This paper analyzes the incisive counter-arguments against Gaṅgeśa’s defense of non-conceptual perception offered by the Dvaita Vedānta scholar Vyāsatīrtha in his Destructive Dance of Dialectic. The details of Vyāsatīrtha’s arguments have gone largely unnoticed by subsequent Navya Nyāya thinkers, as well as by contemporary scholars engaged in a debate over the role of non-conceptual perception in Nyāya epistemology. Vyāsatīrtha thoroughly undercuts the inductive evidence supporting Gaṅgeśa’s main inferential proof of non-conceptual perception, and shows that Gaṅgeśa has no basis for thinking (...) that non-conceptual perception has any necessary causal role in generating concept-laden perceptual awareness. He further raises a number of internal inconsistencies and undesirable consequences for Gaṅgeśa’s claim that non-conceptual states are introspectively invisible. His own causal theory of perception is more parsimonious than the Nyāya account, and is equally compatible with direct realism. I conclude by noting several striking parallels between Vyāsatīrtha’s views and the conceptualism of John McDowell, while also suggesting that Vyāsatīrtha's own conceptualism is not unduly constrained by some of McDowell’s limiting assumptions about concepts and perceptual contents. (shrink)

Some recent surveys of the modern philosophical debate over the existence of non-conceptual perceptual content have concluded that the distinction between conceptual and non-conceptual representations is largely terminological. To remedy this terminological impasse, Robert Hanna and Monima Chadha claim that non-conceptualists must defend an essentialist view of non-conceptual content, according to which perceptual states have representational content whose structure and psychological function are necessarily distinct from that of conceptual states. Hanna and Chadha additionally suggest that non-conceptualists should go “back to (...) Kant” to find the most defensible version of an essentialist content non-conceptualism. I propose instead that non-conceptualists go back even further to the seventh-century Indian Buddhist philosopher Dharmakīrti, so that they may not only find historical precedent for an essentialist content view, but also some better arguments in its favor. This essay reconstructs Dharmakīrti's essentialist non-conceptualism about the contents of conscious sensory representations and the refined theory of conceptualization that it presupposes. In particular, I examine his arguments from the proprietary phenomenology of sensory experience, the cognitive encapsulation of sensory processing, as well as the iconic format of sensory representations, and assess the strength of these arguments relative to their modern counterparts. (shrink)

Some have argued that a subject has an inner awareness of its conscious mental states by virtue of the non-introspective, reflexive awareness that any conscious state has of itself. But, what exactly is it like to have a ubiquitous and reflexive inner awareness of one’s conscious states, as distinct from one’s outer awareness of the apparent world? This essay derives a model of ubiquitous inner awareness (UIA) from Sebastian Watzl’s recent theory of attention as the activity of structuring consciousness into (...) an experiential center and periphery. I develop Watzl’s theory into an account of UIA by suggesting that a subject is acquainted with its own conscious mental states through being reflexively aware of how these states are structured by attention into a unified subjective perspective. I favorably compare this Watzl-inspired account of UIA against other contemporary analytic and classical Buddhist accounts of reflexive awareness and subjective character, which variously ground the inner awareness of conscious states on their intrinsic phenomenal quality of “for-me-ness,” their affective/hedonic valence, or a subject’s disposition to introspect them. The Watzl-inspired account also accommodates possible counter-examples to Watzl’s theory posed by states of minimal phenomenal experience such as lucid dreamless sleep and non-dual meditative awareness. (shrink)

Illusionists about consciousness boldly argue that phenomenal consciousness does not fundamentally exist — it only seems to exist. For them, the impression of having a private inner life of conscious qualia is nothing more than a cognitive error, a conjuring trick put on by a purely physical brain. Some phenomenal realists have accused illusionism of being a byproduct of modern Western scientism and overzealous naturalism. However, Jay Garfield has endorsed illusionism by explicitly drawing support from the classical Yogācāra Buddhist philosopher (...) Vasubandhu. In this paper, I assess the degree to which Garfield’s illusionist interpretation accurately captures the views of Vasubandhu and his commentator Sthiramati in their extant Sanskrit works. As it turns out, Vasubandhu and Sthiramati converge with contemporary illusionists in taking an unconscious causal basis of cognitive/linguistic processes to be responsible for generating the illusion of representational states with apparently phenomenal contents. Within their constitutive understanding of the mind as the “imagination of what is non-existent” (abhūtaparikalpa), I raise possible candidates for what might seem to be real instances of phenomenality — mental appearances (pratibhāsa), affective sensory experience (vedanā), and “intrinsic luminosity” (prakṛtiprabhāsvara) — and consider possible responses on behalf of an illusionist interpreter. I conclude that Vasubandhu and Sthiramati really do appear to be strong illusionists about phenomenal consciousness, particularly if phenomenal states are assumed to be essentially representational. (shrink)

This text is the introduction to V. Amit & N. B. Salazar, Pacing Mobilities. Timing, Intensity, Tempo & Duration of Human Movements, New York/Oxford, Berghahn, 2020, 202 p. It is also available on Berghahn publisher website.

According to Hubert Dreyfus’s famous claim that expertise is fundamentally “mindless,” experts in any domain perform most effectively when their activity is automatic and unmediated by concepts or cognitive processes like attention and memory. While several scholars have recently challenged the plausibility of Dreyfus’s “mindless” account of expertise for explaining a wide range of expert activities, there has been little consideration of the one form of expertise which might be most amenable to Dreyfus’s account – namely, perceptual expertise. Indeed, Dreyfus’s (...) account of expert coping is ultimately an account of perceptual expertise, in that an expert’s intuitive situational responses are thought to rely on a sophisticated repertoire of perceptual skills. In this paper, I examine the feedforward model of sensory processing that Dreyfus uses to illustrate the perceptual underpinnings of expert action, and consider its resonance with psychological research that characterizes perceptual expertise as being automatic, holistic, pre-attentive, and non-cognitive in nature. However, citing competing empirical research, I argue instead that Dreyfus’s model of perceptual expertise cannot adequately explain the integral roles of attention, memory, and conceptual knowledge in expert object recognition. I conclude that the Dreyfusian model of perceptual expertise fails – the perceptual repertoire of skills that grounds expert object recognition is not operative in isolation from the expert’s conceptual repertoire. (shrink)

Human rights are grand political philosophy of the modern times, thus no wonder as a language of progressive politics which once was discourse of social emancipation (Boaventura Santos, 2002), has transcended national boundaries to become aspiration of humankind (Samul Moyn (2010), and is a commonly shared bulwark against evil (Lynn Hunt, 2007). Centred upon moral belief propelled on metaphysical moral assumption with its origin in Christianity pity and Enlightment discourse, however, human rights have become a sort of moral imperialism of (...) our time which exclude and include humanity on the basis of coloniality of power (Anibal Quijano, 2007). Although human rights are site of contentious discourse (Issa Shivji, n.d.) however, rights did not disappear in action and thought, but discussion shifted within national frameworks, in fact, “human rights when belief in them have become more widespread (Lynn Hunt, p.134, 2007)”. The combination of emotional/moral appeal and lack of conceptual clarity makes human rights immensely effective as a rhetorical tool and serve as a moral apparatus for humanitarian intervention into the third world countries. Both, the just war tradition and those who theorize the ethics of the law of armed conflict have taken moral and political reality of human rights seriously. Taking anti-foundational approach by challenging its main elements such as ‘universality’ and ‘morality’ this paper would argue that moral premises of human rights is flawed. (shrink)

The problem of philosophical skepticism relates to the difficulty involved in underwriting the claim that we know anything of spatio-temporal reality. It is often claimed, in fact, that proper philosophical scrutiny reveals quite the opposite from what common sense suggests. Knowledge of external reality is thought to be even quite obviously denied to us as a result of the alleged fact that we all fail to know that certain skeptical scenarios do not obtain. A skeptical scenario is one in which (...) we have neurological occurrences just like any normal situation in which we actually perceive spatio-temporal objects, but where we are deceived in some sense as a result of the manipulation of our brains from some outside source. In this work I attempt to address the problem of philosophical skepticism by claiming that most of us are able to come to know plenty about external reality, since we can come to realize that a certain philosophical theory of perception is correct. The theory I have in mind is what I call a non-cognitive theory of perception. According to this view, perceptual experience is defined by continuous, sensitive behavioral interaction with spatio-temporal objects of the appropriate size, shape, hardness, speed, etc. Knowing that this theory of perception is correct is equivalent to knowing that we know plenty about external reality. This is ultimately because by knowing that a non-cognitive theory of perception is true, we know that any skeptical scenario must fail to obtain. The structure of the work proceeds by first discussing the significance of the problem of philosophical skepticism in some detail. Chapter 1 lays out how the problem does indeed forcefully arise if it is conceded that we fail to know that the skeptical scenarios fail to obtain. Chapter 2 develops the sort of view of our epistemological situation that falls out of accepting without qualification that the problem exists. Chapter 3 examines and criticizes certain popular responses to the skeptical problem. The main goal of these first three preliminary chapters is to indicate that once it is admitted that we fail to know that the skeptical scenarios fail to obtain, the problem of philosophical skepticism forcefully presents itself. Chapter 4, however, attacks the idea that we fail to know that the skeptical scenarios fail to obtain. In this chapter I argue that this idea is wedded to the position that a certain theory of perception is correct. The theory in question is what I call a conjunctive theory of veridical experience. According to this view, normal experience of spatio-temporal objects occurs when a subject has a certain perceptual experience, and that experience also happens to match up with and/or be satisfied by what is really the case. Only when a theory of this sort is assumed, I argue, is the claim that we fail to know that the skeptical scenarios fail to obtain found to be obvious. In chapter 5 I argue that, in fact, a non-cognitive theory, rather than a conjunctive theory, is the correct view to maintain. In the final chapter 6 I develop the epistemological position that falls out of accepting a non-cognitive theory. (shrink)

I argue that conscious visual experience is essentially a non-representational demonstration of a skill. The explication and defense of this position depends on both phenomenological and empirical considerations. The central phenomenological claim is this: as a matter of human psychology, it is impossible to produce a conscious visual experience of a mind-independent object that is sufficiently like typical cases, without including concomitant proprioceptive sensations of the sort of extra-neural behavior that allows us to there and then competently detect such objects. (...) I then argue that this view, which is a version of enactivism, best explains the temporality of conscious experience—what is often called the specious present. (shrink)

This paper argues that various phenomenological considerations support a non-representational causal account of visual experience. This position claims that visual experiences serve as a non-representational causally efficacious medium for the production of beliefs concerning the external world. The arguments are centered on defending a non-representational causal account’s understanding of the cognitive significance of visual experience. Among other things, such an account can easily explain the inextricable role that background beliefs and conceptual capacities play in perceptually-based external world belief-formation processes, the (...) fact that visual mental states constrain beliefs because of their presentational phenomenology, and the phenomenon known as the transparency of visual experience. (shrink)

In Perceiving Reality: Consciousness, Intentionality, and Cognition in Buddhist Philosophy, Christian Coseru makes the innovative and ambitious argument that the project of Indian Buddhist epistemology, as represented by thinkers in the Yogācāra tradition of Dignāga and Dharmakīrti, is continuous in many of its methods and conclusions with the phenomenological theories of Edmund Husserl and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, as well as with recent naturalistic approaches in epistemology and the philosophy of mind. In Coseru’s reading, Buddhism shares with phenomenology the attitude that metaphysical (...) and epistemological questions cannot be treated in isolation from questions concerning the nature of conscious awareness and .. (shrink)

Stroud has argued for many years that skepticism is conditionally correct. We cannot, he claims, both undergo a Cartesian-style examination of the extent of our knowledge as well as avoid skepticism. One reason Stroud's position appears quite plausible is the so-called "totality condition" imposed for this kind of examination: as inquiring philosophers we are called upon to assess all of our knowledge, all at once. However, in this paper I argue that Stroud's apparent understanding of the totality condition is mistaken. (...) Evidently, Stroud thinks that honoring the totality condition amounts to imposing the strong requirement that we initially assume that we don't know anything about external reality. However, there is a weaker requirement available: that we initially not assume that we know anything about external reality. I argue i) that the weaker conception of the totality condition is most suitable for the kind of philosophical examination that Stroud seems to have in mind; and ii) that according to this same conception skepticism is not conditionally correct. (shrink)

Twenty years have passed since Gould and Lewontin published their critique of ‘the adaptationist program’ – the tendency of some evolutionary biologists to assume, rather than demonstrate, the operation of natural selection. After the ‘Spandrels paper’, evolutionists were more careful about producing just-so stories based on selection, and paid more attention to a panoply of other processes. Then came reactions against the excesses of the anti-adaptationist movement, which ranged from a complete dismissal of Gould and Lewontin’s contribution to a positive (...) call to overcome the problems. We now have an excellent opportunity for finally affirming a more balanced and pluralistic approach to the study of evolutionary biology. (shrink)

All eyes are turned towards genomic data and models as the source of knowledge about whether human races exist or not. Will genomic science make the final decision about whether racial realism (e.g., racial population naturalism) or anti-realism (e.g., racial skepticism) is correct? We think not. We believe that the results of even our best and most impressive genomic technologies underdetermine whether bio-genomic races exist, or not. First, different sub-disciplines of biology interested in population structure employ distinct concepts, aims, measures, (...) and models, producing cross-cutting categorizations of population subdivisions rather than a single, universal bio-genomic concept of "race." Second, within each sub-discipline (e.g., conservation biology, phylogenetics), genomic results are consistent with, and map multiply to, racial realism and anti-realism. Indeed, racial ontologies are constructed conventionally, rather than discovered. We thus defend a /constructivist conventionalism/ about bio-genomic racial ontology. Choices and conventions must always be made in identifying particular kinds of groups. Political agendas, social programs, and moral questions premised on the existence of naturalistic race must accept that no scientifically grounded racial ontology is forthcoming, and adjust presumptions, practices, and projects accordingly. (shrink)

Biological research on race has often been seen as motivated by or lending credence to underlying racist attitudes; in part for this reason, recently philosophers and biologists have gone through great pains to essentially deny the existence of biological human races. We argue that human races, in the biological sense of local populations adapted to particular environments, do in fact exist; such races are best understood through the common ecological concept of ecotypes. However, human ecotypic races do not in general (...) correspond with 'folk' racial categories, largely because many similar ecotypes have multiple independent origins. Consequently, while human natural races exist, they have little or nothing in common with 'folk' races. (shrink)

Background -/- Previous literature suggests that those with reading disability (RD) have more pronounced deficits during semantic processing in reading as compared to listening comprehension. This discrepancy has been supported by recent neuroimaging studies showing abnormal activity in RD during semantic processing in the visual but not in the auditory modality. Whether effective connectivity between brain regions in RD could also show this pattern of discrepancy has not been investigated. Methodology/Principal Findings -/- Children (8- to 14-year-olds) were given a semantic (...) task in the visual and auditory modality that required an association judgment as to whether two sequentially presented words were associated. Effective connectivity was investigated using Dynamic Causal Modeling (DCM) on functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data. Bayesian Model Selection (BMS) was used separately for each modality to find a winning family of DCM models separately for typically developing (TD) and RD children. BMS yielded the same winning family with modulatory effects on bottom-up connections from the input regions to middle temporal gyrus (MTG) and inferior frontal gyrus(IFG) with inconclusive evidence regarding top-down modulations. Bayesian Model Averaging (BMA) was thus conducted across models in this winning family and compared across groups. The bottom-up effect from the fusiform gyrus (FG) to MTG rather than the top-down effect from IFG to MTG was stronger in TD compared to RD for the visual modality. The stronger bottom-up influence in TD was only evident for related word pairs but not for unrelated pairs. No group differences were noted in the auditory modality. Conclusions/Significance -/- This study revealed a modality-specific deficit for children with RD in bottom-up effective connectivity from orthographic to semantic processing regions. There were no group differences in connectivity from frontal regions, suggesting that the core deficit in RD is not in top-down modulation. (shrink)

The works of the later Wittgenstein resonate with aspects of the pragmatist tradition in American philosophy. Davidson’s work is similarly informed. We argue that because of their association with the pragmatist tradition, their work can be put to use by philosophers interested in social justice issues, including, for example, feminism, and critical race theory. Philosophers concerned with social justice continue to struggle between the extremes of an untenable foundationalism and a radical relativism. Given their holistic understanding of knowledge, meaning and (...) communication, the work of Wittgenstein and Davidson is particularly suited to dissolving the foundationalist/relativist dichotomy. We explore how this and other features of their work facilitates philosophy for social change. (shrink)

This is a story about three of my favorite philosophers—Donnellan, Russell, and Frege—about how Donnellan’s concept of having in mind relates to ideas of the others, and especially about an aspect of Donnellan’s concept that has been insufficiently discussed: how this epistemic state can be transmitted from one person to another.

It is illegitimate to read any ontology about "race" off of biological theory or data. Indeed, the technical meaning of "genetic variation" is fluid, and there is no single theoretical agreed-upon criterion for defining and distinguishing populations (or groups or clusters) given a particular set of genetic variation data. Thus, by analyzing three formal senses of "genetic variation"—diversity, differentiation, and heterozygosity—we argue that the use of biological theory for making epistemic claims about "race" can only seem plausible when it relies (...) on the user’s own assumptions about race; the move from biological measures to claims about “race” inevitably amounts to a pernicious reification. We also excavate assumptions in the history of the technical discourse over the concept of "race" (e.g., Livingstone's and Dobzhansky's 1962 exchange, Edwards' 2003 response to Lewontin 1972, as well as contemporary discussions of cladistic "race", and "races" as clusters). We show that claims about the existence (or non-existence) of "race" are underdetermined by biological facts, methods, and theories. Biological theory does not force the concept of "race" upon us; our social discourse, social ontology, and social expectations do. We become prisoners of our abstractions at our own hands, and at our own expense. (shrink)

Fiona Macpherson (2012) argues that various experimental results provide strong evidence in favor of the cognitive penetration of perceptual color experience. Moreover, she proposes a mechanism for how such cognitive penetration occurs. We argue, first, that the results on which Macpherson relies do not provide strong grounds for her claim of cognitive penetrability; and, second, that, if the results do reflect cognitive penetrability, then time-course considerations raise worries for her proposed mechanism. We base our arguments in part on several of (...) our own experiments, reported herein. (shrink)

This paper distinguishes three concepts of "race": bio-genomic cluster/race, biological race, and social race. We map out realism, antirealism, and conventionalism about each of these, in three important historical episodes: Frank Livingstone and Theodosius Dobzhansky in 1962, A.W.F. Edwards' 2003 response to Lewontin (1972), and contemporary discourse. Semantics is especially crucial to the first episode, while normativity is central to the second. Upon inspection, each episode also reveals a variety of commitments to the metaphysics of race. We conclude by interrogating (...) the relevance of these scientific discussions for political positions and a post-racial future. (shrink)

Many of the most important social institutions—e.g., law and language—are thought to be normative in some sense. And philosophers have been puzzled by how this normativity can be explained in terms of the social, descriptive states of affairs that presumably constitute them. This paper attempts to solve this sort of puzzle by considering a simpler and less contentious normative social practice: table manners. Once we are clear on the exact sense in which a practice is normative, we see that some (...) practices can be normative in an interesting and non-trivial sense, but also explicable with merely descriptive resources. In addition to arguing that it is possible to explain normative practices with descriptive resources, this paper presents and defends just such an explanation—an account of the nature of table manners that appeals only to descriptive states of affairs. (shrink)

Though legal positivism remains popular, HLA Hart’s version has fallen somewhat by the wayside. This is because, according to many, the central task of a theory of law is to explain the so-called ‘normativity of law’. Hart’s theory, it is thought, is not up to the task. Some have suggested modifying the theory accordingly. This paper argues that both Hart’s theory and the normativity of law have been misunderstood. First, a popular modification of Hart’s theory is considered and rejected. It (...) stems from a misunderstanding of Hart and his project. Second, a new understanding of the mysterious but often-mentioned ‘normativity of law’ is presented. Once we have dispelled some misunderstandings of Hart’s view and clarified the sense in which law is supposed to be normative, we see that Hart’s view, unmodified, is well suited to the task of explaining law’s normativity. (shrink)

In the 1980s and early 1990s, the normativity of meaning was thought to be more-or-less 'incontestable.' But in the last 25 years, many philosophers of mind and language have contested it in several seemingly different ways. This, however, is somewhat illusory. There is an unappreciated commonality among most anti-normativist arguments, and this commonality, I argue, poses a problem for anti-normativism. The result, however, is not a wholesale rejection of anti-normativism. Rather, an insight from the anti-normativist position can be harnessed to (...) reveal an unappreciated position in the normativity of meaning debate. (shrink)

Lewis et al. (2011) attempted to restore the reputation of Samuel George Morton, a 19th century physician who reported on the skull sizes of different folk-races. Whereas Gould (1978) claimed that Morton’s conclusions were invalid because they reflected unconscious bias, Lewis et al. alleged that Morton’s findings were, in fact, supported, and Gould’s analysis biased. We take strong exception to Lewis et al.’s thesis that Morton was “right.” We maintain that Gould was right to reject Morton’s analysis as inappropriate and (...) misleading, but wrong to believe that a more appropriate analysis was available. Lewis et al. fail to recognize that there is, given the dataset available, no appropriate way to answer any of the plausibly interesting questions about the “populations” in question (which in many cases are not populations in any biologically meaningful sense). We challenge the premise shared by both Gould and Lewis et al. that Morton’s confused data can be used to draw any meaningful conclusions. This, we argue, reveals the importance of properly focusing on the questions asked, rather than more narrowly on the data gathered. (shrink)

'ā no bhadrāḥ kratavo yantu viśvato ' Let good thoughts come from all around; inspired by this timeless epic of Rigveda. India has presented an excellent model of Multiculturalism to the world. The multiculturalist model of the West, as established by contemporary thinkers like Wilkymalika, is based on the separate political existence of different cultural classes. been made for thousands of years. India has maintained Multiculturalism not only at the socio-cultural level but also at the political level. Through federal structure, (...) universal suffrage, constitutionally guaranteed civil rights, with other constitutional institutions and provisions, multiculturalism is being addressed at the political level for a population of 13 million people .Thus in India , multiculturalism is not only is not only a political tool for diversity but also a socio-political concept. Therefore, Indian multiculturalism presents a comprehensive, effective, and more sustainable model which have to be discussed. (shrink)

This paper presents a series of arguments aimed at showing that, for an important subclass of social rules—non‐summary rules—no adequate metaphysical account has been given, and it tentatively suggests that no such account can be given. The category of non‐summary rules is an important one, as it includes the rules of etiquette, fashion, chess, basketball, California state law, descriptive English grammar, and so on. This paper begins with behavioristic accounts of the conditions for the existence of such rules, and proceeds (...) through progressively more complex accounts, all the way to what are labeled ‘normative attitude accounts,’ which are prima facie plausible and particularly popular. In each case it is argued that the type of account under consideration cannot explain the existence of the relevant type of social rule. (shrink)

This article examines how facial recognition technology reshapes the philosophical debate over the ethics of video surveillance. When video surveillance is augmented with facial recognition, the data collected is no longer anonymous, and the data can be aggregated to produce detailed psychological profiles. I argue that – as this non-anonymous data of people’s mundane activities is collected – unjust risks of harm are imposed upon individuals. In addition, this technology can be used to catalogue all who publicly participate in political, (...) religious, and socially stigmatised activities, and I argue that this would undermine central interests of liberal democracies. I examine the degree to which the interests of individuals and the societal interests of liberal democracies to maintain people’s obscurity while in public coincide with privacy interests, as popularly understood, and conclude that there is a practical need to articulate a novel right to obscurity to protect the interests of liberal democratic societies. (shrink)

We attempt to improve the understanding of the notion of agene being `for a phenotypic trait or traits. Considering theimplicit functional ascription of one thing being `for another,we submit a more restrictive version of `gene for talk.Accordingly, genes are only to be thought of as being forphenotypic traits when good evidence is available that thepresence or prevalence of the gene in a population is the resultof natural selection on that particular trait, and that theassociation between that trait and the gene (...) in question isdemonstrably causal. It is therefore necessary to gatherstatistical, biochemical, historical, as well as ecologicalinformation before properly claiming that a gene is for aphenotypic trait. Instead of hampering practical use of the `genefor talk, our approach aims at stimulating much needed researchinto the functional ecology and comparative evolutionary biologyof gene action. (shrink)

ā no bhadrāḥ kratavo yantu viśvato ' Let good thoughts come from all around; inspired by this timeless epic of Rigveda. India has presented an excellent model of Multiculturalism to the world. The multiculturalist model of the West, as established by contemporary thinkers like Will kymlicka, is based on the separate political existence of different cultural classes. However, India's cultural nationalism has shown how diverse cultures can co-exist with a common socio-political thought over the centuries. Sakas, Huns, Kushans, Turks, Afghan, (...) Iranians, and Mughals all got absorbed in sanatan Indian culture. Not only this , it also gave place to the different cultures to come, and made the model, of coexistence alive. In the name of nationalities like French, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, and German, Europe got divided into many nation states, but in India Gujarati, Marathi,, Telugu Oriya, Bengali, Punjabi, Assamese, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam nationalities were not divided into nation states. Instead coexistence has been made for thousands of years. India has maintained multiculturalism not only at the socio-cultural level but also at the political level. Through federal structure, universal suffrage, constitutionally guaranteed civil rights, with other constitutional, institutions and provisions, multiculturalism is being addressed at the political level for population of 13 million people. Thus, in India, multiculturalism is not only a political tool for diversity but also a socio-political concept. Therefore, Indian multiculturalism presents a comprehensive, effective and more sustainable model which have to be discussed. (shrink)

Expressivism in logic is the view that logical vocabulary plays a primarily expressive role: that is, that logical vocabulary makes perspicuous in the object language structural features of inference and incompatibility (Brandom, 1994, 2008). I present a precise, technical criterion of expressivity for a logic (§2). I next present a logic that meets that criterion (§3). I further explore some interesting features of that logic: first, a representation theorem for capturing other logics (§3.1), and next some novel logical vocabulary for (...) expressing structural features of inference (§4). (shrink)

The most discussed theory of law of the twentieth century – HLA Hart’s theory from _The Concept of Law_ – is fundamentally _psychological_. It explains the existence of legal systems in terms of an attitude taken by legal officials: the internal point of view. Though much has been said about this attitude (what statements _express_ it, what it is _not_, how Hart _ought_ to have conceived of it, etc.), we nonetheless lack an adequate account of the attitude itself. This paper (...) presents and defends an account of the internal point of view and shows how, when understood as the account suggests, this attitude can play the several roles that Hartian positivists need it to play. (shrink)

The normativity of meaning—introduced by Kripke in 1982, and the subject of active debate since the early 1990s—has been exclusively understood in terms of duty-imposing norms. But there are norms of another type, well-known within the philosophy of law: authority-conferring norms. Philosophers thinking and writing about the normativity of meaning—normativists, anti-normativists, and even Kripke himself—seem to have failed to consider the possibility that semantic norms are authority-conferring. I argue that semantic norms should be understood as having an authority-conferring structure, and (...) show how this allows normativism about meaning to escape the two most popular arguments against it. (shrink)

Objective: This study aims to provide an in-depth knowledge of the perspectives of young adults on gender roles. There is a lack of literature in the appropriate age classes. -/- Methods: The study is descriptive in nature and includes 473 students. This research was conducted using a questionnaire and the Social Gender Perception Scale (SGPS) to collect data. -/- Results: It was determined that 52.4% of the study participants were female and 47.6% were male. 63% of the participants were affiliated (...) with the Faculty of Health Sciences, while the remainder were students from other faculties. The average SGPS score of the participants was 95.62±18.17, but this score varied based on socio-demographic variables. Specifically, being female, possessing an undergraduate degree or higher, studying in a health sciences faculty, and having a mother who completed primary school or higher were all linked to higher SGPS mean scores. Furthermore, statistical analysis revealed a significant difference between these groups (p<0.05). -/- Conclusion: It is imperative that parents are provided with educational programs aimed at fostering knowledge of social gender roles and cultivating egalitarian attitudes and viewpoints. It is important to strategically design and execute research endeavours aimed at ascertaining the perspectives and attitudes of parents of young individuals with respect to societal gender roles. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine the ethics of nonviolent protest when a violent response is either foreseen or intended. One central concern is whether protesters, who foresee a violent response but persist, are provoking the violence and whether they are culpable for any eventual harms. A second concern is whether it is permissible to publicize the violent response for political advantage. I begin by distinguishing between two senses of the term provoke: a normative sense where a provocateur knowingly imposes an (...) unjustified risk of a violent response, and a descriptive sense where the respondent feels provoked. I argue that, when the risk of a violent response is justified, the protesters are not provocateurs but akin to nonculpable, entrapping agents who create an opportunity for the regime to respond with disproportionate violence. The regime’s response can disclose its brutality or criminality and this can be fairly publicized for political advantage. When nonviolent protesters create an unjustified risk of violence either because the injustice they oppose is insufficient to justify the risk of a violent response or because the risked harms are disproportionate with the likely political advantages derived from the protest, they are partially culpable provocateurs. However, I argue these partially culpable provocateurs can still permissibly publicize the disproportionate violence of the regime so as to shape public opinion. (shrink)

Ratio Juris, Volume 34, Issue 4, Page 331-355, December 2021.

This letter addresses the editorial decision to publish the article, “Research on group differences in intelligence: A defense of free inquiry” (Cofnas, 2020). Our letter points out several critical problems with Cofnas's article, which we believe should have either disqualified the manuscript upon submission or been addressed during the review process and resulted in substantial revisions.

Rachlin's thought-provoking analysis could be strengthened by greater openness to evolutionary interpretation and the use of the directed attention concept as a component of self-control. His contribution to the understanding of prosocial behavior would also benefit from abandoning the traditional (and excessively restrictive) definition of altruism.

Objective: Long-term C-arm fluoroscopy exposes medical personnel to substantial radiation doses. Preventing this exposure requires protective equipment and radiation safety. This study examined anesthesia students' using fluoroscopy and preventive knowledge. -/- Methods: This descriptive and cross-sectional study included 139 Vocational High School Anesthesia students. The "Healthcare Professional Knowledge of Radiation Protection" scale and a 13-question survey collected data. The scale was designed with a Likert scale and three sub-factors. If the total and sub-dimension item average score of the scale is (...) below 5, it indicates that the level of knowledge of radiation protection among medical personnel is low, and if it is above 5, it indicates that the level of knowledge is high. -/- Results: More than half of the students (59.8%) heard the radiation from the fluoroscopy device, the vast majority (82.7%) did not receive radiation protection training, 58.3% stayed away from the device while it was operating, and 70.5% stated that it is crucial to stay away from the device while it was operating. It was determined that there was a statistically significant difference (p<0.05) in the "Radiation Physics, Biology, and Radiation Usage Principles" sub-dimension of students who were male, in their second year of education, received radiation protection training, and offered reliable answers to a number of questions measuring their level of radiation knowledge. In addition, the research revealed a positive and highly significant correlation between the scale and its subdimensions. -/- Conclusion: Although the scale scores of the students who received radiation protection training and had a high level of radiation knowledge were substantially higher than those of the other students, the average score of the students was less than 5. This indicates that students have an inadequate understanding of radiation protection. To prevent the negative biological effects of radiation on the human body, it is necessary to conduct epidemiological research, educate health care professionals and anesthesiology students about the effects and processes of this radiation on human cells, and provide frequent training. Radiation, radiation's biological effects, and radiation protection should be included in health students' curricula. (shrink)

This collection brings together fourteen contributions by authors from around the globe. Each of the contributions engages with questions about how local and global bioethical issues are made to be comparable, in the hope of redressing basic needs and demands for justice. These works demonstrate the significant conceptual contributions that can be made through feminists' attention to debates in a range of interrelated fields, especially as they formulate appropriate responses to developments in medical technology, global economics, population shifts, and poverty.

We are addressing this letter to the editors of Philosophical Psychology after reading an article they decided to publish in the recent vol. 33, issue 1. The article is by Nathan Cofnas and is entitled “Research on group differences in intelligence: A defense of free inquiry” (2020). The purpose of our letter is not to invite Cofnas’s contribution into a broader dialogue, but to respectfully voice our concerns about the decision to publish the manuscript, which, in our opinion, fails to (...) meet a range of academic quality standards usually expected of academic publications. (shrink)

The public health crisis is started with emergence of new coronavirus on 11 February 2020 which triggered as coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemics. The causative agent in COVID-19 is made up of positively wrapped single-stranded RNA viruses ~ 30 kb in size. The epidemiology, clinical features, pathophysiology, and mode of transmission have been documented well in many studies, with additional clinical trials are running for several antiviral agents. The spreading potential of COVID-19 is faster than its two previous families, the severe (...) acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) and the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV). Apart from clinical manifestation, comorbid status is playing key role for prevalence of COVID-19 infection and mortalities. The comorbid effects associated with COVID-19 are diabetes, cardiovascular, digestive, hepatitis-B, cerebrovascular, hypertension, liver injury, coronary heart disease, cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, and neurological impairment. Antimalarial drugs (chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine), remdesivir, Tocilizumab, clopinavir/ritonavir, convalescent plasma therapy, spike protein-angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) inhibitors, human monoclonal antibodies, mRNA-1273, mesenchymal stem cells, Indian and Chinese traditional medicine, small molecules antioxidant, natural products and dietary supplements, high doses of vitamin-E, -C, -D, minerals, flavonoids,and IFN-beta are therapeutic intervention running to develop treatment against COVID-19. Although clinical usage of these therapeutic agents against COVID-19 is well documented, cytokine storms, absence of appropriate animal model have limited its therapeutic use. This review explores the clinical information currently available on COVID-19 on the mechanisms of infection, prevention, management, comorbid status, and current drug treatment options. (shrink)

Objective: In the treatment of coronary artery disease, stent implantation has become the standard treatment, but development of in-stent restenosis (ISR) limits the benefit of this treatment modality. -/- Methods: Based on the connection between oxidative stress and thiol/disulphate and NRF2, it was intended to measure NRF2 and thiol/disulphate levels. -/- Results: Coronary angiography images of 76 stable angina pectoris patients were evaluated. Of the 51 patients with a history drug eluting stent implantation, we determined 25 patients with ISR (Group (...) 1) and 26 patients without ISR (Group 2). Twenty-five patients with normal coronary arteries were included in the study as control group (Group 3). NRF2 level was found to be significantly higher in patients who did not develop ISR (p=0.01). Total thiol was significantly higher in group 3 (738.76 micromole/L) compared to group 1 (626.11 micromole/L) and group 2 (630.27 micromole/L) (p=0.014). Native thiol was also significantly higher in group 3 (570.53 micromole/L) compared to group 1 (483.91 micromole/L) and group 2 (501 micromole/L) (p=0.006). -/- Conclusion: We think that total and native thiol levels might be useful as an indicator of oxidative stress in early diagnosis of coronary artery disease, and the NRF2 level can be used in predicting patients who might develop coronary ISR. (shrink)

Dear Colleagues, -/- In this editorial, we would like to share with you important developments in the European Journal of Therapeutics (Eur J Ther). -/- First of all, as the editorial team, we would like you to know that we hold frequent meetings to benefit our esteemed colleagues and continue to work with great devotion in line with our goal of taking the journal further. We have previously shared with you that we have applied to many indexes. It is with (...) great pleasure that we would like to inform you that in the last few months, more of our index applications have been approved. -/- Index Copernicus, as a result of this application, the ICV 2022 value of our journal was determined to be 100 (approved 2023-10-31) [1] BASE (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine) (approved 2023-11-30) [2] Sherpa Romeo (approved 2023-09-27) [3] MIAR (approved 2023-10-16) [4] -/- All indexes in our journal are currently included on the journal web page [5]. -/- As the editorial team, we would like to inform you that we have determined a policy on this issue for our journal [6], taking into account the recommendations of important international ethics committees such as the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) [7] and the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) [8], which have recently become a trendy topic of discussion about AI chatbots and academic studies prepared with the support of such tools. -/- As you know, when our journal was founded in 1990 [9], it was published in two yearly issues. It is an essential responsibility for us to carry our journal, which continued its publication life with three issues a year in 2009 [10] and four issues a year in 2014 [11]. With your valuable support, we would like to announce that we will increase our journal to 6 issues a year as of 2024 (February, April, June, August, October and December) with the rapidly growing progress of our journal. -/- Unfortunately, we cannot share the names of the referees who made significant contributions to our journal in 2023 due to the changes in the article submission interface during the year and the inaccessibility of some data in the previous interface. However, we would like to emphasize again that we are grateful to all of them for their valuable contributions. Moreover, to expand our journal's referee list, we would like to remind you that competent academics who volunteer in this regard can fill out the “Become a Reviewer for the European Journal of Therapeutics” form [12]. -/- Finally, we would like to point out that we have strengthened our editorial team with an academician competent in dentistry, Fatih Sari, DDS, PhD. -/- Fatih Sari, DDS, PhD, is a new Editorial Board Member of the Eur J Ther. Dr. Sari is an Associate Professor in the Department of Prosthodontics at the Gaziantep University Faculty of Dentistry. He is a Vice Dean of the Faculty of Dentistry and Head of Clinical Departments. Dr. Sari is a prosthodontist and a member of the Turkish Dental Association. He has experience in implant-supported fixed prostheses, Cad/Cam applications and dental materials. -/- We look forward to being able to offer you a large number of high-quality and valuable articles over the coming year. In addition, we would like to thank the readers, authors and reviewers of the Eur J Ther for their continuous support. -/- Sincerely yours,. (shrink)

This chapter describes the potential far‐reaching consequences of contemplative higher education for the fields of science and medicine.

Joseph Almog says concerning “a certain locus where Quine doesn’t exist…qua evaluation locus, we take to it [singular] propositions involving Quine [as a constituent] which we have generated in our generation locus.” This seems to be either murder, or worse, self-contradiction. It presumes that certain designators designate their designata even at loci where the designata do not exist, i.e., the designators have “Kaplan rigidity.” Against this view, this paper argues that negative existentials such as “Quine does not exist” are (...) true only at ordered couples of loci (times or possible worlds) < l, l’ > such that the constituents of the truthmaker are the designatum itself from l and whatever corresponds to “does not exist” from l’. (shrink)

In this paper we give some suggestions from etymology on the contrast between Kaplan’s direct reference theory and a neo-Fregean view on indexicals. After a short summary of the philosophical debate on indexicals (§1), we use some remarks about the hidden presence of a demonstrative root in all indexicals to derive some provisional doubts concerning Kaplan’s criticism of what he calls “sloppy thinker” (§2). To support those doubts, we will summarise some etymological data on the derivation of the (...) so-called “pure indexicals” from an original demonstrative root (§ 3). The aim of the paper is to consider etymological data as providing evidence for alternative theories of language and fostering new directions in linguistic and philosophical research on specific topics. (shrink)

In a recent online lecture, the acclaimed novelist Amit Chaudhuri responded to an accusation that has greeted his fiction since the start of his literary career: that since, as he openly admits, his novels contain people and events that are drawn from his own life, they are better thought of as thinly disguised memoirs—as not really novels at all. In this paper, I discuss this charge by drawing on an account by the philosopher Stephen Mulhall of the work of (...) another distinguished novelist—J.M. Coetzee (more specifically, that work which features the character Elizabeth Costello). In particular, I want to establish the pertinence to Chaudhuri’s lecture of Mulhall’s analogy between aspects of that work and the work of the influential art historian and critic Michael Fried on the history of modernist painting. In so doing, I aim to show that the commitment to the projects of literary modernism and realism which Mulhall sees in Coetzee (and Costello), can also be seen in Chaudhuri’s understanding of the sense in which his novels both are, and are not, autobiographical. (shrink)