In this paper I offer a unified causal account of natural kinds. Using as a starting point the widely held view that natural kind terms or predicates are projectible, I argue that the ontological bases of their projectibility are the causal properties and relations associated with the natural kinds themselves. Natural kinds are not just concatenations of properties but ordered hierarchies of properties, whose instances are related to one another as causes and effects in recurrent causal processes. The resulting account (...) of natural kinds as clusters of core causal properties that give rise to clusters of derivative properties enables us to distinguish genuine natural kinds from non-natural kinds. For instance, it enables us to say why some of the purely conventional categories derived from the social domain do not correspond to natural kinds, though other social categories may. (shrink)

In this interview, which took place in July 2020, Muhammad Asghari, an associate professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Tabriz, asked eleven questions (via email ) to Professor Susan Haack, a distinguished professor of philosophy at the University of Miami. This American philosopher eagerly and patiently emailed me the answers to the questions. The questions in this interview are mainly about analytic philosophy and pragmatist philosophy. This interview was conducted via personal email between me and (...) Professor Susan Haack in July 2020. This interview, which Professor Hawk eagerly accepted, includes eleven questions about her biography and roles of various philosophers in her thought and finally about the influence of the philosophy of pragmatism on her thought. Of course, it goes without saying that the Haack's book Philosophy of Logic in Iran has been translated into Persian and he has published two articles in the quarterly journal of Philosophical Investigations (University of Tabriz) and I also have translated one of her articles into Persian. What was most interesting to me was the influence of pragmatism on Haack's thought that Charles Sanders Pierce, among classical American pragmatists, had as much influence on this philosopher's thought as John Dewey had in Rorty's thought. Here I thank Professor Susan Haack for answering my questions patiently and eagerly. (shrink)

Could some social kinds be natural kinds? In this paper, I argue that there are three kinds of social kinds: 1) social kinds whose existence does not depend on human beings having any beliefs or other propositional attitudes towards them ; 2) social kinds whose existence depends in part on specific attitudes that human beings have towards them, though attitudes need not be manifested towards their particular instances ; 3) social kinds whose existence and that of their instances depend in (...) part on specific attitudes that human beings have towards them . Although all three kinds of social kinds are mind-dependent, this does not make them ontologically subjective or preclude them from being natural kinds. Rather, what prevents the third kind of social kinds from being natural kinds is that their properties are conventionally rather than causally linked. (shrink)

There are many ways of construing the claim that some categories are more “natural" than others. One can ask whether a system of categories is innate or acquired by learning, whether it pertains to a natural phenomenon or to a social institution, whether it is lexicalized in natural language or requires a compound linguistic expression. This renders suspect any univocal answer to this question in any particular case. Yet another question one can ask, which some authors take to have a (...) bearing on the issue of the naturalness of categories, is whether a system of categories constitutes a unique way of organizing a particular set of entities or phenomena, or whether there are other legitimate classification schemes that can coexist with it. Another way of putting this is by asking whether systems of categories can cut across one another, and if so, under what circumstances. Some philosophers have claimed that crosscutting systems of categories cannot exist as genuine natural kinds. This paper examines that claim and puts forward some counterexamples, concluding that this notion of natural kind is not in tune with scientific classification and ought to be rejected in favor of an alternative. (shrink)

This paper examines the phenomenon of ‘interactive kinds’ first identified by Ian Hacking. An interactive kind is one that is created or significantly modified once a concept of it has been formulated and acted upon in certain ways. Interactive kinds may also ‘loop back’ to influence our concepts and classifications. According to Hacking, interactive kinds are found exclusively in the human domain. After providing a general account of interactive kinds and outlining their philosophical significance, I argue that they are not (...) confined to the human realm, but that they can also occur elsewhere. Hence, I conclude by arguing that interactive kinds pose a challenge to scientific realism about kinds by making it difficult to make a distinction between real and non-real kinds. (shrink)

Innate cognitive capacities are widely posited in cognitive science, yet both philosophers and scientists have criticized the concept of innateness as being hopelessly confused. Despite a number of recent attempts to define or characterize innateness, critics have charged that it is associated with a diverse set of properties and encourages unwarranted inferences among properties that are frequently unrelated. This criticism can be countered by showing that the properties associated with innateness cluster together in reliable ways, at least in the context (...) of the study of cognition. Even though the causal connections between these cognitive properties are not always strict, they are robust enough to warrant considering innateness to be a natural kind as used in contemporary cognitive science. (shrink)

This paper attempts to articulate a dispositional account of innateness that applies to cognitive capacities. After criticizing an alternative account of innateness proposed by Cowie (1999) and Samuels (2002), the dispositional account of innateness is explicated and defended against a number of objections. The dispositional account states that an innate cognitive capacity (output) is one that has a tendency to be triggered as a result of impoverished environmental conditions (input). Hence, the challenge is to demonstrate how the input can be (...) compared to the output and shown to be relatively impoverished. I argue that there are robust methods of comparing input to output without measuring them quantitatively. (shrink)

This paper advocates a dispositional account of innate cognitive capacities, which has an illustrious history from Plato to Chomsky. The "triggering model" of innateness, first made explicit by Stich ([1975]), explicates the notion in terms of the relative informational content of the stimulus (input) and the competence (output). The advantage of this model of innateness is that it does not make a problematic reference to normal conditions and avoids relativizing innate traits to specific populations, as biological models of innateness are (...) forced to do. Relativization can be avoided in the case of cognitive capacities precisely because informational content is involved. Even though one cannot measure output relative to input in a precise way, there are indirect and approximate ways of assessing the degree of innateness of a specific cognitive capacity. (shrink)

This paper discusses a philosophical issue in taxonomy. At least one philosopher has suggested thc taxonomic principle that scientific kinds are disjoint. An opposing position is dcfcndcd here by marshalling examples of nondisjoint categories which belong to different, cocxisting classification schcmcs. This dcnial of thc disjoinmcss principle can bc recast as thc claim that scientific classification is "int<-:rcst—rclativc". But why would anyone have held that scientific categories arc disjoint in the first place'? It is argued that this assumption is nccdcd (...) in one attempt t0 dcrivc csscntialism. This shows why the csscntialist and intc-:rcst—r<-zlativc approaches to classification arc in conflict. (shrink)

Saba Mahmood’s anthropological work studies the gain in skills, agency and capacity building by the women’s dawa movement in Egypt. These women increase their virtue toward the goal of piety by following dominant, often patriarchal norms. Mahmood argues that “teleological feminism” ignores this gain in agency because this kind of feminism only focuses on opposition or resistance to these norms. In this paper I defend Mahmood’s “anti-teleological” feminist work from criticisms that her project valorizes oppression and has no vision for (...) a nonoppressive feminist future. I argue the future envisioned by teleological feminists gets caught in “the Hegelian” trap of replicating past oppression in their feminist future. I find in Mahmood’s work the tools to escape this trap. I argue, rather than a movement of overcoming oppression, Mahmood’s work suggests an immanent and creative movement that emphasizes difference for a truly new future. I turn to a Bergsonian metaphor and argue that this movement can be seen as akin to the movement of biological evolution. I conclude using the work of Eve Sedgwick that the Egyptian women that Mahmood studies are being read in a “paranoid” fashion and demonstrate using Leila Ahmed a better “reparative” reading of these women. (shrink)

My intention in this paper is to reframe the practice of veiling as an embodied practice of self-development and self- transformation. I argue that practices like these cannot be handled by the choice/chance distinction relied on by those who would restrict religious minority accommodations. Embodied self- transformation necessarily means a change in personal identity and this means the religious believer cannot know if they will need religious accommodation when they begin their journey of piety. Even some luck egalitarians would find (...) leaning exclusively on preference and choice to find who should be burdened with paying the full costs of certain choices in one’s life too morally harsh to be justifiable. I end by briefly illustrating an alternative way to think about religious accommodation that does not rely on the choice/chance distinction. (shrink)

I begin the first part by showing how situationism should make us question traditional understandings of virtues as intrinsic dispositions. I concentrate specifically on situationist experiments related to mood. I then introduce Islamic virtue ethics and the dawa movement. In parts two and three I examine ethnography of the dawa movement to explore how they deal with worries about the influence of mood on their virtue. In part two I show how they train their habits in very traditional virtue ethics (...) ways in order to be more resilient when faced with virtue-diminishing affective situations. In part three I show how the situation, rather than hindering practitioners, is recruited into helping these women achieve piety. I conclude, in part four, by showing the dawa movement's creative use of the Islamic veil as a way to help these women deal with the objection that one cannot avoid all bad situations. Going beyond social psychological experiments, I examine two methodological sources not found in situationist debates. First, I argue for ethnography as an empirical method through which to study virtue. I draw on ethnography of the Islamic women's dawa movement. Secondly, the work in the philosophy of mind on ‘affective scaffolding’. (shrink)

Griffiths and Machery (2008) have argued that innateness is a folk notion that obstructs inquiry and has no place in contemporary science. They support their view by criticizing the canalization account of innateness (Ariew, 1999, 2006). In response, I argue that the criticisms they raise for the canalization account can be avoided by another recent account of innateness, the triggering account, which provides an analysis of the concept as it applies to cognitive capacities (Khalidi, 2002, 2007; Stich, 1975). I also (...) claim that they have not demonstrated that the folk notion of innateness is unsuitable for rehabilitation in a science of cognition. I conclude that they have not made the case that the notion of innateness ought to be eliminated from a scientific account of the mind. (shrink)

Scientific essentialism holds that: (1) each scientific kind is associated with the same set of properties in every possible world; and (2) every individual member of a scientific kind belongs to that kind in every possible world in which it exists. Recently, Ellis (Scientific essentialism, 2001 ; The philosophy of nature 2002 ) has provided the most sustained defense of scientific essentialism, though he does not clearly distinguish these two claims. In this paper, I argue that both claims face a (...) number of formidable difficulties. The necessities of scientific essentialism are not adequately distinguished from semantic necessities, they have not been shown to be necessities in the strictest sense, they must be relativized to context, and they must either be confined to a subset of scientific properties without warrant or their connection to causal powers must be revoked. Moreover, upon closer examination (1) turns out to be a trivial thesis that can be satisfied by non-kinds, and (2) is inapplicable to some of the most fundamental kinds in the basic sciences. (shrink)

Functional reductionism concerning mental properties has recently been advocated by Jaegwon Kim in order to solve the problem of the 'causal exclusion' of the mental. Adopting a reductionist strategy first proposed by David Lewis, he regards psychological properties as being 'higher-order' properties functionally defined over 'lower-order' properties, which are causally efficacious. Though functional reductionism is compatible with the multiple realizability of psychological properties, it is blocked if psychological properties are subdivided or crosscut by neurophysiological properties. I argue that there is (...) recent evidence from cognitive neuroscience that shows that this is the case for the psychological property of fear. Though this may suggest that some psychological properties should be revised in order to conform to those of neurophysiology, the history of science demonstrates that this is not always the outcome, particularly with properties that play an important role in our folk theories and are central to human concerns. (shrink)

There is a widespread assumption in cognitive science that there is anintrinsic link between the phenomena of innateness and domain specificity. Many authors seem to hold that given the properties of these two phenomena, it follows that innate mental states are domain-specific, or that domain-specific states are innate. My aim in this paper is to argue that there are no convincing grounds for asserting either claim. After introducing the notions of innateness and domain specificity, I consider some possible arguments for (...) the conclusion that innate cognitive states are domain-specific, or vice versa. Having shown that these arguments do not succeed, I attempt to explicate what I take to be the connection between innateness and domain specificity. I argue that it is simply easier to determine whether and to what extent domain-specific cognitive capacities are innate. That is,the relation between innateness and domain specificity is evidential or epistemic, rather than intrinsic. (shrink)

Kinds that share historical properties are dubbed “historical kinds” or “etiological kinds,” and they have some distinctive features. I will try to characterize etiological kinds in general terms and briefly survey some previous philosophical discussions of these kinds. Then I will take a closer look at a few case studies involving different types of etiological kinds. Finally, I will try to understand the rationale for classifying on the basis of etiology, putting forward reasons for classifying phenomena on the basis of (...) diachronic features, thereby making a provisional case for considering at least some etiological kinds to be natural kinds. (shrink)

In this paper we extend the neutrosophic group and subgroup to soft neutrosophic group and soft neutrosophic subgroup respectively. Properties and theorems related to them are proved and many examples are given.

Two main theories of concepts have emerged in the recent psychological literature: the Prototype Theory (which considers concepts to be self-contained lists of features) and the Theory Theory (which conceives of them as being embedded within larger theoretical networks). Experiments supporting the first theory usually differ substantially from those supporting the second, which suggests that these the· ories may be operating at different levels of explanation and dealing with different entities. A convergence is proposed between the Theory Theory and the (...) intentional stance in the philosophy of language and mind. From this stance, concepts should not be thought of as concrete physical entities. (shrink)

This inquiry examines the question how the category of ‘religion’ generates a complex form of power oriented to the government of subjects. It does this through a critical reading of the right to freedom of religion, offered from the perspective of governmentality. It is argued that the right to freedom of religion enables the rational goals of government to relate to religiosity in such a manner that those subject to them are made at once freer and more governable ‘in this (...) world’. (shrink)

Scientists cannot devise theories, construct models, propose explanations, make predictions, or even carry out observations, without first classifying their subject matter. The goal of scientific taxonomy is to come up with classification schemes that conform to nature's own. Another way of putting this is that science aims to devise categories that correspond to 'natural kinds.' The interest in ascertaining the real kinds of things in nature is as old as philosophy itself, but it takes on a different guise when one (...) adopts a naturalist stance in philosophy, that is when one looks closely at scientific practice and takes it as a guide for identifying natural kinds and investigating their general features. This Element surveys existing philosophical accounts of natural kinds, defends a naturalist alternative, and applies it to case studies in a diverse set of sciences. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core. (shrink)

Along with “paradigm” and “scientific revolution,” “incommensurability” is one of the three most influential expressions associated with the “new philosophy of science” first articulated in the early 1960s by Thomas Kuhn and Paul Feyerabend. But, despite the fact that it has been widely discussed, opinions still differ widely as to the content and significance of the claim of incommensurability.

فلسفههای معاصر غرب به مثابه جنگلی پر از درختان کوتاه و بلند است که چنان درهم تنیده شدهاند که گاهی تشخیص ریشهها، تنهها و شاخ و برگهای آن‌ها از یکدیگر دشوار میشود. این وضعیت فلسفههای معاصر مغرب زمین است که تنها یک صفت برای آن‌ها مناسب است: تنوع و کثرت. بیشک عصر ما عصر استقبال از تفاوتها و کثرتها و دوری از این‌همانی‌ها و وحدتهایی است که از افلاطون تا هایدگر اول فیلسوفان آن را یگانه قلمرویی که حقیقت در آن (...) سکنی گزیده می‌دانستند. البته این تنوع و پیچیدگی از یک سو، محصول بافت تاریخی، اجتماعی، سیاسی، اقتصادی، فلسفی، علمی، هنری و رسانههای جمعی قرن بیستم است و از سوی دیگر، همین بافت نیز بیتأثیر از فلسفهها و اندیشههای فلسفی و علمی به ارث رسیده از قرن نوزدهم نیست. بنابراین، تعامل بین این دو عامل و تأثیر و تأثر از یکدیگر قابل اغماض نیست. تحولات در عصر حاضر را به دو شکل میتوان توصیف کرد. یکی تحولات در عرصة جهان روزمره که میتوانیم آن‌ها را تحولات سختافزاری بنامیم و عبارت‌اند از دو جنگ جهانی خانمان‌سوز اول و دوم، نژادپرستی، ظهور و افول دولتهای کمونیستی، تولید سلاحهای هستهای و استفاده از بمب اتمی، تولید سایر سلاحهای کشتار جمعی، درگیریهای قومی و نژادی و ضد استعماری، جهانیشدن، ظهور جنبشهای زنان، سقوط دولتهای استبدادی و ظهور دولتهای دموکراتیک، ظهور جامعة پساصنعتی، رشد روزافرون تکنولوژیهای کامپیوتری، افزایش قدرت رسانههای جمعی، پیشرفتهای روزافرون در حوزة پزشکی و... . تحولات نرم‌افزاری ‌عبارت‌اند‌ از ظهور نظریههای جدید در حوزة علم مانند نظریة نسبیت و نظریة کوانتوم، پیدایش پدیدارشناسی و فلسفههای اگزیستانس، فلسفههای پساساختارگرایانه، ظهور جنبشهای نوظهور در هنرها، تفسیرهای جدید از مفهوم عدالت در فلسفة سیاسی و... . هم تحولات سخت‌افزاری و هم تحولات نرم‌افزاری در تعامل فزاینده با یکدیگر سمت و سوی تازهای به فلسفههای معاصر نیز داده‌اند که آن را در قالب کثرت و تنوع و تفاوت فلسفهها میبینیم. این کثرت و تنوع به فلسفة معاصر غربی محدود نمیشود بلکه تقریباً شبیه همین وضعیت را در علوم اجتماعی، علوم سیاسی، حوزة هنرها و ‌به‌طور کلی در علوم انسانی و حتی در علوم تجربی مثل فیزیک شاهد هستیم. برای مثال اگر در قرن هجدهم فقط پارادایم نیوتنی غالب بود، امروز پارادایم انشتینی، پارادایم کوانتمیِ هایزنبرگی و سایر پارادایمها غالب هستند. گویی سرنوشت و تقدیر انسان معاصر این بوده که به این کثرتگرایی و تنوع تن دردهد. تنها وحدتی که میتوان با اطمینان خاطر بیشتری در فلسفة معاصر غرب پذیرفت این است که «کثرت» نقطهای است که فلسفههای معاصر به دور آن حلقه زدهاند. انسان معاصر گریز و گزیری از «کثرتگرایی» ندارد؛ لذا سرنوشت خود را باید در این فضا رقم زند. فلسفههای معاصر چه اروپایی مثل پدیدارشناسی، اگزیستانسیالیسم، هرمنوتیک و غیره، چه انگلیسیزبان مثل فلسفههای تحلیل زبانی و چه فلسفههای امریکایی مثل پراگماتیسم قدیم و جدیم در این جادة پر فراز و نشیب کثرتگرایی پا به عرصة هستی گذاشتهاند. یقیناً مبانی این فلسفهها نیز از سایة عظیم کثرتگرایی بیرون نیستند. البته مراد ما از کثرتگرایی صرفاً معنای متافیزیکی آن نیست بلکه به معنای عام کلمه است که دامنة آن تمامی حوزههای دانش بشری در عصر حاضر را شامل میشود. نکتة دیگر این است که این کثرتگرایی از ابتدای قرن بیستم به بعد ابعاد وسیعتری به خود میگیرد، چرا که در ابتدای قرن بیستم هنوز آن تفکر وحدتگرای هگلی در فلسفه و علمیکردن همة ابعاد زندگی و تلقی علمی از ‌جامعه در قالب مارکسیسم ــ به قول لیوتار غلبة روایت‌های کلان بر روایت‌های خرد ــ اجازة تنفس به تفاوتها را نمیداد؛ ولی نقدهای کوبندة نیچه به متافیزیک افلاطونگرا ـ ‌مسیحی سنت غربی، شکستن شیشة شفاف و یکدست نفس به دست فروید، وقوع دو جنگ جهانی، ظهور جنبشهای دادائیستی در عالم هنر و افول مرز هنر والا و هنر پست، ظهور بحران معنا، مرگ مؤلف و مرگ سوژه، جایگزینی زبان به جای ذهن، تقدم عمل بر نظر، استقبال از تفاوتها، سقوط دولتهای غیردموکراتیک و ظهور جوامع دموکراتیک در اشکال مختلف، ظهور جنبشهای زنان در قالب‌های گوناگون فمینیسم، طرح مباحث زیستمحیطی، همه و همه این نوید را داد که تفکر وحدتگرای تمامیتخواه در فرهنگ انسان قرن هجدهم و نوزدهم به بن‌بست رسیده است و اکنون وقت آن فرارسیده که نگاهها به سمت تنوعها، کثرتها و تفاوتها در تمامی حیطههای جامعة بشری قرن بیستم و بیست‌ویکم معطوف گردد. فیلسوفان همة این تحولات را در فلسفههای معاصر به چشم خویش دیدند و اغلب تسلیم این کثرتگرایی به معنای عام کلمه شدند. شاهد دیگری برای این کثرت و تفاوت در فلسفة معاصر، ظهور فلسفهها و مکاتب، جنبشها و جریانهای فلسفی متعدد در این دوره است. ما در هیچ دورهای از تاریخ طولانی فلسفه به اندازة دورة معاصر با کثرت فلسفه و مکاتب مواجه نیستیم. چنانچه در قرن هفدهم دکارت پدر معنوی فیلسوفان است و فیلسوفان این دوره فلسفههای خود را در مسیر دکارتی ایجاد کردهاند، در قرن هجدهم کانت و در قرن نوزدهم هگل و برخی فیلسوفان دیگر نقش پدر معنوی را بازی کرده‌اند. کما اینکه افلاطون پدر معنوی تمامی فلسفة غرب شناخته میشود. وایتهد در جملة معروفی گفته بود: «کل تاریخ فلسفة غرب پانوشتی بر افلاطون است.». (shrink)

Martin Heidegger broadened the meaning of art to a truth-disclosing event akin to seemingly disparate events such as the founding of a political state, Jesus’s sacrifice for all humankind, and the questioning of a philosopher. Art makes us pay attention to it by presenting the familiar in a new and unfamiliar context and unsettles our presuppositions and reconceptualizes our way of thinking. I begin by explicating the Heideggerian interpretation of the nature of art by looking at the key concepts that (...) make a work of art work. Then I argue that by themselves, the concept of veiling and the concept of fashion are very familiar concepts to Indonesians, but that the practice of combining these two ideas brings something unfamiliar to that society. This new practice reveals a way of Being that combines religious piety with our current, late-modern, consumer society. The combination of fashion and veiling for piety discloses, in the Heideggerian sense, a new “world” that undermines secular and fundamentalist narratives about the religious agent while still remaining an authentic Indonesian art piece. (shrink)

We investigated the impact of psychological capital (PsyCap) on supervisory-rated innovative performance and job stress. Data collected from a diverse sample (N = 237 paired responses) of employees from various organizations in Pakistan provided good support for the hypotheses. The results indicate that PsyCap is positively related to innovative job performance and negatively related to job stress. High PsyCap individuals were rated as exhibiting more innovative behaviours by their supervisors than low PsyCap individuals. Particularly, we found that high PsyCap individuals (...) were more likely to generate, acquire support for, and implement novel ideas in their workplace. Similarly, individuals with high PsyCap reported lower levels of job stress as compared to their low PsyCap counterparts. (shrink)

One contentious issue in contemporary interpretations of medieval Islamic philosophy is the degree of esotericism espoused by its proponents, and therefore the degree of interpretive effort required by its modem readers to ascertain the author's real beliefs. One philosopher who has been accused of esotericism is Averroes (Ibn Rushd), particularly because he is quite explicit in distinguishing among the different types of reasoning appropriate to different classes of people: philosophers, theologians, and laypersons. But on closer inspection Averroes appears to have (...) at his disposal some subtle strategies for achieving partial reconciliation between religion and philosophy, strategies which do not actually involve falsifying the views of either side, although that is how it might appear at first sight. These polemical devices appear most clearly in his exchanges with the theologians (mutakallimun) of the Ash'arite school, of which Ghazali is the most original representative. In this paper I will examine Averroes's position on two sensitive matters, the creation of the universe and the possibility of miracles, in order to illustrate the use of what may be called his "method of re-interpretation," whereby certain key terms are interpreted in such a way as to emphasize the agreements between the two sides while downplaying the differences. (shrink)

Among philosophers working on modality, there is a common assumption that there is a strong connection between temporal possibility and counterfactual possibility. For example, Sydney Shoemaker 1998, 69 70) writes: It seems to me a general feature of our thought about possibility that how we think that something could have differed from how it in fact is [is] closely related to how we think that the way something is at one time could differ from the way that same thing is (...) at a different time. In possible worlds jargon, the ways one and the same thing of a given sort can differ across worlds correspond to the ways one and the same thing of that sort can differ at different times in the same world. Could I have been a plumber or an accountant instead of a philosopher? The answer seems to be yes -- and this goes with the fact that we acknowledge the possibility of a scenario in which someone who was exactly as I was at some point in my life undergoes a series of changes resulting in his eventually being a plumber or an accountant. In a footnote, he acknowledges that this connection between counterfactual and temporal possibility needs to be qualified in response to an objection by Randy Clarke: «The property of being the child of someone who has visited Paris is not one that one can have and then lose; but it is one that one can have in the actual world and not have in some other possible world.» (1998, 75n.9) Therefore, he restricts the inference from temporal to counterfactual possibility and vice versa to «non historical properties.». (shrink)

Philosophers and historians of science have made the claim that successive scientific theories are incommensurable, that is, that many or all of their concepts fail to coincide. This claim has been echoed by cognitive psychologists who have applied it to the successive conceptual schemes of young children, or of children and adults. This paper examines the psychological evidence for the claim and proposes ways of reinterpreting it which do not involve imputing incommensurability. An alternative approach to understanding conceptual change is (...) suggested, according to which novel concepts are introduced against a background of shared concepts, rather than as part of incommensurable conceptual schemes. (shrink)

Microphysical realism is the position that the only real entities and properties are found at the most fundamental level of nature. In this article, I challenge microphysical realism concerning properties and natural kinds. One argument for microphysical realism about entities, the “nothing-but argument,” does not apply to properties and kinds. Another argument, the “causal exclusion argument,” cannot be sustained in light of modern physics. Moreover, this argument leads to an objection against microphysical realism, based on the “illusoriness of macroproperties.” Another (...) objection is based on the possibility that there is no fundamental level but a “bottomless pit.”. (shrink)

Understanding Arab public opinion is central to the search for sustainable po- litical solutions in the Middle East. The way Westerners think about Arab public opinion may be affected by how it is referred to in their news media. Here, we show that Arab public opinion is rarely referred to as such in the US media. Instead, it is usually referred to as the Arab street, a metaphor that casts Arab public opinion as irrational and volatile. We trace the origins (...) of this metaphor to similar expressions in both English and Arabic, and note similarities and impor- tant differences between the English and Arabic usages. Ultimately, we argue that the Arab street metaphor misrepresents the Arab public, and invites dismissal of rather than engagement with Arab public opinion. (shrink)

I will begin by proposing a taxonomy of taxonomic positions regarding the mind–brain: localism, globalism, revisionism, and contextualism, and will go on to focus on the last position. Although some versions of contextualism have been defended by various researchers, they largely limit themselves to a version of neural contextualism: different brain regions perform different functions in different neural contexts. I will defend what I call “environmental-etiological contextualism,” according to which the psychological functions carried out by various neural regions can only (...) be identified and individuated against an environmental context or with reference to a causal history. While this idea may seem innocuous enough, it has important implications for a structure-to-function mapping in the mind and brain sciences. It entails that the same neural structures can subserve different psychological functions in different contexts, leading to crosscutting psycho-neural mappings. I will try to illustrate how this can occur with reference to recent research on episodic memory. (shrink)

This essay will explore some of al-Farabi’s paradoxical remarks on the nature and status of the democratic city (al-madinah al-jama'iyyah). In describing this type of non-virtuous city, Farabi departs significantly from Plato, according the democratic city a superior standing and casting it in a more positive light. Even though at one point Farabi follows Plato in considering the timocratic city to be the best of the imperfect cities, at another point he implies that the democratic city occupies this position. Since (...) Farabi’s discussion of imperfect cities is derived from Plato’s Republic and follows it in many important respects, I will argue that his departure from Plato in this context is significant and points to some revealing differences between the two philosophers. In order to demonstrate this, I will first set up a comparison between Plato’s conception of the democratic city and Farabi’s. Then I will propose three explanations for the greater appreciation that Farabi seems to have for democracy, as well as for the apparent contradiction in Farabi’s verdict concerning the second best city. (shrink)

Call a belief ”non-negotiable’ if one cannot abandon the belief without the abandonment of one’s religious perspective. Although non-negotiable beliefs can logically exclude other perspectives, a non-reductive approach to religious pluralism can help to create a space within which the non- negotiable beliefs of others that contradict one’s own non-negotiable beliefs can be appreciated and understood as playing a justificatory role for the other. The appreciation of these beliefs through cognitive resonance plays a crucial role to enable the understanding of (...) those who hold other perspectives. epistemological and spiritual consequences of this claim are explored. (shrink)

Asking whether the sexes are natural kinds amounts to asking whether the categories, female and male, identify real divisions in nature, like the distinctions between biological species, or whether they mark merely artificial or arbitrary distinctions. The distinction between females and males in the animal kingdom is based on the relative size of the gametes they produce, with females producing larger gametes (ova) and males producing smaller gametes (sperm). This chapter argues that the properties of producing relatively large and small (...) gametes are causally correlated with a range of other properties in a wide variety of organisms, and this is what makes females and males natural kinds in the animal kingdom. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the relationship between sex and gender: while the difference between the sexes is biologically grounded, the difference between genders is socially based. Since gender depends in part on the perception of sex, whether or not gender is real or not does not depend on whether sex is, since social reality is constituted in part by our perceptions. The claim that sexes are natural kinds in the animal kingdom does not imply that the biological differences among female and male humans do and should have social consequences. (shrink)

The study highlights the advantages telemedicine offers, such as increased flexibility, reduced commuting time, and better time management. It also examines the challenges doctors face, including the demands of always being digitally accessible, the learning curve of new technologies, and the difficulty in maintaining boundaries between personal and professional life. Using both quantitative and qualitative data, this research compares the telemedicine adaptation experiences of doctors in public versus private hospitals, considering factors such as hospital infrastructure, support systems, and patient load.

This article focuses on the interrelationship of law and life in human rights. It does this in order to theorize the normative status of contemporary biopower. To do this, the case law of Article 2 on the right to life of the European Convention on Human Rights is analysed. It argues that the juridical interpretation and application of the right to life produces a differentiated governmental management of life. It is established that: 1) Article 2 orients governmental techniques to lives (...) in order to ensure that both deprivation and protection of lives is lawful; 2) A proper application of Article 2 grounds itself on a proper discrimination of lives which causes Article 2 to be applied universally but not uniformly to all juridical subjects; 3) The jurisprudence of Article 2 is theoretically appreciable only in a ‘politics of life’. Finally, the article ends with a plea to analyse other fundamental human rights in the context of ‘biopolitical governmentality’. (shrink)

Criticism on Javanese mysticism of Syekh Siti Jenar.

With a diverse sample (N = 231 paired responses) of employees from various organizations in Pakistan, the authors tested for the main effects of perceived organizational politics and psychological capital on turnover intentions, job satisfaction, and supervisor-rated job performance. They also examined the moderating influence of psychological capital in the politics–outcomes relationships. Results provided good support for the proposed hypotheses. While perceived organizational politics was associated with all outcomes, psychological capital had a significant relationship with job satisfaction and supervisor-rated performance (...) only. As hypothesized, the negative relationship of perceived organizational politics with job satisfaction and supervisor-rated performance was weaker when psychological capital was high. However, the result for turnover intentions was counter to expectations where the politics–turnover intention relationship was stronger when psychological capital was high. (shrink)

This study examines the impact of Islamic Work Ethic on organizational citizenship behaviors and knowledge-sharing behaviors among university employees in Pakistan. A total of 215 respondents from public sector educational institutions participated in this research. The findings suggest that IWE has a positive effect on OCBs. In other words, individuals with high IWE demonstrate more citizenship behaviors than those with low IWE. The findings also suggest a positive effect of IWE on KSBs. Individuals with high IWE exhibit more KSBs than (...) those with low IWE. The paper also discusses the theoretical and practical implications of these findings. (shrink)

In this paper, we define the regular and totally regular single valued neutrosophic hypergraphs, and discuss the order and size along with properties of regular and totally regular single valued neutrosophic hypergraphs. We also extend work on completeness of single valued neutrosophic hypergraphs.

In this paper, we define the regular and totally regular bipolar single valued neutrosophic hypergraphs, and discuss the order and size along with properties of regular and totally regular bipolar single valued neutrosophic hypergraphs. We extend work on completeness of bipolar single valued neutrosophic hypergraphs.

There are two problems with Cimpian & Salomon’s (C&S’s) claim that an innate inherence heuristic is part of our cognitive makeup. First, some of their examples of inherent features do not seem to accord with the authors’ own definition of inherence. Second, rather than posit an inherence heuristic to explain why humans rely more heavily on inherent features, it may be more parsimonious to do so on the basis of aspects of the world itself and our relationship to it.

The seventeenth century Muslim philosopher Muhammad Sadr al-Din Shirazi, known as Mulla Sadra, introduced the idea of substantial motion in Islamic philosophy. This view is characterized by a continuity criterion for diachronic identity, a four-dimensional view of individual substances, the notion that possibilities change, and the continual creation of all creatures. Modern philosophical logic provides means to model a variety of claims about individuals, substances, modality and time. In this paper, the semantics of formal systems discussed by Carnap, Bressan (...) and Gupta are reviewed with regard to the issue of substance and identity. Next a model introduced by Storrs McCall is described that is able to build upon and yet resolve some of the issues about substance and identity as characterized by Bressan and others. McCall’s model is also shown to be able to provide an illustration of Mulla Sadra’s doctrine of substantial motion. (shrink)

In the present article, we are faced with two phenomenological philosophers who, in two different intellectual traditions, namely philosophical hermeneutics and moral phenomenology, have referred to the concept of the Other as the fundamental possibility of the individual. The other, as an ontological and common concept in the thought of Gadamer and Levinas, is the turning point of the condition for the possibility of understanding and ethics. Focusing on the concept of the other, while addressing the points of difference and (...) commonality between Gadamer and Levinas, this article will show that Levinas’s preoccupation with the other as a philosopher refers to the foundations of ethics, and the condition for the possibility of foundations of ethics is encountering the other. In Gadamer, the turning point is the determination of the possibilities of understanding in dialectical and dialogue-oriented relationships. Without the other, in Levinas’s thought, ethics, and moral matter, and in Gadamer’s thought, the process of understanding will not occur in the form of a fusion of horizons. Therefore, this article shows that the other is a common concept between these two philosophers, which both of them cannot avoid in their philosophical analyses of ethics or the process of understanding. Introduction The analysis of ethics is one of the important and innovative achievements of Levinas’s philosophical intellectual structure. Levinas’s concern is to refer to the foundations of morality itself, regardless of institutionalizing the moral in the form of law, and the foundation of morality is in face-to-face relationships with others. Regardless of Levinas’s plan about the concept of the other, Gadamer imagines the determination of understanding in a new way in the face of the other. The other is the comprehensible strain in philosophical hermeneutics, in such a way that the process of understanding is formed by the presence of the other and the face-to-face encounter with it. According to Gadamer, the other is the factor of openness in the process of understanding. The fusion of horizons is the product of openness and mutual encounters in dialogue, which is not possible without the other. The other is the condition of determining the possibility of understanding in each of the parties who are allowed to reveal a part of their being and allow the other to open up and talk. In fact, understanding is a kind of event that is revealed in a two-way conversation in an event-like way. This type of understanding depends on the presence of another. The main focus of the research is the analysis of the concept of the other, which has been done with emphasis on two important works: Truth and method, Totality and infinity. Body & discussion In general, the process of understanding is a dialogical process, whether the other side of the conversation is a text or a person, the foundation of understanding is formed in a relationship with the other. Determining the other as an independent personality and a different perspective is an ontological determination. The other thinks and becomes meaningful beyond the subject or object and even beyond my intellectual position, it belongs to its own independent world and its own experience. In conversation, it plays a significant role in the production of truth. Openness provides the possibility of dialogue and mutual agreement. In dialogue, the final product is not reproduced. The other condition for the production of the final product is dialogue According to Gadamer, facing the other is facing his world. At the moment of facing me, the other makes his abstract aspects concrete and opens his lived experience to me. He believes that the question-and-answer process is a kind of encounter with the world of experience and openness toward it. According to Gadamer, the process of understanding is the result of dialectical-hermeneutic relations between me (the interpreter) and you (the other). The dialogical relationships that allow each other to enter the other’s history are relationships that are formed based on questions and answers. From Gadamer’s point of view, questions and answers are the opening of a new horizon based on tradition and contemporary history. Levinas phenomenologically refers to the philosophical tradition of the West to reread the process of the formation of the concept of the other. Many commentators and interpreters of Levinas’s works believe that it is possible to determine the foundations of ethics from Levinas’s point of view from face-to-face relationships. The condition for the possibility of morality is to pay attention to others. To describe another concept, Levinas analyzes the negative and positive aspects of this concept. In a negative way, Levinas first answers what the other is not, and for this reason, he criticizes the history of Western metaphysics and the criticism of Husserl and Heidegger’s phenomenology. Positively, the other is relative to me and different from me. The other is beyond subject and object. The other is not subjugated by any concept and recognizes its independent identity. The other and the encounter with him are the conditions for determining fundamental ethics from Levinas’s point of view. Another condition of concreteness refers to another person. According to Levinas, it is the condition for the formation of moral form. He believes that ethics is a kind of double encounter in the context of bilateral relations. Many moral concepts are formed in relation to a concrete other. In Levinas’s genealogy of ethics, we are faced with the presence of the other in a concrete way and with the subjectivity of the subject in an abstract and a priori way. Levinas specifies two approaches with the description of the other in the form of an infinite idea. First of all, there is an infinite gap between the other and the same. This issue shows its foreignness and otherness, its independence, and being true to its essence towards me. Second, it is the determination of another in a concrete or abstract form, which in both cases evokes an identity independent of me. Conclusion According to the explanations of the concept of the other in the thought of Gadamer and Levinas, we are faced with two phenomenological philosophers who have paid attention to the ontological aspects of the concept of the other in the fields of philosophical hermeneutics and ethics. In Gadamer’s thought, the other is an ontologically dialectical relationship between I-Thou and the starting point of the conversation process. The fusion of horizons is the turning point of the formation of the relation to the other, which is manifested in another area. The other has its own history, world, tradition, and authority, regardless of the formation of dialogical relationships, and has an independent identity. The other is allowed to share his lived experience in the conversation. The other creates new worlds. The other has opened himself and in return can be self-interpreting and self-revealing. Regardless, the other is the consistency of the complex relationship between language and the world. This form of bilateral relations, which is manifested in the presence of another, is a linguistic form that is the cause of a deep connection between language and the world. The other, whether concrete or abstract, is the turning point of our connection with the world in an ontological way. Regardless of Gadamer’s point of view, Levinas returns to another concept in his new thought project entitled “How to determine the possibilities of ethics.” According to Levinas, finding the foundations of ethics and determining the condition of moral possibilities is in facing the other and in face-to-face relationships. The other is concretely a kind of bilateral encounter which is the basis of many moral events and is manifested abstractly in the form of the subject’s subjectivity. This kind of infinite aspect of the other is revealed in subjectivity is implied in sense. Encountering another in an abstract form within itself is the encounter of the subject’s subjectivity with the sense, and the sense is in the encounter with the other. Sense is the basis of the subjectivity of the subject. Sense is a kind of concrete and visual face-to-face encounter that adds to the importance of determining another. Therefore, both Gadamer and Levinas raise many possibilities about the concept of the other, which shows the importance of this concept in the Western philosophical tradition. (shrink)

I suggest that virtue ethics can learn from Foucault’s critical observations on biopolitics and governmentality, which identify how a good cannot be disassociated from power and freedom. I chart a way through which virtue ethics internalizes this critical point. I argue that this helps address concerns that both virtue ethics and the critical scholarship inspired by Foucault otherwise ignore. I apply virtue ethics to the contexts of refugee arrival, asylum procedure, and immigrant integration in Western Europe; I then see how (...) Foucault’s critical thought provides a counterpoint to virtue ethics; I finally analyze how incorporating that critique allows virtue ethics to make sense of both the context and the stakes involved. (shrink)

In this paper, we propose the introduction of a neutrosophic chi-square-test for consistency, incorporating neutrosophic statistics. Our aim is to modify the existing chi-square -test for consistency in order to analyze imprecise data. We present a novel test statistic for the neutrosophic chi-square -test for consistency, which accounts for the uncertainties inherent in the data. To evaluate the performance of the proposed test, we compare it with the traditional chi-square -test for consistency based on classical statistics. By conducting a comparative (...) analysis, we assess the efficiency and effectiveness of our proposed neutrosophic chi-square-test for consistency. Furthermore, we illustrate the application of the proposed test through a numerical example, demonstrating how it can be utilized in practical scenarios. Through this implementation, we aim to provide empirical evidence of the improved performance of our proposed test when compared to the traditional chi-square-test for consistency based on classical statistics. We anticipate that the proposed neutrosophic chi-square-test for consistency will outperform its classical counterpart, offering enhanced accuracy and reliability when dealing with imprecise data. This advancement has the potential to contribute significantly to the field of statistical analysis, particularly in situations where data uncertainty and imprecision are prevalent. (shrink)

Naturalism about natural kinds is the view that they are none other than the kinds discoverable by science. This thesis is in tension with what is perhaps the dominant contemporary view of natural kinds: essentialism. According to essentialism, natural kinds constitute a small subset of our scientific categories, namely those definable in terms of intrinsic, microphysical properties, which are possessed necessarily rather than contingently by their bearers. Though essentialism may appear compatible with naturalism, and is indeed sometimes qualified with the (...) epithet “scientific,” it has become increasingly clear in recent years that only a minority of categories posited by science satisfy those conditions. I will not try to argue against essentialism directly in this chapter. Instead, I will attempt to articulate an alternative, naturalist conception of natural kinds, according to which the mark of natural kinds is their discoverability by science, not just basic science but the special sciences and even the social sciences. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that Edward Said’s central thesis in Orientalism has a direct explanatory role to play in our understanding of the work produced in at least one area of scholarship about the Arab and Islamic worlds, namely Arab-Islamic philosophy from the classical or medieval period. Moreover, I claim that it continues to play this role not only for scholarship produced in the West by Western scholars but also within the Arab world itself. After recalling some traditional varieties (...) of Orientalism in the study of Islamic philosophy, I go on to isolate some neo-Orientalist theses and positions. Then I identify what I call “Oriental Orientalism” in the study of Islamic philosophy, which originates in the Arab world itself. In conclusion, I speculate as to why Orientalism persists in scholarship about the Islamic world, more than a quarter of a century after Said first unmasked it. Finally, I distinguish two accounts of Said's interpretive stance and attempt to justify a particular reading of his philosophical framework. (shrink)

This paper evaluates the economic effects of a politically communitarian model of family ties towards the pension crisis in developing countries. The use of a Canadian - an individualist-oriented political economic pension system - is compared to a religiously and culturally communitarian form of family care in Bangladesh, a country slowly feeling the effects of the pension crisis. The analysis concludes, based on theoretical and economic evidence, that it is not in the social or economic interest of Bangladesh or similar (...) countries to use the same policies currently being deployed by Canada and most other OECD countries. This paper is the first of its kind to apply socioeconomic costs and benefits of developed countries’ policies and apply them to the context of a developing country—keeping in mind the cultural aspect and its implications. It aims at bringing back original ethical and moral values with a social orientation that should inspire all stakeholders to ensure family self-regulation that converge toward a solid foundation of communitarian principles. (shrink)

This paper argues that the disagreement between positivists and nonpositivists about law is substantive rather than merely verbal, but that the depth and persistence of the disagreement about law, unlike for the case of morality, threatens skepticism about law. The range of considerations that can be brought to bear to help resolve moral disagreements is broader than is the case for law, thus improving the prospects of reconciliation in morality. But the central argument of the paper is that law, unlike (...) morality, is a concept-dependent social kind, in the sense that law cannot exist in a society without someone in that society having the concept of law. Since the existence of the social kind law is largely dependent on the existence of the corresponding concept, when different actors have different concepts, they can end up creating different kinds. Hence, the difference between positivists and nonpositivists is not just a conceptual one but is capable of giving rise to different legal norms. (shrink)