Religious diversity is a key topic in contemporary philosophy of religion. One way religious diversity has been of interest to philosophers is in the epistemological questions it gives rise to. In other words, religious diversity has been seen to pose a challenge for religious belief. In this study four approaches to dealing with this challenge are discussed. These approaches correspond to four well-known philosophers of religion, namely, Richard Swinburne, Alvin Plantinga, William Alston, and John Hick. The study is concluded by (...) suggesting four factors which shape one’s response to the challenge religious diversity poses to religious belief. (shrink)

Moral realism faces two worries: How can we have knowledge of moral norms if they are independent of us, and why should we care about them if they are independent of rational activities they govern? Kantian constitutivism tackles both worries simultaneously by claiming that practical norms are constitutive principles of practical reason. In particular, on Stephen Engstrom’s account, willing involves making a practical judgment. To will well, and thus to have practical knowledge (i.e., knowledge of what is good), the content (...) of one’s will needs to conform to the formal presuppositions of practical knowledge. Practical norms are thus constitutive of practical knowledge. However, I will argue that the universality principles from which Engstrom derives the formal presuppositions of practical knowledge are reflectively and psychologically unavailable. As a result, they cannot help Kantian constitutivism provide an answer to moral realism's worries. (shrink)

The philosophy of measurement studies the conceptual, ontological, epistemic, and technological conditions that make measurement possible and reliable. A new wave of philosophical scholarship has emerged in the last decade that emphasizes the material and historical dimensions of measurement and the relationships between measurement and theoretical modeling. This essay surveys these developments and contrasts them with earlier work on the semantics of quantity terms and the representational character of measurement. The conclusions highlight four characteristics of the emerging research program in (...) philosophy of measurement: it is epistemological, coherentist, practice oriented, and model based. (shrink)

Schelling's philosophy can be seen as perpetrating the philosophical fallacy known as the Myth of the Given, in that it takes rational activity to be affected by an experience which is not conceptually mediated. This is supported by Schelling's repeated claim that there is an experience which is indescribable, and which forces us to silence. In the first part of the paper it will be shown how different readings of Schelling result in this fallacy. In the second and third parts (...) an alternative reading will be developed which avoids the fallacy while still making room for unsayable experience. Finally, the proposed interpretation will enable us to interpret Schelling's claim that expressing the unsayable, conveying it to another, is possible after all. »The wish for intelligibility is a terrible one. It means that we are willing to reveal ourselves through the self 's betrayal of itself.« (Stanley Cavell, The World Viewed. (shrink)

This article considers the traditional Islamic narrative in the light of the theory of religion espoused by John Hick (1922–2012). We see how the Islamic narrative changes on a Hickean understanding of religion, particularly in the light of the ‘bottom-up’ approach and trans-personal conception of the religious ultimate that it espouses. Where the two readings of Islam appear to conflict, I suggest how they can be reconciled. I argue that if Hick’s theory is incompatible with Islamic belief, then this incompatibility (...) does not manifest itself at the level of belief in the narrative. (shrink)

A disagreement between two philosophers, William Alston and J. L. Schellenberg, on the matter of religious commitment serves to exemplify an important difference between religious believers and religious sceptics. The disagreement occurs in the context of a discussion over the plausibility of Alston’s doxastic practice approach as applied to religious belief. I argue that a close reading of Alston and Schellenberg shows that they do not, despite what they may think, differ greatly from each other. I conclude by drawing some (...) lessons for interreligious dialogue, particularly that the focus of engagement should not necessarily be to convince but rather to uncover differences in attitude. (shrink)

There are two kinds of view in the literature concerning the relevance of intention to permissibility. While subjectivism assumes that an agent acts permissibly if he or she believes that the conduct is necessary for a moral purpose, for objectivism the de facto presence of an objective reason to justify one’s deeds is what matters. Recently, Scanlon and Hanser defend a moderate version of objectivism and subjectivism, respectively. Although I have a degree of sympathy toward both views, I will argue (...) that the truth lies somewhere in between. The view that I suggest in this paper hopefully occupies a space between subjectivism and objectivism and can accommodate the intuitions that neither of those views cannot account for. (shrink)

We examine whether the "evidence of evidence is evidence" principle is true. We distinguish several different versions of the principle and evaluate recent attacks on some of those versions. We argue that, whatever the merits of those attacks, they leave the more important rendition of the principle untouched. That version is, however, also subject to new kinds of counterexamples. We end by suggesting how to formulate a better version of the principle that takes into account those new counterexamples.

I will argue that Avicenna’s and Aquinas’s faith-based virtue ethics are crucially different from Aristotle’s virtue ethics, in that their ethics hinges on the theological notion of heaven, which is constitutively independent of the ethical life of the agent. As a result, their faith-based virtue ethics is objectionable. Moreover, I will also argue that the notion of heaven that Avicenna and Aquinas deploy in their moral philosophy is problematic; for it can rationally permit believers to commit morally horrendous actions. Finally, (...) I will present a Kantian notion of heaven which is immune to the aforementioned moral objection. The Kantian notion of heaven, nevertheless, cannot ground any view of ethics as it is constitutively dependent on the ethical life of the agent. (shrink)

Even those who consider themselves lucky to have escaped trauma, long-term illness and death, have experienced radical changes to their conception of life in its relation to public and private domains due to the COVID-19 pandemic. When public space turned into a dangerous realm, private interiors were assigned a new role and with these shifts, also new questions about the relation of interiority to any type of exteriority emerged. The first four contributions in this ‘Projected Interiorities’ issue of Technoetic Arts (...) (TA) reflect from an architectural and urban point of view on the conception of the public and private, their past, present and future. Yet, the pandemic contributed more widely to a re-evaluation of interiority, not least because the public and private realms seemingly coalesced via digital processes. While this journal issue cannot cover all these questions, it indicates the range of the pandemic turn in thought, collecting contributions from theory and practice, including architecture, art, philosophy and literary studies. With authors of a variety of disciplinary backgrounds based in China, India, Norway, France, the United Kingdom and the United States, this issue of TA covers not only a multiplicity of methodological approaches but also diverse regional and cultural perspectives on the idea of ‘Projected Interiorities’. (shrink)

This essay delves into the multifaceted concept of determin-ism within the domain of physics, scrutinizing prevalent definitions and classifications. Navigating through the nuances of deterministic behavior, we distinguish it from colloquial interpretations of "non-deterministic." By examining determin-ism through the lenses of natural laws, weak determinism, and strong determinism, we unravel the intricate relationship between predictability and the underlying mathematical structures of the universe. Classical mechanics serves as an exemplar of deterministic principles, while statistical mechanics introduces complexities that challenge simplistic classifications. (...) The interplay between ignorance and non-determinism emerges as a pivotal consideration, urging a nuanced understanding of deter-ministic frameworks amidst intricate systems. In essence, this exploration seeks to reconcile the richness of deterministic behavior with the complexities inherent in the natural world. (shrink)

YouTube has been implicated in the transformation of users into extremists and conspiracy theorists. The alleged mechanism for this radicalizing process is YouTube’s recommender system, which is optimized to amplify and promote clips that users are likely to watch through to the end. YouTube optimizes for watch-through for economic reasons: people who watch a video through to the end are likely to then watch the next recommended video as well, which means that more advertisements can be served to them. This (...) is a seemingly innocuous design choice, but it has a troubling side-effect. Critics of YouTube have alleged that the recommender system tends to recommend extremist content and conspiracy theories, as such videos are especially likely to capture and keep users’ attention. To date, the problem of radicalization via the YouTube recommender system has been a matter of speculation. The current study represents the first systematic, pre-registered attempt to establish whether and to what extent the recommender system tends to promote such content. We begin by contextualizing our study in the framework of technological seduction. Next, we explain our methodology. After that, we present our results, which are consistent with the radicalization hypothesis. Finally, we discuss our findings, as well as directions for future research and recommendations for users, industry, and policy-makers. (shrink)

We present a new justification for methodological triangulation (MT), the practice of using different methods to support the same scientific claim. Unlike existing accounts, our account captures cases in which the different methods in question are associated with, and rely on, incommensurable theories. Using a nonstandard Bayesian model, we show that even in such cases, a commitment to the minimal form of epistemic conservatism, captured by the rigidity condition that stands at the basis of Jeffrey’s conditionalization, supports the practice of (...) MT. (shrink)

"All-and-Nought" is the 2nd Edition of a series of books that study the nature of Reality and Being. The first edition of the book, "The Metaphysics of All-and-None", was published by Edwin Mellen Press in January 2022; since then the book has been under severe investigations and reviews by many scholars and pundits worldwide. The 2nd edition of the book contains the original text plus a foreword by Professor Richard Howells from King’s College London and some reports by Physicists, Biologists, (...) and others. Journal of Mind, one the most important journals in Philosophy, paid attention to the book and in its critical review article October 2022, encourages all philosophers and pundits to study the book. -/- The book's core concept is a Scientific/Mathematical, a-priori/synthetic theory called All'n'None Theory. It studies the Symmetry and Asymmetry in Reality and points to a state that indicates the deep Symmetry between "All Beings" and "Nothingness". It deeply studies the relationships between being and non-being from the perspective of Symmetry and symmetry failure and offers a measurement tool and a new method of studding phenomena. -/- It seems All`n`None Theory is a scientific breakthrough and discovery. The book methodologically applies Physics, Conceptual philosophy, Mathematics, and jurisprudence analysis both inductively and deductively to prove its theory. It is the first and the only Theory for Explaining the nature of Existence (being) and provides a technique to measure the amount of existence in each being. -/- Through understanding Existence, the book explains Creation, Cosmos, Consciousness, Mind, Spirit, and Soul scientifically. It is deep enough to initially encompass and then merge all modern Sciences (Physics, Philosophy, Complexity, System Theory, Information Theory, Psychology, Biology, Humanities, Economy, and Management) with Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Theology) and makes the image of Reality clearer for readers. -/- The book proves chaos management in the depth of creation and shows how people can use the only law of creation for their own success and salvation. Therefore the book is an inspirational one too. Readers by reading the book and understanding it not only gain scientific knowledge but also find profound wisdom that heals them. They feel they are enlightened and motivated to construct their meaning of life. Readers can recognize their self/ego structure of being and enjoy the passion to improve. -/- The book tries to explain the mechanism of Thinking with respect to Symmetry and the failure of Symmetry as the foundation of Categorization, Mentalization, and Cognition. By understanding the mechanism of cognition it can study Epistemology and explain the Believing Mechanism and the nature of Beliefs as a kind of being. The theory claims no matter the beliefs originated from Science or Religion the mechanisms that govern both of them are the same. Based on the theory, “Knower or Observer”, “Known or Observed”, and “knowing or observation” are rooted in Symmetry and its failure. The tone, language, and structure of the book are unique to itself. It is not an entertainment or commercial book. The book is written for readers who plan to spend enough time to think about its content. (shrink)

Suppose we learn that we have a poor track record in forming beliefs rationally, or that a brilliant colleague thinks that we believe P irrationally. Does such input require us to revise those beliefs whose rationality is in question? When we gain information suggesting that our beliefs are irrational, we are in one of two general cases. In the first case we made no error, and our beliefs are rational. In that case the input to the contrary is misleading. In (...) the second case we indeed believe irrationally, and our original evidence already requires us to fix our mistake. In that case the input to that effect is normatively superfluous. Thus, we know that information suggesting that our beliefs are irrational is either misleading or superfluous. This, I submit, renders the input incapable of justifying belief revision, despite our not knowing which of the two kinds it is. (shrink)

One of the central topics in semantic theory over the last few decades concerns the nature of local contexts. Recently, theorists have tried to develop general, non-stipulative accounts of local contexts (Schlenker, 2009; Ingason, 2016; Mandelkern & Romoli, 2017a). In this paper, we contribute to this literature by drawing attention to the local contexts of subclausal expressions. More specifically, we focus on the local contexts of quantificational determiners, e.g. `all', `both', etc. Our central tool for probing the local contexts of (...) subclausal elements is the principle Maximize Presupposition! (Percus, 2006; Singh, 2011). The empirical basis of our investigation concerns some data discussed by Anvari (2018b), e.g. the fact that sentences such as `All of the two presidential candidates are crooked' are unacceptable. In order to explain this, we suggest that the local context of determiners needs to contain the information carried by their restrictor. However, no existing non-stipulative account predicts this. Consequently, we think that the local contexts of subclausal expressions will likely have to be stipulated. This result has important consequences for debates in semantics and pragmatics, e.g. those around the so-called "explanatory problem" for dynamic semantics (Soames, 1982; Heim, 1990; Schlenker, 2009). (shrink)

In this draft I investigated epistemology briefly. The concerns of this draft was to have an introduction to epistemology for later researches leading to the boundaries of science and physics in specific.

Engels explained his admiration for Balzac by pointing to an apparent discrepancy between Balzac’s literature and his politics. Despite his sympathies for the French nobility, Balzac’s realism “compelled” him to portray this class in unflattering terms. In this article, I challenge Engels’s reading, arguing that Marx’s scattered remarks on Balzac take us in a different direction. Specifically, I argue that in his remark on Balzac’s The Peasants Marx pinpointed the author’s preoccupation with the spread of bourgeois ideology into the nobility. (...) Building on this remark, I analyze several of Balzac’s works showing that insofar as Balzac lambasted the nobles, his critique was primarily directed towards nobles who had adopted bourgeois ways. In this light, and against Engels’s observation, Balzac’s critique of the nobles appears to stem from his sympathy to aristocratic values rather than conflicting with them. In showing that affinities between Balzac, Marx and Engels did not depend on Balzac expressing anti-noble sentiment, I argue that the admiration the fathers of communism had for the monarchist’s prose exemplifies a partial, yet typical convergence between socialists and conservatives in their critique of modern bourgeois society. (shrink)

An article about the place philosophy has in our lives. Lectured on youtube.

In this paper comparative analysis of maximum power point tracking techniques has been conducted to achieve highest magnitude of power from photovoltaic array. The algorithms proposed in this paper for extracting peak output from photovoltaic array are Perturb and Observe, Incremental Conductance, and Fuzzy Logic Control. There are some limitations with conventional converters i.e. Buck-Boost converter. When the operating voltage exceeds normal voltage as the voltage becomes high, the conventional converters fail to carry high voltage and current. Apart from this (...) the ripple contents also increase abnormally due to the large impedance in the conventional converter. Similarly these converters cannot track maximum power point faster and effectively. In that case Single Ended Primary Inductor Converter (SEPIC) is the best choice instead of the conventional buck-boost converter, which is employed with the aim of extracting maximum output from the photovoltaic array. The aim of this study is to compare three MPPT techniques under varying environmental conditions with respect to maximum power extraction and speed of tracking time. SEPIC is used instead of conventional buck-boost converter in order to achieve maximum efficiency and less ripples. Also it can track maximum power point (MPP) faster than Buck-Boost Converter. Comparative analysis of three most extensively used MPPT techniques have been conducted in Simulink/Matlab. (shrink)

Abstract: The objective of this study was to evaluate water productivity of alfalfa (Medicago sativa) under centre pivot irrigation system. The experimental works were conducted at three centre pivot irrigation projects (Indian, Arab Authority for Agricultural Investment and Development (AAAID) and Sedonix projects) located at Khartoum State during the period from April 2011 to April 2013. In each project, three irrigation systems were randomly selected for the study treatments. Crop water requirement was obtained using CROPWAT 8 computer model. The parameters (...) tested were Christiansen coefficient of uniformity (Cu%), distribution uniformity (Du%), Scheduling uniformity (Su) and Water productivity (kg/m3). SAS (statistical package) was used to analyze the data. The variations among means were checked by the least significant difference (LSD). The results showed that Cu%, Du%, Su and water productivity significantly affected by the management practices in different irrigated projects. Sedonix project gave the highest values of hydraulic characteristic (Cu 85%, Du 81% and Su 1.23) while AAAID project recorded the lowest values (Cu 74%, Du 70%, Su 1.43). Water productivity significantly increased in Sedonix project (0.45 kg/m3/cut) followed by Indian projects (0.38 kg/m3/cut) and AAAID which ranked the least (0.27 kg/m3/cut). It is concluded that for improvement water productivity; proper technical guidelines for system management, operation and scheduling should be followed. (shrink)

In Marx’s posthumously published manuscripts from 1857–1863, we find a systematic exposition of his concept of subsumption. Though much has been written about it, significant interpretative gaps persist. In this article, I begin filling these gaps by examining the emergence of Marx’s concept of subsumption. I will argue that in the Grundrisse Marx brings together distinct but complementary elements from Hegel’s theories of judgment and teleology to coin two new and well delineated concepts of subsumption that prefigure his later concepts (...) of formal and real subsumption. These two concepts may be defined as: (a) the process of acquiring the social relational property of being a means to an end; (b) the process by which changes in non-relational properties occur in something due to this acquisition – and occur to better suit said end. (shrink)

ABSTRACTShould conciliating with disagreeing peers be considered sufficient for reaching rational beliefs? Thomas Kelly argues that when taken this way, Conciliationism lets those who enter into a disagreement with an irrational belief reach a rational belief all too easily. Three kinds of responses defending Conciliationism are found in the literature. One response has it that conciliation is required only of agents who have a rational belief as they enter into a disagreement. This response yields a requirement that no one should (...) follow. If the need to conciliate applies only to already rational agents, then an agent must conciliate only when her peer is the one irrational. A second response views conciliation as merely necessary for having a rational belief. This alone does little to address the central question of what is rational to believe when facing a disagreeing peer. Attempts to develop the response either reduce to the first response, or deem necessary an unnecessary doxastic revision, or imply that rational dilemmas obtain in cases where intuitively there are none. A third response tells us to weigh what our pre-disagreement evidence supports against the evidence from the disagreement itself. This invites epistemic akrasia. (shrink)

Among critical concepts in Mulla Sadra's thought, which, of course, cannot be discussed separately between the parts. This is because the basic rules in philosophical discourse are universal traits that make it approached from various directions as a unified form of reality. One of Sadra's famous thoughts is the concept of the soul, which is related to the roots of his philosophical doctrine of being. The significance of the discussion of the soul by Mulla Sadra becomes increasingly crucial given the (...) discourse about the soul, especially in the debate of modern European philosophy in such a way that are absurd forms in Islamic religious doctrine. Therefore, seeing the relationship between the two models of approach to the soul is not only the only way to understand the universal message of the Islamic treatise about the soul but also creates a model of dialogue volume two of Ibn Rusyd-Ghazali becoming Mulla Sadra versus Modern Europe. (shrink)

Hebrew Preface to Karl Marx's Introduction and Preface to the Critique of Political Economy .

Is it ever rational to suspend judgment about whether a particular doxastic attitude of ours is rational? An agent who suspends about whether her attitude is rational has serious doubts that it is. These doubts place a special burden on the agent, namely, to justify maintaining her chosen attitude over others. A dilemma arises. Providing justification for maintaining the chosen attitude would commit the agent to considering the attitude rational—contrary to her suspension on the matter. Alternatively, in the absence of (...) such justification, the attitude would be arbitrary by the agent's own lights, and therefore irrational from the agent's own perspective. So, suspending about whether an attitude of ours is rational does not cohere with considering it rationally preferable to other attitudes, and leads to a more familiar form of epistemic akrasia otherwise. (shrink)

Panmicropsychism is the view that the fundamental physical ingredients of our universe are also its fundamental phenomenal ingredients. Since there is only a limited number of fundamental physical ingredients, panmicropsychism seems to imply that there exists only a small set (palette) of basic phenomenal qualities. How does this limited palette of basic phenomenal qualities give rise to our rich set of experiences? This is known as ‘the palette problem’. One class of solutions to this problem, large-palette solutions, simply denies that (...) the palette is limited. These solutions assume that all types of phenomenal qualities (color, sound, odor, taste, etc., and presumably also types not experienced by humans) were created fully formed at the birth of our universe. On this view, brains evoke conscious experiences by sampling primordial, preexisting phenomenal spaces. My main claim in this paper is that, by analogy with the mathematical description of the fundamental physical ingredients of our universe, which exhibits simplicity, symmetry, and beauty, panmicropsychists should expect the mathematical description of the fundamental phenomenal ingredients of our universe to exhibit similar features. The goal of this paper is to exemplify this claim using what is arguably the simplest of all types of phenomenal qualities—color. Specifically, I utilize phenomenological data on color to construct the maximally symmetric mathematical description of phenomenal color space. I then show that this mathematical description is isomorphic to the mathematical description of two-state quantum systems in a mixed state. Based on this isomorphism, I suggest that color may be the phenomenal dual aspect of two-state quantum systems. (shrink)

The years following Israel’s founding were formative ones for the development of philosophy as an academic discipline in this country. During this period, the distinction between philosophy seen as contiguous with the humanities and social sciences, and philosophy seen as adjacent to the natural and exact sciences began to make its presence felt in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. This distinction, which was manifest in the curriculum, was by no means unique to the Hebrew University, but reflected the broader bifurcation (...) between two schools of Western philosophy in the twentieth century. In English-speaking countries, it is generally referred to as the divide between analytic and continental philosophy. What was special about the situation at the Hebrew University, however, was that the split manifested itself in a rather small department, being embodied, basically, in one prominent representative of each school – Nathan Rotenstreich and Yehoshua Bar-Hillel. This article will focus on some key aspects of the lives and thought of Rotenstreich and Bar-Hillel. It will address their philosophical maturation as S.H. Bergmann’s students, their views on the goals of twentieth-century philosophy, on the philosopher’s role in public life, and the circumstances under which they started teaching in Jerusalem right after the founding of the State of Israel. (shrink)

An Article with a map of professions, a mapping of power/knowledge.

This study examines the representations of male and female social actors in selected Iranian EFL (English as a Foreign Language) textbooks. It is grounded in Critical Discourse Analysis and uses van Leeuwen’s Social Actor Network Model to analyze social actor representations in the gendered discourses of compulsory heterosexuality. Findings from the analysis show that the representations endorse the discourse of compulsory heterosexuality which is an institutionalized form of social practice in Iran. Three male and three female students were interviewed to (...) find out what they think about these representations. Their responses with regard to whether they think textbooks should also include representations of other forms of sexuality were non-committal and vague. To them LGBT people are the ‘‘Other’’ practicing a form of sexuality that is not normal. Such exclusions could obscure the reality regarding the existence of such gender identities and represent the world in a particular manner. (shrink)

Epistemically akratic agents believe both p and that believing p is irrational for them. Some of the costs of thinking that epistemic akrasia can be rational are clear. It is hypocritical, and outright weird, to have beliefs that we consider irrational, let alone to reason with or act on those beliefs. However, as Maria Lasonen-Aarnio (2020) and Brian Weatherson (2019) have argued, the weirdness of akrasia does not obviously tell against its rationality. Here I argue that views permitting epistemic akrasia (...) fare worse than previously thought. These views imply that we should sometimes have beliefs that we know for certain are either irrational or false. And while having a belief that we know to be irrational is straightforwardly irrational, the additional possibility that the belief may be false cannot make having it any more rational. (shrink)

This research investigates the representations of gendered social actors within the subversionary discourse of equal educational opportunities for males and females in Iranian English as a Foreign Language (EFL) books. Using critical discourse analysis (CDA) as the theoretical framework, the authors blend van Leeuwen’s (Texts and practices: Readings in critical discourse analysis, Routledge, London, 2003) ‘Social Actor Network Model’ and Sunderland’s (Gendered discourses, Palgrave Macmillan, Hampshire, 2004) ‘Gendered Discourses Model’ in order to examine the depictions of male and female social (...) actors within this gendered discourse. The gendered discourse of equal opportunities was buttressed by such representations within a tight perspective in proportion to gender ideologies prevailing in Iran. Resorting to CDA, we can claim that resistance against such gendered discourse in Iranian EFL textbooks militates against such gender norms. These representations of male and female social actors in school books are indicative of an all-encompassing education, reinforcing that the discourse of equal opportunities is yet to be realized in the education system of Iran. (shrink)

This paper investigates the interaction of gender, disability and education in rural Iran, which is a relatively unexplored field of research. The responses of 10 female students with disabilities from Isfahan indicated that the obstacles they faced included marginalization, difficulties in getting from home to school, difficulties within the school building itself, and discrimination by teachers, classmates and school authorities. The data collected for the study contain a wide range of conservative gendered discourses, and show how traditional gender beliefs interact (...) with disability to aggravate the problems faced in education by young women with disabilities. It is hoped that the findings will raise awareness among policy-makers of the many formidable obstacles that make it difficult for young women with disabilities to achieve their full potential in education. (shrink)

When a belief is self-fulfilling, having it guarantees its truth. When a belief is self-defeating, having it guarantees its falsity. These are the cases of “self-impacting” beliefs to be examined below. Scenarios of self-defeating beliefs can yield apparently dilemmatic situations in which we seem to lack sufficient reason to have any belief whatsoever. Scenarios of self-fulfilling beliefs can yield apparently dilemmatic situations in which we seem to lack reason to have any one belief over another. Both scenarios have been used (...) independently to challenge Evidentialism, on which what we may rationally believe is all and only what fits our current evidence. Here we tie the two scenarios together and explore what a knowledge-sensitive evidentialist approach to one implies for the other. (shrink)

Physicians in Islamic countries might be requested to participate in the Islamic legal code of qiṣāṣ, in which the victim or family has the right to an eye-for-an-eye retaliation. Qiṣāṣ is only used as a punishment in the case of murder or intentional physical injury. In situations such as throwing acid, the national legal system of some Islamic countries asks for assistance from physicians, because the punishment should be identical to the crime. The perpetrator could not be punished without a (...) physician’s participation, because there is no way to guarantee that the sentence would be carried out without inflicting more injury than the initial victim had suffered. By examining two cases of acid throwing, this paper discusses issues related to physicians’ participation in qiṣāṣ from the perspective of medical ethics and Islamic Shari’a law. From the standpoint of medical ethics, physicians’ participation in qiṣāṣ is not appropriate. First, qiṣāṣ is in sharp contrast to the Hippocratic Oath and other codes of medical ethics. Second, by physicians’ participation in qiṣāṣ, medical practices are being used improperly to carry out government mandates. Third, physician participation in activities that cause intentional harm to people destroys the trust between patients and physicians and may adversely affect the patient–physician relationship more generally. From the standpoint of Shari’a, there is no consensus among Muslim scholars whether qiṣāṣ should be performed on every occasion. We argue that disallowing physician involvement in qiṣāṣ is necessary from the perspectives of both medical ethics and Shari’a law. (shrink)

Scholars have recently argued that Hegel posited international recognition as a necessary feature of international relations. My main effort in this article is to disprove this point. Specifically, I show that since Hegel rejected the notion of an international legal system, he must hold that international recognition depends on the arbitrary will of individual states. To pinpoint Hegel’s position, I offer a close reading of Hegel’s intricate formulations from the final paragraphs of the Philosophy of Right—formulations that are easy to (...) quote out of context just as they are transparent when considered in due context. (shrink)

In his classic article, “Hegel's Phenomenological Method” (1970), Kenley R. Dove suggests that in chapters 1-3 of the Phenomenology of Spirit, “we” (understood roughly as the readers) actively participate in the dialectic of consciousness. In this paper I show – drawing on Joseph Gauvin's work on the “for us” written the same year as Dove's – that the latter's account regarding the “we” is inexact. I argue that this misunderstanding stems from a quid pro quo between merely stylistic occurrences of (...) the word “we” and interventions of texts “for us”, i.e. texts that express the particular viewpoint on experience attributed in the Phenomenology to its readers. Beyond the historical interest of reassessing Dove's commentary, this paper is intended to help readers avoid similar confusions themselves. This, by providing a rule of thumb enabling a more accurate identification of texts expressing “our” point of view. This is important since in the Phenomenology texts that are “for us” contain – in contrast to mere appearance “for consciousness” – the philosophical position Hegel considers to be true. (shrink)

What it means for an action to have moral worth, and what is required for this to be the case, is the subject of continued controversy. Some argue that an agent performs a morally worthy action if and only if they do it because the action is morally right. Others argue that a morally worthy action is that which an agent performs because of features that make the action right. These theorists, though they oppose one another, share something important in (...) common. They focus almost exclusively on the moral worth of right actions. But there is a negatively valenced counterpart that attaches to wrong actions, which we will call moral counterworth. In this paper, we explore the moral counterworth of wrong actions in order to shed new light on the nature of moral worth. Contrary to theorists in both camps, we argue that more than one kind of motivation can affect the moral worth of actions. (shrink)

Hebrew Preface to Louis Althusser's For Marx.

Richard Feldman has proposed and defended different versions of a principle about evidence. In slogan form, the principle holds that ‘evidence of evidence is evidence’. Recently, Branden Fitelson has argued that Feldman’s preferred rendition of the principle falls pray to a counterexample related to the non-transitivity of the evidence-for relation. Feldman replies arguing that Fitelson’s case does not really represent a counterexample to the principle. In this note, we argue that Feldman’s principle is trivially true.

In his Encyclopaedia Logic, Hegel affirms that truth is ‘usually’ understood as the agreement of thought with the object, but that in the ‘deeper, i.e. philosophical sense’, truth is the agreement of a content with itself or of an object with its concept. Hegel then provides illustrations of this second sort of truth: a ‘true friend’, a ‘true state’, a ‘true work of art’. Robert Stern has argued that Hegel's ‘deeper’ or ‘philosophical’ truth is close to what Heidegger labelled ‘material’ (...) truth, namely a property attributed to a thing on the basis of the accordance of that thing with its essence. It has since been common to think of Hegel's concept of ‘philosophical’ truth as ‘ontological’, ‘objective’ or ‘material’ in contrast to ‘epistemological’ or ‘propositional’ definitions. In this paper, I wish to add an important nuance to the existing literature on this subject: even though things have a truth-value for Hegel, the latter is always negative. I argue that Hegel's criterion of ‘philosophical’ truth, which is best formulated as ‘agreement with self’, is first and foremost intended to examine the truth-value of thought-determinations. I then argue that even though this criterion may also be applied to examine the truth-value of things (namely, even though things have a truth-value), things never fall under this definition. After reviewing several of Hegel's explicit remarks on the matter, I provide an alternative explanation to those features of Hegel's ‘philosophical’ truth which have led scholars to view it as a truth in things. Especially, I argue that what are generally seen as Hegel's examples (‘true friend’, ‘true state’, ‘true work of art’) are not intended as examples but only as imperfect illustrations of ‘philosophical’ truth. (shrink)

Once known as the city of silk, Suzhou 苏州 has become the centre of wedding dress production, selling paradise on earth for one day, including copies of the last royal wedding dress, out of shops at the foot of mythic Tiger Hill. Suzhou is also the host of what is known as the Silicon Valley of the East. It has attracted millions of migrants searching for a better future; millions of tourists visit every year to experience the past, strolling through (...) the gardens and courtyards of its Old Town. The contrasts could hardly be more apparent. Slow time, and fast time, and the time of the in-between, are woven into the city’s complex spatial fabric. This is a conversation by eight authors in eight frames on a city that connects them. (shrink)

In this paper, we first examine the reasons for opposing metaphysics. While assessing these reasons, we intend to reach a plausible stance regarding the relationship between science and metaphysics and its role and importance in scientific activity. There are different views on this old question. We argue that the interaction of metaphysics and science is a complex interaction that can only be defended in the light of a critical approach. In this critical attitude, one should not only pay attention to (...) the role and importance of metaphysics in science but also should have an epistemic humility about his expectations of it. (shrink)