Recently, building retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) systems to enhance the capability of large language models (LLMs) has become a common practice. Especially in the legal domain, previous judicial decisions play a significant role under the doctrine of stare decisis which emphasizes the importance of making decisions based on (retrieved) prior documents. However, the overall performance of RAG system depends on many components: (1) retrieval corpora, (2) retrieval algorithms, (3) rerankers, (4) LLM backbones, and (5) evaluation metrics. Here we propose LRAGE, an open-source tool for holistic evaluation of RAG systems focusing on the legal domain. LRAGE provides GUI and CLI interfaces to facilitate seamless experiments and investigate how changes in the aforementioned five components affect the overall accuracy. We validated LRAGE using multilingual legal benches including Korean (KBL), English (LegalBench), and Chinese (LawBench) by demonstrating how the overall accuracy changes when varying the five components mentioned above. The source code is available at https://github.com/hoorangyee/LRAGE.
Advanced AI systems are now being used in AI governance. Practitioners will likely delegate an increasing number of tasks to them as they improve and governance becomes harder. However, using AI for governance risks serious harms because human practitioners may not be able to understand AI decisions or determine whether they are aligned to the user's interests. Delegation may also undermine governance's legitimacy. This paper begins to develop a principled framework for when to delegate AI governance to AIs and when (and how) to maintain human participation. Administrative law, which governs agencies that are (1) more expert in their domains than the legislatures that create them and the courts that oversee them and (2) potentially misaligned to their original goals, offers useful lessons. Administrative law doctrine provides examples of clear, articulated rules for when delegation can occur, what delegation can consist of, and what processes can keep agencies aligned even as they are empowered to achieve their goals. The lessons of administrative law provide a foundation for how AI governance can use AI in a safe, accountable, and effective way.
David Solís-Nova, Andrea Báez, Ángela Alarcón-Alvear
Esta investigación se centra en la pregunta por la posibilidad conocer a Dios, concebido como plenitud del ser, principalmente a través de la oración, según la propuesta filosófica de Gabriel Marcel. A partir de la obra del pensador francés, se plantea la hipótesis de que la oración o invocación resulta imprescindible para dicho conocimiento, ya que Dios se manifiesta como un Tú absoluto y no solo como una causa impersonal. En este sentido, Marcel considera que la experiencia de lo trascendente no se presenta únicamente como un problema para nuestra inteligencia, sino como una comunión en la que se participa mediante el encuentro y el diálogo, es decir, dentro del ámbito relacional que hace posible la oración. El trabajo sostiene que, desde una perspectiva metafísica, la oración constituye una vía legítima de acceso al ser y a la plenitud del ser, que es el Tú absoluto. Esto implica exigencias no solo intelectuales, sino también morales, para el ejercicio de la metafísica. Para demostrarlo, se analizan tres aspectos clave: la noción de misterio ontológico y la exigencia del ser como llamada en cada individuo; el papel de la intersubjetividad como mediación para acceder al misterio del ser; y, finalmente, la concepción marceliana de la oración y su relevancia en el conocimiento metafísico de Dios. La metodología adoptada es de carácter bibliográfico-documental, centrada en el estudio de las obras de Marcel y sus principales intérpretes.
Fair graph clustering is crucial for ensuring equitable representation and treatment of diverse communities in network analysis. Traditional methods often ignore disparities among social, economic, and demographic groups, perpetuating biased outcomes and reinforcing inequalities. This study introduces fair graph clustering within the framework of the disparate impact doctrine, treating it as a joint optimization problem integrating clustering quality and fairness constraints. Given the NP-hard nature of this problem, we employ a semidefinite relaxation approach to approximate the underlying optimization problem. For up to medium-sized graphs, we utilize a singular value decomposition-based algorithm, while for larger graphs, we propose a novel algorithm based on the alternative direction method of multipliers. Unlike existing methods, our formulation allows for tuning the trade-off between clustering quality and fairness. Experimental results on graphs generated from the standard stochastic block model demonstrate the superiority of our approach in achieving an optimal accuracy-fairness trade-off compared to state-of-the-art methods.
During the first few centuries CE, the centre of the known world gradually shifted from Alexandria to Constantinople. Combined with a societal shift from pagan beliefs to Christian doctrines, Antiquity gave way to the Byzantine era. While Western Europe entered an extended period of intellectual decline, Constantinople developed into a rich cultural crossroads between East and West. Yet, Byzantine scholarship in astronomy and geography continued to rely heavily on their ancient Greek heritage, and particularly on Ptolemy's Geography. Unfortunately, Ptolemy's choices for his geographic coordinate system resulted in inherent and significant distortions of and inaccuracies in maps centred on the Byzantine Empire. This comprehensive review of Byzantine geographic achievements -- supported by a review of astronomical developments pertaining to position determination on Earth -- aims to demonstrate why and how, when Constantinople fell to the Turks in 1453 and the Ottoman Empire commenced, Byzantine astronomers had become the central axis in an extensive network of Christians, Muslims and Jews. Their influence remained significant well into the Ottoman era, particularly in the context of geographical applications.
In Christian theology, angels are understood as spiritual beings created by God, primarily serving as messengers and intermediaries between the divine and humanity. They are depicted as possessing qualities of wisdom, power, and holiness, often portrayed in art and literature with human-like forms and wings. Angels play significant roles in guiding and protecting individuals, as well as executing God's will on Earth. While not central to the Christian gospel, the concept of angels enriches the understanding of the divine and the spiritual realm, highlighting the interaction between God and his creation.
In this article, we will first examine the main themes of traditional teaching on angels from Holy Scripture and the church fathers, placing them in the religious, cultural and intellectual contexts in which they arose (section 1). We will then turn to the angelological synthesis developed by medieval scholastic theology, especially the doctrine of St Thomas Aquinas. Relying on both faith and metaphysical reason, scholastic theology explores the metaphysical nature of angels and the modalities of their spiritual operations, so as to better explain the supernatural mystery of the angels’ divine calling and sanctification, and the way in which they cooperate in the economy of salvation in Jesus Christ (section 2). While the Reformation did not challenge angelology but refocused it on scripture, the intellectual and cultural evolution of the modern and contemporary West led to a crisis of credibility in traditional teachings on angels. Angels have been expelled from the cosmos by the ‘disenchantment of the world’, of which the new vision of the universe induced by modern science is a major factor. Simultaneously, angels have been removed from what is considered revealed truths by the demythologization implemented by historical-critical exegesis (see Biblical Criticism and Modern Science). Therefore, contemporary theology seeks to update the traditional teaching while opening up new paths for an angelological doctrine, the theoretical and practical implications of which remain important (section 3).
As a specific article in this encyclopaedia is dedicated to Satan and demons, we will confine ourselves here, as much as possible, to topics relating solely to ‘good angels’, even though the question of angels and demons is generally closely linked in theological reflection. There are only a few theologians, such as Karl Barth, who almost entirely dissociate angelology and demonology.
This two part paper argues that seemingly "technical" choices made by developers of machine-learning based algorithmic tools used to inform decisions by criminal justice authorities can create serious constitutional dangers, enhancing the likelihood of abuse of decision-making power and the scope and magnitude of injustice. Drawing on three algorithmic tools in use, or recently used, to assess the "risk" posed by individuals to inform how they should be treated by criminal justice authorities, we integrate insights from data science and public law scholarship to show how public law principles and more specific legal duties that are rooted in these principles, are routinely overlooked in algorithmic tool-building and implementation. We argue that technical developers must collaborate closely with public law experts to ensure that if algorithmic decision-support tools are to inform criminal justice decisions, those tools are configured and implemented in a manner that is demonstrably compliant with public law principles and doctrine, including respect for human rights, throughout the tool-building process.
Evangelos Pournaras, Mark Christopher Ballandies, Stefano Bennati
et al.
Collective privacy loss becomes a colossal problem, an emergency for personal freedoms and democracy. But, are we prepared to handle personal data as scarce resource and collectively share data under the doctrine: as little as possible, as much as necessary? We hypothesize a significant privacy recovery if a population of individuals, the data collective, coordinates to share minimum data for running online services with the required quality. Here we show how to automate and scale-up complex collective arrangements for privacy recovery using decentralized artificial intelligence. For this, we compare for first time attitudinal, intrinsic, rewarded and coordinated data sharing in a rigorous living-lab experiment of high realism involving >27,000 real data disclosures. Using causal inference and cluster analysis, we differentiate criteria predicting privacy and five key data-sharing behaviors. Strikingly, data-sharing coordination proves to be a win-win for all: remarkable privacy recovery for people with evident costs reduction for service providers.
Since the rise of fair machine learning as a critical field of inquiry, many different notions on how to quantify and measure discrimination have been proposed in the literature. Some of these notions, however, were shown to be mutually incompatible. Such findings make it appear that numerous different kinds of fairness exist, thereby making a consensus on the appropriate measure of fairness harder to reach, hindering the applications of these tools in practice. In this paper, we investigate one of these key impossibility results that relates the notions of statistical and predictive parity. Specifically, we derive a new causal decomposition formula for the fairness measures associated with predictive parity, and obtain a novel insight into how this criterion is related to statistical parity through the legal doctrines of disparate treatment, disparate impact, and the notion of business necessity. Our results show that through a more careful causal analysis, the notions of statistical and predictive parity are not really mutually exclusive, but complementary and spanning a spectrum of fairness notions through the concept of business necessity. Finally, we demonstrate the importance of our findings on a real-world example.
This is a historian's view of how modern astronomy data can be used to discuss the shifting historical worldview of Late Antiquity. In this article an attemp is made to construct an approximate model of how the cycles of astronomical bodies' visible rotation aaffected the writing of history and self-representation of the Roman empire's powerful people. It is argued that while rare outstanding events like solar eclipses might have caused a short stir in the minds of the rulers and their environment, long-term cycles based on the synchronization of the Moon's phases with the solar calendar and the cycles of the planets lining up in the same disposition (in relationship to the Moon or without this relationship) were the foundation of astronomy-based Christian chronological system. The emergence of the Christian historical worldview in the 5th century was marked by appearance of a significant eschatological strain in it. Historians paid attention not only to the theology-defined signs of the end of the world, but also, as it has been suggested in modern studies, to the some outstanding celestial phenomena. In this paper I would like to address several criteria which may help understand what in the celestial motions interested the astronomers and historians of the 5th century. This paper uses the first approximation of astronomical data for solving the problem of how relevant the skies were for historians, although all numeric parameters are taken from the up-to-date astronomy reference publications. It is an attempt to understand whether the very basic approximations can be related to what historians know from the array of sources available to them. The analysis suggests that there is a whole array of occasions when the dates of astronomical events, received with the help of these basic approximations, coincide with the data from historical sources.
A implantação do ateísmo estatal seguiu ao longo da década de 1980. Não obstante esse dado, esse período é comumente reconhecido como um momento de diálogo entre a Igreja Católica e o Estado socialista até sua segunda metade. A partir de então, a instituição religiosa passa à ofensiva acreditando que o regime insular seguisse o mesmo percurso de queda pela qual passava o leste europeu. Nessa segunda parte desse artigo, tratamos dessa década com atenção especial ao Encontro Nacional Eclesial Cubano (ENEC), que entendemos ser o mais importante evento do catolicismo
ways in which they conduct their disagreements, but he seems to me to avoid a question that was vital for the churches of the New Testament era – as evidenced in the New Testament – and in every era since: among those who call themselves Christian, and with whom we find ourselves in disagreement, how can we know with whom we should share communion and whom we should avoid as ‘false prophets’ (pseudoproph etai) and ‘false teachers’ (pseudodidaskaloi) who ‘secretly bring in destructive opinions’ (haireseis) (cf. 2 Pet. 2.1, the opening salvo in a scorching attack on those with whom the author disagrees)? Landau’s book strikes me as not in the fullest sense ‘a theology of disagreement’, more a New Testament primer in Christian courtesy (cf. 1 Pet. 3.8 AV: ‘Finally, be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another, love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous’). It could be read with profit by any member of any Christian deliberative body. A true theology of disagreement would have to address questions about the ethical and doctrinal boundaries of the Church: with whom can I lovingly disagree while sharing the Eucharist, and who must I reject absolutely? In this study, Landau makes a significant contribution to discussion about the moral dimension of ecclesiology (the unity and holiness of the Church). I hope he can go on to explore in greater depth the New Testament conditions for catholicity and apostolicity.
Etica Teologica Della Vita: Scrittura, Tradizione, Sfide Pratiche (Theological Ethics of Life: Scripture, Tradition, Practical Challenges) brings together the papers presented at an interdisciplinary study seminar organized by the Pontifical Academy for Life in October 2021. In this seminar, leading theologians and philosophers provided a series of substantive, targeted responses to a primary text (or testo base) that aimed to recast a “theological ethics of life” in light of Pope Francis’s more recent doctrinal. This essay highlights highlight three hermenutical premises of the book, provides an overview of the volume itself, and offers some final considerations about its potential impact upon the current theological discussion on an ethics of life inspired by Christian anthropology.
Człowiek ma być odpowiedzialnym zarządcą i opiekunem stworzenia — podkreślał Franciszek już podczas homilii inaugurującej pontyfikat w 2013 roku. Podjęty w artykule temat, dotyczy głoszenia troski o dzieło stworzenia i samego człowieka. Celem artykułu jest próba dostrzeżenia i analizy przepowiadania papieża Franciszka w kontekście ekologii integralnej, uwzględniającej wzajemne powiązania różnych wymiarów rzeczywistości. Podstawą dla prowadzonych analiz są przede wszystkim dwa dokumenty papieskie: encyklika Laudato si’ i posynodalna adhortacja apostolska Querida Amazonia.
Abstract The burden of this essay is to show that Friedrich Schleiermacher's theology of the atonement and account of Christ's soteriological work as priest is marked by recognisably Reformed commitments and logics that both build from and critique John Calvin and later Reformed scholastics. The essay contends that it is when Schleiermacher departs strongly from orthodox conclusions regarding substitutionary atonement that he mostly clearly appeals to key aspects of Reformed theology. Put differently, when Schleiermacher critiques the material content of Reformed orthodoxy, he does so by drawing on other doctrinal claims that are fundamental in Reformed thought: the divine decree, union with Christ, the import of sanctification and the interconnection between dogmatic expression and Christian piety. Schleiermacher presents creative solutions to theological conundrums, particularly those that plague Calvin and the later Reformed tradition about the relationship between God's eternal decree of grace and the appeasement of divine wrath on the cross.
The article presents a comparative analysis of the anthropological constructions Marseille abbot John Cassian and the British monk Pelagius. The study focuses on the need for a thorough revision doctrinal assessments established in Western theological science, according to which John Cassian is a representative of the so-called “semi-Pelagian” theology. The author believes that the wrong view of the Cassian’s theology formed as a result of considering his doctrines in the context of the Pelagian dispute. Cassian’s theology is not related to the Pelagian discussion of free will and predestination. His anthropology was formed in the context of the Eastern Christian ascetic tradition. Eastern Christian theology paid great attention to questions about the role of divine grace and human action in the matter of salvation. Cassian, being the heir to the Eastern Christian monastic tradition, emphasized personal asceticism. This led many theologians to draw the wrong conclusion that the Marseille abbot was a follower of Pelagius. The article shows that the views of Cassian are far from the theology of Pelagius and are closer to Augustine in many respects.
ABSTRACT Philosophical and theological treatments of difference and relation are often limited to traditional discursive boundaries of substance metaphysics and transcendent causality. Eschewing the historic desire to categorize substance and doctrinal investments in cosmological mechanism, multiplicity theory experiments with immanent and relational ontologies that are materially attentive and immersed in difference. Tracing the emergence of multiplicity and its theorizing across philosophical and theological registers, I begin with Henri Bergson and Alfred North Whitehead’s conceptually significant turn of the century work. Noting both Bergson and Whitehead’s profound influence on Gilles Deleuze, I examine the appearance and development of multiplicity in Deleuze’s individual writings and his collaborative work with Felix Guattari. Seeking resonances in the more recently theological theorizations of multiplicity, I find that Whitehead and Deleuze surface as vital interlocutors for the relational and incarnational theologies put forth, respectively, by Catherine Keller and Laurel Schneider. Each concerned with theological formulations of embodied difference and divine relation, I suggest that both Keller and Schneider draw on theories of multiplicity to explore immanence and interdependence as ontological postures. I conclude that across philosophical and theological discourse diverse conceptions of multiplicity offer resources for alternative theorizations of complex difference and relation.
This research article uses the theoretical framework of doctrine as believer’s security to critique the theological framework behind the controversial activities reported amongst some South African neo-Pentecostal prophets (NPPs), which include feeding congregants with grass, spraying them with insecticides and sexual violation of women congregants. The framework of the article falls within the discipline of systematic theology by raising the importance for South African Christians to develop a critical doctrinal framework for protecting themselves from controversial NPPs. The following main question is answered by the article: from a systematic theological perspective, how can we evaluate the theological framework, which leads to the recent controversial activities reported amongst some NPPs in South Africa? Consequently, the article, firstly, describes the critical theological framework of the protective role of Christian doctrine. Secondly, it describes the South African NPPs and their controversial practices. Thirdly, this article analyses some of the theological problems in the current operative framework of NPPs. Fourthly, it argues for the need for doctrinally informed critical thinking as a safety measure against controversial NPPs. Finally, some steps that must be taken by NPPs to develop critical theological thinking in order to overcome doctrinally vacuous experientialism that promotes controversial religious activities are provided. Contribution: From a systematic theological approach, this article attempts to demonstrate the importance of critical doctrinal thinking as a defence mechanism for protecting Christians from falling prey to harmful religious practices, such as those recently reported amongst some NPPs in South Africa.
If there is one lesson that Karen Kilby wants her readers to retain from perusing her recently published collection of essays, God, Evil and the Limits of Theology, it is that God is “beyond understanding” (1); and thus – she avers – it is no part of classical doctrinal teaching itself (let alone of contemporary theologians’ further exposition of it) to “give insight into God” (15), and especially not in relation to the doctrine of God-asTrinity. But what is meant by this version of “apophaticism” (her chosen word) in Kilby’s understanding? A close reading of these attractive, alluring, accessible – but ultimately somewhat bemusing – essays does not really supply a clear to answer this key question at all; or rather, Kilby gives a plethora of different answers to her own conundrum, some of them much more theologically convincing than others, and some decidedly unconvincing if what Kilby aims to achieve – as she purportedly intends – is the recapture of a more pristine patristic or scholastic understanding of this matter of “apophaticism” than that which has been besmirched by modern misunderstandings. (Ultimately, in fact, I shall be suggesting that it is she who has unintentionally re-imported the modern misunderstandings – but that is to anticipate). In what follows in this response to Kilby, therefore, I shall first attempt to unpick a set of different accounts of “apophaticism” that co-exist confusingly within the key essays in this book; for its argument unfolds in several chapters devoted to this same theme. From here I shall be in a position to adjudicate on the persuasiveness of Kilby’s overall thesis, and finally to assess briefly – as is appropriate for this journal – what it all might mean for the specific project of “political theology.” Consider, first, the opening salvos in chapter 1 of this volume (originally published as long ago as 2000), which is devoted to a critique, now quite familiar, of so-called “social trinitarianism.” The target here are those well-known, and highly popular, revivers of trinitarian thinking from the 1980s onwards (Moltmann and some of his pupils, Zizioulas, Gunton, Boff, and feminists such as Wilson-Kastner) who saw in the Trinity a ready, imitable prototype for renewed social, ecclesiastical and political