Pausing to reflect feels like stagnant inactivity, but it’s crucial for our youths as increasingly more students come to higher education without having truly engaged in self-reflection.

We are pleased to feature a video interview with Jonathan Sim, where he shares his ongoing journey of integrating artificial intelligence (AI) in his teaching, the challenges encountered along the way, and what educators can do to get their students to meaningfully engage with AI tools like ChatGPT to enhance their learning.

We may all be living on the same planet, but the personalised experience of online platforms creates numerous parallel worlds that fragments our communicative cultures - this problem quietly escapes our attention, and it is dividing us to such extent that it is becoming increasingly difficult for us to respectfully converse and collaborate with others. Seeing how these personalised bubbles are making our youths struggle to understand and work with others, my worry is that this problem will worsen with children (...) raised by AI. If we are not careful, we risk raising a generation of children with severely skewed perceptions of the world due to the personalised bubble AI creates around them. To have such skewed perceptions at such a critical stage of development, we may not be able to break them out of their bubbles when they are older. (shrink)

As educators, we often ask if our students are ready for the future, but how often do we ask ourselves if we educators are ready for the future?

The drive for human connection and to discover one’s identity is not limited to the online world: It is a universal human need that we all share. It is crucial to understand that problems we typically attribute to gaming platforms (like self-radicalisation) are not special tech problems or gaming problems. They can and do happen offline as well. What we are dealing with is essentially a human problem that so happens to occur on technological platforms.

Jonathan takes us through his experiences of being a mentor for UTOP (University Teaching Opportunities Programme), particularly how it enabled him to collaborate with his UTOP student mentees to design a learning activity in which students could think critically about AI-generated output.

The recent news of a 13-year-old Singaporean prodigy graduating from an Australian university has sparked discussion about Singapore’s approach to nurturing exceptional young talents, especially after it was revealed that the boy had been previously rejected by a local university because of his young age. Some have called for an increased flexibility to allow such young people to skip levels in Singapore - parents of intellectually advanced children often cite concerns that their children are disengaged and bored at school. The (...) fear is real - keeping these students at the same level as their peers could potentially squander their potential and impede their growth. Yet, on the flip side, accelerating their academic journey could potentially jeopardise their social and emotional development, which could negatively impact their ability to connect and work well with their peers in their adulthood. Nonetheless, this debate brings to light the need for more effective strategies to meaningfully engage students with diverse abilities and learning paces. (shrink)

Assignment feedback is key to helping students improve and correct their understanding so they can build upon solid foundations of knowledge as their course progresses. Yet, I found that about 30% of students review their feedback. It is not because students are lazy but because they struggle to find the time and often have little immediate incentive to review feedback for something that has already been graded when they have other assignments to work on. Feedback is most effective when it (...) is shared with students while they are still working on the assignment. In this article, I share how regular quizzes as a tool to ensure students review their assignment feedback and address gaps in their understanding. (shrink)

When I ask students how they feel about group projects, the response is often negative. This is usually a result of bad experiences with problematic group members, such as free riders who do not contribute or members who bulldoze their ideas through while disregarding their peers. After many semesters mediating disputes within such groups, I have found that issues often stem from concerns about “saving face”. This leads to a lack of much-needed communication. In this article, I offer three methods (...) to facilitate effective group work by improving participation and communication between student peers. (shrink)

How often have you heard someone refer to complaining as a “national pastime” in Singapore? Why do we complain and what do we get out of it? While the Oxford Dictionary defines "complain" as an expression of dissatisfaction or annoyance about something, the philosopher, Julian Baggini, defines the term in his book Complaint as “a refusal or inability to accept that things are not as they ought to be”. This suggests that complaining is not intrinsically harmful - its impact really (...) depends on how we use it. So, is Singapore’s complaint culture helping us or hurting us? (shrink)

Trust is the foundation for learning, and we must not allow ignorance of this new technologies, like Generative AI, to disrupt the relationship between students and educators. As a first step, we need to actively engage with AI tools to better understand how they can help us in our work.

As a teacher in Singapore, I regularly encounter a classroom full of quiet students, reluctant to participate in class, to engage with the teacher when questioned, or even to volunteer for any project or initiative. Many teachers here are quick to conclude that Singapore students are passive or conformists. This observation is, in fact, not unique to students in Singapore, but also to the broader Asian region. Scholars like Cortazzi and Jin (1996) attributed such behaviour to the specific cultural values, (...) such as the importance of deference to the authority of a teacher, as reasons for such passivity and reticence. Liu and Littlewood (1997), on the other hand, argue that people from certain cultures prefer not to speak up so as to avoid entering into situations of uncertainty. I have found that as a teacher busily pre-occupied with preparing for classes, it is easy to forget how students perceive their learning experience, and I have been quite inclined to agree with the observations above. Fortunately, I have had the opportunity to be both a post-graduate student and a teacher. And this privileged position allows me to question some of my own assumptions as a teacher, thereby gaining deeper insights into the underlying reasons for the lack of participation here in Singapore. There is a lot more going on in the minds of Singapore students. Here, I would like to offer a new perspective on this matter. (shrink)

Humanities and social science majors are frequently misunderstood, in Singapore as in many other parts of the world. The value of their education is regularly questioned, and many employers are unaware of the value such majors can bring to the table. They prefer to hire graduates with more explicitly “practical” degrees for jobs that humanities and social sciences students could excel in. As a result, humanities and social sciences students are not typically considered for many organisations and roles, despite offering (...) relevant and useful skills. In this article, I describe how I engaged with local employers to open internship opportunities to humanities and social sciences students who would not previously have been considered. (shrink)

Teaching interdisciplinary modules online can be an uphill battle but it offers important lessons in the art of motivating students to learn.

In my discussion with students, I found that many of them have high levels of anxiety when it comes to learning something outside their intended major. In this article, I explain how I supported my class remotely using the Telegram messaging app to keep a regular flow of communication and reassure students they were not alone in having queries.

The flipped-classroom format is a type of blended learning where students are required to do preparatory work – such as watching lecture videos or completing assignments – before coming to a face-to-face class to work on more challenging problems with the facilitation of an instructor. However, one challenge of teaching flipped-classroom modules is that a big proportion of students often come to class unprepared. Either they do not watch the lecture videos or they skim through them before the tutorials. Thus, (...) they lack a proper understanding of the content and many are unable to participate in class activities. The tutorial ends up becoming a lecture where we go over the basic content instead of challenging the students to take their learning further. In this article, I explain explains how I designed learning activities to ensure students complete the preparation work necessary to get the most out of the flipped-classroom model. (shrink)

A problematic trend I notice when conversing with students is how many of them struggle to remember what they did in modules from previous semesters. These discussions got me thinking about how to design learning activities that are unforgettable. Albert Einstein, among other figures credited with the quote, famously said that “education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school”. I want to ensure my students remember what they have learned from me, especially after all (...) the hard work they put into the course. In this article, I share teaching techniques designed to pique the emotions as a way to lodge key lessons more firmly in students’ memories. (shrink)

Jonathan discusses the learning issues he observed which prompted him to adopt this platform in his teaching, the implementation process, and his observations of his students’ response to this approach.

The late Clark Kerr, one of the great leaders and thinkers of American higher education in the 20th century, shaped the landscape of higher education in the United States, starting with California, where he lived and worked. When he was the President of the University of California (UC) (1958–1967), he formulated and led the implementation of the California Master Plan of Higher Education (California State Department of Education, 1960) in response to an urgent need for higher education reforms in the (...) 1960s. The Plan aimed at providing universal access to higher education and diversity in the choices of institutions available to all Californians. This was achieved by defining the methods for allocating funding and missions to colleges and universities. He moved on to head the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education (1967–1973) and the Carnegie Council on Policy Studies in Higher Education (1973–1979). There, he was fundamental in developing sophisticated new tools and concepts for the study of higher education policy, which made a great impact on higher education and education policy in the United States and beyond. (shrink)

Contemporary analytic theological discussions of atonement do not attend extensively to questions of how narrative might relate to the atoning work of Christ. Liberation theologians, on the other hand, utilize narrative in their scholarly method regularly and often employ it when discussing atonement or reconciliation. This essay argues that analytic theologians should consider the notion of narrative (and narrative identity) as a mechanism of atonement in the broad sense of the term introduced when William Tyndale coined ‘atonement’ to translate 2 (...) Corinthians 5. I then offer some psychological grounds for thinking that reframing one’s self-narrative in terms of a transcendent narrative is often conducive to human flourishing, and I consider the work of James H. Cone as an instance of such transcendent narrative reframing at work. (shrink)

According to the Self-Location Thesis, certain types of visual experiences have self-locating and so first-person, spatial contents. Such self-locating contents are typically specified in relational egocentric terms. So understood, visual experiences provide support for the claim that there is a kind of self-consciousness found in experiential states. This paper critically examines the Self-Location Thesis with respect to dynamic-reflexive visual experiences, which involve the movement of an object toward the location of the perceiving subject. The main aim of this paper is (...) to offer an alternative interpretation of these cases which resists attributing them self-locating content, arguing for a replacement of the de se component with a non-conceptual equivalent of the indexical ‘here’. In its final section, the paper also considers an extension of the h-replacement account to cases of visual kinesthesis. (shrink)

Non-Relational Realism is a popular solution to the Bradleyan regress of facts or truths. It denies that there is a relational universal of exemplification; for an object a to exemplify a universal F-ness, on this view, is not for a relation to subsist between a and F-ness. An influential objection to Non-Relational Realism is that it is unacceptably obscure. The author argues that Non-Relational Realism can be understood as a selective application of satisfaction semantics to predicates like ‘exemplify’, and that (...) so understood, it is not obscure. This kind of selective use of satisfaction semantics may be feasible in other contexts as a means of making theories more parsimonious. (shrink)

For Berkeley, minds are not Cartesian spiritual substances because they cannot be said to exist (even if only conceptually) abstracted from their activities. Similarly, Berkeley's notion of mind differs from Locke's in that, for Berkeley, minds are not abstract substrata in which ideas inhere. Instead, Berkeley redefines what it means for the mind to be a substance in a way consistent with the Stoic logic of 17th century Ramists on which Leibniz and Jonathan Edwards draw. This view of mind, (...) I conclude, is definitely not the bundle theory that some critics have portrayed it as being. (shrink)

Instead of focusing on the Malebranche-Edwards connection regarding occasionalism as if minds are distinct from the ideas they have, I focus on how finite minds are particular expressions of God's will that there be the distinctions by which ideas are identified and differentiated. This avoids problems, created in the accounts of Fiering, Lee, and especially Crisp, about the inherently idealist character of Edwards' occasionalism.

Berkeley's immaterialism has more in common with views developed by Henry More, the mathematician Joseph Raphson, John Toland, and Jonathan Edwards than those of thinkers with whom he is commonly associated (e.g., Malebranche and Locke). The key for recognizing their similarities lies in appreciating how they understand St. Paul's remark that in God "we live and move and have our being" as an invitation to think to God as the space of discourse in which minds and ideas are identified. (...) This way of speaking about God, adapted by Karl Barth and Paul Tillich, opens up new ways to think about the relation between God and finite minds. (shrink)

Is there a place in scientific inquiry for guessing? Jonathan Cohen has recently argued that resorting to guesswork entails a loss of objectivity and regard for evidence which are essential to proper scientific investigation. I assess the merits of Cohen’s view first by taking as a test case Aristotle’s positive view of the role of guesswork (anchinoia) and conjecture (eustochia) in the search for the connections essential to the construction of scientific demonstrations. I then argue contra Cohen that one (...) can usefully employ guesswork while also employing reason; that it is possible to guess either intelligently or mindlessly; and consequently, that the use of guesswork need not represent a diminution in respect for the objectivity essential to scientific investigation. Although I would not claim that guesswork has a role to play in all scientific inquiry, there appear to be some datable instances of the useful and respectable scientific guess. (shrink)

After a long search, Jonathan has finally found someone willing to donate a kidney to him and thereby free him from dialysis. Meredith is Jonathan's second cousin, and she considers herself a generous person, so although she barely knows Jonathan, she is willing to help. However, as Meredith learns more about the donation process, she begins to ask questions about Jonathan: “Is he HIV positive? I heard he got it using drugs. Has he been in jail? (...) He's already had one live donor, so what happened to the first kidney? Did he forget to take his drugs or something?” The transplant center must, then, decide if Meredith is, in fact, entitled to answers to these kinds of questions. According to the Consensus Statement on the Live Organ Donor, “It is incumbent on the transplant center to provide full and accurate disclosure to potential donors of all pertinent information regarding risk and benefit to the donor and recipient.” But whether answers to the Meredith's questions count as “pertinent information regarding the risk and benefit” is the issue at hand. (shrink)

Creationists who object to evolution in the science curriculum of public schools often cite Jonathan Well’s book Icons of Evolution in their support (Wells 2000). In the third chapter of his book Wells claims that neither paleontological nor molecular evidence supports the thesis that the history of life is an evolutionary process of descent from preexisting ancestors. We argue that Wells inappropriately relies upon ambiguities inherent in the term ‘Darwinian’ and the phrase ‘Darwin’s theory’. Furthermore, he does not accurately (...) distinguish between the overwhelming evidence that supports the thesis of common descent and controversies that pertain to causal mechanisms such as natural selection. We also argue that Wells’ attempts to undermine the evidence in support of common descent are flawed and his characterization of the relevant data is misleading. In particular, his assessment of the ‘Cambrian explosion’ does not do justice to the fossil record. Nor do his selective references to debate about molecular and paleontological phylogenies constitute a case against common descent. We conclude that the fossil and molecular evidence is more than sufficient to warrant science educators to present common descent as a well-established scientific fact. We also argue that diagrams depicting the ‘tree of life’ can be pedagogically useful as simplified representations of the history of life. (shrink)

According to Stewart Candlish, Russell and Moore had misunderstood F. H. Bradley’s monism. According to Jonathan Schaffer, they had misunderstood monism more generally. A key thread of the creation narrative of analytic philosophy, according to which Russell and Moore successfully undermined monism to give rise to a new movement is, therefore, in doubt. In this paper, I defend the standard narrative against those who seek to revise it.

Die Moralphilosophie des 20. und 21. Jahrhunderts hat mit Konsequentialismus, Deontologie, Kontraktualismus und Tugendethik nicht nur höchst einflussreiche Theorieparadigmen produktiv weiterentwickelt, sondern auch eine Reihe wichtiger neuer Probleme aufgeworfen. Der vorliegende Band versammelt zentrale Beiträge der analytischen Moralphilosophie, u. a. von David Gauthier, Shelly Kagan, Frances Kamm, Thomas Nagel, Michael Slote, Christine Swanton und Susan Wolf, die für ein Verständnis gegenwärtiger Diskussionen in der normativen Ethik unabdingbar sind. -/- Inhaltsverzeichnis: Vorwort Einleitung: Analytische Moralphilosophie der Gegenwart -/- 1. Konsequentialismus Shelly Kagan: (...) Ein Plädoyer gegen die Alltagsmoral Peter Railton: Entfremdung, Konsequentialismus und die Anforderungen der Moral -/- 2. Deontologie Thomas Nagel: Ethik William David Ross: Was macht richtige Handlungen richtig? -/- 3. Kontraktualismus David Gauthier: Warum Kontraktualismus? Thomas Scanlon: Die Struktur des Kontraktualismus -/- 4. Tugendethik Christine Swanton: Eine tugendethische Theorie des richtigen Handelns Michael Slote: Akteursbasierte Tugendethik -/- 5. Moralische Aggregation John Taurek: Zählt die Anzahl? Frances M. Kamm: Aggregation und zwei moralphilosophische Methoden -/- 6. Das Prinzip der Doppelwirkung Jonathan Bennett: Vorhergesehene Nebenwirkungen vs. beabsichtigte Folgen Ralph Wedgwood: Zur Verteidigung der Lehre von der Doppelwirkung -/- 7. Moralische Rechte H. L. A. Hart: Gibt es natürliche Rechte? Joseph Raz: Über die Beschaffenheit von Rechten -/- 8. Moralischer Zufall Thomas Nagel: Moralischer Zufall Susan Wolf: Die Moral des moralischen Zufalls. (shrink)

Predication is a lingual relation. We have this relation when a term is said (λέγεται) of another term. This simple definition, however, is not Aristotle’s own definition. In fact, he does not define predication but attaches his almost in a new field used word κατηγορεῖσθαι to λέγεται. In a predication, something is said of another thing, or, more simply, we have ‘something of something’ (ἓν καθ᾿ ἑνὸς). (PsA. , A, 22, 83b17-18) Therefore, a relation in which two terms are posited (...) to each other in a way that one is said (predicated) of the other is a predication. The term of which the other term is said is called a subject (ὑποκειμένον) and the other, which is said about the subject, is called the predicate. Thus, in a predication the predicate is predicated of the subject; given that being predicated is almost as the same as being said. The relation between being said and being predicated is so close that ‘if something is said of a subject both its name and its definition are necessarily predicated of the subject.’ (Cat., 5, 2a19-26) This, however, is true only about the second genera and not the accidents. a) Nature of relation in predication What is Aristotle’s theory about the nature of the relation in a predication? How does he fundamentally understand this relation? Phil Corkum distinguishes between predication logic and traditional term logic and argues that the relation between subject and predicate in Aristotle is of the latter kind. While in predicate logic, subjects and predicates have distinct roles, they have the same role in traditional term logic. In predication logic, subjects refer, but predicates characterize. Thereupon, a sentence expresses a truth if the object to which the subject refers is correctly characterized by the predicate. In traditional term logic, both subjects and predicates refer and a sentences expresses a truth if both name one and the same thing. He concludes that Aristotle ‘problematically conflates prediction and identity claims’ because while he thinks both subjects and predicates refer, he would deny that a sentence is true just in case the subject and the predicate name one and the same thing. Based on this, Corkum believes that Aristotle’s core semantic is not identity but the weaker relation of constitution, which is a mereological interpretation: ‘All men are mortal’ is true just in case the mereological sum of humans is part of the mereological sum of mortals. b) Aristotle’s theory of predication: one or two theories? Frank Lewis finds an inconsistent gap between the theory of predication in the Categories and that in the later books of the Metaphysics VII, 6. So too Joan Kung, Terry Irwin, Daniel Graham. c) Distinction of ‘being said of’ and ‘being in’ Owen enumerates the texts in which Aristotle’s distinction between ‘being said of’ and ‘being in’ is asserted: OI. 11b38-12a17; To., 127b1-4; Cat. 1a20-b9; 2a11-14; 2a27-b6; 2b15-17; 3a7-32; 9b22-24 d) Predication in Aristotle and the standard ‘S is P’ Marie De Rijk Lambertus thinks that the ‘S is P’ pattern is misleading when it comes to express predication in Aristotle. In his view, ‘The Aristotelian procedure should be described in terms of appositively assigning an attribute (κατηγορούμενον) to a substrate (ὑποκείμενον), rather than ascribing a predicate to a subject by means of a copula…. The comment should be considered an attribute which is said to fall to a substrate, without understanding this procedure in terms of sentence predication.’ e) Aristotle’s predication: bipartite or tripartite? It is a difficulty to make Aristotle’s theories of name-verb predication and tripartite predication consistent. The reason is that tripartite is not consistant with his name-verb structure based on which he says that the predicate term is the ‘verb.’ (20a31; 20b1-2; 16a13-5) The problem is that in a tripartite form like ‘Socrates is white’ we cannot take ‘is white’ as the verb because, based on Aristotle himself, no part of a verb can be significant itself. (16b6-7) However, his assertions about the equivalences between the two structures (OI. 12, 21b9-10; PrA. 51b13-16; Met., 1017b22-30) must mean that they are not inconsistent in his own view. Thus, as Allen Bāck points, ‘Aristotle seems to think that he has a single, consistent theory.’ The sense of saying or speaking as the root sense of rhema makes the relation between predication (saying something of something) and verb more interesting. The use of rhema in the sense of a long expression approves this. In Plato’s work (399ac) where Socrates claims that the name anthropos derives from anthron ha opopen (‘he who examines what he has seen’) we have an onoma from, or in place of, a rhema. 1) Subject The subject (ὑποκειμένον) is that of which another term is said or predicated. Aristotle’s own definition is of a much more philosophical value: ‘By subject I mean that which is expressed by an affirmative term (λέγω δὲ ὑποκείμενον τὸ κάταφάσει δηλούμενον).’ (Met., K, 1067b18) Throughout Aristotle’s work, three kinds of subjects can be found: possible, prime and absolute subject. a) Possible subject Those things that can take the position of a subject in a predication we call possible subjects, no matter they can or cannot take the position of predicate in any predication. All terms except the ultimate predicates are possible subjects because they can take the position of subject. b) Prime subject Those that in any predication can only take the position of a subject and not the position of a predicate are prime subjects. (Cat., 5, 3a36-b2; Met., Z, 1028b36-1029a1) This is the truest sense of subject and belongs only to substances. (Met., Z, 1029a1-2) In fact, ‘that which is not predicated of a subject, but of which all else is predicated’ is a substance. (Met., Z, 1029a7-9) In Categories, besides primary substances (Cat., 2, 1b3-6), individual qualities are also said not to be able to be said of anything else. (Cat., 2, 1a23-29) Aristotle’s examples are a certain ‘knowledge-of-grammar’ (τὶς γράμματικὴ) and ‘an individual white’ (τὸ τὶ λευκὸν). Thus, although substances are indeed in the truest sense individuals and, thereby, in the truest sense primary subjects, other individuals can take the position of subject as well. c) Absolute subject While substances are prime subjects of all other things, there is still something of which substances can be predicated and this predication is not an accidental predication: matter. (Met., Z, 1029a21-24) This predication is, indeed, the predication of a ‘form or this’ on matter and material substance. (Met., Θ, 1049a34-36) The only thing that is absolutely a subject, therefore, and can be a predicate is prime matter (πρώτη ὓλη). (Met., Θ, 1049a24-27) d) Subject and substance The most important thing in being a substance is being a subject: ‘It is because the primary substances are subjects for all the other things and all the other things are predicated of them or are in them, that they are called substances most of all.’ (Cat., 5, 2b15-17) And what is nearer to this position is more a substance as a species is more a substance than a genus.’ (Cat., 5, 2b7-8) e) Primary versus accidental subject A subject is a primary subject in a predication when the predicate is predicated of it as itself. In such a case, the subject is the subject of the predicate qua itself and not qua something else. A subject, on the one hand, is an accidental subject when it is not the primary subject of the predicate that is predicated on it. It means that a subject is an accidental subject when the predicate is predicated of it not qua itself but qua something else. An accidental subject is, therefore, anything other than a substance. 2) Predicate as universal It is evident from our discussion of kinds of subjects that except matter, primary substances (if we ignore both accidental predication and cases of absolute subjects) and other individuals, everything else can take the position of a predicate. Since primary substances are individuals, it results that everything except matter and individuals are capable to take the position of predicate. The immediate consequence of this is that the predicate must be a universal. When individuals cannot take the position of predicate, this position cannot be taken by any particular. Therefore, only universals can be predicated of others. Moreover, albeit universals can be a simple subject (for another universal), they are not prime subjects. The closeness of universal and predicate is to the extent that Aristotle differentiates universal from subject. (Met., Θ, 1049a27-30) 3) Categories or classes of predicates Aristotle distinguishes ten highest classes into one of which each predicate must necessarily fall: substance (or what a thing is), quality, quantity, relation, place, time, position, state, activity and passivity. (Cat., 4, 1b25-27; To., I, 9, 103b20- ; PsA., A, 22, 83b13-23) The substance counted among predicates must refer to secondary and not primary substances not only because Aristotle insists that primary substances cannot be predicated but also from his own examples of the category of substance: man and animal. (To., I, 9, 103b25) However, if a predicate be asserted of itself or its genus be asserted of it, the predicate signifies substance or what is; but if ‘one kind of predicate is asserted of another kind,’ it signifies one of the other nines. (To., I, 9, 103b30) These categories are so comprehensive that no predicate can remain outside them so that even non-being has as many senses as categories. (Met., M, 1089a26-30) a) That whether Aristotle’s categories are merely linguistic or fundamentally ontological is a so much controversial dispute. Some like G. E. R. Lloyd believe that ‘categories are primarily intended as a classification of reality … rather than of the signifying terms themselves.’ b) Although Aristotle’s categories have been historically regarded as a classification of predications, there are some recent commentators like Jonathan Barnes that think it is classifying predicates and not predications. 4) Kinds of predicates In his introduction of Categories, as J. W. Thorp truly points out , Aristotle distinguishes between the category of substance and the other categories using μὲν ... δὲ construction. This construction illustrates that beside tenfold classification of categories, there is an even more crucial differentiation between two kinds of predicates: substance or what is on the one hand and the other nine ones on the other hand: the distinction between what is predicated of the subject as what it is and what is predicated of it as an accident. Therefore, we have three kinds of classification - a twofold, a fourfold and a tenfold-complicatedly classifying the same thing, viz. the predicate. Predicates can be divided also to four kinds: property, definition, genus and accident. (To., I, 4, 101b11-20) A property is that predicate that is convertible with its subject and does not signify its essence. A definition is that predicate that is convertible with its subject and signifies its essence. It is a genus if it is not predicated convertibly and is contained in the definition of its subject. And it is an accident if it is neither convertible nor contained in the definition of its subject. (To., I, 8, ^103b3) All of these four kinds are among categories. (To., I, 9, 103b20) It seems that there might be some kind of relation between the twofold and the fourfold distinction: whereas genus and definition are predicated as what it is, accidents are not so predicated. There seems to be some rules that determine to each of these four kinds each predicate belongs. At To., IV, 123b30ff. Aristotle asserts: ‘If B has a contrary and A does not, then B does not belong to A as its genus.’ There is a dispute around per se accidents (τὰ καθ’ αὑτὰ συμβεβηκότα) (Topics., 102a18) whether they must be regarded as either of the four kinds or as a fifth kind. Barnes (1970) argued that they ‘do not fit at all neatly into the fourfold classification.’ He argues that based on the definition of accidents at A, 5, 102b4-5, they must be accidents but based on another definition, A, 5, 102b6-7, they cannot be accidents. He also defends the view that they are not properties. Barnes concludes: ‘This shows that the two definitions are not equivalent, and hence that the ‘predicables’ are not well-defined.’ Demetris J. Hadgopoulos defends the view that the two definitions of accidents are equivalent and per se accidents are properties. 5) Five types of predications We have five kinds of predications based on our division of subjects and our discussion of predicates: simple, primary (itself divided to substantial and accident), accidental (itself divided to primary and secondary), aoincidental and absolute predication. a) Simple predication. This is a predication in which a universal is predicated of either a particular or a universal subject. This sense of predication includes all other senses except the first kind of accidental predication. b) Primary predication. This is a predication in which a universal is predicated of a primary subject, namely a substance. A primary predication is of two kinds: i) Substantial predication. A primary predication in which the predicate is part of, or is included in, the definition of the subject. The universal that is the predicate here is the definition or the genus or the species or the diferentia of the subject. It is this predication that Aristotle calls a unity: ‘A statement may be called a unity … because it exhibits a single predicate as inhering not accidentally in a single subject.’ (PsA., B, 10, 93b35-37) It is only substantial predicates that can be predicated of each other: ‘Predicates which are not substantial are not predicated of one another.’ (PsA., A, 22, 83b18-19) Aristotle defines a substantial predication also in another way. A predication in which a higher genus is predicated on a lower genus, species, a substance or an individual, (or a species is predicated on an individual) is a substantial predication. Therefore, a substantial predication is a predication in a series that has individuals on one of its ends and a general category on its other end. In fact, only substantial predicates can be predicated of one another. (PsA., A, 22, 83b17-19) This series cannot be an infinite series because otherwise not only substances would not be definable but also a genus would be equal to one of its own species. (PsA., A, 22, 83b7-10) -/- ii) Accident predication. A primary predication in which the predicate is not part of, or is not included in, the definition of its subject. The universal that is the predicate here is the property or the accident of the subject. c) Accidental predication. This is a predication in which the subject is not a primary subject and its predicate is a substance. This predication is of two kinds: i) Primary accidental predication. This is a predication in which an accident is predicated of substance. Such a predication can go ad infinitum, which is inferable from Aristotle’s assertion that the secondary accidental predication cannot go ad infinitum. ii) Secondary accidental predication. It is a predication in which an accident is predicated of another accident. Such a predication, Aristotle asserts, cannot go ad infinitum because even more than two accidents cannot be combined. Now what is the meaning of Aristotle’s assertion that we cannot continue this ad infinitum? Does it mean that we cannot continue the predication ‘The musician is white’ and say ‘The white is Athenian?’ But why not? Or maybe he means that by adding any predication, we are still in a condition of predicating two accidents of a substance on each other. -/- As primary subjects, substances can also take the position of predicate though not essentially but accidentally. In propositions like ‘the white is a log’ or ‘That big thing is a log’ we observe substance taking the position of predicate but this is only accidentally: ‘When I affirm ‘the white is a log,’ I mean that something which happens to be white is a log- not that white is the subject in which log inheres (οὐχ ὡς τὸ ὑποκείμενον τῷ ξύλῳ τὸ λευκόν ἐστι), for it was not qua white or qua a species of white that the white (thing) came to be a log (οὔτε λευκὸν ὄν οὔθ᾿ ὃπερ λευκόν τι ἐγἐνετο ξύλον), and the white (thing) is consequently not a log except incidentally.’ (PsA., 22, 83a3-9) Aristotle compares this accidental use of substance in the position of predicate with the substantial use of it in the place of a subject: ‘On the other hand, when I affirm ‘the log is white,’ I do not mean that something else, which happens to be a log, is white (οὐχ ὃτι ἓτερόν τί ἐστι λευκόν, ἐκείνῳ δὲ συμβέβηκε ξύλῳ εἶναι), (as I should if I said ‘the musician is white,’ which would mean ‘The man who happens also to be a musician is white’); on the contrary, log is here the subject- the subject which actually came to be white, and did so qua wood or qua a species of wood and qua nothing else.’ (PsA., 22, 83a8-14) Aristotle asks us not to call propositions like ‘The white is a log’ a predication at all or at least call them accidental predication instead of simple (ἁπλως) predication. (PsA., A, 22, 83a14-17) An accidental predication, in which we have a substance in the place of predicate, is different from an essential predication in that while the subject of an accidental predication is said to be the predicate not by itself but as something different with which it coincides, the subject of an essential predicate is said to be the predicate by itself and not because it is something else: ‘Since there are attributes which are predicated of a subject essentially and not accidentally- not, that is, in the sense in which we say ‘That white (thing) is a man,’ which is not the same mode of predication as when we say ‘The man is white’: the man is white not because he is something else but because he is man, but the white is man because ‘being white’ coincides with ‘humanity’ within one subject. Therefore, there are terms such as are essentially subjects of predicates. (PsA., A, 19, 81a24-29) This capability of ‘non-essentially and only accidentally’ being a subject does belong, in fact, to all sensible things. (PsA., A, 27a32-36) d) Coincidental predication. this is a predication in which none of the subject and predicate are a substance or an individual. In this predication, one of the accidents of a substance or individual is predicated of one of the other accidentals of the same substance or individual. For example, when it is said that ‘The white is musical,’ there is an individual, say Socrates, for which both of white and musical are accidents. e) Absolute predication. This is a predication in which a form or a substance is predicated of a matter or a material substance. Some commentators like Loux and Lewis regarded this predication as close to accident predication, both based on inherence. As R.M. Dancy points out, these predications make Aristotle’s theory of predication immanentist: not only accident predications are explained by the immanence of accidents in substances, some of the substantial predications, which were not explained in Categories, are also explained by the immanence of form in matter. It is interesting that in this kind of predication, it is the predicate and not the subject, which is in the strictest sense substance. As the central books of Metaphysics claim, the form is the substance. Thus, in this predication, substance gets away from the sense of ὑποκείμενον. Corkum mentiones 68a19 as the only instance where Aristotle explicitly claims that a term may be predicated of itself, a passage that is, in Corkum’s view, problematic. 6) Demonstrable predicates Those predicates are demonstrable that are so related to their subjects that there are other predicates prior to them predicable of their subjects (ἔτι δ᾿ ἄλλος, εἰ ὧν πρότερα ἄττα κατηγορεῖται). (PsA., A, 22, 83b32-34) 7) Series of predications Since it is possible for a predicate to be itself the subject of another predication, we can have a series of predications in which the predicate of a predication is the subject of the next predication. This series has the following features: a) It has a limit (in number) (PsA., A, 22, 83b14-16) on the side of subjects: there are subjects that cannot themselves be predicated (PsA., A, 27, 43a39-41), which are, as we noted, prime subjects: particulars, i.e. prime substances and other individuals. (PsA., A, 19-22) Aristotle calls them ultimate (ὓστατον). (PsA., 21, 82a36-b1) b) It has a limit (in number of kinds) (PsA., A, 22, 83b14-16) also on the side of predicates: there must be predicates that cannot be subjects. (PsA., A, 19-22; PsA., A, 27, 43a36-39) Aristotle calls them primary (πρῶτον). (PsA., A, 21, 82b1-4) These are the highest categories or the highest genera of categories. (PsA., A, 22, 83b14-16) c) The series has an escalating shape from mere subjects at its downside to mere predicates at its upside. It is Aristotle himself whos uses the words up and down in this sense. (e.g. PsA., A, 22, 83b2-3) d) The predications that lie between lowest and highest ones must be finite in number. (PsA., A, 19-22 especially: 20, 82a21-35) These have subjects and predicates, each capable of both of the roles of being subject and being predicated. A result of this fitness is that neither demonstration can go to infinity nor everything is demonstrable, the two points Aristotle always insist on. e) The upward side includes the more universal ones and the downward the more particular ones. (PsA., 20, 82a21-23) f) It follows from the above features that ‘neither the ascending nor the descending series of predications … are infinite.’ (PsA., A, 22, 83b24-25) g) Reciprocation and convertibility. Except in case of terms (i.e. subjects and predicates) that are at each of the ends of series of predications, namely ultimates and primaries, it is possible to reciprocate (ἀντιστρέφειν) terms and convert the predication. (PsA., A, 19, 82a15-20) h) Antipredication. Antipredication means that in a predication (S is P), the subject becomes the predicate of its predicate (P is S) in the same category its predicate was predicated on it. For example, if P is in the category of quality, antipredication means that S be predicated of P in the category of quality. In other words, P is a quality of S and S is a quality of P. Aristotle rejects this. (PsA., A, 22, 83a36-b3) i) Self-predication versus other-predication. Aristotle distinguishes between a predication in which a term is said of itself and a predication in which a term is said of another. (Phy., Δ, 2, 209a31-33) j) Predicablity (Cat., 5, 3a36-b2): 1) Primary substances and individuals are not predicable. 2) Secondary substances are of two kinds: genus and species i) Genus is predicable able both of the species and of the individuals. ii) Species is predicable of the individual. 3) Differentiae are predicable both of the species and of the individuals. 8) Predication as classification a) Richard Patterson believes that Aristotle’s so repeated construction using hoper (estin A hoper B) in Topics (120a23 sq., 122b19, 26sq., 123a, 124a18, 125a29, 126a21, 128a35. Also in Posterior Analytics (83a24-30) (Brunschwig’s list. ‘expresses the fact that A is a kind of B (esti A B tis), that A is a species of the genus B.’ 9) Universal predication Aristotle defines universal predication (κατὰ παντὸς κατηγορεῖσθαι) as such: ‘wherever no instance of the subject (τῶν τοῦ ὑποκειμέμνου) can be found of which the other term cannot be asserted.’ (PrA., A, 24b27-29) In this predication, the subject is included in another as in a whole (ἐν ὃλῳ εἶναι) and the predicate is predicated of all of the subject (κατὰ παντὸς κατηγορεῖσθαι). (PrA., A, 24b26-27) Attach another discussion we had about ἐν ὃλῳ here. 10) Quantity of predication A predication, truly stated, has a quantity, which is the number of objects under the name of the subject of which the predicate is predicated. The quantity of subject can be stated in four ways: a. Indefinite: when the predicate belongs or does not belong to the subject without any mark to show to haw many of the particulars under the name of the subject it does or does not belong. E.g. ‘Man is white’; ‘Man is not white.’ (PrA., A, 24a20; OI., I, 7, 17b8-12) b. Universal quantity: When the predicate belongs to all or none of the subject. E.g. ‘Every man is animal’; ‘No man is animal.’ (PrA., A, 24a18-19; OI., I, 7, 17b5-6) The contrary of a predication of a universal quality is a predication of a universal quality. E.g. the contrary of ‘Every man is white’ is ‘No man is white.’ (OI., I, 7, 17b20-23) c. Particular quantity: When the predicate belongs (or does not belong) to some of the subject. E.g. ‘Some men are white’; ‘Some men are not white.’ (PrA., A, 24a19-20) d. Single quantity: when the subject is a proper name of only one object. E.g. ‘Socrates is white’; ‘Socrates is not white.’ The contrary of this predication is of a single quantity: ‘Socrates is not white.’ (OI., I, 7, 17b38-18a4) 11) Convertibility of predication. Some predications are convertible, that is, it is possible to change the place of subject and predicate in a true proposition so that the converted proposition remains true. This is supposed to mean that given the truth of a predication, the truth of the converted predication is inferable. The convert form of a predication depends on its quantity. a. Indefinite quantity: This predication has no strictly true convert because its quantity is not stated. b. Universal quantity: It can be converted in two ways: i) A negative universal can be converted to a negative universal in which the terms are changed. E.g. ‘No pleasure is good’ can be converted to ‘No good is pleasure.’ (PrA., A, 2, 25a5-8 and a14-19) ii) An affirmative universal can be converted to an affirmative particular in which the terms are changed. E.g. ‘Every pleasure is good’ can be converted to ‘Some good is pleasure.’ (PrA., A, 2, 25a7-9) c. Particular quantity: If it is negative, it cannot be converted but if it is affirmative, it can be converted to an affirmative predication with particular quantity. E.g. ‘Some pleasure is good’ can be converted to ‘Some good is pleasure.’ (PrA., A, 2, 25a10-13 and a20-24) d. Single quantity: It cannot be converted. 12) Characteristics of relations between subject and predicate 1. A predicate is of a wider range than its subject. It is based on this fact that Aristotle: a) Prevents individuals to be predicate because there is nothing of which an individual be of a wider range. In other words, it is due to the fact that since an individual is only ‘one particular’ thing and, thus, cannot be of a wider extent than anything that Aristotle prevents them of being a predicate. Matthews, however, thinks we cannot use Socrates, a substance and an individual, in the place of predicate and say it of Socrates because ‘Socrates does not classify Socrates: it names him.’ b) Prevents differentia, species and things under species to be predicated of genus. (To., Z, 6, 144a27-) c) Prevents the species and the things under it to be predicated of the differentia. (To., Z, 6, 144b1-4) d) Also about the effect because it is wider than its subject. (PsA., B, 17, 99a) e) Each attribute is wider than every individual it is predicated on, though several attributes, collectively considered, might not be wider but exactly the substance of a thing. (PsA., B, 13, 96a32-b1) 2. The predicate of a predicate of a subject will be predicated of the subject too: ‘whenever one thing is predicated of another as of a subject, all things said of what is predicated will be said of the subject too.’ (Cat., 3, 1b10-15) In fact, it is due to its predication of the subject that it is predicated of its predicate. (Cat., 5, 2a36-b1) Moreover, what is not predicated of the predicate of a subject cannot be predicated of it as well. (PrA., A, 27, 43b22-27) Thus, what, for example, is not predicated of animal, cannot be predicated of man. 3. The predicate of a subject can be predicated of its predicates as well. (Cat., 5, 3a1-6) For example, you call the individual man grammatical and, thence, you call both a man and an animal grammatical. Nonetheless, the predicate of a subject belongs to it more properly than to its higher predicates. (PrA., A, 27, 43a27-32) 4. It is only the subject that can be distributed and not the predicate. (PrA., A, 27, 43b16-22; OI, I, 7, 17b12-16) Therefore, we can say e.g. ‘Every man is animal’ but we cannot say ‘Every man is every animal.’ 5. It is the reason of the relation between subjects and predicates, that is the reason of predication, which is the subject of inquiry. (Met., Z, 1041a20-24) In other words, since it is a meaningless inquiry to ask why a thing is itself (Met., Z, 1041a14-15), the only remaining meaningful inquiry is to ask why something is something else, i.e. to ask about the reason of predication. 6. A subject cannot categorize its predicate in the same category in which it is categorized by it. If e.g. A is a quality of B, B cannot be a quality of A. Therefore, there is no reciprocation in the same category. (PsA., A, 22, 83a36-39) 13) Characteristics of series of predications 1. A series of secondary accidental predication cannot go ad infinitum for not even more than two terms can be comnbined. For an accident is not an accident of an accident, unless it be because both are accidents of the same subject. (Met., Γ, 1007b1-4) 2. Infinite series cannot be traversed in thought. (PsA., A, 22, 83b6-7) 3. The predications of genera on each other must be ended and cannot go to infinity because otherwise not only substances would not be definable but also a genus would be equal to one of its own species. (PsA., A, 22, 83b7-10) Therefore, a series of predication of genera on each other must be limited on both sides. There must be an upward limit in general categories as well as a downward limit in individual because they cannot be predicated of others. Whatever lies between these limits can both be predicated of others and others be predicated of them. (PrA., A, 27, 43a36-43) 4. The order of predicates matters: it makes a difference whether the series be ABC or BAC. (PsA., B, 13, 96b25-32) . (shrink)

What happens to the inner light of consciousness with the death of the individual body and brain? Reductive materialism assumes it simply fades to black. Others think of consciousness as indicating a continuation of self, a transformation, an awakening or even alternatives based on the quality of life experience. In this issue, speculation drawn from theoretic research are presented. -/- Table of Contents Epigraph: From “The Immortal”, Jorge Luis Borges iii Editor’s Introduction: I Killed a Squirrel the Other Day, Gregory (...) M. Nixon iv-xi Research Essays The Tilde Fallacy and Reincarnation: Variations on a "Skeptical" Argument Teed Rockwell 862-881 Death, Consciousness, and Phenomenology, Steve Bindeman 882-899 The Idealist View of Consciousness After Death, Bernardo Kastrup 900-909 Consciousness, a Cosmic Phenomenon—A Hypothesis, Eva Déli 910-930 The Theory of a Natural Afterlife: A Newfound, Real Possibility for What Awaits Us at Death, Bryon K. Ehlmann 931-950 Near-Death Cases Desegregating Non-Locality/Disembodiment via Quantum Mediated Consciousness: An Extended Version of the Cell-Soul Pathway, Contzen Pereira & J Shashi Kiran Reddy 951-968 On the Possible Existence of Quantum Consciousness After Brain Death, Massimo Pregnolato & Alfredo Pereira Jr. 969-991 Science and Postmortem Survival, Edward F. Kelly 992-1011 Explorations ISS Theory: Cosmic Consciousness, Self, and Life Beyond Death in a Hyperdimensional Physics, Chris H. Hardy 1012-1035 Does the Consciousness End, Remain Awake, or Transform After Death? Radivoj Stankovich (with Micho Durdevich) 1036-1050 Big Bang Spirituality, Life, and Death, Ken Bausch 1051-1063 Death, Consciousness and the Quantum Paradigm, Ronald Peter Glasberg 1064-1077 Living With Limits: The Continuum of Consciousness, Donald Brackett 1078-1098 Mysticism, Consciousness, Death, Mike Sosteric 1099-1118 What Dies? Eternalism and the Afterlife in William James, Jonathan Bricklin 1119-1140 Theories of Consciousness and Death: Does Consciousness End, Continue, Awaken, or Transform When the Body Dies? Roger Cook 1141-1153 It’s the Other Way Around: Matter is a Form of Consciousness and Death is the End of the Illusion of Life in the World, James P. Kowall & Pradeep B. Deshpande 1154-1208 Statements A Feminine Vision for the World Consciousness, & a New Outrageous Ontology, Lorna Green 1209-1217 The Mask of Eternity: The Quest for Immortality and the Afterlife, Iona Miller 1218-1228 Are We Really “such stuff as dreams are made on”? Chris Nunn 1229-1225 Is the Afterlife a Non-Question? (Let's Hope Not), Deepak Chopra 1226-1230 Life After Death? An Improbable Essay, Stuart Kauffman 1231-1236. (shrink)

It is intuitive to think that fiction is more imaginative or creative than nonfiction, and that creating or engaging with fiction involves the imagination in ways creating or engaging with nonfiction doesn't. However, philosophers debate whether imagination has a special connection to fiction. This chapter will argue that fiction is intimately connected to creativity and that creativity's connection to imagination produces the impression that fiction and imagination also share an intimate connection. The key ingredient of fiction that connects fiction to (...) creativity is fabrication. The chapter will also discuss how an author can produce fiction that is creative in content and form, how readers and critics use imagination in a creative manner when engaging with works, and how metaphysical debates about fiction affect the kind of creativity we may attribute to authors. (shrink)

Through modern driver assistant systems, algorithmic decisions already have a significant impact on the behavior of vehicles in everyday traffic. This will become even more prominent in the near future considering the development of autonomous driving functionality. The need to consider ethical principles in the design of such systems is generally acknowledged. However, scope, principles and strategies for their implementations are not yet clear. Most of the current discussions concentrate on situations of unavoidable crashes in which the life of human (...) beings is existentially affected. In this paper, we argue that ethical considerations should be mandatory for any algorithmic decision of autonomous vehicles, instead of a limitation to hazard situations. Such an ethically aligned behavior is relevant because autonomous vehicles, like any other traffic participants, operate in a shared public space, where every behavioral decision impacts the operational possibilities of others. These possibilities concern the fulfillment of a road-user’s safety, utility and comfort needs. We propose that, to operate ethically in such space, an autonomous vehicle will have to take its behavior decisions according to a just distribution of operational possibilities among all traffic participants. Using an application on a partially-autonomous prototype vehicle, we describe how to apply and implement concepts of distributive justice to the driving environment and demonstrate the impact on its behavior in comparison to an advanced but egoistic decision maker. (shrink)

Science communication via testimony requires a certain level of trust. But in the context of ideologically-entangled scientific issues, trust is in short supply—particularly when the issues are politically ‘entangled’. In such cases, cultural values are better predictors than scientific literacy for whether agents trust the publicly-directed claims of the scientific community. In this paper, we argue that a common way of thinking about scientific literacy—as knowledge of particular scientific facts or concepts—ought to give way to a second-order understanding of science (...) as a process as a more important notion for the public’s trust of science. (shrink)

Abstract: A corn crop typically refers to a large-scale cultivation of corn (also known as maize) for commercial purposes such as food production, animal feed, and industrial uses. Corn is one of the most widely grown crops in the world, and it is a major staple food for many cultures. Corn crops are grown in various regions of the world with different climates, soil types, and farming practices. In the United States, for example, the Midwest is known as the "Corn (...) Belt" due to its extensive corn production. Corn crops can be grown using a variety of methods, including conventional tillage, no-till farming, and the use of genetically modified crops. Due to its importance, there is a need for discovering the corn diseases and treating them. The aim of this study is to propose a deep learning model for the classification of corn leaf diseases based on Convolutional Neural Network. A model for classifying maize diseases was developed using a dataset for classifying Corn diseases that contains 4 classes of disease. The dataset was collected from Keggel website. The proposed model was trained, validated, and tested. The F1-score (99.83%), Recall (99.83%), precision (99.83%), Accuracy (99.83%). (shrink)

Abstract: Rice is one of the most important staple crops in the world and serves as a staple food for more than half of the global population. It is a critical source of nutrition, providing carbohydrates, vitamins, and minerals to millions of people, particularly in Asia and Africa. This paper presents a study on using deep learning for the classification of different types of rice. The study focuses on five specific types of rice: Arborio, Basmati, Ipsala, Jasmine, and Karacadag. A (...) dataset of 75,000 images was collected and annotated, consisting of 15,000 images for each of the five types of rice. The deep learning system uses convolutional neural networks (CNNs) to classify images of rice grains based on their physical characteristics. The performance of the deep learning system was evaluated using metrics such as accuracy, precision, recall, and F1-score. The results show that the proposed deep learning system was able to achieve high accuracy in classifying the different types of rice, outperforming traditional image processing techniques. This study provides valuable insights into the potential of deep learning for classifying different types of rice and can be useful for applications such as quality control in rice processing industries and research in crop science. The large size of the dataset, 15,000 images for each type of rice, helped the deep learning system to learn the features of each type of rice, and increase the performance of the classifier. The attained overall accuracy of the proposed model (99.96%), Precision (99.96%), Recall (99.96%) and F1-score (99.96%). Thus, the proposed model proved that it leaned the five categories of rice and it can generalize these categories and it is effective. (shrink)

Expressivists traditionally explain normative supervenience by saying it is a conceptual truth. I argue against this tradition in two steps. First, I show the modal claim that stands in need of explanation has been stated imprecisely. Classic arguments in metaethics for normative supervenience and those that rely on it as a premise presuppose a constraint on the supervenience base that is rarely (if ever) made explicit: the repeatability of the non-normative properties on which the normative supervenes. Non-normative properties are repeatable (...) when it is possible for numerically distinct individuals to share them. Second, I show if the modal truth that stands in need of explanation entails that there are individuals exactly alike in repeatable non-normative respects that cannot normatively differ, then standard expressivist accounts of normative supervenience as a conceptual truth are unsuccessful. Expressivist metasemantics for normative terms, together with constitutive facts about the non-cognitive attitudes essentially involved in normative thought, strongly suggest that repeatable supervenience could not be a conceptual truth. I argue, finally, that although repeatable supervenience bears the marks of a conceptual truth, expressivists should be content to treat it as an ordinary normative truth, and to explain it the same way they explain other normative truths. (shrink)

At the heart of Levinas’s work is the apparently simple idea that through the encounter with another person, we are forced to give up our self-concern and take heed of the ethical relation between us. But, while simple on the surface, when one tries to characterize it in more detail, it can be hard to fit together the various ways in which Levinas talks about this relation and to identify precisely what he took its normative structure to be, as this (...) is described in a number of apparently different ways, that are not obviously compatible or equivalent, such as “command,” “call,” “summons,” “demand,” and so on. In this chapter, we intend to focus on these different characterizations and show what makes them different while also endeavoring to find a way in which Levinas’s conception may nonetheless be fitted together into a coherent account of the face-to-face encounter that is at the heart of his ethics. We will begin by considering the different normative terms used to characterize the encounter in that text and show how they are conceptually distinct from one another; we will then offer a way to read Levinas’s position to nonetheless show how these different normative relations can be fitted together into a stable position. (shrink)

Smart Farming Technologies raise ethical issues associated with the increased corporatization and industrialization of the agricultural sector. We explore the concept of biomimicry to conceptualize smart farming technologies as ecological innovations which are embedded in and in accordance with the natural environment. Such a biomimetic approach of smart farming technologies takes advantage of its potential to mitigate climate change, while at the same time avoiding the ethical issues related to the industrialization of the agricultural sector. We explore six principles of (...) a natural concept of biomimicry and apply these principles in the context of smart farming technologies. (shrink)

P.F. Strawson’s compatibilism has had considerable influence. However, as Watson has argued in “Responsibility and the Limits of Evil”, his view appears to have a disturbing consequence: extreme evil exempts an agent from moral responsibility. This is a reductio of the view. Moreover, in some cases our emotional reaction to an evildoer’s history clashes with our emotional expressions of blame. Anyone’s actions can be explained by his or her history, however, and thereby can conflict with our present blame. Additionally, we (...) too might have been evil if our history had been like the unlucky evildoer’s. Thus, our emotional responses to the evildoer compromise our standing to blame them. Since Strawson’s view demarcates moral responsibility by moral emotional responses, his view appears to be self-defeating. In this paper, I defend the Strawsonian view from the reductio and self-defeat problems. I argue that two emotions, disgust and elevation, can be moral reactive attitudes in Strawson’s sense. First, moral disgust expresses neither blame nor exemption from responsibility. Instead, moral disgust presupposes blameworthiness but is instead a distinct response to the extreme wrongdoer. Secondly, moral disgust involves self-directed attitudes that explain away our apparent lack of standing to blame the evil agent. The structure of disgust as a reactive attitude is mirrored along the positive dimension by the emotion that Haidt has called “elevation”, a feeling of moral inspiration. I conclude by defending my view from objections about the moral appropriateness of disgust. (shrink)

يهدف الكتاب إلى دراسة أحكام الاوراق التجارية وفق قانون المعاملات التجارية الاتحادي الإماراتي.

What constitutes a “good” life—not necessarily a morally good life, but a life that is good for the person who lived it? In response to this question of “well-being," philosophers have offered three significant answers: A good life is one in which a person can satisfy their desires (“Desire-Satisfaction” or “Preferentism”), one that includes certain good features (“Objectivism”), or one in which pleasurable states dominate or outweigh painful ones (“Hedonism”). To adjudicate among these competing theories, moral philosophers traditionally gather data (...) from thought experiments and intuition. In this chapter, we supplement that traditional approach with a pair of experimental studies that examine whether the three theories reflect laypeople’s intuitions about well-being. The empirical studies yield two primary findings. First, they provide evidence for lay "well-being pluralism": laypeople treat desire satisfaction, positive objective conditions, and happiness as all constitutive of well-being. Second, the studies provide evidence of "hedonic dominance": laypeople evaluate an individual’s happiness as more important to an individual’s overall well-being than desire satisfaction or objective conditions. (shrink)

Objective correlates—behavioral, functional, and neural—provide essential tools for the scientific study of consciousness. But reliance on these correlates should not lead to the ‘fallacy of misplaced objectivity’: the assumption that only objective properties should and can be accounted for objectively through science. Instead, what needs to be explained scientifically is what experience is intrinsically— its subjective properties—not just what we can do with it extrinsically. And it must be explained; otherwise the way experience feels would turn out to be magical (...) rather than physical. We argue that it is possible to account for subjective properties objectively once we move beyond cognitive functions and realize what experience is and how it is structured. Drawing on integrated information theory, we show how an objective science of the subjective can account, in strictly physical terms, for both the essential properties of every experience and the specific properties that make particular experiences feel the way they do. (shrink)

This article examines whether Willard Van Orman Quine’s indeterminacy thesis can be sustained. The argument from above, Quine argues, can derive indeterminacy as its conclusion. I will argue that the indeterminacy claim cannot be sustained. I further argue that Quine changed the formulation of the underdetermination of theory by evidence (UTE) argument from what Duhem said to the Quine/Pierce meaning verification view, in order use the new formulation of UTE to imply indeterminacy. Given all that, we see when we apply (...) the old UTE argument we only arrive at underdetermination of theory by evidence, and that applies to all sciences, philosophy and knowledge, including philosophy of language. (shrink)

Tradução para o português do artigo "Berkeley and the pyrrhonism" publicado originalmente em The Review of Metaphysics 5 (1951); reimpresso em Burnyeat, Myles (org.) The Skeptical Tradition. University of California Press, 1983, p. 377-396 e em Richard A. Watson and James E. Force (Editors). The high road to Pyrrhonism, p. 297-318.

The 2017 story of Charlie Gard is revisited. Upon the British High Court’s ruling in favor of the physicians that the infant should be allowed to die without the experimental treatment, the view of the public as well as the opinions of bioethicists and Catholic bishops are divided, interestingly along with a cultural line. American bioethicists and Catholic bishops tend to believe that the parents should have the final say while British/European bioethicists and Catholic bishops in general side with the (...) court’s decision. The paper explores the place of culture in bioethical reasoning between the UK/Europe and the US while claiming that cultural differences are more important than geopolitical or religious differences to understand the bioethical positions of a group. In addition, the authors introduce a decision-making program for handicapped neonates which is developed by the American Jesuit Bioethicist, Richard McCormick, and modified further by the contemporary American Jesuit Bioethicist, Peter A. Clark, in an attempt to see if the program’s normatizing categories can contribute to the culture-laden ethical discussions on Charlie’s case. However, it is admitted that the McCormick-Clark device is borne out of the American and Catholic theological context. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to examine income tax evasion in Jordan and set forth various cures for this problem.

Termination in international contracts is considered a harsh sanction that harms international trade for each breach of contract or its provisions. The interest of international trade is fulfilled in maintaining and completing performance of contract, even if with a breach rectifiable by remedy. The termination destroys the contract and results in returning goods after their dispatch in addition to the accompanying new freight and insurance expenses and administrative and health procedures necessary for the entry and exit of goods and to (...) pay then refund the price. Moreover, the goods are exposed again to damage and perishing risks. Furthermore, the international sale contract is inherently associated with other international contracts such as goods transport contract, insurance contract and documentary credit through which the price is paid. If the sale contract is terminated, its effect will apply to all other associated contracts, if not performed, which produces many issues and hardships. (shrink)