It is well known that the following features hold of AR + T under the strong Kleene scheme, regardless of the way the language is Gödel numbered: 1. There exist sentences that are neither paradoxical nor grounded. 2. There are 2ℵ0 fixed points. 3. In the minimal fixed point the weakly definable sets (i.e., sets definable as {n∣ A(n) is true in the minimal fixed point where A(x) is a formula of AR + T) are precisely the Π1 1 sets. (...) 4. In the minimal fixed point the totally defined sets (sets weakly defined by formulae all of whose instances are true or false) are precisely the ▵1 1 sets. 5. The closure ordinal for Kripke's construction of the minimal fixed point is ωCK 1. In contrast, we show that under the weak Kleene scheme, depending on the way the Gödel numbering is chosen: 1. There may or may not exist nonparadoxical, ungrounded sentences. 2. The number of fixed points may be any positive finite number, ℵ0, or 2ℵ0 . 3. In the minimal fixed point, the sets that are weakly definable may range from a subclass of the sets 1-1 reducible to the truth set of AR to the Π1 1 sets, including intermediate cases. 4. Similarly, the totally definable sets in the minimal fixed point range from precisely the arithmetical sets up to precisely the ▵1 1 sets. 5. The closure ordinal for the construction of the minimal fixed point may be ω, ωCK 1, or any successor limit ordinal in between. In addition we suggest how one may supplement AR + T with a function symbol interpreted by a certain primitive recursive function so that, irrespective of the choice of the Godel numbering, the resulting language based on the weak Kleene scheme has the five features noted above for the strong Kleene language. (shrink)

The gray area of sexual violations generally refers to ambiguous sexual experiences that are not readily distinguishable from rape or sex. Such experiences are describable as ambiguous or complex in a way that, to some, seems to defy existent categories of sexual experiences. This leads some feminists to approach the gray area as a puzzle that must be resolved either by understanding it as a new category, or by upholding existing rape categorization. Rather than dispelling the gray-area ambiguity by resolving (...) conceptual puzzles, I assign the gray-area ambiguity a positive analytical role by attending to it in a historical and dialectical light. By tracing histories of feminist antirape discourse, I elaborate a way of understanding the “gray area” of sexual violations, articulating it as a historical condition affecting the interpretive possibilities of our sexual experiences. Such an approach underscores the potential of the gray area to inaugurate feminist critique in virtue of its status as a historically specific yet ambiguous horizon where our experiences can contradictorily seem not-like rape, but not-like sex. (shrink)

Artykuł, opublikowany po raz pierwszy w 1979 r., jest jednym z najczęściej cytowanych tekstów filozoficznych z drugiej połowy XX wieku. Tekst Bernarda Williamsa zainicjował kilka ważnych debat, toczących się do dziś w etyce i filozofii działania. Zaproponowana przez niego interpretacja pojęcia racji działania jest, z jednej strony, niezwykle wpływowa, ale z drugiej bardzo niejednoznaczna i często krytykowana. Williams broni stanowiska, które z czasem zaczęto określać jako internalizm racji: pewne względy są racjami działania dla danego podmiotu tylko wtedy, gdy mają ścisły (...) związek z "subiektywnym układem motywacyjnym" tego podmiotu, czyli z jakimiś aspektami jego psychiki, charakteru, celów, pragnień, planów, relacji z innymi itd. Stwierdzenie, że ktoś ma rację, by coś zrobić (a jeśli uznajemy, że jest to racja przeważająca - to, że powinien to coś zrobić), znaczy więc wedle tego stanowiska tyle, że ten ktoś jest w stanie być motywowany, by to coś zrobić. W przeciwieństwie do tego stanowisko określane obecnie ako eksternalizm racji głosi, że pewne względy mogą być racjami działania dla danego podmiotu także wtedy, gdy odwołują się do niezależnych od jego układu motywacyjnego własności świata. Williams wychodzi od modelu działania nawiązującego do koncepcji Hume'owskiej, następnie przedstawia jego bardziej rozbudowaną wersję, omawia rolę namysłu, naturę potrzeb, a także przedstawia argument za internalizmem racji, określany jako argument z wyjaśniania działania. Głosi on, że nawet gdyby istniały zewnętrzne racje działania, niezwiązane z subiektywnym układem motywacyjnym danego podmiotu, to odwołanie się do nich nie byłoby w stanie wyjaśnić, dlaczego dany podmiot postąpił tak, a nie inaczej, gdyż "nic nie jest w stanie wyjaśnić (zamierzonych) działań podmiotu za wyjątkiem czegoś, co motywuje go działania". (shrink)

Introduction: the neuroscientific turn in political science The observation that brains and political orders are interdependent is almost trivial. Obviously, political orders require brain processes in order to emerge and to remain in place, as these processes enable action and cognition. Conversely, every since Aristotle coined man as “by nature a political animal” (Aristotle, Pol.: 1252a 3; cf. Eth. Nic.: 1097b 11), this also suggests that the political engagements of this animal has likely consequences for its natural development, including the (...) development of its psychological functions. Given these mutual interdependencies, it is remarkable that only since the 1960s, the more general domain of ‘biopolitics’ has attracted attention though first particularly in the form of behavioral politics (Alford and Hibbing). Since then biopolitics has gained in interest, so much so that different subdomains can be identified. Indeed, a 2008 review of the field of biopolitics identified five ‘headings’ of it: “(1) the case for a ‘more biologically oriented political science’, (2) ‘biologically related’ public policy issues, (3) physiological measures of political attitudes and behaviour, (4) the influence of physiological factors on actual political behaviour, and (5) the manner in which our species’ evolutionary history has left homo sapiens genetically endowed with certain social and political behavioural tendencies” (Somit and Peterson 43). Striking is how the relation between biology and politics is taken here in a rather unidirectional way, emphasizing particularly the decisive power of biology upon politics. The reverse relation is not mentioned specifically, reflecting the field of biopolitics, perhaps until quite recently. This absence of studies of political influences on our biology may have to do with the difficulty in investigating such influences. Empirical studies in biopolitics have two foci, broadly speaking: genetics and the brain, both of which have turned out to be complex and dynamic phenomena (Alford and Hibbing). Yet the studies of genetics and brain processes have made much progress in the last few decades, thanks to the development of research instruments - like fMRI brain scanners and TMS brain stimulation instruments - and of computational tools for data analysis and the simulation of explanatory models. For the field of biopolitics it is particularly relevant that within cognitive neuroscience the study of social and political issues has witnessed an increasing interest of researchers even more recently. Indeed, aware of the enabling and mediating role of the brain regarding those issues, a truly ‘neuroscientific turn’ can be observed in the social sciences, testified for example by the emergence of the field of ‘neuropolitics’ (Connolly; Vandervalk). Developing a systematic neuropolitics or biopolitics in general is a difficult challenge because of the wealth of causal influences on and interdependencies between biological, brain, cognitive and socio-political factors. Taking a somewhat more abstract perspective, this paper focuses on the process of emerging complexity in adaptive systems, enabling those to conduct ever more complex processes. Yet, parallel to that development can be observed that such systems, or organisms, are also capable in reducing the complexity of the information they are to process. Once they’re capable of developing and adjusting such compressed and complex representations of information, those systems or organisms can handle more information faster and more efficient and adaptive, yielding important benefits to the organism in navigating its environment (Halford, Wilson and Phillips). Before focusing on the role of narrative as a cognitive strategy for such a reduction of informational complexity, I will discuss the development of stable structures and increasing complexity in dynamic systems. Such a more general perspective prepares our discussion of the structures of both narratives and politics and in doing so contributes to the explanation of their interaction. (shrink)

Every discourse about the nothing seems fully and ultimately empty. However, this cannot be true precisely because it is language – that is, discourse – which always brings forth the nothing, the word of the “Nothing”. The language therefore speaks about the nothing and perhaps also “speaks nothing”. In its primary – and abstract – appearance, the nothing is precisely “that” “which” it is not. However, its word is still there in the words of most languages (for we cannot know (...) all). What is more, since it is not, at a first sight all the nothing has is its word, its name... and this is precisely what protrudes. But the word of the nothing utters in language only that which has no being. That is therefore not just any kind of negation, but the negation of being, the name of the negation of being. The “nothing” is therefore the mere word of the negation of being. Which lives standing in languages. As deeply that its translation presents no problems. The German ¬¬das Nichts can be translated unproblematically to the English nothing, the French rien or néant, the Slavic nić, the Romanian nimic or the Hungarian semmi, etc. However, if we go on deeper into the problem, it shows that, despite the unproblematic translation, being and (its) negation articulates in different ways in the names of the nothing. The writing analyses this in detail, with special emphasis of the Hungarian word of Nothing [Semmi]. It concludes by initiating a philosophical dialogue with a poem of Attila József. (shrink)

Will Daddario’s article, “What Acceptance Is,” brilliantly moves through aspects of grief, despair, and Acceptance; it allows grievers to meaningfully hold together aspects of loss that are otherwise fragmented and dispersed in our subjective experience of it. Daddario traces contradictions that permeate our experiences not only of grief and loss, but also of how we live in light of them. This includes the paradoxical relationships between accepting and giving, cure and poison, being open and closed off, centered and decentered, and, (...) as I will later add, of willingness and willfulness. His confrontation with acceptance resists the typical rectilinear picture (e.g., the “stages of grief”), ultimately providing us with a picture of the process out of despair that manages to retain its life and dynamic movement despite the fixity of language. ... (see more) -/- . (shrink)

What makes something good for me? Most contemporary philosophers argue that something cannot count as good for me unless I am in some way attracted to it, or take delight in it. However, subjectivist theories of prudential value face difficulties, and there is no consensus about how these difficulties should be resolved. Whether one opts for a hedonist or a desire-satisfaction account of..

Those who endorse the Psychological Continuity Approach (PCA) to analyzing personal identity need to impose a non-branching constraint to get the intuitively correct result that in the case of fission, one person becomes two. With the help of Brueckner's (2005) discussion, it is shown here that the sort of non-branching clause that allows proponents of PCA to provide sufficient conditions for being the same person actually runs contrary to the very spirit of their theory. The problem is first presented in (...) connection with perdurantist versions of PCA. The difficulty is then shown to apply to endurantist versions as well. (shrink)

In his absorbing book Art as Performance, David Davies argues that artworks should be identified, not with artistic products such as paintings or novels, but instead with the artistic actions or processes that produced such items. Such a view had an earlier incarnation in Currie’s widely criticized “action type hypothesis”, but Davies argues that it is instead action tokens rather than types with which artworks should be identified. This rich and complex work repays the closest study in spite of some (...) basic objections to be raised concerning Davies’s central concept of an action token. (shrink)

In his book Między ukryciem a jawnością [Between Hiddenness and Openness] (2023), Professor Jacek Wojtysiak argues that on the assumption of atheistic naturalism, no convincing explanation can be given for the ‘great fact of faith,’ that is, the phenomenon of the historical persistence and universality of the belief in the existence of God. The purpose of this paper is to challenge this thesis. Drawing on selected theories from the field of the Cognitive Science of Religion, I sketch a naturalistic explanation (...) of how religious belief arises. (shrink)

As Acharya Vidyanand writes in the Foreword of Samayasara, it is the ultimate conscious reality. The enlightened soul has infinite glory. It has the innate ability to demolish the power of karmas, both auspicious as well as inauspicious, which constitute the cycle of births and deaths, and are an obstacle in the path of liberation of the soul. Samayasara is an essential reading for anyone who wishes to lead a purposeful and contented life. It provides irrefutable and lasting solutions to (...) all our problems, concerning worldly ways as well as spiritual curiosities and misgivings. (shrink)

In the last decade, the cases of breast and cervical cancer have been positioned at the top rank of cancer statistics worldwide. Consequently, many husbands become family caregivers (FCGs) and get the burden of cancer caregiving. Being blind and incompetent, they need supportive care from healthcare professionals (HCPs). To support them, HCPs provide various healthcare information to meet their needs. Further, their demand for a specific type of healthcare information may reflect their need for emotional support from the HCPs to (...) reduce the burden. This study aims to examine the predictors of the need for emotional support among FCGs of female cancer patients by analyzing the demanded healthcare information. The mindsponge theory was used in conceptual development and interpretation. Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics were used for statistical analysis on a dataset of 48 husbands and 12 significant others in five congested communities of Surabaya, Indonesia. Results showed that among the six types of healthcare information, the demanded cancer-specific information and information on cancer physical needs significantly predict the need for emotional support among respondents. Meanwhile, FCGs with a higher demand for information on alternative therapies are less likely to need emotional support. Other types of information have ambiguous effects on the need for emotional support. This study reveals that the demanded cancer-specific information, e.g., cancer prognosis or likely outcome, and information on cancer physical needs must be prioritized in information disclosure to meet the needs for emotional support among FCGs of female cancer patients. (shrink)

With few exceptions, theorists analyze group attitudes in terms of the attitudes of members. In Epstein 2015, 2019a, 2019b, I argued that this thesis (which I call "MEMBERS ONLY")—and hence any theory that analyzes group attitudes in terms of member attitudes—is mistaken: the attitudes of many groups are ontologically determined by a broader range of factors than member attitudes. My aim in the present paper is to consider new arguments against MEMBERS ONLY. I argue that arguments based on the "hypothesis (...) of the extended mind" are not persuasive for challenging MEMBERS ONLY, but reinforce my earlier arguments, and I also propose new arguments from group content externalism are more promising. (shrink)

In this paper, I present some responses to an argument made by an economist in an online video: that when Britain leaves the European Union, it will be taking many high ranking universities with it, which will lead to an innovation deficit in the union. I present some responses by means of a pastiche of a widely read European fiction writer.

Neo-positivism is the view that metaphysical questions completely decompose into ordinary empirical questions that can be answered by scientific enquiry (empirical) or ordinary logical or modal questions, which can be answered by appeal to a metaphysically innocent modalism (modal innocence) or questions that are non-factual, that is questions that are such that the world does not provide the question with a determinate answer (nonfactualism). -/- There is much to like about this book. It forcefully, and at times compellingly, presents a (...) new vision of metaphysics. It forces us to re-engage with questions about what we are doing when we do metaphysics, and presents a startling different picture to many that have emerged in recent times. Rather than conceiving of metaphysics as the search for the fundamental joints of reality, or for those things that give rise to the non-fundamental things we see around us, it argues for a quite different approach. (shrink)

This article expands our knowledge of the historical-philosophical process by which the dominant metaphysical account of the Christian God became ascendant. It demonstrates that Marius Victorinus proposed a peculiar model of ‘consubstantiality’ that utilised a notion of ‘existence’ indebted to the Aristotelian concept of ‘prime matter’. Victorinus employed this to argue that God is a unity composed of Father and Son. The article critically evaluates this model. It then argues that Augustine noticed one of the model's philosophical liabilities but did (...) not publicly name Victorinus when he rejected it in De Trinitate, thereby exemplifying the practice of private ‘rebuke’ (ἐλέγχɛιν). (shrink)

In this paper, I present a game-theoretic solution to the rule-following paradox in terms of what I will call basic constitutive practices. The structure of such a practice P constitutes what it is to take part in P by defining the correctness conditions of our most basic concepts as those actions that lie on the correlated equilibrium of P itself. Accordingly, an agent S meant addition by his use of the term ‘+’ because S is taking part in a basic (...) constitutive practice of adding where quus-like answers are ruled out by not lying on the equilibrium. The resulting picture of language will preserve the objectivity and correctness conditions of meaning, all the while providing room for the community as a whole to make a mistake. I also argue that by accepting the account presented, we have a strong reason to reject the idea that language is rule-governed. (shrink)

Method in philosophical counselling is still a contentious topic. That is, there is no consensus on whether the philosophical counsellor should have a method in her practice to help the counsellee resolve philosophical problems. Some philosophical counsellors claim that there should not be any rigid adherence to method(s) as this will render philosophy too dogmatic. Philosophical counselling, in light of this view, promotes a kind of mutual philosophising sans definite goal with the counsellee. What I call "dissentient philosophical counselling" takes (...) this claim even further: the philosophical counsellor lives/practices her philosophical counselling, that is, she embodies and practices philosophy as a way of life. This view is posed as a response to contemporary conceptualisations of philosophical counselling where the philosophical counsellor might stand in a disembodied relationship with her method(s) and tries to have a conversation "from nowhere". Dissentient philosophical counselling, even though more focused on living philosophically , still suffers from certain shortcomings. In this paper, I firstly showcase how even the seemingly innocuous but important question "How might one live?" suffers from a lack of much needed nuance. And secondly, I introduce, via a fictional narrative, a provisional way of practicing this reworked dissentient philosophical counselling. I do this by, firstly, introducing African conversational philosophy, via its method of conversationalism, and secondly, I introduce a peculiar version of Pyrrhonian scepticism especially regarding the notion of bios adoxastōs (life without dogma). (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to explore the discourse strategies of the Party of Labor of Albania to eliminate its enemies in the early years of establishing communism in the country. The contention is that PLA and its leaders made possible the elimination of thousands of people by normalizing the process. The enemies of the party were declared enemies of the people and as such, they had to disappear in one way or another, so that the integrity of the (...) body politics could be preserved. The class enemy was considered a parasite that should be eliminated in the name of social prophylaxis. By using discourse analyses the paper will investigate the discursive strategies followed by the communist party and its leader when addressing the class enemy. Speeches of Enver Hoxha in Party Congresses, Plenums, and gatherings with people will be analyzed. Only by normalizing the process of elimination of everyone who was depicted as an enemy, did the communist party make possible the elimination of thousands of people. Normalization is understood as the standardization of the procedure so that everyone knew in advance what would happen if someone had to be declared an enemy of the people. The paper will analyze the vocabulary used to portray the class enemy and his/her destiny in specific cases. The study has analyzed the speeches given to justify the elimination of Patër Anton Harapi, Lef Nosi, Maliq Bej Bushat, dom Lazër Shantoja, dom Ndre Zadeja, and the sabotage group of the Maliqi swamp. The analysis covers the period immediately after the end of the IIWW when communists seized the power. (shrink)

Logics based on weak Kleene algebra (WKA) and related structures have been recently proposed as a tool for reasoning about flaws in computer programs. The key element of this proposal is the presence, in WKA and related structures, of a non-classical truth-value that is “contaminating” in the sense that whenever the value is assigned to a formula ϕ, any complex formula in which ϕ appears is assigned that value as well. Under such interpretations, the contaminating states represent occurrences of a (...) flaw. However, since different programs and machines can interact with (or be nested into) one another, we need to account for different kind of errors, and this calls for an evaluation of systems with multiple contaminating values. In this paper, we make steps toward these evaluation systems by considering two logics, HYB1 and HYB2, whose semantic interpretations account for two contaminating values beside classical values 0 and 1. In particular, we provide two main formal contributions. First, we give a characterization of their relations of (multiple-conclusion) logical consequence—that is, necessary and sufficient conditions for a set Δ of formulas to logically follow from a set Γ of formulas in HYB1 or HYB2 . Second, we provide sound and complete sequent calculi for the two logics. (shrink)

This paper will be concerned with the role acquaintance plays in contemporary theories of introspection. Traditionally, the relation of acquaintance has been conceived in analytic epistemology and philosophy of mind as being only epistemically relevant inasmuch as it causes, or enables, or justifies a peculiar kind of propositional knowledge, i.e., knowledge by acquaintance. However, in recent years a novel account of the role of acquaintance in our introspective knowledge has been offered. According to this novel constitutive approach, acquaintance is, in (...) itself, a sui generis—i.e., non-propositional—kind of knowledge. As we will suggest, a stalemate between David Chalmers’ account of direct phenomenal concepts—as a prototypical example of a causal view—and Anna Giustina’s account of primitive introspection—as a prototypical example of a constitutive view—is looming in the current controversy between the two families of theories. Towards the end of the essay, we will point to some possible ways for a constitutive theorist to break the stalemate. (shrink)

Several authors have recently argued that intelligibility, rather than value, constitutes life’s meaning. In this paper I criticize the intelligibility view by offering examples of cases in which i...

Complaining is frequently regarded as a negative act stated to attack a person who is responsible for a wrong behavior. However, the proper use of complaints can improve an offensive situation and establish solidarity between interlocutors. This study is aimed at comparing the strategies of complaints made by college- educated native speakers of English and Indonesian. Qualitative method was used to carry out this study by involving 14 English native speakers (ENSs) and 30 Indonesian native speakers (INSs) who were randomly (...) selected. Survey questions were used to collect the data. (shrink)

The article includes the French to English translation of a seminal article by Alexandre Koyré (“Le chien, constellation céleste, et le chien animal aboyant”, in Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale, 55e Année, N° 1, Jan-Mar 1950, pp. 50-59), accompanied by an explanatory introduction. Koyré's French text provides an illuminating commentary of E1p17s, where Spinoza exposes at length his account of the relationship existing between God's intellect and the human intellect. The lack of an English translation of this article has (...) led to some misunderstanding within the English-speaking Spinoza scholarship. This publication aims to correct this lack and improve worldwide understanding of Spinoza’s philosophy. (shrink)

The environment can elicit biological responses such as oxidative stress (OS) and inflammation as a consequence of chemical, physical, or psychological changes. As population studies are essential for establishing these environment-organism interactions, biomarkers of OS or inflammation are critical in formulating mechanistic hypotheses. By using examples of stress induced by various mechanisms, we focus on the biomarkers that have been used to assess OS and inflammation in these conditions. We discuss the difference between biomarkers that are the result of a (...) chemical reaction (such as lipid peroxides or oxidized proteins that are a result of the reaction of molecules with reactive oxygen species) and those that represent the biological response to stress, such as the transcription factor NRF2 or inflammation and inflammatory cytokines. The high-throughput and holistic approaches to biomarker discovery used extensively in large-scale molecular epidemiological exposome are also discussed in the context of human exposure to environmental stressors. We propose to consider the role of biomarkers as signs and to distinguish between signs that are just indicators of biological processes and proxies that one can interact with and modify the disease process. (shrink)

What is the explanatory role of ‘status-truths’ such as essence-truths, necessity-truths and law-truths? A plausible principle, suggested by various authors, is Ground by Status, according to which status truths ground their prejacents. For instance, if it is essential to a that p, then this grounds the fact that p. But Ground by Status faces a forceful objection: it is inconsistent with widely accepted principles regarding the logic of grounding (Glazier in Philos Stud 174(11):2871–2889, 2017a, Synthese 174(198):1409–1424, 2017b; Kappes in Synthese (...) 199(1–2):2575–2595, 2020, Philos Stud 178(4):1267–1284, 2021). I defend Ground by Status against this objection. (shrink)

In this paper I will use sex by deception as a case study for highlighting some of the most tricky concepts around sexuality and moral psychology, including rape, consensual sex, sexual rights, sexual autonomy, sexual individuality, and disrespectful sex. I begin with a discussion of morally wrong sex as rooted in the breach of five sexual liberty rights that are derived from our fundamental human liberty rights: sexual self-possession, sexual autonomy, sexual individuality, sexual dignity and sexual privacy. I then argue (...) (against the standard interpretation) that experimental findings in moral psychology show that the principle of respect for persons—a principle that grounds our human liberty rights—drives our intuitive moral judgments. In light of this discussion, I examine a puzzle about sex by deception—a puzzle which at first may seem to compel us to define 'rape' strictly in terms of force rather than sexual autonomy. I proceed by presenting an argument against the view that, as a rule, sex by deception undermines consent—a position held by prominent thinkers such as Philippe Patry (2001), Onora O’Neill (2003), Rubenfeld (2012), Tom Dougherty (2013a, 2013b), Joyce M. Short (2013), and Danielle Bromwich and Joseph Millum (2013, 2018). As we will see, sex following deception to increase your chances does not always constitute rape. Lying about your age, education, job, family background, marital status, or interest in a relationship, for example, does not make your sex partner incapable of consenting, which is to say that sex by deception need not be rape. I even go so far as to say that sex with another person that is facilitated by withholding information about having a venereal disease shouldn't be classified as rape. Although sex by deception doesn't compromise consent, it nonetheless violates the principle of respect for persons, not by vitiating sexual autonomy and compromising consent, but by failing to respect other sexual rights, such as our rights to sexual dignity, individuality, and privacy. (shrink)

People generally accept that there is causation by omission—that the omission of some events cause some related events. But this acceptance elicits the selection problem, or the difficulty of explaining the selection of a particular omissive cause or class of causes from the causal conditions. Some theorists contend that dependence theories of causation cannot resolve this problem. In this paper, we argue that the appeal to norms adequately resolves the selection problem for dependence theories, and we provide novel experimental evidence (...) for it. (shrink)

From the late nineteenth to early twentieth century, the architectural history of Iran became closely linked with oil, which introduced new technologies, actors, and spaces. A key event occurred in 1901 when English businessman William D’Arcy secured exclusive rights from the Iranian monarchy, to explore, extract, and export oil.1 By 1914, D’Arcy sold a major share to the British government, ushering in a new era of British colonial influence in Iran.2 To establish their presence and efficiently exploit Iranian oil, the (...) British built ‘modern’ company towns, including Bawardeh in Abadan, designed by architect James M. Wilson and based on the Garden City concept. According to architectural historian Mark Crinson, this design aimed to address racial segregation issues but was rooted in colonial assumptions that European lifestyles were superior and only Iranians educated abroad were ‘civilised’ enough to live there.3 These assumptions significantly impacted domestic life in these houses. Part of my paper aims to explore these impacts. (shrink)

ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL RESEARCH OF EDITH STEIN (translated by Inna Savynska)The main Polish philosopher Roman Ingarden in his lecture presents a cross-section of Edith Stein writings and demonstrates the shot timeliness of her ideas. Roman Ingarden was a Stein’s friend from the time of her studies in Göttingen;he knew her ideas and conceptions. He wrote that hers was a search for ananswer to the main question: «What is the structure of man?» That is why she proposed a phenomenological analysis by (...) «Empathy». Stein’s theses «On the Problem of Empathy» is the central object in this lecture. In that work, Stein first focuses on such phenomena as the human body, soul, spirit, experience, consciousness. While discussing Stein’s concepts, Ingarden presents also the evolution of her ideas from realistic phenomenology to mystical theology of Saint John of the Cross’ and Saint Theresa of Avila’s. Roman Ingarden did not enter as firmly as Stein into the mystical range, but he opened a path into the transcendence by creating an idea of metaphysical qualities. In her dissertation, Stein first focuses on the phenomenon of the human body and soul. Ingarden considers pairs of phenomenological notions «Leib- Körper», «Seele-Geist». Their relationships form an ontology of a Person. The anthropological questions, which Edith Stein raised in her academic research, bring about a constitutive element of man – Geist. Empathy is an instrument that help to recognize Geist and Personal experience – truth about man. (shrink)

There seems to be confusion and disagreement among scholars about the meaning of interpersonal forgiveness. In this essay we shall venture to clarify the meaning of forgiveness by examining various literary works. In particular, we shall discuss instances of forgiveness from Homer’s The Iliad, Euripides’ Hippolytus, and Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and we shall focus on the changes that the concept of forgiveness has gone through throughout the centuries, in the hope of being able to understand, and therefore, of being able (...) to use more accurately, contemporary notions of forgiveness. We shall also explore the relationship between forgiveness and concepts that are closely associated with it, such as anger/resentment, hurt, clemency, desert/merit, excuse, etc. (shrink)

Multiculturalism requires sustained and serious philosophical reflection, which in turn requires public outreach and communication. This piece briefly outlines concerns raised by the philosophy of multiculturalism and, conversely, multiculturalism in philosophy, which ultimately force us to reconsider the philosopher’s own role and responsibility. I conclude with a provocative suggestion of philosophy as /public diplomacy/. (As this is intended to be a piece for a general audience, secondary literature is only referred to in the conclusion. References gladly provided upon request.).

Philosophy has long been seen as a crucial instrument for living a meaningful life. Nonetheless, for more than a decade, systematic philosophical study in Africa has been dominated by a single compound question: Is there an African philosophy, and if so, what is its nature? When it comes to Africa and philosophy, there is a lot of debate about whether or not Africans have a philosophy. Africans have long been accused of being irrational. Some Western scholars’ interpretations of African philosophy (...) may help us comprehend it better. The Aime Cesaire-led Negritude movement, the Harlem Revolution, the South African Apartheid movement, and others are all examples of recent literature expressing opposition to the perspective of black inferiority and various insults directed at black Africans. Some European scholars did accuse Africans of being irrational beings. These claims provided the impetus for the spread of various beliefs and ideologies masquerading as African philosophy. In light of this, the purpose of this essay is to disprove prejudicial claims made against Africans and African philosophy. The works of Western thinkers such as Immanuel Kant, Georg W. F. Hegel, and Lucien Levy-Bruhl would be highlighted. (shrink)

This paper addresses the field of economic measurements of the value of assets, carried out by the methods of independent expert evaluation. The mathematical principles of application, within a comparative methodical approach, of additive and multiplicative models for correcting the cost of single indicator of compared objects have been considered. The differences of mathematical basis of the compared models were analyzed. It has been shown that the ambiguity in the methodology of correction procedure requires studying the advantages and disadvantages of (...) known models, as well as the justification and elaboration of recommendations for their application. Possible forms of correction representation using several alternative units of measurement have been defined; formulas for their interconnection have been built. Analytic expressions have been derived that mathematically describe the algorithms for performing the evaluation correction procedure using various forms of correction representation. The influence of the correction execution model on the characteristics of uncertainty in the independent evaluation result has been analyzed. The scope of two possible types of correction introduction models has been determined. A specific numerical example was used to demonstrate the methodological advantages of using a multiplicative model when summarizing percentage corrections. The independence of the correction result on the sequence of correction introduction has been confirmed. It is proposed to use the selected measure of partial corrections as a criterion for the adequacy of the correction introduction model. It is proved that the result of the independent expert evaluation depends on the chosen model and does not depend on the sequence of correction introduction. The reported study results are important in terms of theory and practice since they make it possible to improve the accuracy and reliability of the result of independent expert evaluation. (shrink)

Fodor argued that learning a concept by hypothesis testing would involve an impossible circularity. I show that Fodor's argument implicitly relies on the assumption that actually φ-ing entails an ability to φ. But this assumption is false in cases of φ-ing by luck, and just such luck is involved in testing hypotheses with the kinds of generative random sampling methods that many cognitive scientists take our minds to use. Concepts thus can be learned by hypothesis testing without circularity, and it (...) is plausible that this is how humans in fact acquire at least some of their concepts. (shrink)

Abstract:- Literature forms the bedrock of a society and helps in the socio-cultural development of a nation. It would also help in the creation of a society with the values of love and peace, empowering the age-old traditional practices of war and deprivation. Saudi Arabia is a country that has rich cultural history and has since ages gained a prestigious place in the globe, as the birthplace of both, the Islam and the Prophet of Islam, Muhammad- peace and blessings of (...) Allah be upon Him. Donning the pluralism in the diversity of literature, Arabian Novel holds a significant importance in raising the socio-cultural aspects of Arabian life. The peninsula would be sincerely accorded with the coining of the word ‘Peace,’ as the main source that the region has drawn its inspiration from, is ‘Al-Quran,’ the religious book of Islam, which makes it a moral obligation of a person to do justice and live in accordance with peace with all, friends as well as foes. The Gandhian notion of non-violence and the one coined by the Saudi novelists lies on the same values, and has no overall religious interference in them, in particular. Keywords: Novel, non-violence, Peninsula, casteism, war. (shrink)

This article proves that the motion principle of philosophical physics (every thing moved is moved by another) is truly compatible with the inertia principle of mathematical physics (Newton's First Law).

Is there more to the recent surge in political realism than just a debate on how best to continue doing what political theorists are already doing? I use two recent books, by Michael Freeden and Matt Sleat, as a testing ground for realism’s claims about its import on the discipline. I argue that both book take realism beyond the Methodenstreit, though each in a different direction: Freeden’s takes us in the realm of meta-metatheory, Sleat’s is a genuine exercise in grounding (...) liberal normative theory in a non-moralistic way. I conclude with wider methodological observations. I argue that unlike communitarianism (the previous contender for the discipline’s renewal), realism has the potential to open new vistas, though their novelty is to a large extent relative to the last forty years or so: realism is best thought of as a return to a more traditional way of doing political philosophy. (shrink)

Good governance, first appeared in the nineties within the United Nations, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund refers to describe how public organizations best conduct public affairs and deliver public goods and services. Today, about three decades later good governance seems to be still popular since there are still many challenges ahead for many governments especially in less-developed and developing countries. Hence the notion of good governance was emerged as a normative commencement of the principles, values and ethics to (...) realise the acts of governance. Some thoughts on good governance and related topics advocated by three great ancient philosophers, who appear to be relevant at the present time are considered herein. One of the said philosophers is Kautilya (also known as Chanakya and Vishnugupta), who lived in India around 150AD. The others are the two great Greek philosophers Plato (427- 347BC) and Aristotle (384-322 BC), who stand with Socrates as the shapers of the whole intellectual tradition of the West. The thoughts are extracted from that detailed manual of state-craft and the science of living known as the Arthashastra written by one of classical India’s greatest minds Kautilya, Plato’s great work known as ‘The Republic’ and Aristotle’s treatise titled ‘The Politics”. The objective of this paper is to study the thoughts of ancient Greek philosophers who lived many centuries ago and their ideas are still relevant today. (shrink)

Before it succumbed to political censorship in Croatia in 1974 and afterward, a movement known as praxis philosophy reached its pinnacle as a critical response to the conceptually and socially corrupted dialectical and historical materialism which dominated the former Yugoslavian region. Two of the most prominent philosophers of "praxis movement" – Milan Kangrga and Gajo Petrović – the Praxists – remained to be an inspirational source for junior and senior scholars to date. Recently, a debate was initiated regarding the value (...) of "praxis philosophy", and has notably produced a series of assessments that were atypical in comparison to virtually all previous reviews. The praxis movement was scorned by many commentators who concluded that Praxists were logically inconsistent and that their errors were covered up by too abstract, confusing concepts that lacked proper articulation. Among other things, it was significantly pointed out that their philosophical investigations neither had nor will have any useful application in our society. In this paper, I offer (1) a refutation of these conclusions by (2) describing the structure of praxis philosophy, thus far absent from praxis studies. My ultimate objective was to show that Praxists intentionally developed an alternative philosophical thought to subdue the type of thinking which is fundamental for sterile criticism, and thus I aimed to explain that Praxists self-consciously chose to oppose the approach they were accused of neglecting. Their central idea was to send a message opposite of what their recent criticists think they failed to do. (shrink)

This is the Guest Editor's Introduction to a volume of Philosophia Reformata that considers Jaap Klapwijk's book in which he seeks to discuss evolutionary biology in relation to Christian philosophy.

Di er ci Qimeng (The second Enlightenment), by Wang Zhihe and Fan Meijun, is a timely book in Chinese about constructing a philosophical and practical way to contend with China's postmodernization. It combines Whitehead's process philosophy with a focus on Chinese modernity in order to map out a desirable postmodern society. It addresses the problem on several dimensions from policy making to basic value systems. The range of themes can be seen from the topics of the book's twelve chapters: (1) (...) Reverence for Land—Toward a Constructive Postmodern Agriculture; (2) Becoming Fully Human—Toward a Postmodern Organic Education; (3) Survival of the Harmonious-Toward a Constructive Postmodern Harmonious Culture; (4) Beauty .. (shrink)

(March 2019) UNBELIEVALBE similar ideas, UNBELIEVABLE similar framework of the article on “quantum mechanics” written by Proietti et al (2019) with my EDWs (2002-2008) -/- Gabriel Vacariu -/- The article that I investigate in this section is -/- (2019) Experimental rejection of observer-independence in the quantum world -/- Massimiliano Proietti,1 Alexander Pickston,1 Francesco Graffitti,1 Peter Barrow,1 Dmytro Kundys,1 Cyril Branciard,2 Martin Ringbauer,1, 3 and Alessandro Fedrizzi1 at arXiv:1902.05080v1 [quant-ph] 13 Feb 2019 -/- In the article written by Proietti et al. (...) (2019), there are UNBLELIEVABLE similar ideas to my ideas (2002-2008); in fact, the framework of this article seems UNBELIEVABLE similar to my framework, the EDWs perspective!!!! I applied my EDWs to quantum mechanics (getting micro-EW, wave-EW), to Einstein’s special relativity getting EDWs for those two observers (one in the train and one on the pavement), to microparticles and macro-objects (EDWs), etc. -/- The authors of this article work in an UNBELIEVABLE similar framework (see below details), and applied this framework to quantum mechanics referring to the relationship between two observers and the microparticle. In this way, they get EDWs for the same microparticle. However, I have done exactly the same application to Einstein’s special relativity. I emphasize that it would be necessary my EDWs to apply this framework to the same particle. In my book 2014, if the reader replaces the macro-objects with the microparticle, there would obtain exactly the EDWs for the microparticle that can be found in this article! Amazing it is the fact that the authors, having no background in philosophy and having no new theory on quantum mechanics, have discovered the existence of observer-independent “facts of the world” (that are exactly my EDWs!!!). Obviously, the authors are geniuses like sean carroll, markus Gabriel, carolo rovelli, and so many from my manuscript referring to UNBELIEVABLE similarities (see the bibliography at the end of this article!) . (shrink)