Bir sure once, “Tarih’in sona erdigi” ileri surulmus idi. Soguk Savas cercevesinde ele alinan bir dusunce olup, ilgili “carpismanin” sona ermesi ile bundan boyle karsilastirmali tarih yazilmasina gerek kalmadigini, kazananlarin gorusunun tek gecerli gercek oldugunu vurguluyordu. Ya da oyle gosterilmesi isteniyordu. -/- “Turk Tarihi, Toplumlarin Mayasi, Uygarlik (1990)” ve “Kutluk Veren Bilgi Ve 26 Agustos’a Giden Yol (2000)” yazilarimda, Kutluk Veren Bilgi nitelikleri uzerinde gorus belirtmis idim. Aradan gecen sure icinde de Kimlikler [IDENTITIES: how Governed, Who Pays? (Carrie, 2001); Turkcesi: (...) Etnik ve Toplumsal Kimlikler Nasil Olusur? (KaraM, 2005) Ceviren: Osman Karatay] kitabini yayinladim. Amac, Kutluk Veren Bilgi’nin gorevini ne yontemler ile yerine getirdigini ele almak idi. Bu arada, Kutluk Veren Bilgi ile ugrasanlarin ne tur yaklasimlarla ise girisebilecekleri de ana cizgileri ile oneriliyordu. Bu yonde en onemli ozelliklerden biri de, Kutluk Veren Bilgi’ye ulasmak icin butun verileri seslendirip degerlendirmeye almak geregi olarak ozetlenebilir. (shrink)

Universite’nin gorevi nedir? Su tanim’i yapabiliriz: dusunceleri birlestirip,ilerletmek. Dusunceleri birlestirmek ve ilerletmek neden gereklidir? Bir atilim’a gecmek icin, yer alacak olaylarin onceden ve kapsamli olarakdusunulmesi gerekir. Dusunceler, bir atilimin baslangicidir ve yalniz universite icinde gelismez.Dusunceler bir yonetim'e katilim birimi icinde gelkisebilecegi gibi, arkadastopluluklari icinde de yer alabilir. Ayrica, bir tek kisi'ce de olusturulup birkitap icinde dunya'ya sunulabilir.

Ele alinabilecek deyim ne olursa olsun, en once o deyim’in kimliginin goz onune alinmasi gerekir. Bir Deyim’in kimligini belirleyen veriler nelerdir? Deyim’I kullanan kisinin kimligi, ozellikle bu islem icinde en onde gelir. Oyle ise, kisi’nin kimliginin ne gibi etkenler ile olustugunun ele alinmasi kacinilmaz. En once goz onune alinmasi gerekli sorular arasindan ornekler: a) deyim yaratan ya da kullanan kisinin ana dili nedir? b) ne gibi ve derinlikteki egitimden gecmistir? c) bu egitimin sonucunda nasil meyvalar vermistir?

In a given polity, interactions between the Governed and the Governing Strata are symbiotic. The Governed desire, and indeed need, infrastructure services organized. If such basic foundations are not provided, the economic activity so deeply cherished by both groups cannot be realized. The Governing Strata cannot function without the Governed. After all, without the Governed, there will not be a polity; hence nothing to govern. Regardless of the politico-economic system in effect, this co-dependence is inevitable, inescapable, indenturing both groups to (...) each other. This is the case, regardless of the designation, functions, or the style of the governance system. It matters not if the designation or philosophy of the said governance is a variation of pluralism or authoritarianism by a minority. (shrink)

I. Mustache Truth is like the universe. Most individuals only know parts.

Central Eurasia in the Middle Ages. Studies in Honour of Peter B. Golden, ed. István Zimonyi & Osman Karatay, Harrassowitz Verlag (Wiesbaden, 2016). -/- Almost all institutions talk about ‘vision.’ All proudly display a sentence or two about this ‘vision’ on their premises. In the lobby of a swimming pool construction company it is possible to discover the statement: “Our philosophy is to have children splash happily in each one of our pools.” One wonders if the swimming pool company intends (...) to supply the children, too. Similarly, one can find a dentist who wrote a vision which he intends his future patients to read. Large multinationals reduce their vision to less than five words and let the whole world know. (shrink)

Various disciplines and area studies might benefit from this investigation, aside from the obvious Central Asian and Soviet studies. The artificial separation of "areas" and disciplines, that have not existed during the evolution of the subject matter, cannot yield complete understanding. Given the restrictions imposed by the Soviet censorship and bureaucracies who control collections of materials and published works, documentation is not exhaustive. It is anticipated that subsequent research shall unearth additional information. Therefore, the temptation to hold back and wait (...) for such new discoveries is immense. (shrink)

The purpose of this collection is not to discuss the technologies required for the round trip. Nor is it to discuss the ‘inevitability’ of human quest to explore. Instead, the focus is on politically ‘what will happen’ when the humans reach Mars.

The historical and literary Monuments of Central Asia are the repositories of civilization, culture and aesthetic tastes of their creators and their milieu over millennia. Though some existed in manuscript, a large portion survived dozens of centuries as part of the oral tradition. After printing press licenses were wrestled by the Central Asians from the Russian government during the 19th century, many were collected by the Central Asians and others, and published. The Monuments have proved to be durable. Primarily works (...) of Central Asian thought, they belong also to civilization at large, representing the endeavors of human activity. (shrink)

1. How do human organizations, as designed by humans, govern polities? -/- Current web-site analyses indicate that the medical-sites register the heaviest use. Humans are concerned with their health in a variety of iterations. If you will, it is the choice of the marketplace. But, humans must tend to the business of life. The humans live in communities, which necessarily choose definitions for their polities. Polities cannot exist without explicitly appointed and generally known socio-legal laws. In defining those rules, societies (...) decide how they are going to be organized and ruled---either consciously or by default---and how the common functions of the community are going to be financed. (shrink)

All of the South Plains archetypes listed above are all drawn from real flesh-and- bones type of individuals. Moreover, all were men of action. The archetypes of the Turkish Oral Narrative generally have a longer historical background, and, as their tales attest, are compelled to take action against real or perceived injustices. In most cases, the Turkish archetypes primarily function as teachers or teaching tools, continually adapting to changing conditions and periods.

Bu kitabi olusturan yazilar 2007 ile 2017 yillari arasinda Texas eyaletinde yazildi. Degisik ag sayfalarinda yayinlandilar. Kaybolmalarinin onune gecmek icin bir araya getirilmelerinin ve okuyuculara sunulmalarinin uygun olabilecegini dusundum. Iyi okumalar!

In the Preface to Rationality, Steven Pinker remarks that “we are smart enough to have … articulated the rules of reason that we so often flout” (p. xiv). Unfortunately, Pinker does not get the rules of reason right in this book. Pinker defends a damagingly irrational conception of reason. But despite this rather drastic failure, there is much of interest in this book, even if at a rather elementary level.

In my review of Steven French's The structure of the world. Metaphysics & Representation. OUP, Oxford, 2014 I argue that the author is forced to navigate between the Scilla of Tegmark’s Pitagoreanism (2008) and the Carybdis of “blobobjectivism” (Horgan and Potrč 2008), namely the claim that the whole physical universe is a single concrete structurally complex but partless cosmos (a “blob”).

on ). Advice about how to move forward on the mindreading debate, particularly when it comes to overcoming the logical problem, is much needed in comparative psychology. In chapter 4 of his book Ockham’s Razors, Elliott Sober takes on the task by suggesting how we might uncover the mechanism that mediates between the environmental stimuli that is visible to all, and chimpanzee social behavior. I argue that Sober's proposed method for deciding between the behaivor-reading and mindreading hypotheses fails given the (...) nature of each of those hypotheses. I argue that the behavior-reading hypothesis that Povinelli and colleagues propose is so rich and robust that it is going to make predictions that are behaviorally indiscernible from the mindreading hypothesis. Further, I argue that the logical problem artificially separates one’s knowledge of behavior and one’s knowledge of mind. If we reject this form of dualism, the logical problem doesn’t arise. (shrink)

This is a review of a book by Shan Gao called "The meaning of the wave function", Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017.

The self-fashioning of French Newtonianism Content Type Journal Article DOI 10.1007/s11016-010-9511-3 Authors Charles T. Wolfe, Unit for History and Philosophy of Science, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia David Gilad, Unit for History and Philosophy of Science, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia Journal Metascience Online ISSN 1467-9981 Print ISSN 0815-0796.

Why is there Philosophy of Mathematics at all? Ian Hacking. in Metascience (2015).

Stewart Duncan’s excellent book Materialism from Hobbes to Locke offers an insightful study of the debates concerning materialism during the seventeenth century. When we hear the expression ‘materialism’, we often associate with it the question of whether the human mind is an entirely material entity. Although the question of whether the human mind is material plays an important role throughout the seventeenth-century debates examined in this book, Duncan offers a broader understanding of materialism that is not restricted to the human (...) mind. According to Duncan, materialism is ‘a view about some object or a group of objects. Often that object is the human mind’ (2), but materialism can also concern other objects such as animal minds or God. This leads Duncan to introduce materialism as ‘the view that the thing in question is wholly material, and has no immaterial part’ (2). He deliberately leaves open what it means to be material, because different philosophers featured in his book disagree about this question. (shrink)

Invited review of the anthology of new papers _Philosophy of Chemistry: Growth of a New Discipline_.

A literary approach to scientific practice: Essay Review of R.I.G. Hughes' _The Theoretical Practices of Physics_.

Phyllis Illari & Federica Russo: Causality: Philosophical Theory Meets Scientific Practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014, 310pp, £29.99 HB.

European Journal of Philosophy, EarlyView.

Review of Anja Jauernig, The World according to Kant: appearances and things-in-themselves in Critical Idealism, Oxford University Press, 2021.

Bruce Langtry's ‘God, the Best and Evil’ is a fine contribution to the literature. Here, I review the contents of the book, and then provide some critical remarks that, as fas as I know, have not been made elsewhere. In particular, I argue that his criticism of my formulations of logical arguments from evil (in my Arguing about Gods) is unsuccessful.

Review of British Medical Association handbook on human rights and doctors.

Tom Stoppard’s 1966 play (and 1990 movie) /Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead/ is a metatext – as a text, it interprets, builds upon, and refers to another text, Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Similarly, David N. Reznick’s /The Origin then and now: An interpretative guide to the Origin of Species/ (Princeton UP, 2010) is also a metatext. In this review, I turn to the history of science to evaluate whether Reznick’s book shares three families of virtues with Stoppard’s play: (i) brevity and precision, (...) (ii) intrigue and appeal, and (iii) a genuine value-add to the original. (shrink)

In this book, Schmitt claims that Hume, however implicitly, employs a fully-developed epistemology in the Treatise. In particular, Hume employs a “veritistic” epistemology, i.e. one that is grounded in truth, particularly, true beliefs. In some cases, these true beliefs are “certain,” are “infallible” (78) and are justified, as in the case of knowledge, i.e. demonstrations. In other cases, we acquire these beliefs through a reliable method, i.e. when they are produced by causal proofs. Such beliefs are also “certain” (69, 81) (...) and are (defeasibly) justified. Thus, although demonstrative knowledge and beliefs produced by causal proofs are produced by different psychological processes, and so, admit of specific kinds of “certainty,” they are nevertheless, both certain, and so, they share the same “epistemic status” (68-69). As a result, although it is clear that Hume makes a psychological distinction between demonstrations and causally produced beliefs (proofs) it may be argued that Hume does not make an epistemological distinction between knowledge (demonstrations) and causally produced beliefs (proofs). Thus, in regard to epistemic status, the latter are not necessarily inferior to the former. This has larger implications for Hume’s method; if we can say that he employs a method that invokes knowledge, or at least, beliefs that share the same epistemic status as knowledge, then Hume need not be entirely skeptical about the results of his method. Rather, the possession of true belief is Hume's ultimate goal. (380). (shrink)

This is a joint review of Jenann Ismael's 'How physics makes us free' (OUP).

Review of Mary Mahowald, Genes, Women, Equality.

This paper is a review of Suarez, M. (ed.) Fictions in Science (Routledge).