Aworkshop was held August 26–28, 2015, by the Earth- Life Science Institute (ELSI) Origins Network (EON, see Appendix I) at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. This meeting gathered a diverse group of around 40 scholars researching the origins of life (OoL) from various perspectives with the intent to find common ground, identify key questions and investigations for progress, and guide EON by suggesting a roadmap of activities. Specific challenges that the attendees were encouraged to address included the following: What key (...) questions, ideas, and investigations should the OoL research community address in the near and long term? How can this community better organize itself and prioritize its efforts? What roles can particular subfields play, and what can ELSI and EON do to facilitate research progress? (See also Appendix II.) The present document is a product of that workshop; a white paper that serves as a record of the discussion that took place and a guide and stimulus to the solution of the most urgent and important issues in the study of the OoL. This paper is not intended to be comprehensive or a balanced representation of the opinions of the entire OoL research community. It is intended to present a number of important position statements that contain many aspirational goals and suggestions as to how progress can be made in understanding the OoL. The key role played in the field by current societies and recurring meetings over the past many decades is fully acknowledged, including the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life (ISSOL) and its official journal Origins of Life and Evolution of Biospheres, as well as the International Society for Artificial Life (ISAL). (shrink)

Chapter 1: "Reason for Hope " by Michael J. Murray Chapter 2: "Theistic Arguments" by William C. Davis Chapter 3: "A Scientific Argument for the Existence of God: The Fine- Tuning Design Argument" by Robin Collins Chapter 4: "God, Evil and Suffering" by Daniel Howard Snyder Chapter 5: "Arguments for Atheism" by John O'Leary Hawthorne Chapter 6: "Faith and Reason" by Caleb Miller Chapter 7: "Religious Pluralism" by Timothy O'Connor Chapter 8: "Eastern Religions" by Robin Collins Chapter 9: "Divine (...) Providence and Human Freedom" by Scott A. Davison Chapter 10: "The Incarnation and the Trinity" by Thomas D. Senor Chapter 11: "The Resurrection of the Body and the Life Everlasting" by Trenton Merricks Chapter 12: "Heaven and Hell" by Michael J. Murray Chapter 13: "Religion and Science" by W. Christopher Stewart Chapter 14: "Miracles and Christian Theism" by J. A. Cover Chapter 15: "Christianity and Ethics" by Frances Howard-Snyder Chapter 16: "The Authority of Scripture" by Douglas Blount. (shrink)

Caleb Ward interviews Black feminist writer, poet, educator, organizer, and scholar Alexis Pauline Gumbs about Audre Lorde’s spirituality, her ecological political praxis, her pedagogy, and the cross-generational scale of social change.

Despite the growing attention to oppression and resistance in social and political philosophy as well as ethics, philosophers continue to struggle to describe and appropriately attribute agency under non-ideal circumstances of oppression and structural injustice. This chapter identifies some features of new accounts of non-ideal agency and then examines a particular problem for such theories, what Serene Khader has called the agency dilemma. Under the agency dilemma, attempts to articulate the agency of subjects living under oppression must on the one (...) hand avoid overemphasizing constraints on agency, and thereby producing paternalistic theories that “deny agency” for oppressed subjects, and on the other hand avoid failing to fully appreciate the effects of oppression on agency, thereby missing crucial features of how oppression unjustly shapes a person’s lived possibilities. This chapter traces this dilemma to a preoccupation with ascribing agency, which produces problematic descriptive and political effects for theorizing agency under oppression: what the author calls an asymmetry problem and a disenfranchisement problem. Finally, the chapter proposes that the agency dilemma might be ameliorated if theorists scrutinize more closely how moral, epistemic, and political agency interact and overlap in life under oppression. (shrink)

Techniques from artificial intelligence (AI) can be used in forensic evidence evaluation and are currently applied in biometric fields. However, it is generally not possible to fully understand how and why these algorithms reach their conclusions. Whether and how we should include such ‘black box’ algorithms in this crucial part of the criminal law system is an open question that has not only scientific but also ethical, legal, and philosophical angles. Ideally, the question should be debated by people with diverse (...) backgrounds. Here, we present a view on the question from the philosophy of science angle: computational reliabilism (CR). CR posits that we are justified in believing the output of an AI system, if we have grounds for believing its reliability. Under CR, these grounds are classified into ‘reliability indicators’ of three types: technical, scientific, and societal. This framework enables debates on the suitability of AI methods for forensic evidence evaluation that take a wider view than explainability and validation. We argue that we are justified in believing the AI’s output for forensic comparison of voices and forensic comparison of faces. Technical indicators include the validation of the AI algorithm in itself, validation of its application in the forensic setting, and case-based validation. Scientific indicators include the simple notion that we know faces and voices contain identifying information along with operationalizing well-established metrics and forensic practices. Societal indicators are the emerging scientific consensus on the use of these methods, as well as their application and interpretation by well-educated and certified practitioners. We expect expert witnesses to rely more on technical indicators to be justified in believing AIsystems, and triers-of-fact to rely more on societal indicators to believe the expert witness supported by the AIsystem. (shrink)

Pantheists are often accused of lacking a sufficient account of the unity of the cosmos and its supposed priority over its many parts. I argue that complex theists, those who think that God has ontologically distinct parts or attributes, face the same problems. Current proposals for the metaphysics of complex theism do not offer any greater unity or ontological independence than pantheism, since they are modeled on priority monism. I then discuss whether the formal distinction of John Duns Scotus offers (...) a way forward for complex theists. I show that only those classical theists who affirm divine simplicity are better off with respect to aseity and unity than pantheists. Only proponents of divine simplicity can fairly claim to have found a fully independent ultimate being. (shrink)

Jeremy Waldron argues that claims to reparation for historic injustices can be superseded by the demands of justice in the present. For example, justified Maori claims to reparation resulting from the wrongful appropriation of their land by European settlers may be superseded by the claim to a just distribution of resources possessed by the world’s existing inhabitants. However, if we distinguish between reparative and restitutive claims, we see that while claims to restitution may be superseded by changes in circumstance, this (...) does not entail that claims to reparation are. In contrast, claims to reparation are robust to changes in circumstance. (shrink)

I argue that the science of the soul only covers sublunary living things. Aristotle cannot properly ascribe ψυχή to unmoved movers since they do not have any capacities that are distinct from their activities or any matter to be structured. Heavenly bodies do not have souls in the way that mortal living things do, because their matter is not subject to alteration or generation. These beings do not fit into the hierarchy of soul powers that Aristotle relies on to provide (...) unity to ψυχή. Their living consists in their activities, not in having a capacity for activity. (shrink)

Many accounts of political liberalism contend that reasonable citizens ought to refrain from invoking their disputed comprehensive beliefs in public deliberation about constitutional essentials. Critics maintain that this ‘refraining condition’ puts pressure on citizens to entertain skepticism about their own basic beliefs, and that accounts of political liberalism committed to it are resultantly committed to a position – skepticism about conceptions of the good – that is itself subject to reasonable disagreement. Discussions in the epistemology of disagreement have tended to (...) reinforce this critique, which has come to be known as political liberalism’s skeptical problem. This paper responds to the skeptical problem by providing a novel rationale to the refraining condition, which I call the burden of total experience. Such a burden emphasizes that full communication of the basis of individual belief is not always possible, even between epistemic peers. Accepting the burden of total experience allows individuals to recognize the reasonableness of the refraining condition in a way that stops the slide to skepticism, all while avoiding, or so I argue, relying on a problematically controversial explainer for disagreement. (shrink)

Moral error theory is the doctrine that our first-order moral commitments are pervaded by systematic error. It has been objected that this makes the error theory itself a position in first-order moral theory that should be judged by the standards of competing first-order moral theories :87–139, 1996) and Kramer. Kramer: “the objectivity of ethics is itself an ethical matter that rests primarily on ethical considerations. It is not something that can adequately be contested or confirmed through non-ethical reasoning” [2009, 1]). (...) This paper shows that error theorists can resist this charge if they adopt a particular understanding of the presuppositions of moral discourse. (shrink)

This chapter begins by highlighting the role of necessary emanation in allowing for goodness to be diffused without involving anything contingent or external. It then argues that, while Timothy O’Connor’s position avoids modal collapse, it may imply divine coercion. O’Connor suggests that God, in order to properly manifest God’s goodness, must create creatures capable of divine union and give them everything required to make their enjoyment as perfect and infinite as it can be. This view is in danger of making (...) God’s salvific acts required, rather than gratuitous. The difficulty is not unique to O’Connor. Any position on which created things are capable of sharing in infinite goodness faces this tension. Such views can imply both that God must create a universe containing creatures capable of infinite enjoyment and that, within such a universe, the return of all things to God must be as complete, infinite, and encompassing as possible. (shrink)

All humans have an equal basic moral status. They possess the same fundamental rights, and the comparable interests of each person should count the same in calculations that determine social policy. Neither supposed racial differences, nor skin color, sex, sexual orientation, ethnicity, intelligence, nor any other differences among humans negate their fundamental equal worth and dignity. These platitudes are virtually universally affirmed. A white supremacist racist or an admirer of Adolf Hitler who denies them is rightly regarded as beyond the (...) pale of civilized dialogue. However, a very simple line of argument developed by Peter Singer challenges our understanding of these platitudes and forces us to rethink the basis and nature of the moral equality of all humans. What I call the “Singer Problem” arises if one accepts that the morally significant cognitive capacities that are relevant to the determination of the fundamental moral status of a being vary from individual to individual by degree. The problem is to specify a moral principle determining fundamental moral status that assigns a superior status to humans compared to other animals on the basis of the superior cognitive capacities of humans but also assigns all human persons an equal fundamental moral status regardless of their differing cognitive capacities. More broadly posed, the problem is to specify moral principles that yield intuitively satisfactory implications for the treatment of human individuals and other individual animals given that cognitive capacities differ across species and individuals. A search for a resolution of the Singer problem leads to disappointing results. (shrink)

Discussions of sexual ethics often focus on the wrong of treating another as a mere object instead of as a person worthy of respect. On this view, the task of sexual ethics becomes putting the other’s subjectivity above their status as erotic object so as to avoid the harms of objectification. Ward and Anderson argue that such a view disregards the crucial, moral role that erotic objecthood plays in sexual encounters. Important moral features of intimacy are disclosed through the experience (...) of being an erotic object for another, as well as in perceiving another as an erotic object. Drawing on phenomenology, especially the insights of Simone de Beauvoir, Ward and Anderson argue that erotic encounters are shaped by the human condition of ambiguity, where being an object for others is intertwined with bodily agency. Because sexual agency is complex in this way, theories of sexual ethics and responsibility must widen their focus beyond transparent communication and authoritative expressions of will. (shrink)

An adequate account of laws should satisfy at least five desiderata: it should provide a unified account of laws and chances, it should yield plausible relations between laws and chances, it should vindicate numerical chance assignments, it should accommodate dynamical and non-dynamical chances, and it should accommodate a plausible range of nomic possibilities. No extant account of laws satisfies these desiderata. This paper presents a non-Humean account of laws, the Nomic Likelihood Account, that does.

Justice in production is concerned with ensuring the benefits and burdens of work are distributed in a way that is reflective of persons' status as moral equals. While a variety of accounts of productive justice have been offered, insufficient attention has been paid to the distribution of work's benefits and burdens in the future. In this article, after granting for the sake of argument forecasts of widespread future technological unemployment, we consider the implications this has for egalitarian requirements of productive (...) justice. We argue that in relation to all the benefits affiliated with work, other than undertaking social contribution, the technological replacement of work is unproblematic as these benefits could in principle be attained elsewhere. But because social contribution uniquely corresponds to work (when work is understood as more than a paid job), the normative assessment of technological unemployment will turn on the value that theories of justice give to contributive activity. We then argue that despite technological replacement being plainly beneficial insofar as it relieves persons from the burdens of work, such as dangerous work or drudgery, because the nature of care work makes it less susceptible to technological replacement, egalitarian concern will require the burdens of care work to be shared equally between individuals. (shrink)

This study explores the challenges facing Ateneo de Davao University Senior High School learners from rural origins as they experience an urban shift concerning their mental health and academic performance. In addition, interventions to support the adaptation of such learners are recommended. A qualitative phenomenological approach was used, including in-depth semi-structured interviews with 15 Grade 11 STEM Pre-Science learners. The rural-to-urban transition presents quite a challenge in the lives of these students as they face culture shock, new learning modalities, environmental (...) discomfort, schedule adjustment, and loneliness in living away from family members. These issues lead to stress and alienation, thus challenging academic and personal adjustment. The study calls for focused interventions, such as intensified AdDU- SHS Wellness and Testing Center support, structured orientation programs, and mental health services. Future research should be conducted to determine this transition's long-term academic and psychological effects. (shrink)

Though the realm of biology has long been under the philosophical rule of the mechanistic magisterium, recent years have seen a surprisingly steady rise in the usurping prowess of process ontology. According to its proponents, theoretical advances in the contemporary science of evo-devo have afforded that ontology a particularly powerful claim to the throne: in that increasingly empirically confirmed discipline, emergently autonomous, higher-order entities are the reigning explanantia. If we are to accept the election of evo-devo as our best conceptualisation (...) of the biological realm with metaphysical rigour, must we depose our mechanistic ontology for failing to properly “carve at the joints” of organisms? In this paper, I challenge the legitimacy of that claim: not only can the theoretical benefits offered by a process ontology be had without it, they cannot be sufficiently grounded without the metaphysical underpinning of the very mechanisms which processes purport to replace. The biological realm, I argue, remains one best understood as under the governance of mechanistic principles. (shrink)

The research aims to study the role of strategic and operational planning as approach for crises management in UNRWA - Gaza Strip field- Palestine. Several descriptive analytical methods were used for this purpose and a survey as a tool for data collection. Community size was (881), and the study sample was stratified random (268). The overall findings of the current study show that strategic and operational planning is performed in UNRWA. The results of static analysis show that there are a (...) relation between strategic and operational planning and crises management. In spite this relation existence, it need more improvement and expanding. Also there are shortcomings in the way that organization manages the crises before and after they occur. A crisis management is only practicing during the crisis. The study suggests that UNRWA must invest in more resources to enhance strategic and operational palming and improve other methods to face potential crises in the future. (shrink)

The advent of contemporary evolutionary theory ushered in the eventual decline of Aristotelian Essentialism (Æ) – for it is widely assumed that essence does not, and cannot have any proper place in the age of evolution. This paper argues that this assumption is a mistake: if Æ can be suitably evolved, it need not face extinction. In it, I claim that if that theory’s fundamental ontology consists of dispositional properties, and if its characteristic metaphysical machinery is interpreted within the framework (...) of contemporary evolutionary developmental biology, an evolved essentialism is available. The reformulated theory of Æ offered in this paper not only fails to fall prey to the typical collection of criticisms, but is also independently both theoretically and empirically plausible. The paper contends that, properly understood, essence belongs in the age of evolution. (shrink)

A far-reaching and influential view in evolutionary biology claims that species are cohesive units held together by gene flow. Biologists have recognized empirical problems facing this view; after sharpening the expression of the view, we present novel conceptual problems for it. At the heart of these problems is a distinction between two importantly different concepts of cohesion, what we call integrative and response cohesion. Acknowledging the distinction problematizes both the explanandum of species cohesion and the explanans of gene flow that (...) are central to the view we discuss. We conclude by tracing four broader implications for the study and conceptualization of species. (shrink)

Audre Lorde’s account of the erotic is one of her most widely celebrated contributions to political theory and feminist activism, but her explanation of the term in her brief essay “Uses of the Erotic” is famously oblique and ambiguous. This article develops a detailed, textually grounded interpretation of Lorde’s erotic, based on an analysis of how Lorde’s essay brings together commitments expressed across her work. I describe four integral elements of Lorde’s erotic: feeling, knowledge, power, and concerted action. The erotic (...) is a way of feeling in the work a person does, which makes possible new knowledge about the self and the social environment— particularly to counteract epistemic oppression imposed by an unjust society. The erotic is a source of power by providing vision and energy for actions integrating a person’s multiple commitments and political interests. It facilitates concerted action and coalition by enhancing a person’s appreciation of their interests and values, while fostering embodied, personal connections that build trust on the basis of shared vulnerability. Thus, the erotic helps build coalitions where genuine differences of perspective and experience can be examined, in resistance against an oppressive society’s epistemic distortions. (shrink)

Although they are continually compositionally reconstituted and reconfigured, organisms nonetheless persist as ontologically unified beings over time – but in virtue of what? A common answer is: in virtue of their continued possession of the capacity for morphological invariance which persists through, and in spite of, their mereological alteration. While we acknowledge that organisms‟ capacity for the “stability of form” – homeostasis - is an important aspect of their diachronic unity, we argue that this capacity is derived from, and grounded (...) in a more primitive one – namely, the homeodynamic capacity for the “specified variation of form”. In introducing a novel type of causal power – a „structural power‟ – we claim that it is the persistence of their dynamic potential to produce a specified series of structurally adaptive morphologies which grounds organisms‟ privileged status as metaphysically “one over many” over time. (shrink)

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, EarlyView.

This paper argues that higher-order doubt generates an epistemic dilemma. One has a higher-order doubt with regards to P insofar as one justifiably withholds belief as to what attitude towards P is justified. That is, one justifiably withholds belief as to whether one is justified in believing, disbelieving, or withholding belief in P. Using the resources provided by Richard Feldman’s recent discussion of how to respect one’s evidence, I argue that if one has a higher-order doubt with regards to P, (...) then one is not justified in having any attitude towards P. Otherwise put: No attitude towards the doubted proposition respects one’s higher-order doubt. I argue that the most promising response to this problem is to hold that when one has a higher-order doubt about P, the best one can do to respect such a doubt is to simply have no attitude towards P. Higher-order doubt is thus much more rationally corrosive than non-higher-order doubt, as it undermines the possibility of justifiably having any attitude towards the doubted proposition. (shrink)

This paper argues that two orthodox views of meaningful work—the subjective view and the autonomy view—are deficient. In their place is proposed the contributive view of meaningful work, which is constituted by work that is both complex and involves persons in its contributive aspect. These conditions are necessary due to the way work is inherently tied up with the idea of social contribution and the interdependencies between persons. This gives such features of the contributive view a distinct basis from those (...) found in existent accounts of meaningful work. (shrink)

Throughout her work, Audre Lorde maintains that her self-preservation in the face of oppression depends on acting from the recognition and valorization of her feelings as a deep source of knowledge. This claim, taken as a portrayal of agency, poses challenges to standard positions in ethics, epistemology, and moral psychology. This article examines the oppositional agency articulated by Lorde’s thought, locating feeling, poetry, and the power she calls “the erotic” within her avowed project of self-preservation. It then explores the implications (...) of taking seriously Lorde’s account, particularly for theorists examining ethics and epistemology under nonideal social conditions. For situations of sexual intimacy, for example, Lorde’s account unsettles prevailing assumptions about the role of consent in responsibility between sexual partners. I argue that obligations to solicit consent and respect refusal are not sufficient to acknowledge the value of agency in intimate encounters when agency is oppositional in the way Lorde describes. (shrink)

According to Rosenthal’s Higher-Order Thought (HOT) theory of consciousness, first-order mental states become conscious only when they are targeted by HOTs that necessarily represent the states as belonging to self. On this view a state represented as belonging to someone distinct from self could not be a conscious state. Rosenthal develops this view in terms of what he calls the ‘thin immunity principle’ (TIP). According to TIP, when I experience a conscious state, I cannot be wrong about whether it is (...) I who I think is in that state. We first suggest that TIP is a direct consequence of the HOT theory. Next we argue that somatoparaphrenia—a pathology in which sensations are sometimes represented as belonging to other people—shows that TIP can be violated. This violation of TIP in turn shows that the HOT theory’s claim that conscious states are necessarily represented as belonging to self is in error. Rosenthal’s attempt to account for pathological cases is found to be inadequate when applied to somatoparaphrenia, and other possible defenses are also shown to be incapable of preserving TIP. We further conclude by suggesting that the HOT theory’s failing in this regard is not a failing that is peculiar to this theory of consciousness. (shrink)

The research aims to identify the learning organizations and their role in achieving organizational excellence in the Palestinian universities in Gaza Strip. The researchers used descriptive analytical approach and used the questionnaire as a tool for information gathering. The questionnaires were distributed to senior management in the Palestinian universities. The study population reached (344) employees in senior management is dispersed over (3) Palestinian universities. A stratified random sample of (182) workers from the Palestinian universities was selected and the recovery rate (...) was (69.2%). Statistical analysis (SPSS) program was used for analysis and processing the data. The research found the following results: there is a fair degree of approval on "cognitive dimension", there is a high approval about the importance of "organizational dimension", there is moderately consent of the importance of "Community dimension", there is a large degree of consent about the importance of axis of the "leadership excellence", there is a large degree of consent about the importance of axis of the "service-excellence", there is a fair degree approval about the importance of the axis of "cognitive excellence", and there is a moderately consent of the importance of "Organizational Excellence". The research found a group of recommendations including: the need to develop appropriate strategies for the University, employ modern technology in information systems, in addition to provide appropriate environment that achieve learning organizations, develop technological infrastructure, adopt universities for knowledge management in the academic and administrative departments because knowledge is the core of the work of these departments, create technological incubators in universities to adopt excellence academic research projects, and protected them, support them, and market them. Establishing of centers of excellence for scientific research in the university.The need for cooperation and coordination between local, Arab and international universities for the exchange of knowledge, information, and participation programs and training courses, as it provides an opportunity to develop the capabilities and skills of personnel and expertise. (shrink)

This paper aims to identify the decision support systems and their role on the strategic management development in the Universities- Case Study: Islamic University of Gaza. The descriptive approach was used where a questionnaire was developed and distributed to a stratified random sample. (230) questionnaires were distributed and (204) were returned with response rate (88.7%). The most important findings of the study: The presence of a statistically significant positive correlation between the decision support systems and strategic management in the Islamic (...) University in Gaza, and this shows that there is a role for decision support systems in strategic management development. The senior management is convinced of the importance of strategic management of the organization, and this conviction paid to clearly understand the process of the development of strategic management and thus led to a commitment to this process to improve its performance. There is an impact on the strategic management of the capabilities available for the use of decision support systems, and the type of decision support systems used, while there is little effect of top management support for the use of decision support systems. Also, the results showed that there were no statistically significant differences between the averages of the respondents answers attributed to personal data. The research also concluded a series of recommendations: The Islamic University of Gaza need to develop its infrastructure of decision support systems when it develops the strategic management. It should increase its interest in organizational potential through the necessity of a separate unit for decision support systems. As well as increased interest in the physical and technical capabilities available to decision support systems through continuity in keeping pace with technological means and techniques, continued support of senior management in the organization of strategic management for its positive role on decision support systems, that senior management will continue in the organization in creating a culture of strategic management, and it should encourage employees to participate in the strategic management process. (shrink)

Abstract Do the central aims of epistemology, like those of moral philosophy, require that we designate some important place for those concepts located between the thin-normative and the non-normative? Put another way, does epistemology need "thick" evaluative concepts and with what do they contrast? There are inveterate traditions in analytic epistemology which, having legitimized a certain way of viewing the nature and scope of epistemology's subject matter, give this question a negative verdict; further, they have carried with them a tacit (...) commitment to what we argue to be an epistemic analogue of the reductionistic centralist thesis which Bernard Williams, in our view, successfully repudiates in ethics. In this essay, we challenge the epistemic analogue of the traditional but mistaken thesis. In offering an alternative to it which provides a comfortable home for the epistemic normativity which attends thick evaluative concepts, we align ourselves with what has been recently called the Value Turn in epistemology. From this perspective, we defend that, contrary to tradition, as influenced by centralist assumptions, epistemology does need thick evaluative concepts. Further, the sort of theories that will be able to give thick evaluative concepts an irreducible role in both belief and agent evaluation are adequately social epistemologies. What loosely refer to as second-wave of virtue epistemology is the widespread interest to provide a comfortable home for the role of thick normativity, as it is connected both with epistemic evaluation, and guidance. We recognize that, in breaking from centralism, there is a worry that a resulting anti-centralist theory will be reductionistic in the other direction, making the thick primary. We contend however that second-wave virtue epistemologies take different sources of social and epistemic value into account; they seek the 'right thickness' to ride with conception of epistemology and a field which due in part to virtue theory's resurgence, is today normative, diverse and expansive than was the traditional set of problems from which it emerged. (shrink)

This study aims to look at the role of the practice of excellence strategies in education in achieving sustainable competitive advantage for the Higher educational institutions of the faculty of Engineering and Information Technology at Al-Azhar University in Gaza, a model, and the study considered the competitive advantage of educational institutions stems from the impact on the level of each student, employee, and the institution. The study was based on the premise that the development of strategies for excellence in education, (...) and its implementation is a vital important prerequisite to achieve sustainable competitive advantage in higher educational institutions. The study followed a systematic exploratory descriptive methodology through review of the theoretical literature, and the adoption of the experience of the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology at Al-Azhar University in Gaza as a model for its unique experience in the field of excellence in education. The study results showed that the most important are: There is a strong correlation between the level of exercising excellence strategies in education and the achievement of higher educational institutions to the sustainable competitive advantage. The results include a general required number of important sub results on the subject of the model - Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology at Al-Azhar University in Gaza as follows: - The student considered the academic focus of the operation in the development process of the workers’ skills, particularly academics at the university helps to distinguish students and increase the employment rate after graduation. - The existence of consistency in development efforts and quality improvement for all three levels (student, employee, and the university), and this contributes to the Faculty excellence. - The Faculty has been able to achieve competitive advantages by offering excellent services without harming the efficiency, and this alone is a great success because improving service properties requires great investments, which negatively affect the continued institutional development. The study also reached a set of recommendations as follows: - The need to exercise excellence strategies in education, excellence reward at the national level, and those higher educational institutions follow the criteria for measuring the competitive advantages of its institutions always. - There is a need to increase efforts to implement programs of excellence, the allocation of adequate time, reward outstanding efforts as well. There is a necessity for each faculty to achieve competitive advantage and sustainability, using the general philosophies of competitive advantage, but with a different strategically content from what is in the private commercial sector, it reflects the Faculties mission and objectives, depending on making improvements and excellence in processes that ensure the safety of its outputs. As well as the need to find a balance between the work of teaching and research work of the faculty members, this has important implications regarding the criteria used in the process of excellence evaluation. The study recommended the adoption of strategies for excellence in education on a national public policy level mainly in the processes of change in higher education institutions. The need to support the existence of a common understanding of the efforts of excellence to create a general culture that appreciates excellence in faculties and universities. This underlines the need for transparent, fair rewards systems, to encourage innovation in education. The need to conduct a comprehensive surveys on the graduates of faculties and universities including the areas of employment and skills, because that will give accurate indications of the graduates and will help to establish a link to a more precise about the relationship of excellence strategies with the competitive advantages. (shrink)

A long-form review essay on Alexis Pauline Gumbs's Survival Is a Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde (2024) and the task of reading Audre Lorde as a philosopher.

In this book, Rupert Read offers the first outline of a resolute reading, following the highly influential New Wittgenstein 'school', of the Philosophical Investigations. He argues that the key to understanding Wittgenstein's later philosophy is to understand its liberatory purport. Read contends that a resolute reading coincides in its fundaments with what, building on ideas in the later Gordon Baker, he calls a liberatory reading. Liberatory philosophy is philosophy that can liberate the user from compulsive patterns of thought, freeing one (...) for possibilities that were previously obscured. Such liberation is our prime goal in philosophy. This book consists in a sequential reading, along these lines, of what Read considers the most important and controversial passages in the Philosophical Investigations 1, 16, 43, 95 & 116 & 122, 130-3, 149-151, 186, 198-201, 217, and 284-6. Read claims that this liberatory conception is simultaneously an ethical conception. The PI should be considered a work of ethics in that its central concern becomes our relation with others. Wittgensteinian liberations challenge widespread assumptions about how we allegedly are independent of and separate from others. Wittgenstein's Liberatory Philosophy will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working on Wittgenstein, and to scholars of the political philosophy of liberation and the ethics of relation. (shrink)

I introduce a new formulation of rule consequentialism, defended as an improvement on traditional formulations. My new formulation cleanly avoids what Parfit calls “ideal world” objections. I suggest that those objections arise because traditional formulations incorporate counterfactual comparisons about how things could go differently. My new formulation eliminates those counterfactual comparisons. Part of the interest of the new formulation is as a model of how to reformulate structurally similar views, including various kinds of contractualism.

This essay presents an account of what it takes to live a philosophical way of life: practitioners must be committed to a worldview, structure their lives around it, and engage in truth‐directed practices. Contra John Cooper, it does not require that one’s life be solely guided by reason. Religious or tradition‐based ways of life count as truth directed as long as their practices are reasons responsive and would be truth directed if the claims made by their way of life are (...) correct. The essay argues that these three conditions can be met by progressors as well as sages. Making progress in how one acts in the world, and improving one’s understanding and direction through being part of a community is living a philosophical way of life. The offered view acknowledges more ways to develop the art of living and enables a broader range of people to count as living philosophically. (shrink)

Evolutionary developmental biology represents a paradigm shift in the understanding of the ontogenesis and evolutionary progression of the denizens of the natural world. Given the empirical successes of the evo-devo framework, and its now widespread acceptance, a timely and important task for the philosophy of biology is to critically discern the ontological commitments of that framework and assess whether and to what extent our current metaphysical models are able to accommodate them. In this paper, I argue that one particular model (...) is a natural fit: an ontology of dispositional properties coherently and adequately captures the crucial casual-cum-explanatory role that the fundamental elements of evo-devo play within that framework. (shrink)

Although contemporary metaphysics has recently undergone a neo-Aristotelian revival wherein dispositions, or capacities are now commonplace in empirically grounded ontologies, being routinely utilised in theories of causality and modality, a central Aristotelian concept has yet to be given serious attention – the doctrine of hylomorphism. The reason for this is clear: while the Aristotelian ontological distinction between actuality and potentiality has proven to be a fruitful conceptual framework with which to model the operation of the natural world, the distinction between (...) form and matter has yet to similarly earn its keep. In this chapter, I offer a first step toward showing that the hylomorphic framework is up to that task. To do so, I return to the birthplace of that doctrine - the biological realm. Utilising recent advances in developmental biology, I argue that the hylomorphic framework is an empirically adequate and conceptually rich explanatory schema with which to model the nature of organisms. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has been overwhelming public health-care systems around the world. With demand exceeding the availability of medical resources in several regions, hospitals have been forced to invoke triage. To ensure that this difficult task proceeds in a fair and organised manner, governments scrambled experts to draft triage guidelines under enormous time pressure. Although there are similarities between the documents, they vary considerably in how much weight their respective authors place on the different criteria that they propose. Since most (...) of the recommendations do not come with ethical justifications, analysing them requires that one traces back these criteria to their underlying theories of distributive justice. In the literature, COVID-19 triage has been portrayed as a value conflict solely between utilitarian and egalitarian elements. While these two accounts are indeed the main antipodes, I shall show that in fact all four classic theories of distributive justice are involved: utilitarianism, egalitarianism, libertarianism, and communitarianism. Detecting these in the documents and classifying the suggested criteria accordingly enables one to understand the balancing between the different approaches to distributive justice—which is crucial for both managing the current pandemic and in preparation for the next global health crisis. (shrink)

Many critics of religion insist that believing in a future life makes us less able to value our present activities and distracts us from accomplishing good in this world. In Augustine's case, this gets things backwards. It is while Augustine seeks to achieve happiness in this life that he is detached from suffering and dismissive of the body. Once Augustine comes to believe happiness is only attainable once the whole city of God is triumphant, he is able to compassionately engage (...) with present suffering and see material and social goods as part of our ultimate good. (shrink)

This paper defends views like rule consequentialism by distinguishing between two sorts of ideal world objections. It aims to show that one of those sorts of objections is question-begging. Its success would open up a path forward for such views.

Abstract— This study aimed to identify the degree of use of the capabilities of decision-support systems in Palestinian institutions higher education, Aqsa University in Gaza - a case study. The study used a analytical descriptive approach, and the researchers used the of questionnaire tool to collect the data, the researchers using stratified random sample distributed (150) questioners to the study population and (126) was obtained back with rate of 84%. The study showed that the most important results are: that senior (...) management supports the existence of decision support systems and that there is approval by the respondents on the paragraphs of the use of the capabilities of decision support systems in general. And that there are no significant differences between the averages of the answers of respondents differences about the degree of use of decision support systems capabilities attributed to personal data. The study also concluded a series of recommendations including: increasing the adoption of the senior management decision support in their decision-making systems. And increased regulatory attention to the potential available to decision support systems directly to the senior management in the Palestinian universities in the Gaza Strip. There is an increased interest in the physical and technical possibilities available for the use of decision support systems. There is an increased interest in human potential available for the use of decision support systems. Investment of information available to universities in building the capacities of integration techniques and other information technology capabilities. The empowerment of human resources in universities and participating in making decisions concerning the construction of the capabilities of information technology. (shrink)

_The Metaphysics of Perfect Beings_ addresses the problems an Anselmian perfect being faces in contexts involving unlimited options. Recent advances in the theory of vagueness, the metaphysics of multiverses and hyperspace, the theory of dynamic or sequential choice, the logic of moral and rational dilemmas, and metaethical theory provide the resources to formulate the new challenges and the Anselmian responses with an unusual degree of precision. Almeida shows that the challenges arising in the unusual contexts involving unlimited options sometimes produce (...) metaphysical surprise. (shrink)

Dispositional properties are often referred to as ‘causal powers’, but what does dispositional causation amount to? Any viable theory must account for two fundamental aspects of the metaphysics of causation – the causal complexity and context sensitivity of causal interactions. The theory of mutual manifestations attempts to do so by locating the complexity and context sensitivity within the nature of dispositions themselves. But is this theory an acceptable first step towards a viable theory of dispositional causation? This paper argues that (...) the reconceptualization that the theory entails comes at too high a price, and is an unnecessary step in the wrong direction: these two central aspects concerning the metaphysics of causation can and should be accounted for in a dispositional account of causation without it. (shrink)

The study aims to analyze the impact of top management support for strategic planning on crisis management in UNRWA-Gaza Strip field in Palestine. Several descriptive analytical methods were used for this purpose, and a survey as a tool for data collection. Community size was (881), and the study sample was stratified random (268). The overall findings of the current study show that top management provides needed HR for strategic planning but with no financial support. Also there are shortcomings in the (...) way that organization manages the crises before and after they occur. A crisis management is only practicing during the crisis. The study suggest that top management must provide the financial support for strategic planning, periodic meetings to prepare how to deal with potential crisis in the future, establishing a specialized team and provide them with all sources needed. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that there would be no obligatory maxims if the only standards for assessing maxims were Kant’s universalizability tests. The paper is divided into five sections. In the first, I clarify my thesis: I define my terms and disambiguate my thesis from other related theses for which one might argue. In the second, I confront the view that says that if a maxim passes the universalizability tests, then there is a positive duty to adopt that maxim; (...) I also confront a close relative of this view. In the third, I confront the view that says that if a maxim does not pass the universalizability tests, then there is a positive duty to adopt the contradictory of that maxim. In the fourth, I confront two variations of the view that says that if a maxim does not pass the universalizability tests and an agent is deliberating about the action in the maxim, then the agent has a positive duty to adopt the contrary of that maxim. In the fifth, I confront the view that says that if an agent has adopted a maxim of ends, then the agent has a positive duty to universalize that end. I then wrap up the paper with some concluding remarks. (shrink)

The research aims to identify the reality of modern methods applied in the process of performance assessments of employees in the municipalities of Gaza-strip, Complete Census method of community study was used, (571) questionnaires were distributed to all members of the community study, (524) questionnaires were recovery with rate of (91.76%). The most important findings of the study: There were statistically significant relationship differences between the applications of modern methods in the performance assessments of employees in the municipalities of Gaza-strip. (...) There was statistically significant relationship between the evaluation criteria that fit the required performance and the application of standards evaluations on performance of employees in the municipalities of Gaza-strip. There was statistically significant relationship between the use of methods, models for the evaluation of appropriate functions and the application of the performance assessments of employees in the municipalities of Gaza-strip. There was statistically significant relationship between the feedback and the application of performance assessments of employees in the municipalities of Gaza-strip. There was statistically significant relationship between the efficient, professional assessors and the application of the performance assessments of employees in the municipalities of Gaza-strip. There was statistically significant relationship between the extent of awareness of subordinates, participation in the evaluation of their performance and the application of the performance assessments of employees in the municipalities of Gaza-strip. The research also concluded a series of recommendations, including: that the design of evaluation models must be done with the participation of the employees and inform them of it, and that a date must be set to provide feedback and discuss the results with them, that they should be allowed grievance in front of an ad hoc committee in accordance with the known system. Direct manager must inform employees of their performance assessment date, discuss the results of the evaluation with them, and others should be involved with the direct manager of employees in their performance evaluation. The application of modern methods of performance evaluation through the good and purposeful planning should be used, analyzing and employing the results in administrative decisions regarding the employees, and the application of modern methods must be used in an effective and efficient performance evaluation. (shrink)

The harmonious free play of the imagination and understanding is at the heart of Kant’s account of beauty in the Critique of the Power of Judgement, but interpreters have long struggled to determine what Kant means when he claims the faculties are in a state of free play. In this article, I develop an interpretation of the free play of the faculties in terms of the freedom of attention. By appealing to the different way that we attend to objects in (...) aesthetic experience, we can explain how the faculties are free, even when the subject already possesses a concept of the object and is bound to the determinate form of the object in perception. (shrink)

It’s generally thought that we naively or pre-theoretically represent the future to be open. While philosophers have modelled future openness in different ways, it’s unclear which, if any, captures our naïve sense that the future is open. In this paper we focus on just one way the future might count as being open: by being nomically open, and empirically investigate whether our naïve representation of the future as open is partly constituted by representing the future as nomically open. We also (...) investigate the connection between our naïve representation of the future as open, and our representation of time. One of the purported advantages of the growing block theory of time is that it captures our naive sense that the future is open, and the past closed. We investigate whether there is an explanatory connection between people representing the future to be nomically open and representing our world to be a growing block and reflect on the implications of our findings for theorising about future openness and temporal ontology. (shrink)

Relational egalitarians sometimes argue that a degree of distributive equality is necessary for social equality to obtain among members of society. In this paper, we consider how such arguments fare when extended to the intergenerational case. In particular, we examine whether relational reasons for distributive equality apply between non-overlapping generations. We claim that they do not. We begin by arguing that the most common reasons relational egalitarians offer in favour of distributive equality between contemporaries do not give us reasons to (...) object to distributive inequality between non-overlapping generations. This argument by itself however will not fully suffice to show that there are no relational reasons to care about intergenerational distributive equality, given the nature of relational equality and its requirements in the intergenerational case are likely to be qualitatively different than in the contemporary case. Therefore, we also make the positive argument that for the intergenerational case to satisfy the requirements demanded by the ideal of relational equality it suffices that future persons’ interests are meaningfully incorporated and protected in the decision-making of preceding generations, and there is no basis for a concern with distributive equality. While some have argued that the one-way and asymmetrical causal influence between non-overlapping generations means concerns of social equality are inapplicable in the intergenerational case, we argue that the ongoing nature of this influence makes concerns of social equality appropriate. If successful, the upshot of the argument is that it can be coherent to maintain a commitment to relational equality between non-overlapping generations, all while remaining agnostic about distributive equality between them. (shrink)

In this paper, I defend teleological theories of belief against the exclusivity objection. I argue that despite the exclusive influence of truth in doxastic deliberation, multiple epistemic aims interact when we consider what to believe. This is apparent when we focus on the processes involved in specific instances (or concrete cases) of doxastic deliberation, such that the propositions under consideration are specified. First, I out- line a general schema for weighing aims. Second, I discuss recent attempts to defend the teleological (...) position in relation to this schema. And third, I develop and defend my proposal that multiple epistemic aims interact in doxastic deliberation—a possibility which, as of yet, has received no serious attention in the literature. (shrink)