Origen of Alexandria can be credited as the founder of a Christian speculative angelology, in which Christ the Logos is both the creator and the interpreter of the angels. He introduces the angels as the first created rational beings who, in contemplating the divine Word (Logos), freely choose to direct their will as holy angels in service to or wicked demons in antagonism against the love of God. The first created rational beings are divided into three orders: the angels, the (...) demons, and the neutral spirits of human souls. The angels remain closest in contemplation of the Logos, yet, due to their negligence, descend to unfold in the angelic hierarchy. The angels and demons thereafter guide the movements of all spirits, substances, and signs in the created world. The neutral spirits of human souls can choose to follow either the guidance of guardian angels or demons. And yet after the Incarnation, the angels are distinguished from the demons by their choice to follow Christ. Origen’s angelology has often been regarded as an early Christian alternative to Middle Platonic daemonologies. And after Karl Barth, his angelology has come to be dispensed from Christian theology. However, as Jean Daniélou has observed, Origen had previously departed from Platonic daemonology in affirming that angelic mediacy must pass away like the light of the stars before the brilliance of the Logos of Christ. He had, in this way, already assimilated the mediacy of the angels to the absolute mediation of Christ. And, in assimilating angelic to christic mediacy, Origen also attributes the reason with which the world is moved to the divine reason of the divine Word (Logos) of Christ in God. Origen’s angelology can thus be read both before and after Barth as a science of the angels. (shrink)

Having elsewhere connected Walter Otto’s interpretation of Dionysus as a politically progressive deity to Huey P. Newton’s vision for the Black Panthers, I here expand this inquiry to a line of Otto-inspired scholarship. First, Alain Daniélou identifies Dionysus and Shiva as the dancing god of a democratic/decolonizing cult oppressed by tyrannical patriarchies. Arthur Evans sharpens this critique of sexism and heteronormativity, concluding that, as Dionysus’s chorus is to Greek tragedy, so Socrates’s circle is to Western philosophy. I thus call for (...) the creation of a hybrid Dionysian-Socratic revolutionary philosophical chorus, modeled on Dionysus Lyseus, wielding philosophical analysis to loosen injustice’s bonds, as a vanguard of social justice. I find a handbook for this chorus’s creation in Euripides’s Bacchae, whose Dionysus is an ally of immigrant women, overthrower of Theban patriarchy, and international revolutionary. Finally, I offer a contemporary example of such a chorus that is based in my hometown in Alabama, namely, the Birmingham Philosophy Guild. (shrink)

In the year 1900, the German philosopher Carl Stumpf made one of the earliest phonograph recordings to document an example of traditional music. The ensemble he recorded was the Siamese Court Orchestra which was performing in Germany at that time. This led to the establishment of the Berlin Phonogramm-Archiv and the beginning of the extensive recording of world traditional music. While written scores have begun to break traditional music away from its dependence on initiation and apprenticeship, the recording of music (...) has had an even more powerful impact on the role of memory in traditional music. No longer is one required to attend a performance, one can simply listen to a recording. Likewise, one can use recordings and videos to learn a piece without the presence of a teacher and can learn the music of another tradition. To consider the future of traditional music, the transformations created by the externalization of memory needs to be examined. This paper hopes to take a step in this direction. It will first consider the psychology of music developed by Stumpf himself. Especially the opposition between the phenomenological reception of music and it’s tempering by the consciousness which allows for aesthetic experience. It will extend this by considering Alain Daniélou’s reflections on the impact of writing and recording on musical creativity. The externalization of memory and the recording of traditional music, leads to may benefits - we have historical records of beautiful musical performances and traditions, many of which have already been lost - but simultaneously this externalization of memory threatens the very essence of traditional and religious music. Finally, the paper will address these paradoxes by applying Jacques Derrida and Bernard Stiegler’s idea of the ‘pharmacon’, and ‘positive pharmacology’ to understand how to navigate these contradictions which face this externalization of musical memory. (shrink)

The aim of the research is to identify the relationship between the performance criteria and the achievement of the objectives of supervision which is represented in the performance of the job at the Islamic University in Gaza Strip. To achieve the objectives of the research, the researchers used the descriptive analytical approach to collect information. The questionnaire consisted of (22) paragraphs distributed to three categories of employees of the Islamic University (senior management, faculty members, their assistants and members of the (...) administrative board). A random sample of 314 employees was selected, 276 responses were retrieved with a return rate of 88.1%. The SPSS program was used to enter, process, and analyze the data. The results of the study showed a positive relationship between the performance criteria and the achievement of the control objectives represented by the job performance in the Islamic University from the point of view of the members (senior management, faculty and their assistants and the administrative board). The researchers also recommended a number of recommendations, including the provision of an appropriate level of control system components today through the continuous updating and development of performance standards and the need to provide the necessary physical and financial resources to continue the development and achievement within the university. Expand the development of technology in the various activities of the university through the construction of a complete and integrated system to support the control systems in the university to suit its size. The researchers also recommended the follow-up, review of the performance standards and work to modify them in line with the mission of the university and the goals that the university seeks to reach. (shrink)

Five aspects of visual change detection are reviewed. The first concerns the concept of change itself, in particular the ways it differs from the related notions of motion and difference. The second involves the various methodological approaches that have been developed to study change detection; it is shown that under a variety of conditions observers are often unable to see large changes directly in their field of view. Next, it is argued that this “change blindness” indicates that focused attention is (...) needed to detect change, and that this can help map out the nature of visual attention. The fourth aspect concerns how these results affect our understanding of visual perception—for example, the implication that a sparse, dynamic representation underlies much of our visual experience. Finally, a brief discussion is presented concerning the limits to our current understanding of change detection. (shrink)

This article discusses various dangers that accompany the supposedly benign methods in behavioral evoltutionary biology and evolutionary psychology that fall under the framework of "methodological adaptationism." A "Logic of Research Questions" is proposed that aids in clarifying the reasoning problems that arise due to the framework under critique. The live, and widely practiced, " evolutionary factors" framework is offered as the key comparison and alternative. The article goes beyond the traditional critique of Stephen Jay Gould and Richard C. Lewontin, to (...) present problems such as the disappearance of evidence, the mishandling of the null hypothesis, and failures in scientific reasoning, exemplified by a case from human behavioral ecology. In conclusion the paper shows that "methodological adaptationism" does not deserve its benign reputation. (shrink)

“Love hurts”—as the saying goes—and a certain amount of pain and difficulty in intimate relationships is unavoidable. Sometimes it may even be beneficial, since adversity can lead to personal growth, self-discovery, and a range of other components of a life well-lived. But other times, love can be downright dangerous. It may bind a spouse to her domestic abuser, draw an unscrupulous adult toward sexual involvement with a child, put someone under the insidious spell of a cult leader, and even inspire (...) jealousy-fueled homicide. How might these perilous devotions be diminished? The ancients thought that treatments such as phlebotomy, exercise, or bloodletting could “cure” an individual of love. But modern neuroscience and emerging developments in psychopharmacology open up a range of possible interventions that might actually work. These developments raise profound moral questions about the potential uses—and misuses—of such anti-love biotechnology. In this article, we describe a number of prospective love-diminishing interventions, and offer a preliminary ethical framework for dealing with them responsibly should they arise. (shrink)

The starting point of this paper is the thought that the phenomenal appearances that accompany mental states are somehow only there, or only real, from the standpoint of the subject of those mental states. The world differs across subjects in terms of which appearances obtain. Not only are subjects standpoints across which the world varies, subjects are standpoints that we can ‘adopt’ in our own theorizing about the world (or stand back from). The picture that is suggested by these claims (...) has an appeal but is at the same time obscure and stands in need of regimentation. This paper explores and motivates a metaphysical account of what it is for subjects to be standpoints, what it is to adopt standpoints in our representations and, most importantly, how these notions might help us better understand the subjective character of conscious mental states. Some well-known observations by Thomas Nagel serve as starting points and the paper concludes by revisiting Nagel’s argument for the inevitable incompleteness of objective accounts of mental states, which will be reframed in terms of the central commitments of the proposed framework. (shrink)

Recent empirical work appears to suggest that the moral intuitions of professional philosophers are just as vulnerable to distorting psychological factors as are those of ordinary people. This paper assesses these recent tests of the ‘expertise defense’ of philosophical intuition. I argue that the use of familiar cases and principles constitutes a methodological problem. Since these items are familiar to philosophers, but not ordinary people, the two subject groups do not confront identical cognitive tasks. Reflection on this point shows that (...) these findings do not threaten philosophical expertise—though we can draw lessons for more effective empirical tests. (shrink)

I discuss two types of evidential problems with the most widely touted experiments in evolutionary psychology, those performed by Leda Cosmides and interpreted by Cosmides and John Tooby. First, and despite Cosmides and Tooby's claims to the contrary, these experiments don't fulfil the standards of evidence of evolutionary biology. Second Cosmides and Tooby claim to have performed a crucial experiment, and to have eliminated rival approaches. Though they claim that their results are consistent with their theory but contradictory to the (...) leading non-evolutionary alternative, Pragmatic Reasoning Schemas theory, I argue that this claim is unsupported. In addition, some of Cosmides and Tooby's interpretations arise from misguided and simplistic understandings of evolutionary biology. While I endorse the incorporation of evolutionary approaches into psychology, I reject the claims of Cosmides and Tooby that a modular approach is the only one supported by evolutionary biology. Lewontin's critical examinations of the applications of adaptationist thinking provide a background of evidentiary standards against which to view the currently fashionable claims of evolutionary psychology. (shrink)

What is the primary function of consciousness in the nervous system? The answer to this question remains enigmatic, not so much because of a lack of relevant data, but because of the lack of a conceptual framework with which to interpret the data. To this end, we have developed Passive Frame Theory, an internally coherent framework that, from an action-based perspective, synthesizes empirically supported hypotheses from diverse fields of investigation. The theory proposes that the primary function of consciousness is well-circumscribed, (...) serving the 'somatic nervous system[. For this system, consciousness serves as a frame that constrains and directs skeletal muscle output, thereby yielding adaptive behavior. The mechanism by which consciousness achieves this is more counterintuitive, passive, and “low level” than the kinds of functions that theorists have previously attributed to consciousness. Passive frame theory begins to illuminate (a) what consciousness contributes to nervous function, (b) how consciousness achieves this function, and (c) the neuroanatomical substrates of conscious processes. Our untraditional, action-based perspective focuses on olfaction instead of on vision and is 'descriptive' (describing the products of nature as they evolved to be) rather than 'normative' (construing processes in terms of how they should function). Passive frame theory begins to isolate the neuroanatomical, cognitive-mechanistic, and representational (e.g., conscious contents) processes associated with consciousness. (shrink)

I argue that there can be no such thing as a borderline case of the predicate ‘phenomenally conscious’: for any given creature at any given time, it cannot be vague whether that creature is phenomenally conscious at that time. I first defend the Positive Characterization Thesis, which says that for any borderline case of any predicate there is a positive characterization of that case that can show any sufficiently competent speaker what makes it a borderline case. I then appeal to (...) the familiar claim that zombies are conceivable, and I argue that this claim entails that there can be no positive characterizations of borderline cases of ‘phenomenally conscious’. By the Positive Characterization Thesis, it follows that ‘phenomenally conscious’ can not have any borderline cases. (shrink)

I argue that we can understand the de se by employing the subjective mode of presentation or, if one’s ontology permits it, by defending an abundant ontology of perspectival personal properties or facts. I do this in the context of a discussion of Cappelen and Dever’s recent criticisms of the de se. Then, I discuss the distinctive role of the first personal perspective in discussions about empathy, rational deference, and self-understanding, and develop a way to frame the problem of lacking (...) prospective access to your future self as a problem with your capacity to imaginatively empathize with your future selves. (shrink)

Fragmentalism was first introduced by Kit Fine in his ‘Tense and Reality’. According to fragmentalism, reality is an inherently perspectival place that exhibits a fragmented structure. The current paper defends the fragmentalist interpretation of the special theory of relativity, which Fine briefly considers in his paper. The fragmentalist interpretation makes room for genuine facts regarding absolute simultaneity, duration and length. One might worry that positing such variant properties is a turn for the worse in terms of theoretical virtues because such (...) properties are not involved in physical explanations and hence theoretically redundant. It will be argued that this is not right: if variant properties are indeed instantiated, they will also be involved in straightforward physical explanations and hence not explanatorily redundant. Hofweber and Lange, in their ‘Fine’s Fragmentalist Interpretation of Special Relativity’, object that the fragmentalist interpretation is in tension with the right explanation of the Lorentz transformations. It will be argued that their objection targets an inessential aspect of the fragmentalist framework and fails to raise any serious problem for the fragmentalist interpretation of special relativity. (shrink)

Human cognition is extended and enacted. Drawing the boundaries of cognition to include the resources and attributes of the body and materiality allows an examination of how these components interact with the brain as a system, especially over cultural and evolutionary spans of time. Literacy and numeracy provide examples of multigenerational, incremental change in both psychological functioning and material forms. Though we think materiality, its central role in human cognition is often unappreciated, for reasons that include conceptual distribution over multiple (...) material forms, the unconscious transparency of cognitive activity in general, and the different temporalities of metaplastic change in neurons and cultural forms. (shrink)

This article investigates the relationships between forms of humor that conjure up possible worlds and real-world social critiques. The first part of the article will argue that subversive humor, which is from or on behalf of historically and continually marginalized communities, constitutes a kind of aesthetic experience that can elicit enjoyment even in adversarial audiences. The second part will be a connecting piece, arguing that subversive humor can be constructed as brief narrative thought experiments that employ the use of fictionalized (...) scenarios to facilitate an open, playful attitude, encouraging a space for collaborative interpretation. This interaction between humorist and audience is an aesthetic experience that is enjoyable in and of itself, as the feelings of mirth are intrinsically valuable. But connected to the “Ha-ha!” experience of these sorts of humorous creations is an “Aha!” or potentially revelatory experience that is a mixture of cognitive comprehension and motivated (emotional) response. The third part of the article will attempt to go beyond the consciousness-raising element with an account of how such possible worlds created in the realm of imagination through subversive humor can bleed into the real world of flesh and blood people. Finally, an example of subversive humor will be analyzed. (shrink)

Recently, due to the rapid progress of computer technology, researchers develop an effective computer program to enhance the achievement of the student in learning process, which is Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS). Science is important because it influences most aspects of everyday life, including food, energy, medicine, leisure activities and more. So learning science subject at school is very useful, but the students face some problem in learning it. So we designed an ITS system to help them understand this subject easily (...) and smoothly by analyzing it and explaining it in a systematic way. In this paper, we describe the design of an Intelligent Tutoring System for teaching science for grade seven to help students know the 7 characteristics for living things smoothly. The system provides all topics of living things and generates some questions for each topic and the students should answer these questions correctly to move to the next level. In the result of an evaluation of the ITS, students like the system and they said that it is very useful for them and for their studies. (shrink)

Experiments are presented showing that visual search for Mueller-Lyer (ML) stimuli is based on complete configurations, rather than component segments. Segments easily detected in isolation were difficult to detect when embedded in a configuration, indicating preemption by low-level groups. This preemption—which caused stimulus components to become inaccessible to rapid search—was an all-or-nothing effect, and so could serve as a powerful test of grouping. It is shown that these effects are unlikely to be due to blurring by simple spatial filters at (...) early visual levels. It is proposed instead that they are due to more sophisticated processes that rapidly bind contour fragments into spatially-extended assemblies. These results support the view that rapid visual search cannot access the primitives formed at the earliest stages of visual processing; rather, it can access only higher-level, more ecologically-relevant structures. (shrink)

The self can be understood in objective metaphysical terms as a bundle of properties, as a substance, or as some other kind of entity on our metaphysical list of what there is. Such an approach explores the metaphysical nature of the self when regarded from a suitably impersonal, ontological perspective. It explores the nature and structure of the self in objective reality, that is, the nature and structure of the self from without. This is the objective self. I am taking (...) a different approach. In addition to objective reality, which is usually understood and explored from an impersonal, quasi-observational and metaphysically realist perspective, we can also explore the nature and structure of subjective reality. The nature and structure of subjective reality is defined by the nature and structure of first-personal, conscious experience. Subjective reality is as real as objective reality, and a metaphysical realist such as myself can endorse the existence of both kinds of ontology. The mental states that, as experienced from the first-personal or subjective perspective, capture the nature and structure of subjective reality, are included in objective reality. The questions to explore in a subjective ontology of the self concern the nature and structure of the self from the first-personal or subjective perspective, that is, the nature and structure of the self from within. This is the subjective self. (shrink)

Drawing on the material culture of the Ancient Near East as interpreted through Material Engagement Theory, the journey of how material number becomes a conceptual number is traced to address questions of how a particular material form might generate a concept and how concepts might ultimately encompass multiple material forms so that they include but are irreducible to all of them together. Material forms incorporated into the cognitive system affect the content and structure of concepts through their agency and affordances, (...) the capabilities and constraints they provide as the material component of the extended, enactive mind. Material forms give concepts the tangibility that enables them to be literally grasped and manipulated. As they are distributed over multiple material forms, concepts effectively become independent of any of them, yielding the abstract irreducibility that makes a concept like number what it is. Finally, social aspects of material use—collaboration, ordinariness, and time—have important effects on the generation and distribution of concepts. (shrink)

Many philosophers have appealed to the PSR in arguments for a being that exists a se, a being whose explanation is in itself. But what does it mean, exactly, for something to have its explanation ‘in itself’? Contemporary philosophers have said next to nothing about this, relying instead on phrases plucked from the accounts of various historical figures. In this article, I analyse five such accounts – those of Anselm, Aquinas, Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz – and argue that none are (...) satisfactory. Should we abandon or restrict the PSR, then? I think that would be hasty, for many reasons. I therefore consider the prospects of explaining everything, including God, given the constraints of certain features of good explanations, and conclude with several observations about future approaches. (shrink)

Academic institutions migrated to modular teaching-learning amid the COVID-19 pandemic. To ensure the quality of the pedagogical innovations employed, the study determined the students’ evaluation of the faculty prepared instructional modules for the courses they enrolled in during the first and second semesters of Academic Year 2020-2021. Employing a descriptive-correlational research design, the study was participated by 644 students from three colleges who were then available during the data gathering. Data gathered through online surveys were then analyzed using descriptive statistics (...) and Spearman's rank correlation coefficient utilizing jamovi software. Results revealed that the faculty-prepared instructional modules were acceptable and satisfactory to the students. Besides, the students' evaluation of the instructional modules was positively related to their level of satisfaction. Still, the students recommended that a review of the modules be done before sending the modules; a more extended time allotment is considered, and sufficient concrete examples are given in the modules. With this, the faculty concerned are encouraged to review the phases involved in the design, development, and distribution of the instructional modules to make them highly acceptable and very satisfactory to the students while maintaining the quality of both the content and aesthetics of the learning materials. Considering the study’s limitations, further endeavors may be carried out to validate this pedagogical innovation. (shrink)

The social welfare functional approach to social choice theory fails to distinguish a genuine change in individual well-beings from a merely representational change due to the use of different measurement scales. A generalization of the concept of a social welfare functional is introduced that explicitly takes account of the scales that are used to measure well-beings so as to distinguish between these two kinds of changes. This generalization of the standard theoretical framework results in a more satisfactory formulation of welfarism, (...) the doctrine that social alternatives are evaluated and socially ranked solely in terms of the well-beings of the relevant individuals. This scale-dependent form of welfarism is axiomatized using this framework. The implications of this approach for characterizing classes of social welfare orderings are also considered. (shrink)

Some propositions are more epistemically important than others. Further, how important a proposition is is often a contingent matter—some propositions count more in some worlds than in others. Epistemic Utility Theory cannot accommodate this fact, at least not in any standard way. For EUT to be successful, legitimate measures of epistemic utility must be proper, i.e., every probability function must assign itself maximum expected utility. Once we vary the importance of propositions across worlds, however, normal measures of epistemic utility become (...) improper. I argue there isn’t any good way out for EUT. (shrink)

US citizens perceive their society to be one of the most diverse and religiously tolerant in the world today. Yet seemingly intractable religious intolerance and moral conflict abound throughout contemporary US public life - from abortion law battles, same-sex marriage, post-9/11 Islamophobia, public school curriculum controversies, to moral and religious dimensions of the Black Lives Matter and Occupy Wall Street movements, and Tea Party populism. Healthy Conflict in Contemporary American Society develops an approach to democratic discourse and coalition-building across deep (...) moral and religious divisions. Drawing on conflict transformation in peace studies, recent American pragmatist thought, and models of agonistic democracy, Jason Springs argues that, in circumstances riven with conflict between strong religious identities and deep moral and political commitments, productive engagement may depend on thinking creatively about how to constructively utilize conflict and intolerance. The result is an approach oriented by the recognition of conflict as a constituent and life-giving feature of social and political relationships. (shrink)

We show that early vision can use monocular cues to rapidly complete partially-occluded objects. Visual search for easily detected fragments becomes difficult when the completed shape is similar to others in the display; conversely, search for fragments that are difficult to detect becomes easy when the completed shape is distinctive. Results indicate that completion occurs via the occlusion-triggered removal of occlusion edges and linking of associated regions. We fail to find evidence for a visible filling-in of contours or surfaces, but (...) do find evidence for a "functional" filling-in that prevents the constituent fragments from being rapidly accessed. As such, it is only the completed structures—and not the fragments themselves—that serve as the basis for rapid recognition. (shrink)

In this field questions arise which are certainly difficult; but as I listened last time to members of the group, I felt that the main difficulty perhaps lay in determining precisely what questions we are trying to answer. I have the conviction that if we could only say clearly what the questions are, the answers to them might not appear so elusive. So I have begun with a simple list of questions about discretion which in one form or another were, (...) as it seemed to me, expressed by the group last time. I may indeed have omitted something and inserted something useless: if so, no doubt I shall be informed of this later. The central questions then seem to me to be the following: 1. What is discretion, or what is the exercise of discretion? 2. Under what conditions and why do we in fact accept or tolerate discretion in a legal system? 3. Must we accept discretion or tolerate discretion, and if so, why? 4. What values does the use of discretion menace, and what values does it maintain or promote? 5. What can be done to maximize the beneficial operation of the use of discretion and to minimize any harm that it does? (shrink)

Our visual experience of the world is one of diverse objects and events, each with particular colors, shapes, and motions. This experience is so coherent, so immediate, and so effortless that it seems to result from a single system that lets us experience everything in our field of view. But however appealing, this belief is mistaken: there are severe limits on what can be visually experienced. -/- For example, in a display for air-traffic control it is important to track all (...) moving items. For a single item, this can be done without problem. Three or four can also be tracked, although some degree of effort may be needed. As the number is increased further, accurate tracking becomes more and more difficult—and eventually, impossible. Performance is evidently affected by a factor within the observer which enables certain kinds of perception to occur, but is limited in some way. This factor is generally referred to as attention. -/- At various times, attention has been associated with clarity of perception, intensity of perception, consciousness, selection, or the allocation of a limited “resource” enabling various operations (see Hatfield, 1998). During the past several decades, considerable progress has been achieved by focusing on the idea of selection (Broadbent, 1982). In particular, attention can be productively viewed as contingently selective processing. This can be embodied in various ways by various processes—there need not be a single quantity identified with all forms of attention, or a single site where it operates (Allport, 1993; Tsotsos, 2011). Although “paying attention” is often considered to be a unitary operation, it may simply refer to the control of one or more selective processes, ideally in a co-ordinated way. While this view has some cost in terms of conceptual simplicity, it can help make sense of a large set of phenomena. -/- This article surveys several of the major issues in our understanding of attention and how it relates to perception. It focuses on vision, since many—if not all—considerations are similar for all sensory modalities, and the level of understanding achieved in this domain is currently the most advanced. (shrink)

This paper tries to determine the philosophical nature of language, its functions, structure and content. It also explains the concept of natural language, ordinary and ideal language i.e. how there is a need of artificial perfect logical language without errors and unclearness in that language. This paper further shows the logical form of language with its syntactical, semantical, innate and acquired criteria for the evaluation of the languages. It deals with the analysis of language to clear what is unclear, to (...) know what is unknown, to make definite what is vague. In this paper I used the method; logical method for interpretation and argumentation, analytical method for simplification, and critical method to investigate the real domain of language. This paper does not deal with ordinary functions of the language but it deals with the conceptual and modular functions of the language. The fundamental aim of this written up is to determine the analytical approach of Wittgenstein to sketch the ‘language as a tool to discuss the state of affairs or facts of the worlds that is also what philosophy does. This paper describes the contributions of rationalism and empiricism in the field of knowing the truths of language. (shrink)

In this chapter I articulate the threat that time travel to the past allegedly poses to the free will of the time traveler, and I argue that on the traditional way of thinking about free will, the incompatibilist about time travel and free will wins the day. However, a residual worry about the incompatibilist view points the way toward a novel way of thinking about free will, one that I tentatively explore toward the end of the chapter.

Because contractarians see justice as mutual advantage, they hold that justice can be rationally grounded only when each can expect to gain from it. John Rawls seems to avoid this feature of contractarianism by fashioning the parties to the contract as Kantian agents whose personhood grounds their claims to justice. But Rawls also endorses the Humean idea that justice applies only if people are equal in ability. It would seem to follow from this idea that dependent persons (such as the (...) disabled) lack claims of justice. It appears, then, that the Kantian and Humean themes in Rawls conflict. I present a reading of Rawls that resolves this tension between the Kantian and Humean themes. The first theme, I argue, allows Rawls to maintain that persons as such are owed justice regardless of their ability to engage in social cooperation. The second theme, I argue, allows him to retain Hume's connection between justice and reciprocity, but confines the reciprocity condition to relations among nondependents. I conclude that Rawls's approach permits him to rebut recent criticisms leveled by disability theorists and others who claim that his theory excludes dependents. (shrink)

In two very influential papers from 2008, Tamar Gendler introduced the concept of “alief” to describe the mental state one is in when acting in ways contrary to their consciously professed beliefs. For example, if asked to eat what they know is fudge, but shaped into the form of dog feces, they will hesitate, and behave in a manner that would be consistent with the belief that the fudge is really poop. They alieve that it is disgusting, while they believe (...) it is not. This paper investigates laughter from self-proclaimed egalitarian, tolerant folk, in response to oppressive jokes that might fit the alief-model. If I merely alieve the content of a joke at which I laugh, will that constitute morally exculpating reasons for such laughter? And what else might it imply? This paper will provide insights at the intersections of humor studies, ethics, epistemology, phenomenology, and the philosophy of mind, all while being moderately and appropriately amusing. (shrink)

I argue that partialist critics of deontological theories make a mistake similar to one made by critics of utilitarianism: they fail to distinguish between a theory’s decision procedure and its standard of rightness. That is, they take these deontological theories to be offering a method for moral deliberation when they are in fact offering justificatory arguments for moral principles. And while deontologists, like utilitarians do incorporate impartiality into their justifications for basic principles, many do not require that agents utilize impartial (...) methods of moral deliberation. It follows that insofar as partialists reject impartiality in deliberation, their criticisms may miss their mark. If however, partialists are opposed to justifications for basic principles that rely upon impartiality, they are committed, I argue, to drastic revisions in moral theory that have worrisome implications. (shrink)

When hospitals face surges of patients with COVID-19, fair allocation of scarce medical resources remains a challenge. Scarcity has at times encompassed not only hospital and intensive care unit beds—often reflecting staffing shortages—but also therapies and intensive treatments. Safe, highly effective COVID-19 vaccines have been free and widely available since mid-2021, yet many Americans remain unvaccinated by choice. Should their decision to forgo vaccination be considered when allocating scarce resources? Some have suggested it should, while others disagree. We offer a (...) framework for evaluating when it is ethical and briefly discuss its legality in American law. (shrink)

Recent scientific approaches to aesthetics include evolutionary theories about the origin of art behavior, psychological investigations into human aesthetic experience and preferences, and neurophysiological explorations of the mechanisms underlying art experience. Critics of these approaches argue that they are ultimately irrelevant to a philosophical aesthetics because they cannot help us understand the distinctive conceptual basis and normativity of our art experience. This criticism may seem plausible given the piecemeal nature of these scientific approaches, but a more comprehensive naturalistic framework can (...) help us understand the conceptual basis and normativity of art. In particular, the ecology of art, an understanding of how individuals interact within particular environments, can help us understand the engineered art niches in which we create and experience art. Each niche is associated with a particular deme, or set of individuals that interact within that niche, and a set of cognitive, epistemic, and pedagogical technologies that form the conceptual basis of a niche-dependent normativity. This is to be contrasted with the niche-independent normativity revealed by many of the scientific approaches. This framework, and the conflicting streams of normativity it reveals, allows us to better understand conflicts in normativity and the implausibility of unequivocal and universal normative principles. (shrink)

Earthbodies describes how our bodies are open circuits to a sensual magic and planetary care that when closed off leads to disastrous detours, such as illness, ...

Analytic philosophers have a tendency to forget that they are human beings, and one of the reasons that P. F. Strawson’s 1962 essay, “Freedom and Resentment”, has been so influential is that it promises to bring discussions of moral responsibility back down to earth. Strawson encouraged us to “keep before our minds...what it is actually like to be involved in ordinary interpersonal relationships”, which is, after all, the context in which questions about responsibility arise in the first place. In this (...) essay I explore what we can learn about ordinary interpersonal relationships from three works of literature – Shakespeare’s King Lear, Jane Austen’s Persuasion, and Graham Greene’s The End of the Affair. My intention is to try to heed Strawson’s advice without imposing upon the data any particular theoretical agenda, and my hope is that the data collected will prove useful for future theorizing about responsibility. (shrink)

Philosophy of history is the conceptual and technical study of the relation which exists between philosophy and history. This paper tries to analyze and examine the nature of philosophy of history, its methodology and ideal development. In this I have tried to set the limits of knowledge to know the special account of Hegel’s idealistic view about philosophy of history. In this paper I have also used the philosophical methodology and philosophy inquiry, quest and hypothesis to discuss the Hegel’s idealistic (...) concept of philosophy of history. It also examines and demonstrates the views of other idealist philosophers like, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. It also shows the how history of mathematics is a complementary of idealism as most of philosophers who were idealists are also great mathematicians. In this paper we are investigation the epistemological approach, logical and metaphysical approach to study the nature of history, meaning of history and structure of history. (shrink)

Coherentists on epistemic justification claim that all justification is inferential, and that beliefs, when justified, get their justification together (not in isolation) as members of a coherent belief system. Some recent work in formal epistemology shows that “individual credibility” is needed for “witness agreement” to increase the probability of truth and generate a high probability of truth. It can seem that, from this result in formal epistemology, it follows that coherentist justification is not truth-conducive, that it is not the case (...) that, under the requisite conditions, coherentist justification increases the probability of truth and generates a high probability of truth. I argue that this does not follow. (shrink)

Many healthcare practices expose people to risks of harmful outcomes. However, the major theories of moral philosophy struggle to assess whether, when and why it is ethically justifiable to expose individuals to risks, as opposed to actually harming them. Sven Ove Hansson has proposed an approach to the ethical assessment of risk imposition that encourages attention to factors including questions of justice in the distribution of advantage and risk, people’s acceptance or otherwise of risks, and the scope individuals have to (...) influence the practices that generate risk. This paper investigates the ethical justifiability of preventive healthcare practices that expose people to risks including overdiagnosis. We applied Hansson’s framework to three such practices: an ‘ideal’ breast screening service, a commercial personal genome testing service, and a guideline that lowers the diagnostic threshold for hypertension. The framework was challenging to apply, not least because healthcare has unclear boundaries and involves highly complex practices. Nonetheless, the framework encouraged attention to issues that would be widely recognised as morally pertinent. Our assessment supports the view that at least some preventive healthcare practices that impose risks including that of overdiagnosis are not ethically justifiable. Further work is however needed to develop and/or test refined assessment criteria and guidance for applying them. (shrink)

Infants and children are suffering from a lots of nausea and vomiting problems. Doctors, usually face various difficulties dealing with these problems because of their similarities. In this paper, we present an expert system to help users in getting the correct diagnosis of problems of nausea and vomiting in infants and children (Gastro-esophageal reflux, Gastroenteritis, Systemic Infection, Bowel obstruction, Tumors, A bleeding disease, tonsillitis, and Hepatitis pharynx). Furthermore, this expert system provide information about the disease and how to deal with (...) it. SL5 Object expert system language was used to design and implement this expert system. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to examine the nature, scope and importance of philosophy in the light of its relation to other disciplines. This work pays its focus on the various fundamental problems of philosophy, relating to Ethics, Metaphysics, Epistemology Logic, and its association with scientific realism. It will also highlight the various facets of these problems and the role of philosophers to point out the various issues relating to human issues. It is widely agreed that philosophy as a (...) multi-dimensional subject that shows affinity to others branches of philosophy like, Philosophy of Science, Humanities, Physics and Mathematics, but this paper also seeks, a philosophical nature towards the universal problems of nature. It evaluates the contribution and sacrifices of the great sages of philosophers to promote the clarity and progress in the field of philosophy. (shrink)

The study determined the influence of innate mathematical characteristics on the number sense competencies of junior high school students in a Philippine public school. The descriptive-correlational research design was used to accomplish the study involving a nonrandom sample of sixty 7th-grade students attending synchronous math sessions. Data obtained from the math-specific Learning Style and Self-Efficacy questionnaires and the modified Number Sense Test (NST) were analyzed and interpreted using descriptive statistics, Pearson’s Chi-Square, and Simple Linear Regression analysis. The research instruments and (...) statistics were all validated and tested for reliability. The analysis revealed that the students are visual learners, had no or slight self-efficacy, and their number sense competency level is poor. They encountered difficulty in all the components and domains of the NST. Moreover, the students’ mathematical self-efficacy is significantly related and may influence their number sense competency level. Building upon the learners’ self-efficacy to further their understanding and skills in number sense is necessary. (shrink)

The study aimed to identify the reality of technical education in Palestine. The analytical descriptive method was used in the study. A questionnaire which consisted of 41 paragraphs was distributed randomly to the technical colleges in Gaza Strip. Random sample of (275) employees of these colleges were used, and the response rate was (74.5%). The results showed a high degree of approval for the dimensions of technical education with a relative weight of 76.07%. The ranking and relative weight was as (...) follows: Technical education institutions: 79.51%, graduates of technical education 75.75%, Labor market and local community 72.96%. The researchers propose a number of recommendations, the most important of which is: the need to pay attention to technical education in line with the National Strategic Plan for Higher Education by moving towards technical education. The importance of offering special courses in all technical education programs in these colleges. The researchers urged more future studies that address the same variables as the current study and apply them to other sectors. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Whether explicitly or implicitly, Kant's critical project weighs heavily upon Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception. This article argues that we can understand Merleau-Ponty's text as a phenomenological rewriting of the Critique of Pure Reason from within the paradoxical structures of lived experience, effectively merging Kant's Transcendental Aesthetic and Transcendental Analytic. Although he was influenced by Husserl's and Heidegger's interpretations of Kant's first version of the Transcendental Deduction, Merleau-Ponty develops a unique position between Kant, Husserl, and Heidegger via an embodied and (...) lived synthesis that collapses Kant's distinction between sensibility and the understanding, and that makes sense of temporality and subjectivity as a paradoxical trajectory. (shrink)

The study aimed to identify the creative environment of the technical colleges operating in Gaza Strip. The analytical descriptive method was used through a questionnaire which was randomly distributed to 289 employees of the technical colleges in Gaza Strip with a total number of (1168) employees and a response rate equal to (79.2%) of the sample study. The results confirmed the existence of a high degree of approval for the dimensions of the creative environment with a relative weight of (75.19%) (...) according to the perspective of the employees of the technical colleges in Gaza Strip. The results of the study showed a high level of creative environment (fluency, flexibility, originality, sensitivity to problems) in the technical colleges in Gaza Strip, where the field (fluency) ranked first and relative weight (76.86%), in the second place came the area (sense of problems) and relative weight (74.89%). The field of elasticity came in third place with a relative weight of (74.59%). Finally, the field of originality came in fourth and final rank with a relative weight of (74.41%). The results showed that there are differences between the technical colleges in the principles of the creative environment in all fields and the overall degree except for the field of flexibility. The most available colleges in these principles were the university college of applied sciences, and that was the least of the Faculty of Al-Aqsa Society. The results showed that there were differences according to the age variable in the areas of creative environment only in the sense of problems for age groups (less than 30 years) and (from 40 to 50 years). The researchers suggested a number of recommendations, the need to enhance the dimensions of the creative environment in technical colleges by working to improve the faculties of fluency, flexibility, originality and sensitivity to problems. The need to work on continuity and improve aspects of the creative environment of the colleges and the creation of new and innovative ways to support and develop and support these aspects combined. Necessity of technical colleges to continue to develop the creative environment (fluency, flexibility, originality, sensitivity to problems) for employees by engaging them in specialized training courses for creative thinking and problem solving. Developing work procedures with new innovative methods that will accomplish the various tasks quickly and accurately, and provide the effort, time and costs. The researchers urged more future studies that address the same variables of the current study in the field of creative environment and applied to other sectors. (shrink)

Art museums are built to elicit a wide variety of feelings, emotions, and moods from their visitors. While these effects are primarily achieved through the artworks on display, museums commonly deploy numerous other affect-inducing resources as well, including architectural solutions, audio guides, lighting fixtures, and informational texts. Art museums can thus be regarded as spaces that are designed to influence affective experiencing through multiple structures and mechanisms. At face value, this may seem like a somewhat self-evident and trivial statement to (...) make. However, in this article, I argue that niche construction theory enables us to make several illuminating observations about the ways in which art museums are engineered to influence our feelings. To expound on this claim, I single out for discussion the Museum of Non-Objective Painting, which for its entire lifespan (1939–52)—and prior to its evolution into the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum—was expressly organized to kindle in its visitors a special, spiritual form of aesthetic experience: a liberating feeling of cosmic rhythm and order, no less. -/- The argument will proceed as follows: In Part 1, I introduce the basics of niche construction theory and specify the sense in which I apply it to museums and aesthetic affective experiencing. In Part 2, I outline the origins and ethos of the Museum of Non-Objective Painting, after which I pin down the type of affective experience it fostered by drawing from visitors’ self-reported reactions to the artworks on display. Then, in Part 3, I use niche construction theory to explain how the Museum consciously fashioned itself, by means of various mutually supportive resources and technologies, into a fertile setting for the specified feelings. Finally, in Part 4, I extend beyond the discussed case to assess the implications of niche construction theory for a broader understanding of how art museums make us feel. In other words, by tracing the early steps of the Museum of Non-Objective Painting towards the present-day Guggenheim, I call attention to the general variation in affective niches as regards their structure, technologies, and affective aims. Overall, the article elucidates the functioning of art museums as affective niches and furthers the conceptual development of niche construction theory in aesthetics. (shrink)

Number systems differ cross-culturally in characteristics like how high counting extends and which number is used as a productive base. Some of this variability can be linked to the way the hand is used in counting. The linkage shows that devices like the hand used as external representations of number have the potential to influence numerical structure and organization, as well as aspects of numerical language. These matters suggest that cross-cultural variability may be, at least in part, a matter of (...) whether devices are used in counting, which ones are used, and how they are used. (shrink)

In sections 2.21.23-25 of An Essay concerning Human Understanding, John Locke considers and rejects two ways in which we might be “free to will”, which correspond to the Thomistic distinction between freedom of exercise and freedom of specification. In this paper, I examine Locke’s arguments in detail. In the first part, I argue for a non-developmental reading of Locke’s argument against freedom of exercise. Locke’s view throughout all five editions of the Essay is that we do not possess freedom of (...) exercise (at least in most cases). In the second part, I argue that, when Locke asks whether we possess freedom of specification, his question is intentionally ambiguous between two readings, a first-order reading and a higher-order reading. Locke’s view is that, on either reading, we do not possess freedom of specification (at least in any interesting sense). (shrink)

The Article analyzes the notion of legal “thinghood” in the context of the person–thing bifurcation. In legal scholarship, there are numerous assumptions pertaining to this definition that are often not spelled out. In addition, one’s chosen definition of “thing” is often simply taken to be the correct one. The Article scrutinizes these assumptions and definitions. First, a brief history of the bifurcation is offered. Second, three possible definitions of “legal thing” are examined: Things as nonpersons, things as rights and duties, (...) and things as property. The first two definitions are rejected as not being very interesting or serving any heuristic function. Conversely, understanding legal things as property is meaningful, useful, and helps to understand what it means to say that animals are legally things. Defining things as property has certain rather important implications, which are analyzed at the end of the Article. For instance, not everything needs to be either a person or a thing: The historical institution of outlawry involved treating individuals neither as legal persons nor as legal things. One must conclude that the person–thing bifurcation is less fundamental than is often assumed. (shrink)