A model of brain function is presented that is consistently based on the biological principle of equilibrium. The neuronal modules of the cerebral cortex are proposed as units in which equilibrium between incoming signals and the synaptic structure is determined or established. Because of the electromagnetic activity of the brain, the electromagnetic properties of thecells are brought into focus. Due to the synaptic changes of the modules -essentially during sleep -an electromagnetic resting balance between the modules is established. Incoming signals (...) during the day, disturb the electromagnetic resting equilibrium and are detected and understood by this. The connecting nodes within the neuronal network are given by the equilibrium modules. Incoming information is represented in the form of the specific pathway of the network, while recognized information is represented by the equilibrium states within the modules. The paper leads to an understanding of information storage and processing in the brain. It even provides a hypothesis for understanding the emergence of the "self". Finally, the consideration of electromagnetic wave properties of neurons opens up a biophysical starting point to understanding conscious perceptions. In neuroscience, we lack a unifying theory of the brain. The reason for this may be an important detail –a missing link –that we do not yet see. Following the "track of biological equilibrium" in this paper leads to the hypothesis that the electromagnetic properties of the neurons are potential candidates to fill that gap. A hypothesis is developed describing their physiological significance in the processing of neurological information. (shrink)

Russians and Westerners access, process and communicate information in different ways. Whilst Westerners favour detailed analysis of subject matter, Russians tend to focus on certain components that are, in their view, significant. This disparity makes it difficult to achieve constructive dialogues between Western and Russian stakeholders contributing to cross-cultural communication problems. The author claims that the difference in the ways Russians and Westerners negotiate information is a significant cultural difference between Russia and West rather than an irritating (and in principle (...) amenable) lack of analytical skills on the Russian partners’ part. Understanding the reasons behind the Russian-specific approaches to dealing with information would be a positive step towards a more effective cross-cultural communication, important in business situations and essential in diplomacy. (shrink)

Neuroenhancement involves the use of neurotechnologies to improve cognitive, affective or behavioural functioning, where these are not judged to be clinically impaired. Questions about enhancement have become one of the key topics of neuroethics over the past decade. The current study draws on in-depth public engagement activities in ten European countries giving a bottom-up perspective on the ethics and desirability of enhancement. This informed the design of an online contrastive vignette experiment that was administered to representative samples of 1000 respondents (...) in the ten countries and the United States. The experiment investigated how the gender of the protagonist, his or her level of performance, the efficacy of the enhancer and the mode of enhancement affected support for neuroenhancement in both educational and employment contexts. Of these, higher efficacy and lower performance were found to increase willingness to support enhancement. A series of commonly articulated claims about the individual and societal dimensions of neuroenhancement were derived from the public engagement activities. Underlying these claims, multivariate analysis identified two social values. The Societal/protective highlights counter normative consequences and opposes the use enhancers. The Individual/proactionary highlights opportunities and supports use. For most respondents these values are not mutually exclusive. This suggests that for many neuroenhancement is viewed simultaneously as a source of both promise and concern. (shrink)

Neuroenhancement involves the use of neurotechnologies to improve cognitive, affective or behavioural functioning, where these are not judged to be clinically impaired. Questions about enhancement have become one of the key topics of neuroethics over the past decade. The current study draws on in-depth public engagement activities in ten European countries giving a bottom-up perspective on the ethics and desirability of enhancement. This informed the design of an online contrastive vignette experiment that was administered to representative samples of 1000 respondents (...) in the ten countries and the United States. The experiment investigated how the gender of the protagonist, his or her level of performance, the efficacy of the enhancer and the mode of enhancement affected support for neuroenhancement in both educational and employment contexts. Of these, higher efficacy and lower performance were found to increase willingness to support enhancement. A series of commonly articulated claims about the individual and societal dimensions of neuroenhancement were derived from the public engagement activities. Underlying these claims, multivariate analysis identified two social values. The Societal/Protective highlights counter normative consequences and opposes the use enhancers. The Individual/Proactionary highlights opportunities and supports use. For most respondents these values are not mutually exclusive. This suggests that for many neuroenhancement is viewed simultaneously as a source of both promise and concern. (shrink)

As substance dualism fell out of favor, philosophers became increasingly interested in making sense of mind in purely physicalist terms. Along the way, the physicalist project has hit a few snags. Perhaps the most popular challenge was presented by Frank Jackson’s Mary’s Room thought experiment, wherein Mary, a brilliant color scientist, comes to know all of the physical facts about color whilst confined to a black-and-white room. Once released, Mary is presented with a ripe tomato. The intuition is that (...) Mary, upon seeing a colored object for the first time, has learned something new, but what she has learned apparently cannot be accounted for by physicalism, thereby leaving an explanatory gap between mind and matter. There are those, like Joseph Levine, who believe the explanatory gap to be a necessary consequence of any physicalist theory of mind. I disagree, and in this dissertation, I aim to show that at least one physicalist theory of mind can close the gap. However, it requires embracing a theory that physicalists are hesitant to embrace: panpsychism. (shrink)

One theoretical charge (of Optimality Theory in its early conception) must have been to retain that sense of qualitative particularity as affecting as constraining theory relevant to a proscribed field when clearly a motivation was to divine in circumscriptions operational consequences conceived on a deferred abstractive level. An attraction of the theory's embodying results of constraint interactions as responsive to theory-internal qualitative implementation, as being in fact supplementarily transparent to co-ordinations of variously language specific implementations, qualitative identifications, was apparent naturalistic (...) coordination of defined features taken here—in OT—at one fell-swoop. Differently put, the uses of analyses of the relevant types of spaces (‘primitive from the viewpoint of linguistic theories’) will (latterly) involve a period of time-stretch or compression over a previously normal (I take it) process of embeddings in a new theorised and recursively enacted invocation/re-invocation of base as digestively present in results of corrected theories. Or as Prince and Smolensky have it -/- 'What we have done, in essence, is to replace the iterative procedure (act/evaluate, act/evaluate, . . . ) with a recursive scheme: collect the results of all possible actions, then sort recursively.' OT, 16. (shrink)

In the middle of the last century, it was common to explain the notion of necessity in linguistic terms. A necessary truth, it was said, is a sentence whose truth is guaranteed by linguistic rules. Quine famously argued that, on this view, de re modal claims do not make sense. “Porcupettes are porcupines” is necessarily true, but it would be a mistake to say of a particular porcupette that it is necessarily a porcupine, or that it is possibly purple. Linguistic (...) theories of necessity fell out of favour with the publication of Kripke’s Naming and Necessity, and Quine’s arguments were put aside. In her recent book, Norms and Necessity, Amie Thomasson presents her modal normativism, which is an updated version of the mid-century theories just described. Quine’s arguments are thus relevant once again. We recapitulate Quine’s central argument, in the context of modal normativism. We then criticise Amie Thomasson’s discussion of de re modality. We finish by briefly presenting an alternative account of de re modal statements, which is compatible with modal normativism. (shrink)

Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji fell as a martyr to the freedom of consciousness and belief, under the orders of Aurangzeb, a ruler, who with his puritanical views had an attitude of narrow exclusiveness in the matters of religion. Sikhism, of which Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji was the Ninth Apostle, has all through upheld the spiritual approach in matters of faith, and its message has been free from the rancour of any kind against any set of beliefs. The great sacrifice (...) made by Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji to vindicate the right of the people to profess and practise the faith, meant, in fact, the assertion of the principle of justice for which the ruling Mughal rulers of the day had very scant regard. For this reason, the life, career, and teachings of Guru Tegh Bahadur Sahib are of immense significance even in contemporary times, when the forces of hate, fanaticism, and tyranny are still very dominant and assertive. -/- Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji was a multifaceted genius. He was not only a martyr and a prophet but was also a great poet. In addition to his 57 Salokas, 59 of his other compositions (Sabads), written in 15 Raagas (measures) are included in Sri Guru Granth Sahib. His hymns deal with the pathos of the human predicament. Though he articulates on the unreality of human passions and possessions, yet his hymns have been a source of spiritual succour and solace to millions of people in their hours of personal grief and affliction. He brightens our awareness of the ephemerality of the material phenomena, however instead of creating a sense of despair and depression, elevates the human mind and imbues it with the hope which permeates the cosmos. He fortifies our faith in human nature and makes it possible for us to rise above the irritants of the immediate problems of existence and keep our attention focussed on the everlasting and eternal. (shrink)

The interreligious dialogue is not a new theme in the history of Christianity, the possibility of its realization being analyzed from the early centuries. Nowadays, the way that other religions are viewed has changed essentially, the religious, political, economic and social realities, being completely different than in the beginning. However, a correct handling of interreligious dialogue cannot disregard the past, more than that, the ideas from the works of the Holy Fathers, church writers, theologians and old thinkers remain valid and (...) are used as themes in the current discussions of the interreligious dialog. Among them, an important place takes Cantemir, the Prince of Moldavia, who lived for a long time in Constantinople. His works, which deals with the history of the Ottoman Empire and the Islamic doctrine, have their basis in the personal experience and in the depth knowledge of the main Islamic sources that helped him to give to posterity the representative works for the knowledge of the Muslim religion and relations between Christianity and Islam during the development and decay of the Ottoman Empire. The way he presents the relation between Christianity and Islam, approaches him to the other Christian writers of his time which are addressing the same topic, highlighting the sadness of an era in which the great Christian empire fell under Ottoman rule and also the hopes of the Orthodox worldwide Christians to release the Christianity, having central the idea of approaching the apocalyptic time when Christianity will triumph. (shrink)

Negative subjective reports such as “I didn’t see the stimulus” can be interpreted as indicating either that the subject didn’t see the stimulus, or as indicating that, while the subject did see the stimulus, the strength of sensory signals associated with the stimulus fell below a conservative criterion for answering “seen”. Determining which of these two interpretations is correct is the criterion problem. I present two ways in which researchers can solve this problem. But there’s more. What I call (...) the “new criterion problem” consists in determining whether criteria effects reflect perceptual changes, or changes in response strategy. Through case studies, I argue that this new version of the problem can be solved as well, although there is currently no systematic way to solve it. I conclude that criterion problems do not constitute good reasons for skepticism about the scientific study of consciousness. (shrink)

This monographic chapter explains how expected utility (EU) theory arose in von Neumann and Morgenstern, how it was called into question by Allais and others, and how it gave way to non-EU theories, at least among the specialized quarters of decion theory. I organize the narrative around the idea that the successive theoretical moves amounted to resolving Duhem-Quine underdetermination problems, so they can be assessed in terms of the philosophical recommendations made to overcome these problems. I actually follow Duhem's recommendation, (...) which was essentially to rely on the passing of time to make many experiments and arguments available, and evebntually strike a balance between competing theories on the basis of this improved knowledge. Although Duhem's solution seems disappointingly vague, relying as it does on "bon sens" to bring an end to the temporal process, I do not think there is any better one in the philosophical literature, and I apply it here for what it is worth. In this perspective, EU theorists were justified in resisting the first attempts at refuting their theory, including Allais's in the 50s, but they would have lacked "bon sens" in not acknowledging their defeat in the 80s, after the long process of pros and cons had sufficiently matured. This primary Duhemian theme is actually combined with a secondary theme - normativity. I suggest that EU theory was normative at its very beginning and has remained so all along, and I express dissatisfaction with the orthodox view that it could be treated as a straightforward descriptive theory for purposes of prediction and scientific test. This view is usually accompanied with a faulty historical reconstruction, according to which EU theorists initially formulated the VNM axioms descriptively and retreated to a normative construal once they fell threatened by empirical refutation. From my historical study, things did not evolve in this way, and the theory was both proposed and rebutted on the basis of normative arguments already in the 1950s. The ensuing, major problem was to make choice experiments compatible with this inherently normative feature of theory. Compability was obtained in some experiments, but implicitly and somewhat confusingly, for instance by excluding overtly incoherent subjects or by creating strong incentives for the subjects to reflect on the questions and provide answers they would be able to defend. I also claim that Allais had an intuition of how to combine testability and normativity, unlike most later experimenters, and that it would have been more fruitful to work from his intuition than to make choice experiments of the naively empirical style that flourished after him. In sum, it can be said that the underdetermination process accompanying EUT was resolved in a Duhemian way, but this was not without major inefficiencies. To embody explicit rationality considerations into experimental schemes right from the beginning would have limited the scope of empirical research, avoided wasting resources to get only minor findings, and speeded up the Duhemian process of groping towards a choice among competing theories. (shrink)

Despite its central role in our cognitive lives, rational belief revision has received relatively little attention from epistemologists. This dissertation begins to fill that absence. In particular, we explore the phenomenon of defeasible epistemic justification, i.e., justification that can be lost as well as gained by epistemic agents. We begin by considering extant theories of defeat, according to which defeaters are whatever cause a loss of justification or things that somehow neutralize one's reasons for belief. Both of these theories are (...) both extensionally and explanatorily inadequate and, so, are rejected. We proceed to develop a novel theory of defeat according to which defeaters are reasons against belief. According to this theory, the dynamics of justification are explained by the competition between reasons for and reasons against belief. We find that this theory not only handles the counter-examples that felled the previous theories but also does a fair job in explaining the various aspects of the phenomenon of defeat. Furthermore, this theory accomplishes this without positing any novel entities or mechanisms; according to this theory, defeaters are epistemic reasons against belief, the mirror image of our epistemic reasons for belief, rather than sui generis entities. (shrink)

This article investigates some of the constraining factors experienced by 16 school-going mothers in the Okalongo circuit, Namibia. This was a qualitative phenomenological study, conducted through in-depth individual interviews, focus group discussions, and reflective journals with 16 school-going mothers between the ages of 17 and 20, purposively selected from three different public rural schools. This qualitative, phenomenological study analyses, through feminist and intersectionality theory, the lived experiences of these young mothers as they encounter the traditional, patriarchal attitudes and practices of (...) the Ovambadja community because these girls fell pregnant before their formal, cultural initiation. The article documents, through the voices of the young women themselves, the numerous constraints they experienced and overcame in their determination to complete their schooling. The findings show that, aside from the deeply held destructive patriarchal beliefs that significantly constrain and harm the mother-learners, the Namibian Learners Pregnancy Policy, which is intended to protect and ensure pregnant learners and motherlearners complete their schooling, is not being properly or effectively implemented. The study recommends an increase in efforts at the national level in Namibia to raise awareness among members of parliament, school administrators and principals, and all policymakers to develop better monitoring systems that will improve policy implementation in schools. (shrink)

While many have argued that moral disagreement poses a challenge to moral knowledge, the precise nature of this challenge is controversial. Indeed, in the moral epistemology literature, there are many different versions of ‘the’ argument from moral disagreement to moral scepticism. This paper contributes to this vast literature on moral disagreement by arguing for two theses: 1. All (or nearly all) moral disagreement arguments share an underlying structure; and, 2. All moral disagreement arguments that satisfy this underlying structure cannot establish (...) moral scepticism because this underlying structure leads to a previously unrecognized reductio ad absurdum. In short, I argue that this reductio argument (very likely) refutes all versions of the moral disagreement to moral scepticism argument in one fell swoop. (shrink)

Over recent years there has been a growing movement pushing for the inclusion of Philosophy in schools.[1] As a subject, Philosophy is broad. It can be separated into many sub-disciplines such as Philosophy of Religion, Philosophy of Mind, Ethics, and Philosophy of Science, to name a few. These sub-disciplines reduce back to three broad pillars of Philosophy: Epistemology, Metaphysics, and Axiology. Regardless of where one’s philosophical interest sits, the essential skill set remains the same. This is the ability to reason. (...) Philosophers produce rationally convincing arguments and critically assess the arguments of others. In this fictional dialogue Socrates meets with Allison Fells, the Principal of Western Heights School, to discuss the inclusion of Philosophy in the school curriculum. Socrates has been running a successful Philosophy club at school and believes that students would benefit through the extension of the club into the regular school curriculum. Socrates argues that Philosophy equips students with the skill set needed to live the good life. (shrink)

The study aimed to analyze lexical items underpinned in the textbooks used in the current teaching of ESP and GE. Using content analysis, a systematic evaluation of texts to examine nuances to bridge the gap between quantitative and qualitative data. This was such of importance, however, difficult to study due to issues of interest like in the study, frequency of lexical items in ESP, and GE textbooks. Results found 13,713 lexical items in Hospitality Management, 17,561 in Criminology, 4576 in Tourism, (...) 7167 in Marine Engineering, and 512 in Information Technology. Furthermore, the overall percentage of ESP lexical items fell in Tier 2 (with multiple-meaning while the least was in Tier 3, specifically on context-specific vocabulary. It is the core of vocabulary learning to ensure English language teaching. It is its goal to help learners better understand language, allowing them to understand others as they want to express themselves as well. This applies not only in speaking but also in writing and reading. Wilkins (1972, p. 111-112) stated that without grammar very little understanding can be acquired and without vocabulary there can be no learning at all. Thus, even without good grammar, so long as you equipped with useful words and expression, one can still manage to communicate. Lewis (1993) argued that “lexis is the heart of language” and that it develops a better fluency and expression in English. He also added the significance to the learners of acquiring a more productive vocabulary knowledge, also, their eagerness to develop their own personal vocabulary strategies. Thus, a proposed bridge model program was recommended to highlight the study findings using the lexicons found from the different respective courses. (shrink)

Having agreed to review Tucson 2004, I am embarrassed to admit that I fell asleep eight times during the conference. This cannot have been entirely due to jet lag as I only fell asleep once in 1998, twice in 2000, and four times in 2002. It seems to be a geometric progression correlating with elapsed time. As this was the tenth anniversary conference several speakers indulged in nostalgic reminiscences, but I thought that readers of JCS might prefer a (...) less rose-tinted account which, among other things, might elucidate the dynamics of falling asleep at conferences. (shrink)

The reintroduction of Aristotle's Analytics to the Latin West—in particular, the reintroduction of the Posterior Analytics—forever altered the course of medieval epistemological discussions. Although the Analytics fell decidedly from grace in later centuries, the sophisticated account of human cognition developed in the Posterior Analytics appealed so strongly to thirteenth-century European scholars that it became one of the two central theories of knowledge advocated in the later Middle Ages. Robert Grosseteste's 'Commentarius in Posteriorum Analyticorum Libro', written in the 1220s, is (...) most likely the first complete Latin commentary on the Posterior Analytics. As the thirteenth century wore on, Aristotle’s account of human cognition was generally set in opposition to the Augustinian-influenced theory of divine illumination that was de rigueur in the early thirteenth century. Although common consensus holds that this pattern of opposition was set already in Grosseteste’s CPA, I argue that the story of the Posterior Analytics’s early reception is, in fact, quite different. In particular, I maintain that, rather than seeing himself as forced to choose between his earlier theory of divine illumination and the “new” Aristotelian epistemology, Grosseteste is perfectly content to blend and bring together the diverse elements of these systems and to present a consciously synthetic rather than adversarial picture of these differing accounts of human cognition. (shrink)

Since there is no really elaborated theory of the dialectic of nature, it is not only desirable but necessary to take a look at some of Hegel's original intuitions, which in many cases lost their distinctness in his later works, or fell victim to the exigencies of his system. Philosophy makes use not only of reasoning but also of intuition. In respect of the mass which offers persistent resistance to a notional solution, it is important to find a suitable (...) image for developing a first approximation to the understanding of the question. According to Hegel, the metaphors of circular and gyratory motion are well-suited for this. Here it is essential to clarify what we can gain by a structural interpretation of such ideas. I think that an attempt has to be made to bring out the contemporary relevance of the topic. Doing so is always a delicate matter, but it is a must if undertakings of the present kind are to be anything more than philological expositions of Hegel's philosophy, if they are to make a real contribution to reflection on the foundations of physics. I shall first give a brief review of the arguments put forward in the Encyclopedia; then I shall analyse Hegel's interpretation of circular and gyratory motion and discuss the possibility of bringing out the relevance of his ideas; finally, I shall draw certain conclusions in respect of the principles involved in comprehending the divisibility of matter, and in putting forward a philosophical interpretation of the theory of relativity. (shrink)

The approach of structuralism came to philosophy from social science. It was also in social science where, in 1950–1970s, in the form of the French structuralism, the approach gained its widest recognition. Since then, however, the approach fell out of favour in social science. Recently, structuralism is gaining currency in the philosophy of mathematics. After ascertaining that the two structuralisms indeed share a common core, the question stands whether general structuralism could not find its way back into social science. (...) The nature of the major objections raised against French structuralism – concerning its alleged ahistoricism, methodological holism and universalism – are reconsidered. While admittedly grounded as far as French structuralism is concerned, these objections do not affect general structuralism as such. The fate of French structuralism thus does not seem to preclude the return of general structuralism into social science, rather, it provides some hints where the difficulties may lie. (shrink)

The mythical bronze creature Talos (Greek: Τάλως) was worshiped initially as the god of light or the sun in the Hellenic Island of Crete. He is supposed to have lived in the peak Kouloukona of the Tallaia Mountains in the Gerontospelio cave. His relation towards bronze and fire and his continuous voyage circling the island of Crete most probably introduces the concept of the change of the four seasons. The sun was considered in the area of the South-East Mediterranean nations (...) as just judge, a guardian who monitors and judges from above all the actions of the commoners, a controller for the faithful application of laws in Crete [1]. Hesychios in his Lexicon notes that talos means sun and that the name Tallaios was initially attributed to Zeus [2]. The birth of the Olympian gods forged a new Pantheon and nomenclature forcing some of the old gods to fell into lower deities. This happened to Talos who soon became a mythical hero [1]. According to Apollodorus, the bronze creature was forged by the magnificent constructor Hephaestus as a gift to the mythical King Minoa to help him guard the island [3]. Although the verb “peritrohazo” (Greek: περιτροχαζω) was used, meaning a movement in a steady orbit (track), some depictions image him as a winged being. To protect the island, he was throwing rocks into unknown ships or in the case of a foreign landing he was burning with fire or with his flamed bronze body the intruders. He was holding copper plates with the laws of the island and his circle allowed him to pass all island sores three times daily [1,4-6]. Plato, speaks of him as a real person, suggesting he was the brother of King Rhadamanthys, thus a son of Zeus [5]. Talos may be considered as the token of the Cretan power, a symbol of technological development in the field of metalworking in prehistoric and Minoan times. An animated, programmed gigantic android to enforce its will. A primitive robot for basic actions having a power source, fire and ichor (Greek: ιχώρ) the sacred fluid in the vessels of the gods. The first manufactured being with his individual intelligence, a primary concept of artificial intelligence (AI) [7]. -/- Homer was the first to introduce the term automata (Greek: αυτόματα), to describe ingenious machines built by the supreme blacksmith god of invention and technology, God of metal and fire, Hephaestus, manufactured devices “acting of one’s own will” as the Hellenic word indicates [8]. Eons later, the humanoid automaton the “Automa cavaliere” (English: Automaton knight) appeared in the court of the nobleman and Duke of Milan Ludovico Maria Sforza. It was the year 1495, when Leonardo da Vinci presented his robotic knight, an innovative construction operated by a series of pulleys and cables, presenting though no individual mind. Although it was manufactured by a highly intelligent polymath, it could only be operated through an outer intelligence [9]. Advancements made during the Fourth Industrial Revolution allowed modern technology to manufacture intelligent machines to aid the field of invasive surgery. One of those most sophisticated devises is the da Vince Surgical Tower. -/- Launched in the setting of the 21st century, the DaVinci System is one of the most commonly employed tools/systems, which has prevailed in the field of robotic-assisted surgery [10]. One could claim that it practically reshaped the concept of surgery, providing doctors with immense capabilities, aiming towards the optimal post-operative outcome. Through visual augmentation, high resolution 3D video, enhanced precision and reduced complication rates [11] the DaVinci Si and the latest DaVinci Xi system have been implemented in a variety of surgeries, including but not limited to general, urologic, gynecologic, thoracic and even cardiac procedures; valve and coronary artery bypass graft operations [12,13]. Da Vinci is cleared globally for cardiosurgery and came in vogue to fulfill the dream of cardiac surgeons to operate in closet chest. It offers in patients the same benefits as those that open chest incision surgery procedures do [14]. -/- The more recent DaVinci Xi model was introduced to counteract commonly known drawbacks of the Si system, such as the inability to simultaneously manipulate the different abdominal quadrants [10]. It consists of four boom mounted robotic arms along with a mobile platform and a master console. The latter with the adaptable intraocular distance, the cushioned headrest, the modifiable arm bars and the flexible finger loops, is meticulously designed to meet the surgeon´s “demands” [12]. Every robotic arm has three degrees of freedom, which combined with the EndoWrist technology to imitate the delicate motion of the surgeon´s hand, acquires an extra seven degrees of freedom. Evidently, the combination of the user-friendly interface, the high-quality 3D intraoperative images, the multiple joints and sensors, as well as the surgeon himself, who can learn to handle the DaVinci Xi Surgical System in a relatively short period of time, has established the model in the surgical armamentarium, paving the way towards a continuously progressive future of minimally invasive and robotic surgery (Figure 1) [12]. -/- History testifies that the nomination of the AI surgical tower as da Vinci was wrongfully given to commemorate a majestic historical figure. It is clear that the mythical creature Talos which was fabricated by the ingenious god Hephaestus was the first true automaton in the line of AI origins. (shrink)

In this article I argue that contemporary critical theory needs the conceptual tools of social ontology in order to make its own ontological commitments explicit and strengthen its interdisciplinary approach. On the other hand, contemporary analytic social ontology needs critical theory in order to be able to focus on the role that social change, power, and historicity play in the constitution of social facts, and to see the shortcomings of an agential and intentionalist approach to social facts. My thesis is (...) strengthened by a historical reconstruction of the presence of two different approaches in the original program of the family of critical theory apparently most hostile to social ontology, (the Frankfurt School), namely Horkheimer’s program of a critical social philosophy which includes a social ontology, and Adorno’s negative attitude towards it, epitomized by the paradoxical notion of “ontology of the false state”. Adorno’s negative attitude was later inherited by Habermas and Honneth, whose work I show to be nevertheless deeply laden with ontological commitments. I then argue that, if one accepts the socio-ontological redefinition of critical theory, then the post-metaphysical paradigm adopted by Habermas should be revised and a certain conception of the linguistic turn in the understanding of social action abandoned. On the side of contemporary social ontology, the impulse coming from critical theory should allow us to distinguish between forms of ‘traditional social ontology’, that simply apply ready-made general metaphysical concepts to social reality, and a ‘critical social ontology’, oriented to socializing ontology and critically transforming metaphysical categories. (shrink)

This paper examines the views of Joseph-Márie Degérando and Wilhelm Gottlieb Tennemann about empiricism, and the scope and limits of experience as well as its relation to reason and its role in the attainment of true knowledge. While Degérando adopted the “philosophy of experience” and Tennemann advocated Kant’s critical philosophy, both authors blamed each other for the same mistake: if Degérando considered that, despite all appearances to the contrary, critical philosophy fell into empiricism, Tennemann judged that the philosophy of (...) experience was nothing but pure and simple empiricism. Degérando’s and Tennemann’s discrepancies involved not only a discussion of “nomenclatures” and of the role and limits of experience in knowing, but also an epistemological and ideological commitment to the pacification of the intellectual field in the aftermath of the French Revolution. In this line, Degérando’s alignment with the philosophy of experience attempted to distance himself from the politically dangerous sensualism attributed to the idéologie. But, unlike his countryman Charles Villers, he did not want to replace the sensualism by critical philosophy. His opposition to philosophical novelty (which he associated with political revolution) led him to praise only the “eclectic” spirit of Kant’s philosophy. (shrink)

This paper challenges the notion that the only way to progress to a post-capitalist society is through the wholesale destruction of the capitalist economic system. Instead, I argue that Craft —an existential state and praxis informed by the creation and maintenance of objects of utility—is uniquely situated to effectively reclaim these systems due to its its focus on materiality over abstraction and its unique position as a socially aware form of praxis. This argument focuses not on competition, but on hyper-abstraction (...) as the key driver of capitalist exploitation and its most glaring ethical flaw. Karl Marx's work on commodity fetishism is key to understanding this misguided form of abstraction which displaces commodities so far from their functional form that they feed into what Martin Heidegger termed gestell , or enframing. Postmodern attempts to destabilize capitalist influence in the fine arts, like the de-objectification of the 1960s described by Ursula Meyer, often fell victim to the same fetishistic mindset and simply increased the hold of capitalism within the arts. The enframing worldview that Heidegger warns us about is fed by hyper-abstraction, and while he directly offers up art as the remedy to this situation via poiēsis , key moments in his writings on the related notion of geschick support this new notion of Craft , rather than the fine arts, as a more capable system for the rehabilitation of modern society. (shrink)

Chinua Achebe, the contemporary Nigerian novelist, is considered as one of the prominent figures in African anti-colonial literature. What makes his works specific is the way he approaches the issues of colonization of Africa in an objective manner and through an innovative language which aims at providing a pathology; a pathological reading meant to draw on the pre-colonial and colonial history without any presumptions so as to present the readers with possible alternative African discourses in future. His first novel Things (...) Fall Apart can be taken as the best representative of such a penchant in Achebe. The present study seeks to approach Things Fall apart by reflecting on those discursive features which have provided the ground for constructing such a pathological reading and an alternative to the colonial discourse. To this end, some key terms introduced by Homi Bhabha and Mikhail Bakhtin such as ‘hybridity’, ‘otherness’ and ‘polyphony’, constitute the cornerstone of this study. Presumably, such an innovative reading of Achebe’s Things Fall Apart is to lead to a better understanding of his discourse and the efforts made by him to help the African readers figure out how to piece together what once fell apart; what they can rely on for building an independent future in the so-called postcolonial era. (shrink)

This study aimed to assess the effectiveness of remedial instruction in improving the numeracy skills of Grade 7 students at Malbug National High School during the school year 2023-2024. Adopting a quasi-experimental research design, the research focused on Grade 7 students at Malbug National High School, Cawayan East District, Masbate Province Division, Philippines, identified as non-numerates, employing pre-tests and post-tests as essential research tools. The independent variable was the remedial instruction in numeracy, while the dependent variable was students' numeracy performance (...) measured through pre-tests and post-tests. Before the intervention, the pre-test numeracy performance exhibited a varied distribution of students across different score ranges. A majority fell into the "Needs Major Support" category, emphasizing the necessity for targeted interventions. The post-test results, however, revealed a remarkable improvement, with 87.88% of initially non-numerate students achieving scores in the "Transforming" range. A thorough statistical examination validated a notable disparity in the scores obtained before and after the instructional intervention, substantiating the favorable influence of remedial instruction. The calculated t-value of 19.594, exceeding the critical t-value, led to rejecting the null hypothesis. In conclusion, the study emphasizes the need for tailored interventions based on the initial deficiency in numeracy skills. The post-test results underscored the success of remedial instruction in fostering substantial growth. The study recommends sustaining the remedial program, implementing periodic assessments, providing teacher training, involving parents in students' development, allocating adequate resources, and further research in other schools to strengthen findings. (shrink)

Deliberative politics should start from an adequate and differentiated image of our dialogical practices and their normative structures; the ideals that we eventually propose for deliberative politics should be tested against this background. In this article I will argue that equal respect, understood as respect a priori conferred on persons, is not and should not be counted as a constitutive normative ground of public discourse. Furthermore, requiring such respect, even if it might facilitate dialogue, could have negative effects and lead (...) to fallacious paths of thought –as seems to happen on matters of deep disagreement such as the Colorado Fundamentalist/Gay HIV issue I discuss in paragraph 6. I will put forward this argument from the standpoint of argumentation or discourse theory, drawing consequences for dialogical theories of politics. Basing my argument on a pluralistic notion of public discourse – understood as a mixed discourse of persuasion, information-seeking and negotiation – I will argue that respect is a dynamic, situational phenomenon, and that the norm of equal respect for persons is contextually contingent in political deliberation: equal respect should be considered as a potential outcome, a discursive achievement – which I understand as a second order consensus achieved dynamically on a provisional basis – rather than as an universal condition for dialogue. (shrink)

One of the singularities of Latin exegesis of Aristotle’s Sophistici elenchi, is that it arbitrarily brought together two families of fallacies, the «figure of speech» and the «accident», despite the fact that they are on either side of the divide between sophisms related to expression and sophisms independent of expression, a divide that lays at the heart of Aristotle’s taxonomy of sophistic arguments. What is behind this surprising identification? The talk is meant to show that it actually originates from a (...) curious mistake in Boethius’ translation of Aristotle’s Sophistici elenchi, 22, 178b 36-37 which radically transformed the nature of the argument at stake. While it was originally an example of the fallacies related to the «figure of speech», Boethius’ translation wrongly brings about two arguments instead of one, both related to the «accident». This explains why authors from the Latin tradition came to think that fallacies of «figure of speech» were linked to fallacies of «accident» closely enough to ask whether they actually fell outside expression, even though it does not at first glance appear that such a possibility was allowed or even suggested by Aristotle’s text. This odd question illustrates some of the remarkable features of the medieval archive and how some of its most peculiar problems came to be. It specifically allows us to reconstruct the mechanisms through which a minor disturbance in the letter of the text leads to a whole new way of organising its exegetical material. (shrink)

The word ‘extremist’ is often used pejoratively, but it’s not clear what, if anything, is wrong with extremism. My project is to give an account of moral extremism as a vice. It consists roughly in having moral convictions so intense that they cause a sort of moral tunnel vision, pushing salient competing considerations out of mind. We should be interested in moral extremism for several reasons: it’s consequential, it’s insidious – we don’t expect immorality to arise from excessive devotion to (...) morality – and it’s yet to attract much philosophical attention. I give several examples of moral extremism from history and explore their social-political implications. I also consider how we should evaluate people who miss the mark, being either too extreme in the service of a good cause or inconsistent with their righteous convictions. I compare John Brown and John Quincy Adams, who fell on either side of this spectrum, as examples. (shrink)

Nineteen eleven was a tumultuous year for Bertrand Russell, both personally and academically. The intense scholarly activity of 1911 that resulted in an impressive set of diverse academic publications and manuscripts was accompanied by a number of personal entanglements that were equally intense for Russell. Two of these relationships would prove to be especially strained. Late Wednesday afternoon, 18 October 1911, Russell met Ludwig Wittgenstein for the first time. As we know from the numerous accounts available on their relationship, the (...) exchanges between Russell and Wittgenstein were emotionally charged and not always cordial. However, in 1911 a second relationship flourished that would prove equally significant for Russell. The aristocratic English philosopher fell in love with Lady Ottoline Morrell. This relationship would eventually generate a correspondence in excess of 3,400 letters, telegrams and postcards. My paper is an assessment of the impact of Morrell on Russell's thought at the time he completed his classic Problems of Philosophy. In particular, I shall attempt to accomplish two tasks in this paper: -/- (a) In the first place, I shall show that Russell's 1911 view of philosophy appears to be contradictory, especially in regard to his conception of the Self. -/- (b) In the second place, I shall consider the nature and extent of Morrell's influence on Russell's 1911 view of philosophy and suggest that Lady Ottoline has more than a benign influence on Russell's 1911 understanding of the Self. -/- . (shrink)

The global pandemic caused by the spread of a novel coronavirus in early 2020 did more than transform the first one-and-a-quarter academic year that fell within its duration. It also transformed higher learning in its research and pedagogy. Like many misfortunes, COVID-19 has brought opportunity for growth and change. No doubt, there are many success stories of philosophers rising to the challenges of our time. In this contribution, I relate my own pandemic story, not as one of success, but (...) rather as a humble attempt to grapple with the question of the post-pandemic philosophy curriculum. What is the place of philosophy in the twenty-first-century university? What might "philosophy" mean in a post-pandemic context... (shrink)

The lack of knowledge—as Timothy Williamson (2000) famously maintains—is ignorance. Radical sceptical arguments, at least in the tradition of Descartes, threaten universal ignorance. They do so by attempting to establish that we lack any knowledge, even if we can retain other kinds of epistemic standings, like epistemically justified belief. If understanding is a species of knowledge, then radical sceptical arguments threaten to rob us categorically of knowledge and understanding in one fell swoop by implying universal ignorance. If, however, understanding (...) is not a species of knowledge, then three questions arise: (i) is ignorance the lack of understanding, even if understanding is not a species of knowledge? (ii) If not, what kind of state of intellectual impoverishment best describes a lack of understanding? (iii) What would a radical sceptical argument look like that threatened that kind of intellectual impoverishment, even if not threatening ignorance? This paper answers each of these questions in turn. I conclude by showing how the answers developed to (i-iii) interface in an interesting way with Virtue Perspectivism as an anti-sceptical strategy. (shrink)

June 2022 A Revolutionary New Metaphysics, Based on Consciousness, and a Call to All Philosophers We are in a unique moment of our history unlike any previous moment ever. Virtually all human economies are based on the destruction of the Earth, and we are now at a place in our history where we can foresee if we continue on as we are, our own extinction. As I write, the planet is in deep trouble, heat, fires, great storms, and record flooding, (...) weather patterns drastic everywhere. Capitalism has been so successful in supplying us with an endless array of consumer items, that we have never noticed there is a cost. But there is a cost, the cost is the very life of the Earth herself, and now the day of reckoning is here. Days of reckoning are most often days of rath. But I am hoping that this is a day of major Awakening over the entire planet. We have caused a crisis so great for the Earth we can hardly get our minds around it. But I am proposing that deeply embedded in the crisis are ideas, about who and what the Earth is, Ourselves, and what we are here for. I am proposing that this is a call to all philosophy and philosophers to rethink ourselves from the ground up. The human race has never gotten the Earth right and now we must, for the Earth is the true foundation for civilization. We are in deep trouble with the Earth, and it owes to the fact that the great male thinkers never got the Earth right, they could never make the connection between the life of mind and the life of the Earth. I am proposing that deeply embedded in the crisis we are in are ideas. And that in fact the planet is in the grip of a false metaphysics, and scientific image of nature that really comes most recently from Descartes. His conviction that matter, and with it the Earth, are simply the weighable, the measurable the extended in space and time, utterly devoid of any inner life of mind thoughts or Consciousness. This view of matter and the Earth goes back to the very dawn of thought, Descartes is just its most recent and comprehensive version of things. This view of matter is really a false metaphysics that dominates most of the modern world and underpins the whole scientific image of nature itself. I am proposing this is a false metaphysics and offering a new version of things based on Consciousness. If there is a single idea fueling and driving the destruction of the planet, it is the conviction that the Earth is something without Consciousness. When you intend to ravage and savage the planet, turn it into consumer items to be converted into money in the bank, first pretend that all of the bright beings in the natural world are devoid of Consciousness, just “things” you do not have to have any conscious about destroying them. I am proposing that this term Consciousness, that has appeared as term and a problem for modern science, is the key to getting ourselves right with the Earth. I propose this new theory for science will ramify into every other disciplines as well, and the ways we think just about everything. This old paradigm based on a false theory of matter, has run its course, it has brought us to the brink of our own extinction. We need new ideas, and we need them now. You will find my recent work in the Scientific God Journal under the title: Consciousness as the Organizing Principle, and a very complete version of my arguments for this term Consciousness, along with radical reinterpretation of modern science itself, on the Galileo Commission site. It is a radical moment for all of the thinkers among us, take this as my small contribution to rethinking ourselves in new terms, based on my understanding that the true basis for the whole of Being, the Universe, the Cosmos, and with them Ourselves, is this term Consciousness. And unpack it. And I predict that with this term Consciousness every intractable human problem in both science and the modern world will go down like a line of dominos before it. And so, here are a few new ideas I would offer you. These are the times of the Reappearance of the Feminine, a great Awakening as of Springtime after a long dark and lonely Winter. We are leaving behind us an old civilization based on male dominance, fear lies and control, now in decay, disease, and death disintegrating all around us. We are moving into a whole new civilization based on Love and Truth. A new civilization requires new basic terms values and first principles. And so, I return to Descartes. 1. Just over 300 years ago a young man travelling with the army found himself stranded in a foreign town in a bare room lit by a candle with nothing to do but think. And in a couple of nights Descartes laid the entire thought foundations for modern science and most of the modern world. It isn’t clear that modern philosophers with their funding sources of grants, their graduate students, their reputation and all the perks and privileges of academia can do any better. Descartes claimed there are just two principles in the Universe, Matter and Mind. God was pure mind; human beings were mind and matter. And we are the only ones on the planet with mind. Everything else all of the bright array of beings who share the planet with us are simply matter. And matter? The weighable the measurable the extended in space and time utterly devoid of any inner life of thoughts, feelings, or Consciousness This classification was a boon for developing science. Scientists did not have to worry about any inner life in nature, ideas or Consciousness, they could just set about weighing and measuring, as they have until the present day. But it was a disaster for the Earth. Earth was once worshiped as a Goddess. With Descartes she became almost overnight “things.” Simply commodities and resources, an endless of supply of consumer items, to be turned into money in the bank. And now Descartes concept of matter is up for us. If there is a single idea that is enabling and driving the destruction of the Earth, it is the conviction that Earth is something without Consciousness. This whole scientific image of nature as something devoid of Consciousness is driving the destruction of the Earth, and driving us all insane, and it needs to change. Ever since Descartes formulated Dualism, scientists and philosophers have been trying to get rid of it. They have done this by attempting to make matter the fundamental term of reality, and to explain mind or Consciousness in terms of matter. And now, Consciousness has emerged as term and a problem for modern science. 2. The prevailing Universe picture has been mainly based on the belief that Consciousness appears only at the end of evolution in ourselves and some of the higher animals when matter attains “a certain state of complexity” and it is produced by neurons in the brain. But Consciousness is nothing real in itself, the neurons are doing the work, Consciousness is simply a byproduct of neural activity. As William James summed up this position, not his: Consciousness is to the brain as a shadow to the runner, it runs beside him but never influences his stride. And so, the great problem of neuroscience: How do neurons produce Consciousness? So far, no one has been able to say how. All we have is parallelism. Two processes are running in parallel a train of neural events and a train of Consciousness events. And so, which one is primary? The face of neuroscience and much of the modern world is that the neural events are what is really real, Consciousness is secondary. The conviction that Consciousness is something produced by neurons is so deeply held and has been so for so long, that it seems like an obvious fact. It is in fact an assumption and a theory, and it could all well be the other way around. The scientific image of nature as something devoid of Consciousness is now up for us. It has enabled the destruction of the Earth, and we are now at a unique place in our own evolution where we can foresee if we continue on as we are, our own extinction. And so, there are the best reasons for rethinking Descartes concepts of matter. Scientists and philosophers have been trying to escape dualism by making matter the fundamental term. And now, this has not worked. In a nutshell: The mind body problem, the “hard problem of Consciousness” ---how do neurons in the brain, atoms and molecules give rise to ideas thoughts and feelings and who what and where is the “I” who sees them? And then, the near-death experience. I remind you of the truth of the near-death experience. The body in the bed is brain dead eeg flat, but the patient, pure Consciousness is hovering at the ceiling watching the doctors work over the body below, able to read dials he could not have seen from the bed, sometimes able to events in the corridor beyond the room, all subsequently confirmed by the doctors. Evidence as good as it gets that the patient really was out of his body. And so, the patient is able to see without eyes, hear without ears and to think and remember without a brain. There is not a single scientific principle that can account for this. And I am proposing that the near-death experience is a threshold and a key for a much deeper understanding of the Universe. These three problems are so hard they cannot be solved by present scientific principles and therefore call all present principles and ways of thought into question. When your axioms cannot account for the data, it is time to drop them and find better fundamental terms. We have not been able to solve the problems of Consciousness with the assumption that matter is the most basic and fundamental term. And so, if Cartesian dualism is to be overcome at all, we need to try it the other way around. 3. We are in the position of Copernicus. Remember Copernicus? He was making his calculations on the assumption that the Earth was the center of the Universe until they became so unwieldy that he decided to try it all the other way around. To make the sun the center, the Earth revolving around it. And lo, all of his data fell neatly into place. I am proposing a whole new Universe picture. Evolution makes us continuous with every other being, Consciousness would not be in us if it were not in them also, and then, in the atoms and molecules and cells that make up living beings. I propose to make Consciousness the most basic term and see what follows. I am in fact, proposing a new Copernican Revolution, that Consciousness is the true basis for the Universe and the right fundamental term, for science itself all other disciplines as well, and the whole of the modern world. And I predict that every intractable problem in science or the modern world, will go down like a line of dominos before it. In a nutshell: Consciousness and not matter is “first and fundamental” in the Universe, it is there from the very “Beginning” everything has it and all of the true causalities, the explanatory principles belong to it. Not to matter. What then is matter? All matter is an Appearance of something much more real, Consciousness. All matter is an expression of Consciousness, even the least little bit of matter contains Consciousness, and is an expression of Consciousness. And so, we revise the scientific image of nature. Science at present is two termed, matter/energy. It needs to become three termed: Matter/energy/Consciousness, with the recognition that all of the basic principles, the true causalities of events, and of the Universe belong to Consciousness. And now physics. To accommodate this new Universe picture physics needs to alter just one term, energy. All energy contains Consciousness, that idea alone will change our world forever. The animals the trees the plants are just as conscious as we are, as is the Earth herself, a continuum of many forms of Consciousness of which our own is one. The Earth consists of interacting and intersecting forms of Consciousness, Consciousness within Consciousness within Consciousness within Consciousness. A remarkable work has just appeared entitled “Beyond Words What Animals Feel and Think.” Describing in detail how like ourselves all of the animals are. And the more we can see how like us everything else really is, the harder it will be for us to do them all in, in the interest of turning them into consumer items. And so, here is a new principle of understanding, that entails completely new forms of explanation, and a whole new Universe picture to be spelled out in terms of Consciousness and its various properties. This is a Universe that is aware awake and Enspirited throughout. And so, there is only one principle, not two. And so, how does Consciousness work? There is “no mind/body problem.” My Consciousness is aligning the Consciousness of neurons in the brain, that aligns the Consciousness of all other cells in the body, that aligns the Consciousness of molecules and atoms themselves. Mainly from the top down, but also interactive, and not reduction to the purely physical forces. 4. And so, here is a radical new Universe picture, and with it a new way to think about the Universe itself, the Earth, Ourselves, and Spirit. It requires a complete revision of both of the terms of modern science itself. The problem of the modern world owes in deep measure to Descartes concept of matter as something devoid of interior life. But he is only the most powerful and simple expression of a whole tradition of thought that predates him, that goes back to the very dawn of thought itself. It owes to the conviction of both Plato and Aristotle that the Earth was something devoid of reason, or mind, and therefore something to be held in complete contempt. We are emerging from a civilization based on contempt for the Earth, and down the road, it will become contempt for the body, sex, women, the Native people, and people of color everywhere. And so, this entire tradition is now up for us, it has brought us to the brink of our own extinction, and we need to get beyond it. I am proposing that this term Consciousness is the way out. The missing piece of the puzzle and the idea whose time has come. And it will enable us to move into a completely new civilization based on respect for the Earth, women, sex, people of color, that honors everyone and has a place for all. Revolutions in science occur when new data show up that cannot be accounted for by existing paradigms (Thomas Kuhns: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions). Consciousness, and all the properties and problems of Consciousness are just such data, and they compel a new scientific revolution. But we are a scientific age. A new Copernican revolution in science is such as revolution everywhere. And Consciousness is the key to getting every other reality at all levels and depths right as well. It will enable us finally to get the Earth right, get ourselves right with the Earth, and with one another. Archimedes: Give me a place to stand, and I will move the world. I am proposing a new synthesis among our fundamental terms in which this term Consciousness is the new lynchpin. And so, I return once more to Descartes. Descartes in the Mediations was a dualist, they were two realities interacting in the pineal gland mind and body. But Descartes age was high on “Cartesianisms,” on Descartes concept of matter. Animals were simply cleverly wired machines (Hobbes called them automata). Rumor had it that Descartes followers went about kicking dogs reasoning that their howls were not due to any feelings of pain, but simply the wiring of the machine. We have been doing this to the Earth ever since, and now the Earth is not going to stand for it any longer. It is time we all woke up. There is no matter in Descartes sense of it, or in Plato and Aristotle’s sense of it. This old concept of matter is embedded in all of the crisis and catastrophes---fires, drought, pandemics, over population, the disintegrating economies, our ways of life, capitalism and consumerism themselves. All matter is Enspirited, contains Consciousness, and is an expression of Consciousness. Now I tell you something about Descartes you may not know. In the Mediations was a dualist, there are minds and bodies. But by the end of his life, he knew the truth. Descartes guided his whole life by these vivid dreams, and toward the end of his life he had this dream: He saw the Universe as a giant machine and in the heart of the machine propelling the whole, was Consciousness. And so, out of the shades and shadows and into the light of day. Here is a renewed and a new science, a new cosmology. And with it, a revolutionary new metaphysics. The whole of the modern world is in the grip of a false metaphysics, based on Descartes theory of matter. Here is a new, and finally true metaphysics based on the single term, Consciousness. 5. And in all my works, I spell out this new metaphysics based on Consciousness, and what it means for how we think about virtually everything: The Universe, the Earth, Ourselves, and Spirit. Of who, what and where Spirit is, that we may connect with Spirit everywhere. There is only one term for the Universe, and not two, this single term Consciousness, that manifests itself in two modes: Consciousness in Form, Consciousness Formless. And so, here is a sketch of what this new term Consciousness really means. For four great aspects of the real, four new cornerstones for a whole new civilization on Earth, based on Love and Truth. A. For the Universe: New causalities, all matter is an expression of Consciousness, awake and aware, Enspirited throughout, which has a place for the causalities of love ideas intent plan and purpose, what Aristotle called final causality, that for the sake of which. And it has a place for subjectivity, the greatest mystery in the whole of the Universe, knowable only in ourselves, but there in everything else as well, bedrock in the chain of causalities. The buck stops here. Here are two very different Universe pictures. The Cartesian Universe consists of things, pushed, and pulled around by the physical forces that function blind. The true Universe consists of selves and not things. Selves at least in ourselves, are organized and focused about an I, an I am, or a sense of self in everything, ever other being dear to itself. Just one aspect of subjectivity. And so, it is Consciousness all the way down, and subjectivity all the way down. Science proceeds on the basis of the negligible of what it can leave out as unimportant. Subjectivity is the ultimate animating principle of the Universe. What Descartes really did was to strip from nature what is most essential about it, its animating principle Consciousness. And so, we come out of a long history of “clunk.” The great male thinkers have killed creation. First in concepts and now in the lived life. And so, after centuries of fruitless search, not all of it in vain, finally, and just in time the true basic principle for the Universe has shown up in virtually all disciplines, this term Consciousness. B. And so, the Earth: What does this term Consciousness really mean for the Earth? It means that all of the bright array of beings around us have Consciousness. And the more we can realize how like us they are, the harder it will be to do them all in. Is this what it really means to be “made in the image of Spirit?” To destroy ever other living being? The god of Genesis is a creator god who has created billions and billions of living forms. Man, taking himself to be made in the image of Spirit has destroyed virtually all of it. The Earth is not things, not commodities and resources, not an endless array of consumer goods. The Earth consists of conscious living spiritual beings like ourselves, who need to be honored and respected, nurtured and cared for, to be Loved. And if the human race can finally pull it off and bring Love here and start helping the Earth rather than destroying her, even our vast numbers now at 8 billion, may not matter. Deeply embedded in the modern world is a false cosmology based on the hitherto useful but ultimately false metaphysics of Descartes. In particular it owes to Descartes concepts of matter, and of the Earth, as something devoid of Consciousness. And now this concept is up for us. If there is a single idea enabling and driving the destruction of the planet, it is the conviction that the Earth is something devoid of Consciousness. And we all have a vested interest in keeping this false concept in place. When you intend to ravage and savage the Earth, to turn it into consumer items, and money in the bank, first pretend she has no Consciousness that way we need not have any conscious about it. We are in deep trouble with the planet. Virtually all human economies are based on the destruction of the Earth, and we are now at a place in our history where we can foresee if we continue on as we are, our own extinction. And so, here are a few new guiding principles for the planet, based on Consciousness. Consciousness has field properties. The Earth is Consciousness throughout, connected and interconnected throughout, intersecting and interacting fields of Consciousness of which our own is one. To harm one is to harm all. Only this understanding of the Earth can set our destructive technologies, and capitalism, their goals, and their limits. The real problem with capitalism, and with civilization itself is it has no true understanding of the Earth, all the exquisite networks and webworks that connect all beings with one another. Nor it is about to admit that the Earth is our “life support system,” reason gone insane in the modern world. We are destroying our life support system, capitalism is the full expression of the human death wish in the modern world, and it needs to change. And now, let the barriers between ourselves and all other beings go down. C. And so, Ourselves. This new Universe picture based on Consciousness opens into and has a place for new concepts of human identity. In particular, it has a place for reincarnation, a process whereby one Consciousness dons’ bodies again and again and lays them down. This is a process wholly impossible on materialistic theories. This new view of things puts a higher perspective on Freudian determinism, which is a partial knowing in a greater account. We are something more than the victims of genes drives and childhood. We are immortally eternal evolving spiritual beings who take on a cycle of earthly lives in order to achieve certain goals and abilities, and then, our earthly cycle complete, we depart the Earth plane for other areas of the Universe physical or purely spiritual, to continue our evolution elsewhere. The scientific evidence for reincarnation is increasing on all sides, see for example the work of Michael Newton, a mainstream scientist forced to confront the fact of reincarnation. A completely new reincarnational picture is now emerging everywhere. We choose our parents for abilities we could acquire through them. We all come here with reasons for being here, and we all have free will, an original property of Consciousness, and we work out our issues accordingly. We all come here with the same reason for being here. It is to experience the Earth plane and human society at all levels and depths, in every social role, every climate, both sexes male and female and in all races. We are all here to acquire a deep understanding of the Earth plane with all its challenges and all of its present problems. We are not here to devour and consume the Earth, but to honor her for the learning experience she makes available for us. And so, reincarnation is the great equalizer, the fundamental basis for any bill of rights. Many of the problems of the modern world owe to the fact that reincarnation has not been taught in the West. Reincarnation was the center piece of Jesus teachings. It was banned by a fourth century council that decided the populous could best be controlled through fear. They edited all mention of reincarnation from the scriptures, and inserted fear terms instead, a judgmental god, and so on. If reincarnation had been taught, there would have been no suppression of women, but the gift of both sexes would have been honored and developed. And there would have been no reason for contempt for people of color because who they are, we have been or will be. There is no reason to look down on anyone when we know that our own identity includes membership in theirs. The truth of reincarnation needs to be the foundation for getting ourselves right with the Earth, and with one another. D. And so, Spirit. This new Universe picture, based on Consciousness, has a place for Spirit as simply Infinite Consciousness. All universes all worlds are formed out of this Consciousness, divine and sacred throughout. And Spirit is everywhere in the Earth and can be connected everywhere. And the Native North American people had things right. Everything has its own Spirit, and without contradiction is also an expression of Spirit. And what I am really doing in terms of concepts of modern science is presenting the Native North American version of the Real. And this new Universe picture has a place for the essential insight of all religions almost smothered by church tradition: Love. Not an emotion but a great Oneness, that can be found everywhere, even in a busy city street. But especially in the Earth, that is levels and depths of Oneness everywhere. And so, for the first time in their long and bitter antagonistic history, science and religion now share a common base with this term Spirit, the lynchpin in a new conceptual framework. And I offer an interpretation of where we are in our history, this present moment of historical grace, and these tumultuous times in which we live, the return of the Goddess and the Divine Feminine, the Reappearance of the Feminine in history, the Advent of Women, this great Awakening, as of Springtime after a long dark Winter, the Awakening, the Second Coming. And so, stay tuned! (shrink)

Bertrand Russell’s conception of philosophy evolved dramatically in 1911 — the year he fell in love with Lady Ottoline Morrell. For many years Russell had been an ardent advocate of the view that philosophers ought to look for truths that are certain. The co-author of Principia Mathematica altered his commitment to certainty in philosophy in 1911. An analysis of his published views and correspondence from this time strongly suggests that the radical transformation was induced by an epiphany brought about (...) by his emotional entanglement with his lover. (shrink)

Research has probed the consequences of providing people with different types of information regarding why a person possesses a certain characteristic. However, this work has largely examined the consequences of different information subsets (e.g., information focusing on internal versus societal causes). Less work has compared several types of information within the same paradigm. Using the legal system as an example domain, we provided children (N=198 6- to 8-year-olds) with several types of information—including information highlighting internal moral character, internal biological factors, (...) behavioral factors, and societal factors—about why a specific outcome (incarceration) might occur. We examined how such language shaped children’s attitudes. In Study 1, children reported the most positivity toward people who were incarcerated for societal reasons and the least positivity toward people who were incarcerated for their internal moral character; attitudes linked with behavioral information fell between these extremes. Studies 2a-2b suggested that Study 1’s effects could not be fully explained by participants drawing different about individuals in Study 1. Study 3 replicated Study 1’s results and showed that information linking incarceration with internal biological factors led to more positivity than information linking incarceration with internal moral character. Finally, Study 4 suggested that the patterns found in Studies 1 and 3 generalize to non-punitive contexts. Moreover, Study 4 found that the effects in Studies 1 and 3 emerged regardless of whether information was communicated via explanations or descriptions. These results demonstrate that how we express our beliefs about social phenomena shape the realities in which others live. (shrink)

"I have a tree, which grows here in my close, / That mine own use invites me to cut down, / And shortly I must fell it" (Shakespeare 2001, 168)—Timon's lament, which in Shakespeare's rendition occurs shortly before its utterer's demise "upon the beached verge of the salt flood" (2001, 168) beyond the perimeter of Athens, is an indictment of the nature that Timon finds unable to escape. Having given away his wealth in misguided generosity to a host of (...) parasitic sycophants, Timon turns misanthropic when his "friends" reject his requests for help in kind to repay his debts, eventually exiling himself from the city with the intent of sustaining himself on nothing but water and roots. Yet he soon finds that removing .. (shrink)

The historical sensibility of Western modernity is best captured by the phrase “acting upon a story that we can believe.” Whereas the most famous stories of historians facilitated nation-building processes, philosophers of history told the largest possible story to act upon: history itself. When the rise of an overwhelming postwar skepticism about the modern idea of history discredited the entire enterprise, the historical sensibility of “acting upon a story that we can believe” fell apart to its constituents: action, story (...) form, and belief in a feasible future outcome. Its constituent parts are nevertheless still hold, either separately or in paired arrangements. First, believable stories are still told, but without an equally believable future outcome to facilitate. Second, in the shape of what I call the prospect of unprecedented change, there still is a feasible vision of a future (in prospects of technology and the Anthropocene), but it defies story form. And third, it is even possible to upon that feasible future, but such action aims at avoiding worst case scenarios instead of facilitating best outcomes. These are, I believe, features of an emerging postwar historical sensibility that the theory and philosophy of history is yet to understand. (shrink)

Female education in Afghanistan has witnessed a number of ups and downs throughout the history of Afghanistan. In the history of Afghanistan, the people who suffered the most in the part of education were females. From the very beginning, female education was not that satisfactory prior to the civil war in Afghanistan but the three-decade civil war and conflicts made the situation worse for female learners. It was the government of the Taliban (1996-2001) when female education fell to 0%. (...) Hopes came to life with the establishment of the new government and the support of the international community in 2001. However, after sixteen long years, female education is still substandard. The focus of this study is on the unequal access to females and males in primary, secondary and particularly higher education. The study will also explore the major obstacles that hamper females’ education. This study is based on the collection of data available in different research papers, educational articles, reports and numerous other related sources. (shrink)

Tussen zijn veertigste en zijn zestigste levensjaar was Jan Hendrik van den Berg (1914) een uitermate succesvol en populair auteur. Boeken van zijn hand, zoals Metabletica (1956) en Medische macht en medische ethiek (1969), waren ongekende bestsellers. Hij was de Nederlandse vertegenwoordiger van een belangrijke Europese stroming in de filosofie: de historische fenomenologie. In de jaren zeventig raakte hij echter in conflict met zijn tijd. Terwijl de Nederlandse publieke opinie een wending naar links doormaakte, bond Van den Berg de strijd (...) aan tegen verloedering, hooliganisme en anarchisme. Dit ging ten koste van zijn populariteit, maar niet van zijn productiviteit, noch van zijn innovativiteit. Tot op de dag van vandaag werkt hij aan een indrukwekkend , panoramisch oeuvre. Hij is de belangrijkste Nederlandse filosoof sinds Bolland. -/- Deze studie wil het werk van Van den Berg reconstrueren, situeren en beoordelen. Reconstrueren door de methodische en thematische coherentie ervan zichtbaar te maken. Situeren door het te confronteren met dat van andere, verwante auteurs zoals Husserl, Freud, Bachelard en Foucault. Beoordelen door na te gaan in hoeverre Van den Berg de inzet van zijn project, zowel inhoudelijk als methodologisch, waarmaakte. -/- Het werk van Van den Berg is geen curiosum, maar opvallend actueel. Hij onderzoekt het begin, de aanvang van wetenschappelijke en maatschappelijke ontwikkelingen waarvan het belang in de huidige situatie met nadruk zichtbaar wordt. Zijn beeldende stijl wekt de geschiedenis van de wetenschap tot leven, maar werd vaak als ‘anekdotisch’ afgedaan; zijn talent voor polemiek lokte soms felle reacties uit en zijn methodologische flexibiliteit maakte hem een gemakkelijk doelwit van academische kritiek. Aan de positieve kant van de balans staan echter zijn intellectuele enthousiasme en zijn internationale faam. Zijn werk verdient een rehabilitatie. (shrink)

Julius Caesar Scaliger was a natural philosopher and literary theorist whose work was widely discussed throughout the second half of the sixteenth and the first half of the seventeenth centuries. After this period, it fell into oblivion, only to be rediscovered during the last three decades or so. His natural philosophy has triggered a series of specialized studies on particular aspects of his thought, especially those aspects that were influential in the development of early modern corpuscularianism. Sakamoto's book goes (...) considerably beyond such fragmentary approaches and presents central strands of Scaliger's most important work in natural philosophy, a thousand-page critique of Girolamo Cardano's De... (shrink)

Pragmatism is the distinctive contribution of American thought to philosophy. It is a movement that attracted much attention in the early part of the twentieth-century, went into decline, and reemerged in the last part of the century. Part of the difficulty in defining pragmatism is that misconceptions of what pragmatism means have abounded since its beginning, and continue in today’s “neopragmatism.”.

Sri Guru Tegh Bahadur, ninth Sikh Guru, fell as a martyr to the freedom of consciousness and belief [1]. The Guru's great sacrifice was to vindicate the people's right to profess and practice their faith. It meant the assertion of the principle of justice for which the ruling Mughal rulers of the day had very scant regard. For this reason, the life, career, and teachings of Guru Tegh Bahadur are of immense significance even in contemporary times, when the forces (...) of hate, fanaticism, and tyranny are still very dominant and assertive. Guru Tegh Bahadur, a multifaceted genius, Guru and martyr, was also a great poet. He authored 57 Salokas, and 59 other compositions (Shabads). These hymns, written in 15 Raagas (measures) are enshrined in Sri Guru Granth Sahib (SGGS) [2-4], the sacred scripture of the Sikhs. In his hymns, though he articulates [5] on the unreality of human passions and possessions, yet his hymns have been a source of spiritual succour and solace to millions of people in their hours of personal grief and affliction. Through his hymns, he brightens our awareness of the transience of the material phenomena. However, instead of creating a sense of despair and depression, he elevates the human mind and imbues it with hope. Thereby he makes it possible for us to rise above the irritants of the immediate problems of existence and keep our attention focused on the everlasting and eternal. Guru Tegh Bahadur [1-18] inherited his vision or worldview from his predecessor Gurus. He stood [1] for the same system of moral, social, and spiritual values as emphasized by the previous Gurus. Still, his compositions have an identity of their own. As a whole, his hymns present a central, unifying theme: a coherent and dynamic vision of humans, their predicament as a part of nature, the way out of this predicament, and the resultant awareness of the unique spiritual nature that is within them. In this way, the Guru helps humans redefine their relationship with the world and grow spiritually. Guru Tegh Bahadur's poetry seeks to redeem life from meaninglessness and fear, to enlarge and enliven humans' consciousness, and to open their inward eye to the glory of all-redeeming, ever-existent Truth. In this article, a few of his views on the various aspects of life are being reported. (shrink)

Tussen zijn veertigste en zijn zestigste levensjaar was Jan Hendrik van den Berg (1914) een uitermate succesvol en populair auteur. Boeken van zijn hand, zoals Metabletica (1956) en Medische macht en medische ethiek (1969), waren ongekende bestsellers. Hij was de Nederlandse vertegenwoordiger van een belangrijke Europese stroming in de filosofie: de historische fenomenologie. In de jaren zeventig raakte hij echter in conflict met zijn tijd. Terwijl de Nederlandse publieke opinie een wending naar links doormaakte, bond Van den Berg de strijd (...) aan tegen verloedering, hooliganisme en anarchisme. Dit ging ten koste van zijn populariteit, maar niet van zijn productiviteit, noch van zijn innovativiteit. Tot op de dag van vandaag werkt hij aan een indrukwekkend , panoramisch oeuvre. Hij is de belangrijkste Nederlandse filosoof sinds Bolland. -/- Deze studie wil het werk van Van den Berg reconstrueren, situeren en beoordelen. Reconstrueren door de methodische en thematische coherentie ervan zichtbaar te maken. Situeren door het te confronteren met dat van andere, verwante auteurs zoals Husserl, Freud, Bachelard en Foucault. Beoordelen door na te gaan in hoeverre Van den Berg de inzet van zijn project, zowel inhoudelijk als methodologisch, waarmaakte. -/- Het werk van Van den Berg is geen curiosum, maar opvallend actueel. Hij onderzoekt het begin, de aanvang van wetenschappelijke en maatschappelijke ontwikkelingen waarvan het belang in de huidige situatie met nadruk zichtbaar wordt. Zijn beeldende stijl wekt de geschiedenis van de wetenschap tot leven, maar werd vaak als ‘anekdotisch’ afgedaan; zijn talent voor polemiek lokte soms felle reacties uit en zijn methodologische flexibiliteit maakte hem een gemakkelijk doelwit van academische kritiek. Aan de positieve kant van de balans staan echter zijn intellectuele enthousiasme en zijn internationale faam. Zijn werk verdient een rehabilitatie. (shrink)

Sri Guru Tegh Bahadur, ninth Sikh Guru, fell as a martyr to the freedom of consciousness and belief. The Guru's great sacrifice was to vindicate the people's right to profess and practice their faith. It meant the assertion of the principle of justice for which the ruling Mughal rulers of the day had very scant regard. For this reason, the life, career, and teachings of Guru Tegh Bahadur are of immense significance even in contemporary times, when the forces of (...) hate, fanaticism, and tyranny are still very dominant and assertive. (shrink)

The history of European civilization is a clear evidence of cultural split into two parts: scientific-technical and humanitarian, which are determined by two types of thinking – mind and intellect. The development of natural and technical sciences, which are based on reasonable thinking, has resulted in rapid development of techniques and various technologies for the past 500 years. Whereas humanitarian sciences with their intellectual thinking fell behind the demands of time for hundreds of years. The precipice, which occurred between (...) two parts of a single culture, could be surmounted only with the aid of improving humanitarian thinking, moving it up into the position of mind and alongside the development of ethics as a strict theoretical science about morale. This in general outline can be presented with the example of mind-intellect interrelation in the history of antique philosophy and their influence on morale development. Distinguishing feature of ancient Greek philosophy is discovery of mind comprehended not so much as the ability to think but rather as ability to cognize the world from objective, identical for everyone, points of view, as resolution to consider knowledge, received by these means, as the highest instance in debates. Neither religion, nor intellectual subjective opinion of wisdom-fanciers was put into the first place by ancient Greek culture, but rather the knowledge, received in its rational-scientific form and radically different from opinion. However, contemporary humanitarians are unable to see the difference between mind and intellect, as far as their thinking does not exceed the limits of mind. The reason of created thesis is that philosophy yet in ancient times lost the essence of intellectual development trend and gave the way to intellectual thinking. Platon and Socrates had already taken intellect for the manifestation of mind. The last, who made an attempt to ground the difference between these two forms of thinking, was Aristotle who made it possible to identify the laws of formal logic, formulated by him, with laws of mind. Whereas in fact these were the laws of intellectual thinking. Since then humanitarians have not returned to the path of mind, paved by the first Greek Ionic thinkers. While possessing intellectual thinking and getting mixed up in the notions of «intellect» and «mind», caused by logical and causative-effective relations, contemporary humanitarians are unable to lead their sciences out of a dead-end, where ancient Greek philosophy got into after Heraclitus. (shrink)

Sri Guru Tegh Bahadur, ninth Sikh Guru, fell as a martyr to the freedom of consciousness and belief. The Guru's great sacrifice was to vindicate the people's right to profess and practice their faith. It meant the assertion of the principle of justice for which the ruling Mughal rulers of the day had very scant regard. For this reason, the life, career, and teachings of Guru Tegh Bahadur are of immense significance even in contemporary times, when the forces of (...) hate, fanaticism, and tyranny are still very dominant and assertive. (shrink)

The plural for knowledge, “knowledges” fell out of use in English philosophical discourse at the end of the Seventeenth Century. This paper reflects on the potential significance of this in the development of theoretical approaches to epistemology from the writings of John Locke to Karl Popper and the present day.

It is the view of most people who claim the authoritative nature of the Bible that, women’s assigned secondary status in relation to men is ordained and supported in the Bible. Many have quoted different texts of the holy writ to support their culturally-biased position on issue of gender equality. Most often views in respect to gender issues are culturally-based and interpreted rather than divinely-based and interpreted. There is therefore the need to look back at Jesus’ words, “But at the (...) beginning of creation God 'made them male and female.” (Matt 19:4; Mark 10:6). The two accounts in the Book of Genesis by the Priestly and Yahwistic strands give a complimentary account of the creation of humankind (both male and female) in the image and likeness of God and their creation from a single stock (<d*aº*) who was not a male gender. At a cursory reading of the creation accounts, one will tend to see <d„`ah*³ as the male gender, but looking at the Hebrew text more closely it will be noticed that the Hebrew words hV*aÍ !and vya !were only introduced after the two genders have been separated. Note carefully that it was not vya! that was asked to tend the garden, who named the animals, was given instruction of what to eat or what not to eat, who fell into a deep sleep or whose ribs was used in the creation of hV*aÍ!, but it was <d„`ah*³ . It was after the creation or ‘separation’ of hVÍ*a ! (woman – the female <d„`ah*³) that the other part was called vya ! (man – the male <d„`ah*³) (see vv 23 & 24). It will therefore not be right to speak of the creation of hV*aÍ ! out of vya!, because as at the time of the creation of the former, the later was not in existence as vya ! To view these creation accounts with the sense of gender superiority (either male over female or vice versa) is to read the texts using lenses which have been obscured and tainted by patriarchal, matriarchal or cultural biases. (shrink)