Scepticism

To what extent are the answers to theological questions knowable? And if the relevant answers are knowable, which sorts of inquirers are in a position to know them? In this chapter we shall not answer these questions directly but instead supply a range of tools that may help us make progress here. The tools consist of plausible structural constraints on knowledge. After articulating them, we shall go on to indicate some ways in which they interact with theological scepticism. In some cases the structural constraints bear directly on whether one can know answers to theological questions. But the structural considerations are related to theological scepticism in other interesting ways as well; for instance we will also be using them to explore the significance of scepticism, by addressing questions such as ‘To what extent does it matter whether or not we can know the answer to theological questions?

Necessary Existent Theology

A meta-theology makes claims about the structure of theological claims: it identifies a single, fundamental claim about God, and shows how other theological claims are derivable from the fundamental claim. In his book Depicting Deity and other articles, Jon Kvanvig has identified three distinct meta-theologies: Creator Theology, Perfect Being Theology, and Worship-worthiness Theology. In this article, we argue that the medieval Islamic philosopher Avicenna\u27s views about God have the structure of a meta-theology, and that it is distinct from the three projects Kvanvig identifies. This view is Necessary Existent Theology

Whither Anankastics?

Sometimes it is natural to accept a conditional sentence ‘If ϕ, y ’ and its antecedent ‘ϕ’, and yet resist accepting its consequent ‘y’. One famous kind of example involves conditionals like the following (Hare 1971)—so-called “anankastic con-ditionals ” or “hypothetical imperatives”: (1) If you want sugar in your soup, you ought to ask the waiter. Suppose you are at a restaurant, and your friend wants sugar in her soup. There is no sugar on your table, but a nearby waiter could easily deliver some. You accept both (1) and (2). (2) You want sugar in your soup. And yet you might resist accepting (3). (3) You ought to ask the waiter. After all, the soup would taste terrible with sugar. What your friend ought to do is get tested for diabetes. This is not an isolated phenomenon. Suppose you are debating economic policy with Alice. Alice thinks that trickle-down economics is true. You disagree

Shielding of Sleeping Beauty DNA Transposon-delivered Transgene Cassettes by Heterologous Insulators in Early Embryonal Cells

The Sleeping Beauty (SB) transposon system represents an important alternative to viral integrating vector systems but may, as its viral counterparts, be subject to transcriptional silencing. To investigate shielding of SB-delivered transgene cassettes against transcriptional repression, we establish silencing assays in which SB vector–containing F9 murine teratocarcinoma cell clones are identified by strategies that include or exclude selection for transgene expression. Among clones carrying one or more SB transposon vectors, more than one-third are immediately silenced, and most of the remaining clones move toward silencing during prolonged passage. In line with the lack of an intrinsic ability of SB to resist silencing, we show that the stable transfection rate of SB vectors in F9 cells is significantly improved by flanking the transgene with heterologous 5′-HS4 chicken β-globin (cHS4) insulators. In approaches based on drug selection and subsequent flow-cytometric detection of transgene expression, clones containing cHS4-insulated vectors are to a much higher degree protected against transcriptional silencing, resulting in long-term expression of the fluorescent marker. Our findings demonstrate that SB vectors, prone for transcriptional silencing by positional effects in F9 cells, are protected by insulators. We believe that insulated SB-derived vectors will become useful tools in transposon-based transgenesis and therapeutic gene transfer