Beginningless Past, Endless Future, and the Actual Infinite

338 BOOK REVIEWS necessary propaedeutic for what follows, and some help is needed for the student to accomplish this successfully. The expanded Companion might also touch more on matters of political philosophy and might note the polemic surrounding Popper's attack on the Republic. No Companion to the Republic, however rich in informative explanation and interpretation, can ever exhaust its great subject, and there is much need for a Companion which is as rich as possible. The Catholic University of America Washington, D.C. DOMINIC O'MEARA The Kaliim Cosmological Argument. By WILLIAM LANE CRAIG. New York: Harper & Row, 1979. Contemporary discussions of the cosmological argument generally follow the philosophical model provided by Aristotle and Aquinas, which first invokes an empirical fact about the world (contingent beings exist; there is something in motion) , seeks for a cause or explanation of that fact, notes that an infinite series of causal conditions ordered transitively cannot provide an adequate explanation of that fact, and concludes to the existence of a necessary being or first cause. William Craig helpfully reminds us that this constitutes only one general form the cosmological argument has taken, a form originated by the Arabic practitioners of falsafa. His interest lies in another form developed by practitioners of kaliim, a " whole movement within Arabic thought that might best be called Arabic scholasticism" (4). Craig summarizes the lcaliim cosmological argument, which contrary to the above is concerned with the temporal sequence of events, as follows: 1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause of its existence. 2. The universe began to exist. 3. Therefore the universe has a cause of its existence. (63) The first sixty pages of his book present the kaliim cosmological argument as defended by the 9th and 11th century Arabic philosophers al-Kindi and al-Ghiizali and the 10th century Jewish philosopher Saadia. His concern is to provide a clear presentation of the argument as originally and most forcefully developed, particularly with respect to the defense of premise 2, rather than a detailed critique of it. The remainder of the book is devoted to presenting and defending a contemporary version of the kaliim cosmological argument. With respect to the argument given above, premise 1 is taken by Craig as intuitively obvious. " The first premise is so intuitively obvious, especially when applied to the universe, that probably no one in his right mind really believes it to be false" (141). The villain of the piece is BOOK REVIEWS 889 always Hume, and in reply to Hume's critique Craig argues that " all Hume has really shown is that the [causal] principle ... is not analytic and that its denial, therefore, does not involve a contradiction or a logical absurdity." But it" seems intuitively to be really, if not logically, absurd" (145). Craig's defense of the principle is not so much a defense as an appeal. It would have been profitable to develop a critique of Hume's argument, for example, to show that Hume has confused epistemological with ontological conditions in his argument. The critical premise, however, in the argument is the second, and to this Craig devotes the bulk of his energies. He presents four arguments in its support, two of which are philosophical and two empirical. The first argument is: 4. An actual infinite cannot exist. 5. An infinite temporal regress of events is an actual infinite. 6. Therefore an infinite temporal regress of events cannot exist. (69) Craig spends most of his time defending premise 4, arguing that the actual infinite of mathematics-found especially in Cantor's system and set theory -does not describe the real world. It concerns the mathematical world and was never meant to apply to the real world. Indeed, he argues, were it so applied, absurdities of all sorts result. His argument here is painstaking and (to my mind) unexceptionable. Much less time is devoted to the defense of premise 5. Basically he contends that "the fact that the events do not exist simultaneously is wholly irrelevant to the issue at hand; the fact remains that since past events, as determinate parts of reality, are definite and distinct and can be numbered, they can be conceptually collected into a totality...

This chapter examines recent criticism of two arguments for the beginning of the universe similar to the kalām cosmological argument. These arguments are about the impossibility of the existence of an actual infinite and the impossibility of the successive formation of an actual infinite. This chapter argues in defense in these arguments and concludes that both arguments have yet to be found unsound. It explains that both arguments do seem to furnish philosophical grounds for holding to the finitude of the past and the beginning of the universe.

Two-Way Translation: The Ethics of Engaging with Religious Contributions in Public Deliberation

Comments on Mark Seidenfeld’s “Revisiting Congressional Delegation of Interpretive Primacy as Foundation for <i>Chevron</i> Deference”

This chapter presents a theistic proof called the Generic Cosmological Argument (GCA). In outline form, the GCA runs as follows: (1) if the universe can be explained, then God exists; (2) everything can be explained; (3) the universe is a thing; (4) therefore the universe can be explained; (5) therefore, God exists. The GCA is also defended against objections.

One of the persistent problems surrounding the discipline of law and economics is the role of economic arguments in legal reasoning. The problem has been extensively discussed in the literature but has not been ultimately solved. The present paper is a contribution to this ongoing discussion. The argument goes as follows. First, I will argue that insights from law and economics, to the extent that they claim to be directly relevant for legal reasoning, should carry a jurisprudential preface that states that this very relevance is limited and conditional. Secondly, I will introduce the concept of consequence-based reasoning and show that the typical normative claims of law and economics based on economic efficiency can be interpreted as consequence-based arguments of a special kind. Finally, in the analytical core of the paper, the conceivability, feasibility and desirability of the judicial appreciation of general social consequences of legal decisions will be considered. Referring to the philosophical, jurisprudential and institutional dimensions of the issue I will argue that in a modern constitutional democracy the scope of consequence-based judicial reasoning is limited mainly by the expertise of courts. A more general implication of this analysis is that the impact of law and economics scholarship on law can only be understood through a close look at legal reasoning in general and consequence-based arguments in particular.

<i>The Parmenidean Ascent</i>

T HERE have been numerous recent analyses of the differences between the nature and development of trade in the igth century and that in the 2oth century. Some discussions have concentrated on the implications of these differences for the process of economic development; I others have provided prescriptions of policy for the less-developed countries. Prominent among the latter is a recent article by Raul Prebisch, setting forth a recommended commercial policy for these countries.2 Prebisch' position as Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America makes his proposal of considerably more than academic interest, and it is the purpose of the present paper to examine critically the main line of argument, with particular attention to the points of difference between it and the tariff policy generally recommended in neo-classical economics.

According to an influential line of argument, the past must be finite because no infinite series can be formed by successive addition. The present paper pinpoints the non sequitur at the heart of this argument, disentangles the ambiguities that disguise it, and dismantles the misleading picture of ‘traversing the infinite’ that gives the argument so much of its allure. Finally, the paper critically explores the related argument that a beginningless series of past events is impossible because there could be no explanation of its having been ‘completed’ at one time rather than another.

This is our 2022 International Conference on Company Management, Accounting and Marketing (CMAM 2022) which is virtually broadcasted from Munich, Germany on November 26-27, 2022. Due to pandemic Covid-19 which led to travel restriction, we conducted the conference remotely for researchers to present papers in company management, business statistics, economic systems, entrepreneurship, finance, investment, accounting and marketing strategies which are well represented in this proceedings volume.&#x0D; We believe that the participants of CMAM 2022 have gained knowledge and built networking with all researchers in the same field. We also hope this collection of papers can benefit the readers and continue to play a large part in the future of conferences. We ensure that a thorough peer review process was carried out and administered by the proceedings editors.&#x0D; The organizers would like to thank the technical committee and expert reviewers for realizing this proceedings publication. We also thank the local organizers and conference office. They were very committed and worked hard in making this conference a success. Last but not least, we wish to thank all the participants who contributed and attended the conference which made the conference a successful event.&#x0D; CMAM 2022 Organizing Committees&#x0D; Munich, Germany

THE extreme specialization of the frogs (Order Salientia) and their poor early fossil record hamper our efforts to discern the principal evolutionary lines in this relatively small but seemingly inscrutable taxonomic group. From the nature and limitations of the data that have accumulated, interpretations of frog phylogeny are unavoidably conjectural, and understanding perhaps depends as heavily on one's ability to use concepts of systematics and evolution theory in general as it does on the direct evidence from the frogs. Classifications based on various combinations of extemal characters, on certain features of the skeleton and musculature, etc., have helped to clarify many problems, but none of the classifications proposed in the literature thus far are adequate by the exacting standards of modern systematics. It is increasingly apparent that major progress in frog systematics will require both more extensive and more closely integrated studies than have been customary in the past. The basic comparative anatomy and developmental morphology of the frogs need very thorough investigation, on a much broader scale than has yet been attempted. Developmental characters, in particular, are still commonly underrated and neglected as materials for the study of frog systematics, though they offer very rewarding clues to evolutionary trends and taxonomic understanding. The present paper discusses some gen