Luck (2009) argues that gamers face a dilemma when it comes to performing certain virtual acts. Most gamers regularly commit acts of virtual murder, and take these acts to be morally permissible. They are permissible because unlike real murder, no one is harmed in performing them; their only victims are computer-controlled characters, and such characters are not moral patients. What Luck points out is that this justification equally applies to virtual pedophelia, but gamers intuitively think that such acts are not (...) morally permissible. The result is a dilemma: either gamers must reject the intuition that virtual pedophelic acts are impermissible and so accept partaking in such acts, or they must reject the intuition that virtual murder acts are permissible, and so abstain from many (if not most) extant games. While the prevailing solution to this dilemma has been to try and find a morally relevant feature to distinguish the two cases, I argue that a different route should be pursued. It is neither the case that all acts of virtual murder are morally permissible, nor are all acts of virtual pedophelia impermissible. Our intuitions falter and produce this dilemma because they are not sensitive to the different contexts in which games present virtual acts. (shrink)

A widely held assumption is that hallucinations are not a type of perception. Coupled with the idea that hallucinations possess phenomenal character, this assumption raises a problem for naive realism, which maintains that phenomenal character is at least partly constituted by perceived worldly objects. Naive realists have typically responded by adopting a disjunctive view of phenomenal character. But in what follows, I argue that to resolve the conflict we should instead reject the idea that hallucinations are not a type of (...) perception. I argue that this idea is supported by six alleged differences between hallucination and perception, but these differences are all accommodated for in a particular type of perception, picture perception. Drawing on picture perception’s resources, I offer an account of hallucinations which construes them as a type of perception, and does so in a way that that preserves their idiosyncrasies and varieties, and in a way compatible with naive realism. (shrink)

In Justification without Awareness (2006), Michael Bergmann presents a dilemma for internalism from which he claims there is “no escape”: The awareness allegedly required for justification is either strong awareness, which involves conceiving of some justification-contributor as relevant to the truth of a belief, or weak awareness, which does not. Bergmann argues that the former leads to an infinite regress of justifiers, while the latter conflicts with the “clearest and most compelling” motivation for endorsing internalism, namely, that for a belief (...) to be justified its truth must not be an accident from the subject’s perspective. Bergmann’s dilemma might initially seem to have the force of a knock-down argument against the classical foundationalist accounts he considers, if not against all forms of internalism. I argue, however, that the weak-awareness horn of Bergmann’s dilemma is unsuccessful. Classical foundationalists can hold on to the main motivation for internalism and avoid a vicious regress of justifiers. (shrink)

Philosophy and religion were the two important sources of knowledge for medieval Arab Muslim polymaths. Owing to the difference between the nature of philosophy and religion, the interplay between philosophy and religion often takes the form of conflict in medieval Muslim thought as exemplified by the Al-Ghazali versus Averroes (Ibn Rusd) polemic. Unlike the Al-Ghazali versus Averroes (Ibn Rushd) polemic, the interplay between philosophy and religion in the political philosophy of Abu Nasr Alfarabi takes the form of harmonious co-existence. Although, (...) for Alfarabi, religion is an inferior form of knowledge as compared to philosophy, the present article will show that philosophy and religion play equally significant roles in Alfarabi’s virtuous city and that in the absence of either philosophy or religion, the political system proposed by Alfarabi cannot exist. (shrink)

Relative blindsight is said to occur when different levels of subjective awareness are obtained at equality of objective performance. Using metacontrast masking, Lau and Passingham reported relative blindsight in normal observers at the shorter of two stimulus-onset asynchronies between target and mask. Experiment 1 replicated the critical asymmetry in subjective awareness at equality of objective performance. We argue that this asymmetry cannot be regarded as evidence for relative blindsight because the observers’ responses were based on different attributes of the stimuli (...) at the two SOAs. With an invariant criterion content , there was no asymmetry in subjective awareness across the two SOAs even though objective performance was the same. Experiment 3 examined the effect of criterion level on estimates of relative blindsight. Collectively, the present results question whether metacontrast masking is a suitable paradigm for establishing relative blindsight. Implications for theories of consciousness are discussed. (shrink)

The encounter of the medieval Muslims with Greek philosophy undeniably shaped the course of their philosophical and theological thought. This encounter led to the complex and contentious issue of ‘philosophy versus theology’. Medieval Muslim thinkers needed to develop a response to the issue of philosophy versus theology. The present article will first highlight the response of the Islamic theologians to their encounter with Greek philosophy in the form of three major trends in medieval Islamic theology: (1) strong opposition to the (...) application of reason and rationalist approach to Islamic doctrines, and strict adherence to the actual text of the Qur’an and the Hadith, (2) the adoption of Greek philosophy, and the application of reason and rationalist approach to explain and defend Islamic religion and (3) acknowledging the significance of reason in exploring the matters related to the natural world but, at the same time, stressing the subordination of reason to revelation. This article will discuss Atharism, Muʿtazilism and Ashʿarism as the representatives of the first, second and third trends, respectively. The response of the medieval Islamic theologians to the issue of philosophy versus theology serves as a context in which medieval Muslim philosophers carried out their philosophy–theology debate. The article will proceed to show that some medieval Muslim philosophers, such as Abu Bakr Al-Razi, subordinated religion or revelation to philosophy or reason. Other medieval Muslim philosophers, such as Al-Ghazali, subordinated philosophy to theology. The third group of medieval Islamic philosophers represented by Alfarabi argued for the reconciliation and harmonious co-existence of philosophy and religion. Contribution: This article highlights the response of medieval Islamic theologians and philosophers to the issue of philosophy versus theology that was caused by their encounter with Greek philosophy. (shrink)

According to foundationalism, some beliefs are justified but do not depend for their justification on any other beliefs. According to access internalism, a subject is justified in believing some proposition only if that subject is aware of or has access to some reason to think that the proposition is true or probable. In this paper I discusses a fundamental challenge to internalist foundationalism often referred to as the Sellarsian dilemma. I consider three attempts to respond to the dilemma – phenomenal (...) conservatism, BonJour’s classical foundationalism, and Fumerton’s classical foundationalism. I argue that, of these three, only the last seems to avoid getting impaled on one or the other horn of the dilemma. I end by responding to some concerns with Fumerton’s account. (shrink)

A natural starting point for theories of perceptual states is ordinary perception, in which a subject is successfully related to her mind-independent surroundings. Correspondingly, the simplest theory of perceptual states models all such states on perception. Typically, this simple, common-factor relational view of perceptual states has received a perfunctory dismissal on the grounds that hallucinations are nonperceptual. But I argue that the nonperceptual view of hallucinations has been accepted too quickly. I consider three observations thought to support the view, and (...) argue that all three are dealt with equally well by an alternative view, illusionism, on which hallucinations do involve perception. Since this is so, adopting a common-factor relational view of all perceptual states remains a tenable option. (shrink)

Davidson has attempted to offer his own solution to the problem of self-knowledge, but there has been no consensus between his commentators on what this solution is. Many have claimed that Davidson’s account stems from his remarks on disquotational specifications of self-ascriptions of meaning and mental content, the account which I will call the “Disquotational Explanation”. It has also been claimed that Davidson’s account rather rests on his version of content externalism, which I will call the “Externalist Explanation”. I will (...) argue that not only are these explanations of self-knowledge implausible, but Davidson himself has already rejected them. Thus, neither can be attributed to Davidson as his suggested account of self-knowledge. I will then introduce and support what I take to be Davidson’s official and independent account of self-knowledge, that is, his “Transcendental Explanation”. I will defend this view against certain potential objections and finally against the objections made by William Child. (shrink)

Recently there is an increasing technological development in intelligent tutoring systems. This field has become interesting to many researchers. In this paper, we present an intelligent tutoring system for teaching information security. This intelligent tutoring systems target the students enrolled in Advanced Topics in Information Security in the faculty of Engineering and Information Technology at Al-Azhar University in Gaza. Through which the student will be able to study the course and solve related problems. An evaluation of the intelligent tutoring systems (...) was carried out and the results were promising. (shrink)

The Indeterminacy of Translation and Radical Interpretation The indeterminacy of translation is the thesis that translation, meaning, and reference are all indeterminate: there are always alternative translations of a sentence and a term, and nothing objective in the world can decide which translation is the right one. This is a skeptical conclusion because what it … Continue reading The Indeterminacy of Translation and Radical Interpretation →.

There is a tendency among scholars to identify Alfarabi’s political philosophy in general and his theory of the state in particular with that of Plato’s The Republic. Undoubtedly Alfarabi was well versed in the philosophy of Plato and was greatly influenced by it. He borrows the Platonic concept of the philosopher king and uses it in his theory of the state. However, we argue that the identification of Alfarabi’s virtuous city with that of Plato’s The Republic is an inaccurate assessment (...) as it involves overlooking Alfarabi’s unique religiopolitical context. Alfarabi was a Muslim political philosopher, and the present article intends to understand Alfarabi’s theory of the state in light of his historical context. The article shows that, viewed through the prism of Islamic religion and political history, Alfarabi’s virtuous city seems distinct from that of Plato’s The Republic. (shrink)

In his political treatise, Mabadi ara ahl al-madina al-fadhila, Abu Nasr Alfarabi, the medieval Muslim philosopher, proposes a theory of virtuous city which, according to prominent scholars, is modeled on Plato’s utopia of the Republic. No doubt that Alfarabi was well-versed in the philosophy of Plato and the basic framework of his theory of city is platonic. However, his theory of city is not an exact reproduction of the Republic’s theory and, despite glaring similarities, the two theories do differ in (...) many aspects. In both, Alfarabi’s Mabadi ara ahl al-madina al-fadhila and Plato’s Republic, the theory of virtuous city is accompanied by a theory of the soul. Since the theory of soul plays a foundational role in both theories of the virtuous city, the present article intends to provide an explanation for the differences between the two theories of the city in terms of the differences between the two theories of the soul. (shrink)

There are two dominant approaches towards understanding medieval Muslim philosophy: Greek ancestry approach and religiopolitical context approach. In the Greek ancestry approach, medieval Muslim philosophy is interpreted in terms of its relation to classical Greek philosophy, particularly to the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle. The religiopolitical context approach, however, views a thorough understanding of the religious and political situation of that time as the key to the proper understanding of medieval Muslim philosophy. Notwithstanding the immense significance of the two approaches (...) for understanding medieval Muslim philosophy, the question on the reason behind medieval Muslim philosophers’ preference for Plato’s Republic over Aristotle’s Politics in political philosophy is not accurately answered. This preference is usually attributed either to the availability or unavailability of the text or to the suitability or unsuitability of the text for Islamic theological views. However, this article shows that neither the availability or unavailability of text nor its suitability or unsuitability for Islamic religious and theological views can appropriately explain medieval Muslim philosophers’ preference for Plato’s Republic over Aristotle’s Politics in their political thought. This article proposes that the key to understand this preference lies in understanding the transmission of Greek philosophy to medieval Muslim philosophers. Contribution: This study highlights the significance of the thorough understanding of the transmission of Greek philosophy to medieval Muslim world as one of the important approaches towards proper understanding of medieval Muslim philosophy, particularly medieval Muslim political philosophy. (shrink)

The “problem of memory” in epistemology is concerned with whether and how we could have knowledge, or at least justification, for trusting our apparent memories. I defend an inductive solution—more precisely, an abductive solution—to the problem. A natural worry is that any such solution would be circular, for it would have to depend on memory. I argue that belief in the reliability of memory can be justified from the armchair, without relying on memory. The justification is, roughly, that my having (...) the sort of experience that my apparent memory should lead me to expect is best explained by the hypothesis that my memories are reliable. My solution is inspired by Harrod’s (1942) inductive solution. Coburn (1960) argued that Harrod’s solution contains a fatal flaw. I show that my solution is not vulnerable to Coburn’s objection, and respond to a number of other, recent and likely objections. (shrink)

In this paper, we distinguish between different sorts of assessments of algorithmic systems, describe our process of assessing such systems for ethical risk, and share some key challenges and lessons for future algorithm assessments and audits. Given the distinctive nature and function of a third-party audit, and the uncertain and shifting regulatory landscape, we suggest that second-party assessments are currently the primary mechanisms for analyzing the social impacts of systems that incorporate artificial intelligence. We then discuss two kinds of as-sessments: (...) an ethical risk assessment and a narrower, technical algo-rithmic bias assessment. We explain how the two assessments depend on each other, highlight the importance of situating the algorithm within its particular socio-technical context, and discuss a number of lessons and challenges for algorithm assessments and, potentially, for algorithm audits. The discussion builds on our team’s experience of advising and conducting ethical risk assessments for clients across dif-ferent industries in the last four years. Our main goal is to reflect on the key factors that are potentially ethically relevant in the use of algo-rithms, and draw lessons for the nascent algorithm assessment and audit industry, in the hope of helping all parties minimize the risk of harm from their use. (shrink)

Miriam Schoenfield argues that moral realism and moral vagueness imply ontic vagueness. In particular, she argues that neither shifty nor rigid semantic accounts of vagueness can provide a satisfactory explanation of moral vagueness for moral realists. This paper constitutes a response. I argue that Schoenfield's argument against the shifty semantic account presupposes that moral indeterminacies can, in fact, be resolved determinately by crunching through linguistic data. I provide different reasons for rejecting this assumption. Furthermore, I argue that Schoenfield's rejection of (...) the rigid semantic account is based on a presupposition that ultimately implies the very same claim that is under dispute: the vagueness of moral predicates in imperfect languages persists in the perfect language, as well. (shrink)

I defend external world realism. I assume that the principle of inference to the best explanation is justified: roughly, a hypothesis that provides a better explanation of the total evidence is more probable than one that does not. I argue that the existence of a world of spatial objects provides a systematic explanation of the spatial contents of visual experience, and that it provides a better explanation than traditional skeptical hypotheses. This paper thus pursues the explanationist strategy of Laurence BonJour (...) and Jonathan Vogel. It is an improved, more compelling defense, for at least two reasons. First, the attention to spatial properties, and in particular to what I call perspectival projections, makes the explanatory power of the realist hypothesis much more vivid and concrete. Second, the argument preserves and elucidates much that seems correct in the explanationist arguments others have offered while avoiding significant problems and shortcomings. (shrink)

Al-Ghazali (1058-1111) was concerned that early Islamic philosophers were leaning too heavily and uncritically on Aristotelian and Neoplatonic ideas in developing their models of God and His relation to the world. He argued that their views were not only irreligious, but philosophically problematic, and he defended an alternative view aimed at staying closer to the Qur’an and the beliefs of the ordinary Muslim. Ibn Rushd (1126-1198) responded to al-Ghazali’s critique and developed a sophisticated Aristotelian view. The present chapter explores their (...) views in light of a problem facing any philosophical model of God in Islam or classical theism more generally, the problem of conceiving of God’s nature and relation to the world in a way that places an appropriate distance between God and humans. On the one hand, we want a notion of God that is not overly anthropomorphic, or that does not make him to be too much like us. On the other hand, we want to be able to say something positive and substantive about God. And we want to do this while preserving the harmony of reason and revelation, of philosophy and religion, as much as possible. (shrink)

Laurence BonJour and more recently James Beebe have argued that the best way to defend the claim that abduction or inference to the best explanation is epistemically justified is the rationalist view that it is justified a priori. However, rationalism about abduction faces a number of challenges. This chapter focuses on one particular, highly influential objection, that there is no interpretation of probability available which is compatible with rationalism about abduction. The rationalist who wants to maintain a strong connection between (...) epistemic justification and probability would do best to rely on a Keynesian interpretation of probability. However, the latter is vulnerable to Ramsey’s famous criticism that we do not seem to perceive or be aware of such probabilities. The chapter argues that Ramsey’s criticism is unsuccessful, and that there are good reasons to be optimistic about our ability to have access to probabilities relevant to abductive inference. (shrink)

In this chapter, we examine different views of the structure of justification, including foundationalism, infinitism, and coherentism. We investigate how well or poorly they seem to do in responding to the regress problem, accommodating a robust connection between justification and truth, and getting the contours of justification right—i.e., making justification neither too easy nor too hard to get. We end by briefly discussing some challenges to finding a single sense of “foundational belief” defining the debate.

This study addresses the issue of the climate change crisis, which has caused many dangerous phenomena for humanity, due to greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming, drought, and others. The most important reason for this phenomenon that worries the world is human behavior, especially the use of fossil fuels. The largest contributor to this behavior is international oil companies, which export oil to all countries of the world. The most important major source of oil is the Middle East. Oil (...) companies operating there play an essential role in the growth of the oil industry around the world, which has caused a significant increase in the level of global greenhouse gas emissions. The study reviews the practices undertaken by national companies in the Middle East and their attempts to mitigate the effects of climate change by adopting environmental sustainability policies. This study aims to evaluate national oil companies operating in the Middle East region to determine the level of companies’ ability to contribute to mitigating the effects of climate change. The study reached many results and identified companies with high environmental performance and positive methods that can be disseminated to achieve the required environmental sustainability and implement sustainable development practices, and how to benefit from social marketing and direct it towards enhancing awareness of climate risks. (shrink)

The manufacturing industry is evolving rapidly, becoming more complex, more interconnected, and more geographically distributed. Competitive pressure and diversity of consumer demand are driving manufacturing companies to rely more and more on improved knowledge management practices. As a result, multiple software systems are being created to support the integration of data across the product life cycle. Unfortunately, these systems manifest a low degree of interoperability, and this creates problems, for instance when different enterprises or different branches of an enterprise interact. (...) Common ontologies (consensus-based controlled vocabularies) have proved themselves in various domains as a valuable tool for solving such problems. In this paper, we present a consensus-based Additive Manufacturing Ontology (AMO) and illustrate its application in promoting re-usability in the field of dentistry product manufacturing. (shrink)

Abstract: Heart diseases are increasing daily at a rapid rate and it is alarming and vital to predict heart diseases early. The diagnosis of heart diseases is a challenging task i.e. it must be done accurately and proficiently. The aim of this study is to determine which patient is more likely to have heart disease based on a number of medical features. We organized a heart disease prediction model to identify whether the person is likely to be diagnosed with a (...) heart disease or not using the medical features of the person. We used many different algorithms of machine learning such as Gaussian Mixture, Nearest Centroid, MultinomialNB, Logistic RegressionCV, Linear SVC, Linear Discriminant Analysis, SGD Classifier, Extra Tree Classifier, Calibrated ClassifierCV, Quadratic Discriminant Analysis, GaussianNB, Random Forest Classifier, ComplementNB, MLP Classifier, BernoulliNB, Bagging Classifier, LGBM Classifier, Ada Boost Classifier, K Neighbors Classifier, Logistic Regression, Gradient Boosting Classifier, Decision Tree Classifier, and Deep Learning to predict and classify the patient with heart disease. A quite helpful approach was used to regulate how the model can be used to improve the accuracy of prediction of heart diseases in any person. The strength of the proposed model was very satisfying and was able to predict evidence of having a heart disease in a particular person by using Deep Learning and Random Forest Classifier which showed a good accuracy in comparison to the other used classifiers. The proposed heart disease prediction model will enhances medical care and reduces the cost. This study gives us significant knowledge that can help us predict the person with heart disease. The dataset was collected from Kaggle depository and the model is implemented using python. (shrink)

Communicative practices in online and social media sometimes seem to amplify political conflict, and result in significant harms to people who become the targets of collective outrage. Many complaints that have been made about political correctness in the past, we argue, amount to little more than a veiled expression of resentment over the increasing influence enjoyed by progressive activists. But some complaints about political correctness take on a different complexion, in light of the technologically-driven changes to our communicative practices and (...) political discourse. Given the ways in which they are entangled in these new forms of online communication, well-meaning attempts to police the norms of political correctness may end up contributing to individual wrongs, or to destructive social patterns. In this paper we examine these worries, situate them in a broader sociological context, and offer some tentative proposals about how they might be addressed. (shrink)

In this paper I propose a framework to understand the transition in Foucault’s work from the disciplinary model to the governmentality model. Foucault’s work on power emerges within the general context of an expression of capitalist rationality and the nature of freedom and power within it. I argue that, thus understood, Foucault’s transition to the governmentality model can be seen simultaneously as a deepening recognition of what capitalism is and how it works, but also as a recognition of the changing (...) historical nature of the actually existing capitalisms and their specifically situated historical needs. I then argue that the disciplinary model should be understood as a contingent response to the demands of early capitalism, and argue that with the maturation of the capitalist enterprise many of those responses are no longer necessary. New realities require new responses; although this does not necessarily result in the abandonment of the earlier disciplinary model, it does require their reconfiguration according to the changed situation and the new imperatives following from it. (shrink)

It is commonly thought that we depend fundamentally on the “evidence of the senses” for our empicial beliefs, including and most directly, our beliefs about our local environment, the spatial world around us. The ultimate evidence we have for our perceptual beliefs is provided in some way by perception or perceptual experience. But what is this evidence? There seem to be three main options: external factualism allows that the evidence include facts about the external world; internal factualism takes facts that (...) involve only the internal, mental world—like facts about one’s perceptual experiences or appearances—to count as one’s perceptual evidence; and non-factualism takes propositions, including false ones, to count as evidence—for example, propositional contents of appearances or seemings. We shall see that all these options face significant challenges. Some might conclude that perceptual beliefs can be justified without depending on evidence. Others might choose to accept skepticism: our perceptual beliefs are not justified. I shall end, however, by tentatively suggesting that there is a sort of internal fact that is a plausible candidate for perceptual evidence that has been overlooked. (shrink)

The relation between the regimes of the accumulation of men and the accumulation of capital is problematised in the works of Michel Foucault. The paper challenges the prevailing wisdom that the relation between these regimes is contingent. The fundamental question of the conditions of the possibility of relation between the two regimes is raised. It is argued that both regimes are primordially related. Focusing on the Foucauldian analysis of the regime of the accumulation of men and its constituent elements an (...) effort is made to thematize the primordial relation between the two regimes. It is shown that freedom is the condition of the possibility of a primordial relation between the two regimes. It is explained why freedom plays such a fundamental role in making possible and sustaining a capitalist order. The dual role of freedom as a principle of diversity and a principle of management is stressed. It is argued that capitalism as an order is conditioned upon the production and reproduction of individuals and populations that are simultaneously useful and free. It is also the condition of such an order that docility is produced without hampering utility. Freedom makes possible the enhancement of utility without making it unmanageable. (shrink)

With the advent of the 21st century, the way characters and identities interact under the influence of dominant powers has brought a new world into existence, a world dubbed by Manuel Castells as the ‘Fourth World’. Within the Castellsian theoretical matrix of the Fourth World and politics of identity, the present study seeks to investigate the true nature of the futuristic world Margaret Atwood has created in the MaddAddam trilogy. The trilogy literarily reflects a global crisis that ultimately leads to (...) dystopia and the destruction of the human race: what remains of humanity is a small group of survivors who must struggle to conserve what remains of humanity. Identity as the main determining factor in the Fourth World represents personal and public privileges, characteristics, and means of differentiating oneself from others. The Fourth World and its political peculiarities reflect contemporary powers, i.e. the power of the network society, network communication and media. Humankind, in this wheel, is just a toy in the hands of an intelligence broker. What exactly happens to human and semi-human characters in Atwood’s trilogy is the result of Fourth World structures and values, and how they shape and reconstruct identities to lead the world toward fabricated truths and values, and terminate in dystopia. (shrink)

I introduce the reader to the character and complexity of lying, in terms of how the lie should be defined as a particular type of intentionally deceptive utterance, whether or not the deceiver succeeded in that aim, and examine how we might usefully avoid prejudging the justifiability of the lying utterance when compared to alternative forms of intentional deception and the overall outcome sought.

This paper investigates the interaction of gender, disability and education in rural Iran, which is a relatively unexplored field of research. The responses of 10 female students with disabilities from Isfahan indicated that the obstacles they faced included marginalization, difficulties in getting from home to school, difficulties within the school building itself, and discrimination by teachers, classmates and school authorities. The data collected for the study contain a wide range of conservative gendered discourses, and show how traditional gender beliefs interact (...) with disability to aggravate the problems faced in education by young women with disabilities. It is hoped that the findings will raise awareness among policy-makers of the many formidable obstacles that make it difficult for young women with disabilities to achieve their full potential in education. (shrink)

Lynn White’s seminal article on the historical roots of the ecological crisis, which inspired radical environmentalism, has cast suspicion upon religion as the source of modern anthropocentrism. To pave the way for a viable Islamic environmental ethics, charges of anthropocentrism need to be faced and rebutted. Therefore, the bulk of this paper will seek to establish the non- anthropocentric credentials of Islamic thought. Islam rejects all forms of anthropocentrism by insisting upon a transcendent God who is utterly unlike His creation. (...) Humans share the attribute of being God’s creations with all other beings, which makes them internally related to every other being, indeed to every single entity in this universe. This solves the problem that radical environmentalism has failed to solve, namely, how to define our relation with nature and other beings without dissolving our specificity. Furthermore, Islamic ethics structures human relations strictly around the idea of limiting desires. The resulting ethico-legal synthesis, made workable by a pragmatic legal framework, can sustain a justifiable use of nature and its resources without exploiting them. The exploitation of nature is inherently linked to the exploitation of one’s self and of fellow human beings. Such exploitation, according to Qur’anic wisdom, is the direct result of ignoring the divine law and the ethics of dealing with self and “other.” Only by reverting to the divine law and ethics can exploitation be overcome. The paper ends by briefly considering possible objections and challenges vis-à-vis developing a philosophically viable yet religiously oriented environmental ethics. (shrink)

Most readings of Tayib Salih’s Season of Migration to the North have focused on Mustafa Saeed and the nameless narrator, both male characters, and they have largely avoided a politically radical reading of the novel. This article attempts to present the female character, Hosna, as the revolutionary par excellence, following Lacan and Slavoj Žižek’s reading of Antigone. Th rough Žižek’s distinction between the act and action, this article argues that Hosna’s deed at the end of the novel, murder and suicide, (...) is not just an action out of hopelessness but rather an act that aims to make a new social order possible. We will try to connect Žižek’s distinction between act and action to Benjamin’s distinction between divine violence and mythic violence and Lacan’s idea of “Th ing-directed desire” (Marc De Kesel 245). By doing so, this article aims to put the extreme violence of Hosna in a new light and argues against the readings that simply ignore her act as an extreme form of violence and fail to see it in a broader framework of philosophical and sociological understanding. (shrink)

In this paper, I propose to look closely at certain crucial aspects of the logic of Rawls' argument in Political Liberalism and related subsequent writings. Rawls' argument builds on the notion of comprehensiveness, whereby a doctrine encompasses the full spectrum of the life of its adherents. In order to show the mutual conflict and irreconcilability of comprehensive doctrines, Rawls needs to emphasise the comprehensiveness of doctrines, as their irreconcilability to a large extent emanates from that comprehensiveness. On the other hand, (...) in order to show the possibility and plausibility of the political liberal solution he needs to emphasise that most of these doctrines are reasonable: i.e., they are willing to cede a portion of their authority to political liberalism for the right reasons. Yet, if they are willing to cede a portion of their authority to a political conception they cannot be as comprehensive as we initially thought they were. All these elements highlight the tension in the argument itself. I suggest that many of these tensions can be removed by making Rawls' account more flexible. In this context I propose certain amendments to Rawls' account, which may overcome some of the tensions mentioned above. (shrink)

In this paper I make a case for a genuine and legitimate role for philosophy in modern Islamic culture. However, I argue that in order to make any progress towards reinstating such philosophical activity, we need to look deep into the nature and essence of modern philosophy. In this paper I aim to do this precisely by challenging modern philosophy’s self conception as an absolute critique (i.e. a critique of everything/anything). I argue that such a conception is not only misconceived, (...) it is also ideological in character. Looking back to its origins, I develop a genealogy of modern philosophy’s self-understanding in order to deconstruct it and disassociate it from other possible alternative conceptions of philosophy. I argue that we should reject the notion of philosophy as absolute critique, as it is ideologically motivated and oppressive. Instead, I argue for a more modest conception of philosophy as a subject which provides tools for developing human powers of reflection. (shrink)

Rawls in his later philosophy claims that it is sufficient to accept political conception as true or right, depending on what one's worldview allows, on the basis of whatever reasons one can muster, given one's worldview (doctrine). What political liberalism is interested in is a practical agreement on the political conception and not in our reasons for accepting it. There are deep issues (regarding deep values, purpose of life, metaphysics etc.) which cannot be resolved through invoking common reasons (this is (...) the fact of free reason itself), and trying to resolve them would involve us in interminable debates and would hamper the practical task of agreement on the political conception. Given the absolute necessity of a political society which is stable and enduring, it is thus wise to avoid these issues in founding a political society and choosing its basic principles - this is the pragmatic part of Rawls's position. In this paper I argue that this strategy leads Rawls into a paradox: (i) although the intention is to stay independent of comprehensive doctrines, the political conception is in fact totally (and precariously) dependent on comprehensive doctrines (not just on one doctrine but on each and every major doctrine in society). It is dependent on them: for its conceptualisation as an independent idea, for its justification, for the check of its reasonability in relation to the external world, for the formation of identities and value inculcation and hence for the formation of its model citizen; (ii) the very search for independence makes the political conception more dependent on comprehensive doctrines, and by extension makes it potentially more prone to intervention in and tampering with comprehensive doctrines (it is enough to show that it is a strong conceptual possibility to cast doubt on the whole strategy). Thus, for example, the political conception relies on the hope that “firmly held convictions gradually change” and that it would “in fact . . . have the capacity to shape those doctrines toward itself”. The purpose of the Rawlsian conjecture is to give these “hopes” a concrete, practical form by giving advice to proponents of the comprehensive doctrine on how they can do all this and “try to show them that, despite what they might think, they can still endorse a reasonable political conception”. I further argue that this paradox can be overcome by making the core of political liberalism more flexible. (shrink)

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

واکاوی ضدواقع‌گرایی و رهیافت تحقیق‌گرایانة مایکل دامت .

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)

Wild mushrooms are of great significance to people of places where they naturally occur, as they provide an essential source of nutrition and contribute to the local economy. Multiple studies have conducted significant studies and classified many kinds of mushrooms to show their unique characteristics. Pleurites spp. and Lentinula eddoes are commonly cultivated plants valued for their floral properties. Mushrooms contain a variety of carbohydrates. Certain carbohydrates have shown the ability to reduce the risk of cancer and prevent the immune (...) system. Additional studies using animals are required to confirm the safety and effectiveness of the product for human health. It is well-known that mushrooms offer various health benefits and are rich in essential nutrients. Individuals have developed more awareness of the specific characteristics of mushrooms. (shrink)

This study examines the representations of male and female social actors in selected Iranian EFL (English as a Foreign Language) textbooks. It is grounded in Critical Discourse Analysis and uses van Leeuwen’s Social Actor Network Model to analyze social actor representations in the gendered discourses of compulsory heterosexuality. Findings from the analysis show that the representations endorse the discourse of compulsory heterosexuality which is an institutionalized form of social practice in Iran. Three male and three female students were interviewed to (...) find out what they think about these representations. Their responses with regard to whether they think textbooks should also include representations of other forms of sexuality were non-committal and vague. To them LGBT people are the ‘‘Other’’ practicing a form of sexuality that is not normal. Such exclusions could obscure the reality regarding the existence of such gender identities and represent the world in a particular manner. (shrink)

In this paper we extend the theory of neutrosophic rings and neutrosophic fields to soft sets and construct soft neutrosophic rings and soft neutrosophic fields. We also extend neutrosophic ideal theory to form soft neutrosophic ideal over a neutrosophic ring and soft neutrosophic ideal of a soft neutrosophic ring . We have given many examples to illustrate the theory of soft neutrosophic rings and soft neutrosophic fields and display many properties of of these. At the end of this paper we (...) gave soft neutrosophic ring homomorphism. (shrink)

نگاهی بر استدلال‌های دونالد دیویدسون در باب ضرورت زبان برای اندیشه .

My dissertation contributes to a central and ongoing debate in the philosophy of perception about the fundamental nature of perceptual states. Such states include cases like seeing, hearing, or tasting as well as cases of merely seeming to see, hear, or taste. A central question about perceptual states arises in light of misperceptual phenomena. A commonsensical view of perceptual states construes them as simply relating us to the external and mind independent objects. But some misperceptual cases suggest that these states (...) fall short of contact with the world. The result is that perceptual states are either thought to fundamentally consist in a highest common factor that falls short of perceptual contact with the world, or are thought to be disjunctive in nature, with some cases involving perceptual contact, and others receiving a different analysis. Contrary to these views, I argue that no misperceptual cases compromise perceptual contact with worldly objects, so perceptual states should be understood as relations to the external and mind-independent world. I call this view I defend Pure Relationalism, and the view of misperceptual cases that makes pure relationalism possible Illusionism. (shrink)

In scientific and analytical research, Ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy, Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy, and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance spectroscopy have widely been used to analyze and characterize various substances. Ultraviolet, infrared, and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance spectroscopy were studied for diastereoisotopic protons of dorzolamide, which is used to treat glaucoma and ocular hypertension. Methanol was used as a solvent in Ultraviolet and we obtained three wavelengths: 203 nm, 253 nm, and 257 nm, where Ultraviolet spectroscopy was employed for stability testing of pharmaceuticals. By analyzing (...) the Fourier Transform Infrared spectrum, we also can determine the presence or absence of specific functional groups in a compound, helping to identify the compound or confirm its structure in analyzing the Nuclear Magnetic Resonance spectrum. It can determine the types and numbers of hydrogen (proton) and carbon atoms in a molecule and their chemical environment, which helps elucidate the molecular structure. (shrink)

هدف از پژوهش حاضر، بررسی مسائل اخلاق هوش مصنوعی در حوزۀ هنر است. به‌این‌منظور، با تکیه بر فلسفه و اخلاق هوش مصنوعی، موضوعات اخلاقی که می‌تواند در حوزۀ هنر تأثیرگذار باشد، بررسی شده است. باتوجه‌به رشد و توسعۀ استفاده از هوش مصنوعی و ورود آن به حوزۀ هنر، نیاز است تا مباحث اخلاقی دقیق‌تر مورد توجه پژوهشگران هنر و فلسفه قرار گیرد. برای دست‌یابی به هدف پژوهش، با استفاده از روش تحلیلی‌ـ‌توصیفی، مفاهیمی همچون هوش مصنوعی، برخی تکنیک‌های آن و موضوعات (...) اخلاقی هوش مصنوعی در هنر تبیین و بررسی شده است. نتایج پژوهش نشان می‌دهد موضوعات اخلاقی همچون حریم خصوصی و نظارت، دستکاری در رفتار، تاری و شفافیت، سوگیری در تصمیمات سیستم، و اتوماسیون و اشتغال حوزۀ هنر قابل‌بررسی است. این موضوعات اخلاقی، گاهی درتقابل و گاهی در ارتباط مستقیم و هم‌سو با یکدیگر قرار دارند. بررسی‌ها نشان می‌دهد پاسخ به پرسش‌های اخلاق هوش مصنوعی در حوزۀ هنر، نیازمند پاسخ به پرسش‌های اخلاقی به‌صورت عام در هوش مصنوعی است. The aim of this paper is to explore the ethical implications of artificial intelligence (AI) in the realm of art. Drawing on the philosophy and ethics of AI, this study examines the ethical challenges that may arise in the art domain. Given the increasing use and penetration of AI in the field of art, there is a need for more careful attention to the ethical dimensions of this phenomenon by scholars of art and philosophy. To achieve the objective of the paper, concepts such as AI, some of its techniques, and the ethical issues of AI in art are explained and analyzed using the analytical-descriptive method. The findings of the study reveal that ethical issues such as privacy and surveillance, manipulation of behavior, opacity and transparency, bias in decision systems, and automation and employment can be investigated in the field of art. These ethical issues are sometimes in conflict and sometimes in direct relation with each other. This study suggests that addressing the ethical questions of AI in the field of art requires addressing the ethical questions of AI in general. (shrink)

This article explores the contradictory nature of the ghost in Hamlet and shows how Shakespeare seeks to manipulate the reader’s response in Hamlet by using contradictions and ambiguities. The article also explores the ways in which the reader responds to these contradictions and reconstructs a palpable world in the impalpable world of the text. These contradictions compel the reader to participate in the composition of the text and make him keep changing his own approach to the work with the result (...) that the more he reads the play, the deeper he finds himself entrenched in contradictions. As he fails to grasp the logic of events, the reader relates his own world to the text instead of relating the events of the text to his world and recreates his own world. Therefore, he can easily detach himself from the text and let his imagination run loose as the play proves too vague for him to comprehend. In reading Hamlet, the imagination runs wild and travels far beyond the text to an extent where the reader perceives things, which stand not within but utterly outside the text. Eventually, the reality achieved by the reader in the course of reading the play is only the reality which dwells in the innermost recesses of his mind. (shrink)

Soft set theory is a general mathematical tool for dealing with uncertain, fuzzy, not clearly defined objects. In this paper we introduced soft neutrosophic loop,soft neutosophic biloop, soft neutrosophic N -loop with the discuission of some of their characteristics. We also introduced a new type of soft neutrophic loop, the so called soft strong neutrosophic loop which is of pure neutrosophic character. This notion also found in all the other corresponding notions of soft neutrosophic thoery. We also given some of (...) their properties of this newly born soft structure related to the strong part of neutrosophic theory. (shrink)

In this paper we extend the theory of neutrosophy to study left almost semigroup shortly LAsemigroup. We generalize the concepts of LA-semigroup to form that for neutrosophic LA-semigroup. We also extend the ideal theory of LA-semigroup to neutrosophy and discuss different kinds of neutrosophic ideals. We also find some new type of neutrosophic ideal which is related to the strong or pure part of neutrosophy. We have given many examples to illustrate the theory of neutrosophic LA-semigroup and display many properties (...) of neutrosophic LA-semigroup in this paper. (shrink)

Things Fall Apart, No Longer at Ease, Arrow of God and A Man of the People, the first four novels by Chinua Achebe, the contemporary Nigerian novelist, are among the most outstanding works of African postcolonial literature. As a matter of fact, each of these four novels focuses on a different colonial or postcolonial phase of history in Nigeria and through them Achebe intends to provide an authentic record of the negative and positive impacts of ‘hybridity’ on different aspects of (...) the life of native subjects. Briefly stated, Achebe is largely successful in taking advantages of variable discursive tools he structures based on the potentials of the hybrid, Igbo-English he adopts. Thus, it might be deduced that reading these four novels in line with each other, and as chains or sequels of Tetralogy, might result in providing a more vivid picture of the Nigerian (African) subjects and the identity crises emerging in them as a result of colonization. To provide an account of the matter, the present study seeks to focus on one of the discursive strategies Achebe relies on in those four novels: Igbo Naming Cosmology and Name-symbolization. (shrink)