The paper examines the evolution of modernity concepts starting from the Renaissance to the present day, emphasizing the impact on architecture and urbanism. During the period of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, people framed an evolutionary notion of history and the concept of the modern associated with the contemporary, the new, and the fleeting emerged. This period connected modernity with the idea of relativity of truth as opposed to the absolute truth of the Middle Ages. In the 18th and 19th (...) centuries, modernity clashed with tradition. This led to economic and political modernization. It also influenced artistic movements and cultural trends. The Industrial Revolution epitomized this period. It was driven by scientific and technological advancements. The paper discusses the objective and subjective perspectives of modernity, highlighting its dual nature in socioeconomic processes and personal experiences. Key thinkers like Habermas Weber and Baudelaire provide frameworks for understanding modernity's developments in science, art, and morality. The avant-garde movements influenced by Bauhaus, emphasized functionality. They also focused on rationality in architecture. However, critiques emerged, advocating the concept of unitary urbanism. This vision includes adaptable living spaces. It promotes an ever-changing urban environment, as exemplified by Constant's New Babylon. The Adorno's aesthetic theory criticized the industry's commodification of art and emphasizes art's utopian potential. Adorno's concept of mimesis and his critique of rationality and instrumental reason are explored reflecting the paradoxical nature of modernity. Finally, the paper contrasts the views of architects like Mies van der Rohe, Norberg-Schulz, and Eisenman. It concludes by reflecting on architecture's ongoing interaction with modernity. It emphasizes a balance between innovation tradition and the dynamic nature of human experience and social development. (shrink)

The central focus of this paper is to motivate and explore the question, when is it permissible to endorse a psychologizing explanation of a sincere interlocutor? I am interested in the moral question of when (if ever) we may permissibly dismiss the sincere reasons given to us by others, and instead endorse an alternative explanation of their beliefs and actions. I argue that there is a significant risk of wronging the other person, and so we should only psychologize when we (...) are in a position to know that they are in bad faith. (shrink)

In the debate on how we ought to define political freedom, some definitions are criticized for implying that no one can ever be free to perform any action. In this paper, I show how the possibility of freedom depends on a definition that finds an appropriate balance between absence of interference and protection against interference. To assess the possibility of different conceptions of freedom, I consider the trade-offs they make between these two dimensions. I find that pure negative freedom is (...) clearly possible. Republican freedom might also be possible, though its protection requirement is too vague for a definitive verdict. Finally, the recently proposed ‘freedom as independence’ is impossible since it is an attempt to avoid the unavoidable trade-off. (shrink)

In today's digital age, the need for accurate and efficient language translation tools is more crucial than ever, particularly for bridging communication gaps between diverse linguistic communities. The primary purpose of this work is to provide an efficient solution for translating website content from English to Hindi, thereby promoting inclusivity and accessibility in the digital space. The methodology involves using the Google Translate API for accurate translations and employing web scraping techniques to retrieve content from user-specified URLs. The application enables (...) users to input a URL, automatically scrape its HTML content, and display the translated text in a user-friendly format. Key results demonstrate that the tool effectively translates various web pages, preserving context and meaning while providing immediate access to crucial information. Major conclusions highlight the importance of such tools in bridging communication gaps, enhancing user engagement with government websites, and facilitating better understanding of services among Hindi-speaking populations. The successful implementation of this project underscores the potential for expanding access to information in multilingual societies and suggests avenues for further development, including additional language support and integration with other online services. Overall, this work contributes to the growing field of language translation technologies [5] by providing a practical application that meets the pressing needs of users in an increasingly interconnected world. (shrink)

Kant is the philosophical tradition's arch-anti-consequentialist – if anyone insists that intentions alone make an action what it is, it is Kant. This chapter takes up Kant's account of the relation between intention and action, aiming both to lay it out and to understand why it might appeal. The chapter first maps out the motivational architecture that Kant attributes to us. We have wills that are organized to action by two parallel and sometimes competing motivational systems. One determines us by (...) way of motives that are sensuous, natural and given from without, the other by motives that are intellectual, rational, and given from within. Each set of motives belongs to a system of laws – natural motives to the laws of nature, rational motives to the laws of freedom. For Kant, all things, including actions, are what they are in virtue of the laws governing them; actions, qua actions, are always governed by laws that govern individual wills. These laws are Kantian maxims, 'or subjective practical laws.' Maxims, for Kant, thus make actions the actions they are. The chapter then maps out the implications of this motivational architecture for Kant's theory of value. Maxims always advert to or 'contain' both ends and means. Ends are always specifications of one of two ultimate ends. Actions have the moral value they have depending on which of two ultimate ends the maxim adverts to. The possibilities are 'happiness,' or gratification of desires with sensuous origins, and 'duty,' or accord with the moral demand to will in ways that respect free rational agency wherever it is found. Only actions aimed at the latter – actions with rational motives – have moral value. Actions aimed at the former – actions with natural motives – though not immoral in themselves, become so when pursuit works against rational motives. For Kant, actions aimed at happiness are ultimately allied with efforts to sustain our 'animal' existence, and so are governed by terms and conditions given by the natural world. Actions aimed at duty, in contrast, are ultimately allied with efforts to impose a rational form on nature, to make it over, so to speak, according to values not given by nature itself. Actions aimed at duty, therefore, create a specifically moral world, one in which mores and norms, formal and informal arrangements, institutions, policies, and so on, realize, harmonize, and promote free rational agency itself. Finally, the chapter addresses motivations for Kant's view. The architecture of will and the theories of action and value he proposes allow Kant to accommodate a host of intuitions and commitments. His view makes room for metaphysically free agency, and for the lived experience of motivational freedom from ever-changing natural desires. It makes room for conflicts within the will while still holding out hope that resolution is possible. It accommodates views that the best human lives engage 'higher' faculties in sustained ways. It identifies a stable, necessary, universal end amidst the evident contingency, pluralism, and instability of most ends. It makes us, and not God or nature, the authors of our moral lives. In the end, Kant's 'anti-consequentialism,' his focus on intentions, is a way of insisting on actions that take their character and value from what should matter most to us, namely individual and collective free rational agency, rather than only and always taking the character of reactive responses to circumstance. (shrink)

This article examines public administration from 1890 to 2023 to see how it evolved and influenced practice and if good governance is a crucial component in this transformation. This paper presents an in-depth review of several different pieces of secondary literature sources. This paper produced several key findings. The most important finding of this literature study is that, between 1890 and 1980, the Public Administration transitioned from "Traditional Public Administration" to "New Public Management" due to the growing need for good (...) governance. The year 2000 saw the birth of a novel idea in public administration known as "New Public Governance," which has persisted in practice ever since. This paper will be useful to Public Administration practitioners worldwide. There has been little empirical research into how the evolution of Public Administration encourages governments to act more like private corporations. Consequently, more research on this subject is encouraged. (shrink)

Ātmānuśāsana (commonly spelled as Atmanushasan) by Ācārya Guņabhadra presents profound concepts of the Jaina Doctrine in a form that is easily understood. Remarkable for its poetry and meaning, it expounds that right faith (samyagdarśana) is the cause of merit, and wrong faith of demerit. To have belief in the true nature of substances is right faith. Dharma is the man’s most excellent possession. The conduct that leads to merit is dharma and it results in happiness after destroying misery. Whether happy (...) or miserable, dharma should be the only pursuit of man. True happiness is not the momentary sprinkling of the pleasures of the senses. Long-life, wealth and sound body are obtained from the previously earned merit (puņya). Under the spell of sinful karmas, the man experiences misery. Excellent men with discrimination work hard, incessantly and cheerfully, for the sake of their future lives. The happiness attained through austerity (tapa) can never be attained by craving for wealth. No dust of disgrace ever touches the feet of the man fortified by austerity. The ascetic goes on to perform austerity while protecting his body, for a very long time. Through the power of austerity he vanquishes his natural enemies, like the passions of anger, etc. In the after-life, he automatically and speedily attains liberation as the culmination of his human effort. (shrink)

“We are experiencing an ecological and social crisis, driven by exponential capital accumulation, whose end result will be the extinction of human civilisation” (p. 18). While it is easy to shrug off such a dramatic claim, in Alienation, Spectacle, & Revolution: A Critical Marxist Essay, Neil Faulkner takes this relatively strong claim and endeavors to demonstrate its truth. Thus begins his project of updating our understanding of alienation—not an easy task, but one that Faulkner does well. In a time of (...) a simultaneous dearth and deluge of information, Faulkner attempts to pull apart the dialectical and economic structures of the third industrial revolution and follows the breadcrumbs until he comes to a different “end of history.” Faulkner, who died in February 2022, was an archeologist and a political activist. He was a member of the Socialist Workers Party in the U.K. for many years and later a founding member of Anti-Capitalist Resistance. He wrote on topics ranging from the Arab-Anglo conflict to the history of the Olympics. While his corpus spanned several subjects, his books and articles all have a bitingly Marxist take that brought Faulkner much acclaim. (shrink)

In Philip K. Dick’s Counter-Clock World the direction of time flips in 1986, putting the Earth into what its inhabitants call the ‘Hogarth Phase’. Named after the scientist who predicted that ‘time’s arrow' would change direction, the Hogarth Phase is a period in which entropy decreases instead of increases. During this time the dead call from their graves to be excavated, people clean their lungs by ‘smoking’ stubs that grow into mature cigarettes, coffee separates from cream, and so on. Although (...) such reversals may be familiar from works of fiction, we are utterly unfamiliar with them in experience. The processes of nature behave in a temporally asymmetric manner. Once the cream mixes with the coffee, it stays that way, never to return to its original separated state. Neither cigarettes nor people ever fully reconstitute themselves. This kind of asymmetric behaviour is ubiquitous in thermodynamic, radiative, and quantum mechanical phenomena. But we also find our common-sense impression ofthe world painted with temporally asymmetric concepts. Time feels like it is ‘f|owing’ forward and causation appears to be an asymmetric relation. These phenomena and impressions stand in sharp contrast with the world as perceived through eyes tutored by modem science. Spacetime, rather than.. (shrink)

G.E. Moore said that rightness was obviously a matter of maximising plain goodness. Peter Geach and Judith Thomson disagree. They have both argued that ‘good’ is not a predicative adjective, but only ever an attributive adjective: just like ‘big.’ And just as there is no such thing as plain bigness but only ever big for or as a so-and-so, there is also no such thing as plain goodness. They conclude that Moore’s goodness is thus a nonsense. However attention has been (...) drawn to a weakness in their arguments. Mahrad Almotahari and Adam Hosein have sought to plug that weakness. If their plug holds, then there is no goodness. Doing most of their work is the following premise: adjective φ is predicative only if it can be used predicatively in ‘x is a φ K’ otherwise it is attributive. In this paper I argue that this premise is false, that their plug does not hold and that if one is to reject plain goodness it will have to be for other reasons. (shrink)

In G.K. Chesterton’s The Man who was Thursday, six of the seven anarchists named after different days of the week turn out to be secret policemen. Chesterton’s hero Syme finds himself opposed to not just a disparate group of anarchists, but to the unified forces of authority. A similar thing seems to have happened in recent years to Jerry Fodor. When Fodor published The Language of Thought in 1975 his targets were, as he says, ‘a mixed bag’: reductionists, behaviourists, empiricists, (...) operationalists, holists and various followers of Wittgenstein. But today these disparate targets have become distilled into one movement, which Fodor calls ‘pragmatism’. Fodor sees pragmatism (‘perhaps the worst idea that philosophy ever had’) everywhere, and one aim of this sequel to The Language of Thought is to stamp it out. (shrink)

By drawing on the philosophy of Bernard Stiegler, the phenomena of mechanical (a.k.a. artificial, digital, or electronic) intelligence is explored in terms of its real significance as an ever-repeating threat of the reemergence of stupidity (as cowardice), which can be transformed into knowledge (pharmacological analysis of poisons and remedies) by practices of care, through the outlook of what researchers describe equivocally as “artificial stupidity”, which has been identified as a new direction in the future of computer science and machine problem (...) solving as well as a new difficulty to be overcome. I weave together of web of “artificial stupidity”, which denotes the mechanic (1), the human (2), or the global (3). With regards to machine intelligence, artificial stupidity refers to: 1a) Weak A.I. or a rhetorical inversion of designating contemporary practices of narrow task-based procedures by algorithms in opposition to “True A.I.”; 1b) the restriction or employment of constraints that weaken the effectiveness of A.I., which is to say a “dumbing-down” of A.I. by intentionally introducing mistakes by programmers for safety concerns and human interaction purposes; 1c) the failure of machines to perform designated tasks; 1d) a lack of a noetic capacity, which is a lack of moral and ethical discretion; 1e) a lack of causal reasoning (true intelligence) as opposed to statistical associative “curve fitting”; or 2) the phenomenon of increasing human “stupidity” or drive-based behaviors, which is considered as the degradation of human intelligence and/or “intelligent human behavior” through technics; and finally, 3) the global phenomenon of increasing entropy due to a black-box economy of closed systems and/or industry consolidation. (shrink)

Man is a seeker by nature. He searches for truth. An ordinary man cannot be indifferent to truth because of the deep quest within him for truth. Gandhi lived his whole life in the perpetual quest for truth. He lived and moved in pursuit of this goal. This pursuit of seeking truth under the banner of philosophical education makes educational philosophizing moral. One can perfect these ideologies of different schools and make philosophizing in education better by placing truth in the (...) center. Thus, an idealist can evolve a realization of truth, a naturalist can bring about the true nature and potentialities of the individual, and pragmatists can rejuvenate the minds with a truth-oriented strategy and existential thinkers can invite truth into them so that they can avoid fear and dread. The Gandhian vision of Satya offers us the key to integral education. Following the footprints of Satya not only satisfies the Gandhian aims for education but it also helps the human person to continue his role on the earth as the seeker of truth. The aim of my research is to explore whether the concept of the truth of Mahatma Gandhi could be used as a platform for philosophical education? Can we take inspiration from Gandhian thoughts so that philosophizing may not engage itself in hermeneutical violence to bring out the truth (of our making) but a hermeneutical ahimsa that lets the truth show itself? Truth for Gandhi was equal to one of his lungs. He spoke the truth, wrote on truth, and exhorted people to be truthful. Gandhi made the concept of truth central to metaphysics, epistemology, morality, and the philosophy of religion. Truth was the guiding principle for Gandhi in all these disciplines. When we bring in truth as the guiding principle in the philosophy of education we envisage an educational community of all truth seekers traveling together in freedom to come to an ever-increasing approximation of truth. Should philosophy stop the pursuit of truth (satya) as Rorty claims? Is communication of truth irrelevant as no truth is ascertainable as skeptics claim? Is the will to communicate truth senseless since truth is an illusion? Do these approaches satisfy the philosophical minds that are after truth? The methodology I pursue in this thesis is an exploratory, analytical, and critical approach. a) Analytical: The basic method to be used is to analyze the existing works and apprehend their significance in the area of education, in particular philosophical education. b) Critical: a critical and comprehensive analysis of the concept of truth is followed in the research to represent the significance of truth in philosophical education. Man cannot be indifferent to truth since there is a longing for truth in the heart of every human being. Hence the need to search for it with all one’s might through success does not come everyone’s way in the same measure. The reason for this is that there are certain factors that impede our search and they even distort our understanding. They are natural limitations of reason, inconsistency of the heart, worldly concerns, and fear of the demand that truth makes. Hence it is necessary to overcome these in the search for truth. In his dealings with others, the human person wishes that the other may communicate his truth and only truth. Gandhian invitation is to be an experimenter with truth. Truth is that all seek and want above everything. No one wishes to compromise on that. When we bring in truth as the guiding principle in the philosophy of education we envisage an educational community of all truth seekers traveling together in freedom to come to an ever-increasing approximation of truth. They are compelled to study and defend truth in a better way when they are confronted. They will be forced to discern the core of truth from its formulations. That is the role of the experimenter with the truth. -/- In this research paper, I attempt to present M. K. Gandhi as an educationist giving emphasis only on his concept of truth. It is a limited approach to Gandhian educational philosophy because when I attend only to the concept of truth I fail to include very many other aspects of his educational philosophy like craft-centered education, teaching methods, education for different sections of society, etc. It also limits me to criticizing Gandhian dislike for the higher education system appropriately. However, the notion of truth is a common platform that could be shared by three important branches of philosophical education, namely the naturalistic, the idealistic, and the pragmatic. (shrink)

The reliability of one´s memory is far from certain. Have you ever misplaced an item, forgotten a name or gotten the date wrong? Everyday situations can introduce doubt about our memorial faculties. This raises epistemological questions: Can we trust our memory as a source of knowledge? If memory is fallible, how can we justify beliefs that depend on it? Andrew Moon` global skeptical argument about memory states that we lack knowledge or warrant when it comes to trusting our memory as (...) a reliable faculty. His argument is the following: I. I can know a proposition on the basis of a faculty only if I know that faculty is reliable. II. I cannot know that my memory is reliable. III. Therefore, I cannot know a proposition on the basis of my memory. Moon’s stance on premise I. is that any reasoning to support the conclusion that one’s memory is reliable will either result in epistemic circularity or fail to sufficiently justify the belief. While he does offer a positive response to circularity by distinguishing between declarative and non-declarative memory, his solution primarily applies to non-declarative memory, such as remembering of how to ride a bike. Within the scope of this text, however, I will focus exclusively on declarative memory, episodic, as in remembering walking to the grocery store, in thought experiments and semantic, as in deriving general conclusions like "going to the grocery store involves leaving home", in deriving conclusions. Moon introduces a refinement to premise I. by suggesting that unless we encounter strong reasons to doubt the reliability of memory, we can trust it as a source of knowledge. This condition is meant to avoid over-intellectualization by not requiring explicit knowledge of memory’s reliability. The text is structured into three sections. In Section A, I begin by introducing Memory-Skepticism. We will build on Moon´s skeptical argument and consider whether we can maintain confidence in our memorial faculties by drawing on Moore’s distinction between epistemic and dialectical issues. I will further demonstrate how an inference to the best explanation can help overcome skeptical challenges. Turning to premise II., Moon argues that knowing whether memory is reliable involves reasoning in its favor. Even if we consider memory to be non-inferential in nature, that is, basic and independent of other beliefs, explaining concepts and theories still requires background knowledge, which, in turn, relies on memory. Regardless of memory´s innate reliability, we are still left with the need of avoiding either epistemic circularity or insufficient justification. However, not all circularity is problematic. Moon introduces the concept of benign circularity, which refers to circular reasoning that does not undermine a belief’s warrant. For instance, if I have no reason to doubt the reliability of my memory, I can use it to recall past experiences and form the belief that my memory is reliable. In Section B, I will build on this idea by starting with Foundationalism and develop Memory-Reliabilism as a contender theory for understanding the reliability of memory. I will try to flesh out the theory in detail. Finally, in Section C, I will turn to Memory-Knowledge and explore how memory can function as a source of knowledge. By drawing on Moon´s cases about forgotten evidence and stored beliefs, we will formulate a memory-related Gettier Case and analyze it for its justification and evidence. By focusing on sensitivity and E=K, I hope to expand on Moon´s approach to memory-skepticism. To narrow the focus of this text, we will consider memory to be non-inferential in nature. That is, memory-based beliefs are justified independently of any inferential relations to other beliefs. The act of remembering itself acts as a source of immediate justification. By examining how memory fits with foundationalist and reliabilist perspectives, I aim to explore memory´s capacity to function as a trustworthy source of knowledge. (shrink)

...If, in some places, backward science determines the remaining period by the lack of optimism only by the number 123456789, then our progressive science expands it to 987654321, which is eight times more advanced than theirs. However, due to the inherent caution of scientists, both sides do not specify the measuring unit of reference — year, day, hour or minute are meant. Leonid Leonov. Collected Op. in ten volumes. Volume ten. M.: IHL, 1984, p.583. -/- The modern men being as (...) a rule is proceeding in three relatively autonomous, but immanently coexisting, and each penetrating dialectically through other, and each contesting even cruelly with other, and each more or less dominating on other, differently in various societies, worlds: the first one of the barbarity, the second one the culture, the third one the civilization... Barbarity is the mode of coexistence of autonomous human societies based on the unlimited will to act so as subject wants to do without any limitations of his activities... Culture is the mode of coexistence of autonomous human societies based on the most ancient testaments, customs, traditions etc of the highestly sacrified appearence... Civilisation is the mode of coexistence of autonomous human societies based on the reasoned or legitimated by social contracts, by profits, by expediency and so more constitutions, institutions etc... -/- Andrei Melnikov-Pechersky in his epic "In the Woods" says that there was a movement among the Old Believers in Russia, or a current that proclaimed Kostroma the new and, it seems, the only true Jerusalem, in an apocalyptic sense, of course, which in its spiritual scale was probably not inferior to the Bogomils, shakers, Mormons, or else and the whole Reformation in potential. In Western Europe, every more or less convex nuance of the history of a state or region (even if it is a small San Marino) is overgrown with almost a dozen institutions, not always state ones, by the way, in which almost every sneeze and step of very ambivalent historical subjects in a broad sense is studied. Especially in the young, but very pretentious America of the United States, which embodies all world justice. In our country, for example, even many leading humanitarian specialists do not realize the spiritual value of the Ipatievsky MONASTERY. The Russian writer Boris Shiryaev, who died quite a long time ago and in a very far abroad, devoted a special part of his documentary and artistic epic of wanderings "The Inextinguishable Lampada" to an entertaining and instructive, tragic fate of a kind of village monarchy in some Villages of the Kostroma province (I could not identify the area, and, frankly, I did not really try) in the early years The Soviet government. At the same time, all Russians learn about the French emperor Napoleon almost with their mother's milk how many percent of cyanide potassium was found in his hair, they reflect on Lermontov's "Airship" (probably, just not to "memorize" the imposed "Borodino" by heart). The events, of course, are incomparable, but the fact is significant. The outstanding national artist (if not to say a thinker of the Chesnyakov level) Grigory Pavlovich Kusochkin was glorified wherever, in whatever catalogues he was not included. Paris, London, New York, St. Petersburg, Moscow... To look at some smear of luminaries like Picasso or Modigliani, international tourist routes are organized in the restaurant toilet using the finest marketing technologies, and we did not even know Grigory Pavlovich by sight until, thank God, a series of TV shows on all Russian channels was dedicated to him in one gulp. Why is this happening? Is it a consequence of poverty or the result of the conscious policy of the ruling elite of the country and the world? The regions of the Kostroma Region are Austria, Switzerland, Bavaria, Armenia, Moldova, and Georgia... Georgia! I served in the army there. In this small but very great country, judging even by the appearance of its President Shevardnadze, although it is smaller than the Kostroma region, there are so many different, but Georgian-speaking peoples! Kakhetians, Meskhetians, Imereti, Iveretians, Mingrelians, Khevsurs... Adjarians (mostly Georgian-speaking Muslims) even have their own autonomy. And some peoples are not Georgian—speaking at all — South Ossetians, Abkhazians, Kurds, Armenians, Greeks, even Assyrians. In the Kostroma Region, and in any Russian "province" — not much less: there are plenty of the same Georgians or Armenians everywhere, quite moderate, loyal, and so on. Having, as a rule, their own officially registered associations within the framework of cultural autonomy. Well done! And Israel! He is the only one with all his "illegal" (and I am for the fact that every nation knows better where its ancestral lands are) territories half the size of the Kostroma region. The total number of Jews worldwide, according to the "Soviet Encyclopedic Dictionary" in 1987, is about 14 million. Meanwhile, the fate of Israel is being preoccupied (it is very instructive how he achieved this!) all the united nations of the world. In the Kostroma Region and its diaspora, it seems to everyone, and especially to its semi-migrant, Varangian leadership. I don't care if they build a public atomic bomb here in the form of a nuclear power plant or not. Because they do not know the value of this land, the greatness of its spirit. Kostroma is a holy land. I will immediately make a reservation that by Kostroma I mean not only the modern region, but the entire area that has ever historically been associated with Kostroma. The USSR is also a part of the great historical Russia. In this sense, even the entire era of the Russian Romanov Empire is the Kostroma region. Or: many toponymic objects of our native land are called mysteriously beautiful: Sharya, Shunga, Shekshema, Sholezhka, - we need to find out what kind of peoples — and where are they now? — we left such euphonious archetypal combinations, because these are our Kostromsky peoples, these are our Kostroma people. Or, say, the classic of American and world sociology Pitirim Alexandrovich Sorokin writes in his autobiographical scientific novel "The Long Way" that he studied at the Khrenovskaya (what a strong word!) teachers' seminary of Kostroma province, but in an administrative row for propaganda activities, gendarmes were taken by sledge to the prison of the city of Kineshma - is this not a fact for Kostroma, and primarily for him, local history, although Kineshma has long been attributed to the Ivanovo region, and Pitirim Alexandrovich is buried on the other side of the planet?! I have not the slightest doubt that Kostroma provided spiritual food, gave birth to and nurtured a huge intellectual diaspora with extremely valuable material on a national, global scale. And this is both in direct and indirect order, in the form of a chain reaction. Apparently, it is easy for an intelligent person to grow up in Kostroma, but it is impossible to live, and somewhere on the contrary. Therefore, it is not surprising that the geneticist academician D. K. Belyaev, who was born in the village of Protasov near Nerekhta, very close to Kostroma, glorified Moscow and Siberia with his discoveries and practical results, which immeasurably enriched the Soviet state treasury with foreign exchange income from the sale of the most valuable fur grown according to the biotechnology developed by him in a much shorter time than it usually turns out in nature. And in Kostroma, most likely, few people know who he is and what he is famous for. I will focus in more detail on one of the aspects of his great life. This happened back in the so-called pre-Perestroika times. In a series of his speeches, Dmitry Konstantinovich, based on the results of his and colleagues' research, emphasized, in his opinion, the determining role of the biological factor in shaping the content of human essence, of course, only in a philosophical, conceptual aspect. For some reason, this was opposed by a geneticist, as they say, persecuted at one time by the "senile" in selectionism (including human nature) by the Michurino-Lysenkoists, academician N. P. Dubinin, which personally remains incomprehensible to me until now. With a grateful curtsey to Academician Dubinin and his point of view, the famous French humanist, member of the Politburo of the French Communist Party Lucien Sav appeared on the pages of the Communist magazine. The material was clearly titled: "Problems are not only scientific, but also political." He very indecently attributed the views of academician Belyaev to "a reactionary ideology that tries to put genetics at its service, and more broadly, biology, in order to present all kinds of social inequalities of all kinds as inherent in nature itself"(1). I would like to see any ideology that does not try to "put this or that at its service," much less something worthwhile... A little later, the editorial of the Communist hit the "biologizers", and soon Dmitry Konstantinovich was gone. In short, it is only on the example of our fellow countrymen that you can write interesting, world-class essays on science and its history, but instead our scientists should fit their global potencies into a page and a half (good yet. if not entirely at their own expense), and then for at least three years to guess whether they will be published or not. Now it no longer surprises me how at one time, when, after reading the listener card I filled out, the sweetest girl from the IPKPON office at USU congratulated me for something. It turned out that the dean of the Faculty of Philosophy of USU, doctor, professor, Honored Scientist, and now academician Konstantin Niko-laevich Lyubutin is a countryman, Kostromsky, or rather Manturovsky by origin, as I write below in the notes — we are Kostromendors. To him, my fellow citizen in the most subtle micropatriotic dimensions, I owe a lot in my professional and social development, even in survival. Because that's how it often turns out: you can be born here, sometimes you can live here... It's very hard. Maybe the Kostroma origin of an outstanding Russian historian of philosophy, organizer of science and education, educator and friend of a galaxy of people devoted to the Motherland and the cause is not a great milestone in the history of the region, but name me at least a dozen Russian cities on the scale of Kostroma, from where such intellectual ones would come out into the world and light luminaries like ours. No matter who you take from the world significance of the pillars of national (and world, and foreign, - even the great Rabbi of Lubavitcher spent three years in exile in a Campfire, — I learned from some foreign voices) history, literature, culture in general, technology, science and so on - you will always find someone, which is very directly related to Kostroma. Pushkin, Lermontov, Gorky. Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky, Pisarev, Uspensky, Katenin, Florensky, Savrasov, Kustodiev, Dyagilev, Mikhalkov, Alexander Alexandrovich Zinoviev; writers, artists, entrepreneurs, revolutionaries, inventors, politicians... In some world-famous for its classic Russian provincialism, Kologriv has been storing, figuratively speaking, unique sketches, if not of Leo-Nardo da Vinci himself, then certainly of his school, almost since the seventeenth century. And not only that. Nevertheless, the well-known Chukhloma to the Fatherland, in addition to thinkers of the rank of Rozanov and Zinoviev (where should domestic philosophers mature and not be born, if not in Chukhloma, Manturov or Khrenknowswhere?), gave an actor of amazing, national, originality — Mikhail Pugovkin, who can not be confused with anyone, a role that no one will repeat. (shrink)

Right from traditional African philosophy, down to its modern and contemporary era, there has been a strong link between African philos ophy and language, underlined by the principle of complementarity. This is not disconnec ted with Placid Tempels’ employment of force to explain being, and Alexis Kagame’s NTU, as the underlying principle of reality. Pantaleon Iroegbu explained being as belon gingness. In the thoughts of Innocent Asouzu, Ibuanyidanda, was used to explain the compl ementary nature of reality. In the face (...) of ever growing complexities, African philosop hers have continued to employ African categories for the search for solutions to African problems. At a time like ours when many African governments have failed in national develop ment, especially in their ability to improve the social welfare of her people through th e provision of social amenities like quality education, portable water, transportation, good roads, good medical amenities, security of lives and property, basic infrastructur e, etc., this work employs Igwebuike philosophy, another African category, as a framewor k for Africa’s development. It develops a model of development which is inclusive and wholistic, and traces Africa’s problem of underdevelopment to the employment of no n-inclusive political and economic institutions. For the purpose of this research, the hermeneutic and Wholistic indigenous method of inquiry was employed. (shrink)

Some forms of defining PNC in Aristotle’s works are as follows: a) Everything must be either affirmed or denied (φάναι ἢ ἀποφάναι). (Met., B, 996b28-29) or: it will not be possible to assert and deny the same thing truly at the same time. (Met., Γ, 1008a36-b1) In other words, ‘contradictory statements (ἀντικειμένας φάσεις) are not at the same time true. (Met., Γ, 1011b13-14) Also, ‘It is impossible that contradictories (ἀντίφασιν) should be at the same time true of the same thing.’ (...) (Met., Γ, 1011b15-16) Also, ‘Opposite statements (ἀντικειμένας φάσεις) can never be true of the same subjects.’ (Met., K, 1062a33-34; 1063b15-17) Also, ‘Of all affirmation or negation one is impossible. (PsA., A, 11, 77a22) b) A thing cannot at the same time be and not be. (Met., B, 996b30-31; Γ, 1006a3-5) This can also be extended to many other similar pairs of opposites: ‘The same thing cannot at the same time be and not be, or admit any other similar pair of opposites.’ (Met., K, 1061b34-1062a2) Also, ‘It will be possible for the same thing to be and not to be, except in virtue of an ambiguity.’ (Met., Γ, 1006b18-19) This is also asserted in another similar way: it is impossible that it should be at the same time true to say the same thing is a thing and is not a thing.’ (Met., Γ, 1006b33-34) c) ‘The same attribute cannot at the same time belong (ὑπάρχειν) and not belong to the same object in the same respect.’ (Met., Γ, 1005b19-21) d) Those positive and negative propositions are said to be contradictory which have the same subject and predicate. (OI, I, 7, 17a33-35) The opposition between an affirmation and a denial makes contradictories (ἀντίφασεως). (PsA., A, 2, 72a11-14) Based on Aristotle’s definition, ‘An affirmation is opposed to a denial in the sense which I denote by the term ‘contradictory’ (ἀντίφατικως), when, while the subject remains the same, the affirmation is of universal character and the denial is not.’ (OI., I, 7, 17b16-19) 1) Characteristics of PNC a) It is the most certain (Met., Γ, 1005b22-23 and b11) and the most indisputable (Met., Γ, 1006a5-6) of all principles. b) It is impossible: to believe its contrary (Met., Γ, 1005b24-30); to be really in that position (Met., Γ, 1008b11-13); and to defend it. (OI, I, 9, 18b17-19) Nonetheless, Aristotle thinks that many of the writers about nature assert the contrary of PNC and use a language opposite to it. (Met., Γ, 1005b35-1006a3) c) It is the starting point of all the other axioms. (Met., Γ, 1005b32-34) d) It is not hypothetical. (Met., Γ, 1005b13-17) e) Contradictories are extremely opposed to each other. (Met., Γ, 1007a1-4) f) Believing in PNC saves substance and essence and not believing in it makes all attributes accidents and there will be nothing as being essentially something. The reason is that something which essentially is a being cannot avoid being that thing. (Met., Γ, 1007a20-29 and b16-18) g) PNC supports plurality of things because otherwise all things will be one: ‘If all contradictories are true of the same subject at the same time, evidently all things will be one. For the same thing will be a trireme, a wall, and a man, if it is equally possible to affirm and deny anything of anything.’ (Met., Γ, 1007b18-22) In fact, PNC supports difference: ‘For if contradictories can be predicated alike of each subject, one thing will in no wise differ from another; for if it differs, this difference will be something true and peculiar to it.’ (Met., Γ, 1008a25-27) h) To accept truth and falsity, whether in an absolute sense (e.g. A is more true than B; or C is less true than D) entails PNC. (Met., Γ, 1008b2-7 and b31-35; 1009a2-5) In fact, PNC is entailed by accepting true affirmation. (Met., K, 1062b7-11) i) Judging and choosing between at least two things entails PNC: you cannot choose one as better than another without a previous judging that one is A and the other not A. (Met., Γ, 1008b18-24) The same is true about avoiding. (Met., Γ, 1008b24-29) j) PNC guarantees speaking and saying anything intelligible because otherwise e.g. saying ‘yes’ means both yes and no. (Met., Γ, 1008b7-13) k) Contradictories do not accept intermediates that means we must either affirm or deny a predicate on a subject and there is no third option. (Met., Γ, 1011b23-24; Met., I, 1055b1-2; PsA., A, 2, 72a11-14; Met., I, 1057a33-36) l) PNC is applicable also to the future time. (OI., I, 9, 19a28-29) m) PNC is presupposed by the least semantic of words. If we accept that each word has a meaning and, thus, signifies something definite, we cannot accept that it has the contradictory meaning and signies contradictory things and this approves PNC. Thus, Aristotle asks the opponent of PNC to say just one word, a significant word and takes this as the demonstration of PNC because by saying the word e.g. ‘man’ you have already signified man and not-man. (Met., Γ, 1005a11-13 and a18-22; 1006a28-31 and b13-15) Therefore, signification entails PNC: ‘He, then, who says this is and is not denies what he affirms, so that what the word signifies, he says it does not signify; and this is impossible. Therefore, if ‘This is’ signifies something, one cannot truly assert the contradictory.’ (Met., K, 1062a16-20) He says again: ‘If the word signifies something and this can be truly asserted of it, it necessarily is this; and it is not possible that that which is necessary should ever not be: it is not possible therefore to make the opposed assertions truly of the same subject.’ (Met., K, 1062a20-23; cf. Met., K, 1062a24-31) n) At Met., 4, 3, 1005b9-10 (check???) PNC is called as principle of things (ἀρχὰς τοῦ πράγματος). (quoted from B215, 517) . (shrink)

Lilly was one of the greatest scientists and pioneers on the limits of human possibility but after his death a collective amnesia has descended and he is now almost forgotten. His Wiki is good but inevitably incomplete so here are a few missing details and viewpoints. Lilly was a generation (or more) ahead of his time. He is almost single-handedly responsible for the great interest in dolphins (which led to the Marine Mammal Protection Act in the USA and helped to (...) found the animal rights movement). In 1958 he noted that the brains of elephants and cetaceans were larger than ours, that we should not abuse them and that it was one our most important projects to communicate with them. He invented sensory isolation tanks (at NIMH in 1954) and used them extensively with and without powerful psychoactive drugs at a time when it was thought that either the brain would shut down or one would go insane if external stimuli were eliminated. He created methods for implanting electrodes in mammal brains and was planning to do it to himself. He was one of the first to make serious use of computers in bioscience research and created the hardware and software to make the first attempts to communicate with dolphins. He self experimented with dangerous physiological investigations in high altitude medicine for the military during WW2, took LSD with dolphins and movie stars, submitted himself to the rigors of various forms of yoga and of Arica training, and taught classes at Esalen. He was a computer pioneer who forsaw the rapid advances in A.I. and it's inevitable clash with humans. He was the first one to investigate the bizarre psychedelic ketamine (" vitamin K "), and his results (published in the two last chapters of his book `The Scientist`) are still the best data on the dose/effect relation of any psychedelic on one person. It cured his lifelong daily migraine headaches (see http://www.conspiracyarchive.com/UFOs/Gorightly.htm). And all this happened before most of us were born! He had courage, honesty and integrity that is rare anywhere and almost nonexistent in science. His goal was to find the ultimate truth about everything and he went about as far as anyone ever has. He had little patience with the stupid and hypocritical games one has to play to fit into monkey society. Of course the reaction of the establishment was predictable. He left the NIMH and was never given any government or academic support for the last 35 years of his life. His paper and comments at a conference on sensory deprivation were removed from the published version. He was not invited to government sponsored symposia on dolphins (he had refused to help develop them as weapons), though he clearly knew more about them than anyone in the world. He liked to live and work on the edge and few could keep up with him, as his books make clear. If you have read some of his other books it will be much easier going. He was a pioneer in consciousness research and pushed the boundaries of our understanding of who we are and what we might become. Among other things he catalogs the various states reached by drugs, meditation, and isolation, tries to determine their significance, and suggests how to use them. I very briefly review and comment on his life and work. -/- Those interested in all my writings in their most recent versions may download from this site my e-book ‘Philosophy, Human Nature and the Collapse of Civilization Michael Starks (2016)- Articles and Reviews 2006-2016’ by Michael Starks First Ed. 662p (2016). -/- All of my papers and books have now been published in revised versions both in ebooks and in printed books. -/- Talking Monkeys: Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet - Articles and Reviews 2006-2017 (2017) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071HVC7YP. -/- The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle--Articles and Reviews 2006-2016 (2017) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071P1RP1B. -/- Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st century: Philosophy, Human Nature and the Collapse of Civilization - Articles and Reviews 2006-2017 (2017) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0711R5LGX -/- . (shrink)

I argue that relativists about aesthetic and other evaluative language face some of the same objections as non-naturalists in ethics. These objections concern the metaphysics required to make it work. Unlike contextualists, relativists believe that evaluative propositions are not about the relation in which things stand to certain standards. Nevertheless, the truth of such propositions would depend on variable standards. I argue that relativism requires the existence of states of affairs very different from other things known to exist. Furthermore, there (...) seems to be no convincing reason to postulate such entities. However, if they do not exist, then relativism leads to an error theory. That is unattractive, as relativism was meant to preserve the truth of many evaluative claims. (shrink)

In his recent book Slaves of the Passions , Mark Schroeder defends a Humean account of practical reasons ( hypotheticalism ). He argues that it is compatible with 'genuinely agent-neutral reasons'. These are reasons that any agent whatsoever has. According to Schroeder, they may well include moral reasons. Furthermore, he proposes a novel account of a reason's weight, which is supposed to vindicate the claim that agent-neutral reasons ( if they exist), would be weighty irrespective of anyone's desires. If the (...) argument is successful, it could help avoid an error-theory of moral language. I argue that it isn't, and that we should reject a Humean approach to reasons. (shrink)

Aesthetic non-naturalism is the view that there are objective aesthetic truths that hold in virtue of sui generis facts. This view is seldom explicitly endorsed in philosophical aesthetics. I argue that many aestheticians should treat it as the view to beat, since (a) their commitments favour aesthetic realism, (b) non-naturalistic forms of aesthetic realism are particularly promising and (c) non-naturalists have reasonable answers to four important objections.

I first show how one might argue for a mind-independent conception of beauty and artistic merit. I then discuss whether this makes aesthetic judgements suitable to undermine skeptical worries about the existence of mind-independent moral value and categorical reasons.

Sharon Street argues that realism about epistemic normativity is false. Realists believe there are truths about epistemic reasons that hold independently of the agent’s attitudes. Street argues by dilemma. Either the realist accepts a certain account of the nature of belief, or she does not. If she does, then she cannot consistently accept realism. If she does not, then she has no scientifically credible explanation of the fact that our epistemic behaviours or beliefs about epistemic reasons align with independent normative (...) truths. I argue that neither horn is very sharp for realists about epistemic normativity. (shrink)

According to subjectivist views about a meaningful life, one's life is meaningful in virtue of desire satisfaction or feelings of fulfilment. Standard counterexamples consist of satisfaction found through trivial or immoral tasks. In response to such examples, many philosophers require that the tasks one is devoted to are objectively valuable, or have objectively valuable consequences. I argue that the counterexamples to subjectivism do not require objective value for meaning in life. I also consider other reasons for thinking that meaning in (...) life requires objective value and raise doubts about their strength. Finally, I argue that beauty is not plausibly objective, but that it seems important for meaning. This puts pressure on the objectivist to explain why objectivity matters in the case of other values. (shrink)

In his book Slaves of the Passions, Mark Schroeder defends a Humean theory of reasons. Humeanism is the view that you have a reason to X only if X‐ing promotes at least one of your desires. But Schroeder rejects a natural companion theory of the weight of reasons, which he calls proportionalism. According to it, the weight of a reason is proportionate to the strength of the desire that grounds it and the extent to which the act promotes the object (...) of that desire. In this paper, I aim to do three things: (1) to show why Schroeder's arguments against proportionalism do not refute it; (2) to identify the real trouble with proportionalism; and (3) to suggest a better way of understanding it (preferentialism). According to this theory, the overall strength of reasons is determined by the agent's preferences. (shrink)

We provide an analysis of the public's having warranted epistemic trust in science, that is, the conditions under which the public may be said to have well-placed trust in the scientists as providers of information. We distinguish between basic and enhanced epistemic trust in science and provide necessary conditions for both. We then present the controversy regarding the connection between autism and measles–mumps–rubella vaccination as a case study to illustrate our analysis. The realization of warranted epistemic public trust in science (...) requires various societal conditions, which we briefly introduce in the concluding section. (shrink)

In this article, we develop a new approach to integrating philosophical phenomenology with qualitative research. The approach uses phenomenology’s concepts, namely existentials, rather than methods such as the epoché or reductions. We here introduce the approach to both philosophers and qualitative researchers, as we believe that these studies are best conducted through interdisciplinary collaboration. In section 1, we review the debate over phenomenology’s role in qualitative research and argue that qualitative theorists have not taken full advantage of what philosophical phenomenology (...) has to offer, thus motivating the need for new approaches. In section 2, we introduce our alternative approach, which we call Phenomenologically Grounded Qualitative Research (PGQR). Drawing parallels with phenomenology’s applications in the cognitive sciences, we explain how phenomenological grounding can be used to conceptually front-load a qualitative study, establishing an explicit focus on one or more structures of human existence, or of our being in the world. In section 3, we illustrate this approach with an example of a qualitative study carried out by one of the authors: a study of the existential impact of early parental bereavement. In section 4, we clarify the kind of knowledge that phenomenologically grounded studies generate and how it may be integrated with existing approaches. (shrink)

Moral contextualism is the view that claims like ‘A ought to X’ are implicitly relative to some (contextually variable) standard. This leads to a problem: what are fundamental moral claims like ‘You ought to maximize happiness’ relative to? If this claim is relative to a utilitarian standard, then its truth conditions are trivial: ‘Relative to utilitarianism, you ought to maximize happiness’. But it certainly doesn’t seem trivial that you ought to maximize happiness (utilitarianism is a highly controversial position). Some people (...) believe this problem is a reason to prefer a realist or error theoretic semantics of morals. I argue two things: first, that plausible versions of all these theories are afflicted by the problem equally, and second, that any solution available to the realist and error theorist is also available to the contextualist. So the problem of triviality does not favour noncontextualist views of moral language. (shrink)

There is no doubt that custard apple diseases are among the important reasons that destroy the Custard Apple plant and its agricultural crops. This leads to obvious damage to these plants and they become inedible. Discovering these diseases is a good step to provide the appropriate and correct treatment. Determining the treatment with high accuracy depends on the method used to correctly diagnose the disease, expert systems can greatly help in avoiding damage to these plants. The expert system correctly diagnoses (...) Custard Apple disease to make it easier for farmers to find the right treatment based on the appropriate diagnosis. Objectives: A specialized syllable language system was established for the diagnosis of Custard Apple plant disease. (shrink)

Peter Kivy claims that expressivists in aesthetics cannot explain why we argue about art. The situation would be different in the case of morals. Moral attitudes lead to action, and since actions affect people, we have a strong incentive to change people’s moral attitudes. This can explain why we argue about morals, even if moral language is expressive of our feelings. However, judgements about what is beautiful and elegant need not significantly affect our lives. So why be concerned with other (...) people’s feelings about art? Kivy thinks the best explanation of our tendency to argue about art is that we implicitly believe in objective facts about aesthetics. This would count against expressivism. I argue two things: that there is no good reason to think that we don’t care about preferences and emotions unless they have significant practical consequences and that the truth of expressivism about aesthetic language is compatible with beliefs about objective aesthetic facts. (shrink)

The idea that normative statements implicitly refer to standards has been around for quite some time. It is usually defended by normative antirealists, who tend to be attracted to Humean theories of reasons. But this is an awkward combination: 'A ought to X' entails that there are reasons for A to X, and 'A ought to X all things considered' entails that the balance of reasons favours X-ing. If the standards implicitly referred to are not those of the agent, then (...) why would these entailments hold? After all, Humeanism says that 'A has a reason to X' is true if and only if A has some desire which is furthered by X-ing. In this paper, I develop a standard-relational theory of 'ought' and a non-Humean theory of reasons (oughtism). Together, they explain why 'A ought to X' entails not only that there are reasons for A to X, but also that the balance of reasons favours X-ing. The latter explanation depends on a theory of weight, in which the weight of a reason depends on the position of a rule (standard) in an order of priorities. The theories are truth-conditional, but do not require objective normative facts for the truth of 'ought' judgments and judgments about reasons. (shrink)

Bart Streumer believes that the following principle is true of all normative judgements: When two people make conflicting normative judgements, at most one of them is correct. Streumer argues that noncognitivists are unable to explain why is true, or our acceptance of it. I argue that his arguments are inconclusive. I also argue that our acceptance of is limited in the case of instrumental and epistemic normative judgements, and that the extent to which we do accept for such judgements can (...) be explained by an assumption of shared standards of correctness. Finally, I argue that reductivists can appeal to the same ideas to defend their view that instrumental and epistemic normative judgements describe non-normative relations. (shrink)

This paper explores the implementation of a batch processing pipeline for SIM log data in the telecommunication industry using Azure cloud services. The project leverages Azure Data Lake for data storage, Azure Data Factory for automated data ingestion, and Azure Databricks for processing large volumes of data. By applying machine learning algorithms, the system identifies patterns in network usage, detects anomalies, and provides insights into customer behaviour. The results, visualized using Power BI, enable telecom operators to optimize network performance and (...) enhance customer satisfaction. (shrink)

I examine the epistemic import of collaborative research in science. I develop and defend a functional explanation for its growing importance. Collaborative research is becoming more popular in the natural sciences, and to a lesser degree in the social sciences, because contemporary research in these fields frequently requires access to abundant resources, for which there is great competition. Scientists involved in collaborative research have been very successful in accessing these resources, which has in turn enabled them to realize the epistemic (...) goals of science more effectively than other scientists, thus creating a research environment in which collaboration is now the norm. (shrink)

Illness and injury are often accompanied by experiences of bodily objectification. Medical treatments intended to restore the structure or function of the body may amplify these experiences of objectification by recasting the patient’s body as a biomedical object—something to be examined, measured, and manipulated. In this article, we contribute to the phenomenology of embodiment in illness and medicine by reexamining the results of a qualitative study of the experiences of nurses and patients isolated in an intensive care unit during the (...) first wave of COVID-19. Drawing upon the phenomenological concept of embodiment—as developed in the work of Edmund Husserl, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Emmanuel Levinas—we reconsider how bodily objectification manifests in complex clinical encounters. We show that, in these settings, objectification is not simply the unilateral act of a clinician objectifying a patient. Rather, both clinicians and patients reported a variety of objectifying experiences influenced by their interactions, the immediate context of the intensive care milieu, and the broader atmosphere of a global pandemic. In light of these findings, we argue that bodily objectification in illness and medicine can often be more complicated than typically presented in the phenomenological literature. (shrink)

The Dispossessed has been described by political thinker Andre Gorz as 'The most striking description I know of the seductions—and snares—of self-managed communist or, in other words, anarchist society.' To date, however, the radical social, cultural, and political ramifications of Le Guin's multiple award-winning novel remain woefully under explored. Editors Laurence Davis and Peter Stillman right this state of affairs in the first ever collection of original essays devoted to Le Guin's novel. Among the topics covered in this wide-ranging, international (...) and interdisciplinary collection are the anarchist, ecological, post-consumerist, temporal, revolutionary, and open-ended utopian politics of The Dispossessed. The book concludes with an essay by Le Guin written specially for this volume, in which she reassesses the novel in light of the development of her own thinking over the past 30 years. (shrink)

A review of Personhood, Ethics, and Animal Cognition: Situating Animals in Hare’s Two-Level Utilitarianism, by Gary E. Varner. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2012. Pp. xv + 336. H/b £40.23. and The Philosophy of Animal Minds, edited by Robert W. Lurz. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Pp. 320. P/b £20.21.

Wide-scopers argue that the detachment of intuitively false ‘ought’ claims from hypothetical imperatives is blocked because ‘ought’ takes wide, as opposed to narrow, scope. I present two arguments against this view. The first questions the premise that natural language conditionals are true just in case the antecedent is false. The second shows that intuitively false ‘ought’s can still be detached even WITH wide-scope readings. This weakens the motivation for wide-scoping.

Farbod Akhlaghi (2021) argues that noncognitivists and naturalists cannot explain the epistemic possibility of wholesale moral error. This would show that noncognitivism and naturalism are false. I argue that noncognitivists and naturalists have no trouble explaining the epistemic possibility of wholesale moral error and that the requirement to explain this possibility is plausible only on one particular conception of epistemic possibility.

Güvenilirci (reliabilist) bilgi teorisi, çağdaş epistemik gerekçelendirme kuramları içerisinde, dışsalcı (externalist) kuramın bir türü olarak kendisine yer bulmaktadır. Kısaca, bir inancı gerekçelendiren şeyin o inancın oluşturulduğu sürecin güvenilirliği olduğunu öne süren bu yaklaşım, bu bilişsel süreçleri özne dışı unsurlara bağladığı içinde dışsalcı bir pozisyonda yer almaktadır. Bu bilgi teorisinin tam karşı konumunda yer alan içselci (internalist) bilgi teorisi ise, özne merkezli bir yaklaşımla, doğru inancı gerekçelendirecek yöntemin, kişinin kendi zihinsel yapısından yola çıkarak, belli kognitif süreçler sonucunda ulaşılabileceğini öne sürmektedir. Epistemik (...) gerekçelendirme kuramları içerisinde birçok tartışmada kendisine yer bulan bu iki bilgi teorisi, kendi içerisinde de birçok farklı kurama kapı aralamıştır. Burada içselci bilgi teorisinden ortaya çıkan erişim içselciliği, farkındalık içselciliği gibi kuramları ve dışsalcı bilgi teorisinden ortaya çıkan süreç güvenilirciliği, gösterge güvenilirciliği ve erdem güvenilirciliği gibi farklı türden kuramları örnek olarak verebiliriz. Öte yandan çağdaş epistemolojideki bu tartışmalar, dini epistemoloji içerisinde de kendisine yer bulmuştur. Özellikle Alvin Plantinga, kendi dini epistemolojisi içerisinde dışsalcı bir tutum sergilemiş ve son dönem çalışmaları içerisinde de güvenilirci bir anlayışla Tanrı inancının epistemik mahiyetini ortaya koymaya çalışmıştır. Bu makalede öncelikle dışsalclık ve onun bir türü olan güvenilirci bilgi anlayışını ve bu kuramlara getirilen eleştirileri ele almaya çalışacağız, daha sonra A. Plantinga’nın son dönem dini epistemolojisinin de yönünü belirleyen güvence (warrant) kavramını açıklayıp, bu kavramın bütün teist dinlere uygulanabilirliğini sorgulayacağız. (shrink)

This project focuses on estimating reservoir inflows by integrating rainfall data, soil moisture levels in the catchment area, and releases from upstream reservoirs, coupled with an automated gate control system to prevent flooding in the basin. Utilizing hydrological models, the methodology predicts runoff from rainfall, adjusted for current soil moisture to enhance accuracy. Real-time data from upstream releases further refines inflow predictions. The automated system leverages predictive analytics and real-time monitoring to optimize gate operations, ensuring moderate water releases to maintain (...) safe reservoir levels and mitigate downstream flooding. This approach aims to enhance flood management and sustainable water resource use through advanced modelling and automation. (shrink)

According to Stephen Finlay, ‘A ought to X’ means that X-ing is more conducive to contextually salient ends than relevant alternatives. This in turn is analysed in terms of probability. I show why this theory of ‘ought’ is hard to square with a theory of a reason’s weight which could explain why ‘A ought to X’ logically entails that the balance of reasons favours that A X-es. I develop two theories of weight to illustrate my point. I first look at (...) the prospects of a theory of weight based on expected utility theory. I then suggest a simpler theory. Although neither allows that ‘A ought to X’ logically entails that the balance of reasons favours that A X-es, this price may be accepted. For there remains a strong pragmatic relation between these claims. (shrink)

Abstract: The integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into medical imaging represents a transformative shift in healthcare, offering significant improvements in diagnostic accuracy, efficiency, and patient outcomes. This paper explores the application of AI technologies in the analysis of medical images, focusing on techniques such as convolutional neural networks (CNNs) and deep learning models. We discuss how these technologies are applied to various imaging modalities, including X-rays, MRIs, and CT scans, to enhance disease detection, image segmentation, and diagnostic support. Additionally, the (...) paper addresses the challenges faced in AI-driven medical imaging, including data quality, model interpretability, and ethical considerations. By examining recent advancements and real-world case studies, this paper provides insights into the current state of AI in medical imaging and its potential future directions. The findings highlight the ongoing evolution of AI technologies and their crucial role in advancing medical diagnostics and treatment strategies. (shrink)

Literature reviews have traditionally been a simple exercise in reporting the current relevant research, both to provide an overview of the current status of the field, and perhaps to draw attention to controversies. From the perspective of positivist research traditions, it was important to neutrally report all the relevant research, which was assumed to be foundational. In this article, written for the Applied Critical Realism special issue of Journal of Critical Realism, I use my own research to illustrate how a (...) literature review might look if it were non-foundational and guided by the principles of immanent critique. Immanent critique is central to Bhaskar’s philosophical methodology but has not been much applied in critical realist empirical research. Following a brief introduction to immanent critique, its history and relation to other ways of grounding knowledge, an excerpt from a literature review is used as backdrop for an extended discussion about various potential applications, and impl... (shrink)

The dominant framework for addressing procreative ethics has revolved around the notion of harm, largely due to Derek Parfit’s famous non-identity problem. Focusing exclusively on the question of harm treats what procreators owe their offspring as akin to what they would owe strangers (if they owe them anything at all). Procreators, however, usually expect (and are expected) to parent the persons they create, so we cannot understand what procreators owe their offspring without also appealing to their role as prospective parents. (...) I argue that prospective parents can wrong their future children just by failing to act well in their role as parents, whether or not their offspring are ultimately harmed or benefitted by their creation. Their obligations as prospective parents bear on the motivations behind their reproductive choices, including the choice to select for some genetic trait in their offspring. Even when procreators’ motivations aren’t malicious, or purely selfish, they can still fail to recognize and act for the end of the parental role. Procreators can wrong their offspring by selecting for some genetic trait, then, when doing so would violate their obligations as prospective parents, or when their motivation for doing so is antithetical to the end of the parental role. (shrink)

Stephen Finlay analyses ‘ought’ in terms of probability. According to him, normative ‘ought's are statements about the likelihood that an act will realize some (contextually supplied) end. I raise a problem for this theory. It concerns the relation between ‘ought’ and the balance of reasons. ‘A ought to Φ’ seems to entail that the balance of reasons favours that A Φ-es, and vice versa. Given Finlay's semantics for ‘ought’, it also makes sense to think of reasons and their weight in (...) terms of probability. In this paper, I develop such a theory of weight. It turns out, however, that it cannot explain the entailments. This leaves Finlay with a challenge: to explain these entailments in some other way consistent with his theory, or to show why the appearances deceive and there are no such entailments. (shrink)

David Hull accounts for the success of science in terms of an invisible hand mechanism, arguing that it is difficult to reconcile scientists' self-interestedness or their desire for recognition with traditional philosophical explanations for the success of science. I argue that we have less reason to invoke an invisible hand mechanism to explain the success of science than Hull implies, and that many of the practices and institutions constitutive of science are intentionally designed by scientists with an eye to realizing (...) the very goals that Hull believes need to be explained by reference to an invisible hand mechanism. Thus, I reduce the scope of Hull's invisible hand explanation and supplement it by appealing to a hidden hand explanation. (shrink)

Many accounts of the morality of abortion assume that early fetuses must all have or lack moral status in virtue of developmental features that they share. Our actual attitudes toward early fetuses don’t reflect this all-or-nothing assumption: early fetuses can elicit feelings of joy, love, indifference, or distress. If we start with the assumption that our attitudes toward fetuses reflect a real difference in their moral status, then we need an account of fetal moral status that can explain that difference. (...) I argue that we can have or lack relational obligations to early fetuses in light of our own activities or choices, independent of the fetus’s own features or properties. Those relational obligations make the early fetus morally considerable to the persons who stand in a moral relation to it. Pregnant persons (and other participants in the procreative process) can come to have relational obligations to an early fetus just in virtue of their own decision to create a person, either by intentionally getting pregnant or by deciding to continue a pregnancy. That decision not only makes it appropriate for them to care about the fetus, but it also generates obligations to the fetus that they didn’t have before that decision. (shrink)

Usually, modular construction involves the off-site manufacturing of standard building components in a factory before the components are assembled on the construction site. It is common to use terms like "prefabrication," "off-site construction," and "modular construction" interchangeably. The construction of modular constructions nowadays is flourishing all over the globe. The roots of the Albanian prefabricated constructions are extended for the first time around the 1970s. This paper will indeed analyze some recently built modular construction in Albania, considering and comparing it (...) with international case studies. The demand for new construction in Albania is rising rapidly. Currently, the most common structures are cast-in-place beam-column designs, driven by both traditional mindsets and industrial capabilities. However, with Albania's economic growth, there is an increasing need for affordable, quickly built, and technologically advanced buildings. Modular construction, which assembles prefabricated modules on-site, offers a solution. This method aligns with bioclimatic design principles, reducing environmental impact and optimizing resources, marking a shift toward sustainability in the construction industry. The purpose of this article is to explore the potential integration of “modular construction techniques” with “bioclimatic design concepts” to create buildings that are environmentally friendly, energy-efficient, and multipurpose by function. This study explores the use of modular construction techniques in conjunction with bioclimatic techniques to increase “building sustainability”. Combining these tactics encourages energy efficiency and a reduced environmental effect, making people far more resilient and weather-adaptable. The synergy between the two of them is necessary. (shrink)

The primary aim of this research was to investigate the intricate relationship between the structural elements of experiences and their essential role in meaning formation. The analysis focused on understanding the nature of mental representations and the subjective, phenomenal qualities that emerge within experiences. To achieve this, an integrated approach, combining cognitive semantics with phenomenological analysis, was employed to examine the compositional complexities of the dynamic interaction between a priori and immediate experiences and their significance in meaning formation. The study (...) highlights the interconnectivity of structural elements within experience as a critical factor in shaping the phenomenal qualities of mental representations. Another key contribution of this study is the introduction of the “fulfiller” concept, which underscores the importance of absent qualities in meaning formation-an often-overlooked aspect in traditional models that focus solely on present attributes. The “fulfiller” concept emphasizes how absence, in addition to presence, influences meaning assignment. This inclusion enhances our understanding of meaning formation by considering both the tangible and intangible dimensions of the experiential-intentional process, offering a more comprehensive framework for understanding how meaning emerges from the complex interaction of present and absent qualities. (shrink)