personal non-person (PNP). The first two of these options will be familiar to many, with (PP) held by most contemporary monotheist philosophers of religion and (NPNP) mainly by those who are pantheists. (PNP), however, is a view some may not have come across, despite its proponents claiming it was the view of great philosophical theologians from the past. However, within recent times (PNP) has become more popular. On the face of it, it might not be clear what the difference between (PP) and (PNP) is, and whether debate had between the two positions is substantive. The goal of this paper is therefore to clarify the debate and assess whether the many claims advocates of (PNP) make as to why God cannot be a person (PP) stand up to scrutiny or are persuasive. My suggestion will be that on the whole they do and are not. As such, defenders of (PNP) will either need to defend these reasons in more detail or focus on the area I suggest the debate really rests on

    Comparison of Oral, Intranasal and Aerosol Administration of Amiodarone in Rats as a Model of Pulmonary Phospholipidosis.

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    ‘Foamy’ alveolar macrophages (FAM) observed in nonclinical toxicology studies during inhaled drug development may indicate drug-induced phospholipidosis, but can also derive from adaptive non-adverse mechanisms. Orally administered amiodarone is currently used as a model of pulmonary phospholipidosis and it was hypothesized that aerosol administration would produce phospholipidosis-induced FAM that could be characterized and used in comparative inhalation toxicology. Han-Wistar rats were given amiodarone via (1) intranasal administration (6.25 mg/kg) on two days, (2) aerosol administration (3 mg/kg) on two days, (3) aerosol administration (10 mg/kg) followed by three days of 30 mg/kg or (4) oral administration (100 mg/kg) for 7 days. Alveolar macrophages in bronchoalveolar lavage were evaluated by di_erential cell counting and high content fluorescence imaging. Histopathology and mass-spectrometry imaging (MSI) were performed on lung slices. The higher dose aerosolised amiodarone caused transient pulmonary inflammation (p < 0.05), but only oral amiodarone resulted in FAM (p < 0.001). MSI of the lungs of orally treated rats revealed a homogenous distribution of amiodarone and a putative phospholipidosis marker, di-22:6 bis-monoacylglycerol, throughout lung tissue whereas aerosol administration resulted in localization of both compounds around the airway lumen. Thus, unlike oral administration, aerosolised amiodarone failed to produce the expected FAM responses.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

    The Pipeline of Enrichment: Supporting Link Creation for Continuous Media

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    The application of open hypermedia to temporal media has previously been explored with respect to the link service, in particular link delivery and generic linking. This paper is based on the notion of continuous metadata, in which we use metadata in a temporally significant manner to capture and convey the information required to support linking. With a focus on link creation and live processing, our approach enriches hypermedia content with additional metadata at a number of points between capture and delivery. We illustrate this approach with a tool which assists metadata capture by annotation of continuous media according to a simple ontology

    Rank Statistics in Biological Evolution

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    We present a statistical analysis of biological evolution processes. Specifically, we study the stochastic replication-mutation-death model where the population of a species may grow or shrink by birth or death, respectively, and additionally, mutations lead to the creation of new species. We rank the various species by the chronological order by which they originate. The average population N_k of the kth species decays algebraically with rank, N_k ~ M^{mu} k^{-mu}, where M is the average total population. The characteristic exponent mu=(alpha-gamma)/(alpha+beta-gamma)$ depends on alpha, beta, and gamma, the replication, mutation, and death rates. Furthermore, the average population P_k of all descendants of the kth species has a universal algebraic behavior, P_k ~ M/k.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
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