The recursive aspect of process reliabilism has rarely been examined. The regress puzzle, which illustrates infinite regress arising from the combination of the recursive structure and the no-defeater condition incorporated into it, is a valuable exception. However, this puzzle can be dealt with in the framework of process reliabilism by reconsidering the relationship between the recursion and the no-defeater condition based on the distinction between prima facie and ultima facie justification. Thus, the regress puzzle is not a basis for abandoning (...) process reliabilism. A genuinely intractable problem for recursive reliabilism lies in the gap between the reliability of the entire path to a belief and that of its parts. Confronted with this puzzle, reliabilists can orient themselves toward ‘reliable-as-a-whole reliabilism’ instead of ‘reliable-in-every-part reliabilism’, including recursive reliabilism, which is found to be not well-motivated. (shrink)

This paper critically evaluates the classification of research-related fraudulent activities, with an emphasis on the specific misconduct falsification. The analysis begins by interrogating the assumption that all acts of fraud in research are intentional, suggesting that some instances may inadvertently arise during the course of scholarly activities. Misconducts like fabrication and falsification are categorized as fraudulent primarily due to their generation during research activities and their direct contribution to the distortion of scientific knowledge. Plagiarism, while deceptive, does not necessarily originate (...) from the research process nor lead directly to such distortion, and therefore is not classified as de facto fraud. The paper proposes that the definition of falsification – as established by the PHS – requires refinement to prevent wrongful allegations and convictions, enhance transparency, and offer clearer guidelines. This nuanced understanding is vital for safeguarding the credibility of the research process and protecting scientists from unfounded career-damaging accusations. Ultimately, this paper advocates for a clearer definition of falsification to protect the integrity of scientific research and prevent the miscarriage of justice. (shrink)

Organ transplantation centers set criteria for candidate qualification, which has led to disparate healthcare resource allocation practices affecting those with a substance use history. These individuals are denied organ transplants by committees and healthcare providers who assign them lower priority status. The lower priority argument claims that healthcare resources should not be provided equally to individuals who fail to share responsibility for not doing enough to address the diseases associated with substance use. The purpose of this paper is to explore (...) the interrelatedness between the ethics of a merit-based system of moral responsibility and the lower priority setting involved in healthcare resource allocation pertaining to those with substance use histories. An interdisciplinaryapproach to the argument against the lower prioritists is taken with a focus on the relationship between different organ allocation practices affecting substance users and the justification for resource allocation practices of healthcare and transplant committees. Lower priority setting is challenged, and an argument is offered in which substance users are assigned higher priority when relying on "doing enough" in a merit-based system of moral responsibility. It is determined that one cannot substantiate assigning a lower priority status since a lack of success in rehab does not imply a lack of effort. Additionally, neither to confirmatory behavior nor to non-conforming behavior may freedom be justifiably ascribed in a merit-based system of responsibility because freedom to choose can neither be established a priori nor a posteriori concerning meritorious behavior. (shrink)

For any new internet-based product, service, or technology to succeed, it must satisfy the criterion of providing access to or creating a network of possible users, products, and services. This is the Conceptual Access-Network (CANTOR) Thesis proposed. In addition to the main issues of success and how and why internet technology evolves, the principle can also meet the objective of explaining what underlies a range of traditional and nontraditional technologies beyond the internet. Through qualitative exploration, the tenets of the access-network (...) thesis are applied to natural and synthetic forms of endocrine substances including insulin and highways. A discussion of technologically generated knowledge is included, as well as how phenomenotechnique can be used to establish a communication path between technology and what it produces. Dr. Stanley Milgram's intimate stranger phenomenon which was first explored in 1967, before the internet existed, will ultimately be distorted by the future of internet-based technologies. As previously discovered or established concepts are combined or permuted, the future will display numerous manifestations, combinations, and permutations. We conclude that successful internet-based products, services, or technologies simply would not work without an access network. From this article, we have gained a better understanding of the current development stage of internet-based products and technology, thereby enabling society to better anticipate the future of internet-based products and technology, highlight significant ethical considerations, and avoid unwanted outcomes. (shrink)

The demand for effective interventions to improve domain-specific academic outcomes for individuals with special needs at either end of the spectrum has existed for some time. Since the earlier contributions to the literature documenting gifted individuals who were simultaneously exhibiting disabilities, there has been some progress in our understanding. We now know that in individuals with both gifts and disabilities, potentially, either or both of the exceptionalities can obscure the effects of the other, which significantly delays the average time to (...) receive a diagnosis. Such delays in diagnosis detrimentally impact the quality of life across various domains because there can be no opportunity to receive help in the form of effective interventions without a diagnosis. The purpose of this paper is to determine whether effective interventions exist to improve domain-specific (i.e., social, emotional, or academic) outcomes for people with both gifts and disabilities. A query was performed using evidence databases TRIP and PDQ for “twice-exceptional,” “Giftedness,” “Disability,” and “intervention.” The four most relevant, freely available studies in English were selected for critique. Despite identifying potential threats to validity among the studies, methodological similarities among them were strong enough to confidently conclude that not only do effective interventions exist for the population of gifted with ADHD, but the outcomes of these interventions may also carry over into other domains resulting in indirect effects. (shrink)

Relying on euthanasia’s definitionally derived set of propositions to provide its purpose, claims, and benefit, we obtain the core concept. Nonetheless, given its core concept, euthanasia is demonstrated to provide no benefit to the animal to justify its use. Euthanasia 1) cannot possibly, and therefore does not, end unbearable suffering, 2) it fails to hasten death, and 3) it, therefore, provides no perceptible relief to the patient. These findings are significant because the argument’s validity does not permit euthanasia to satisfy (...) its definitionally derived purpose, claims, or benefit on logical grounds. In other words, the argument is that as a form of legalized assisted suicide, euthanasia is wrong but not in the way principled arguments would suggest. Additionally, irrespective of euthanasia actually doing what it claims, if it is allowed to be provisioned, then euthanasia will affect vulnerable populations exactly like nonprincipled arguments claim. Therefore, despite sharing aspects with each type of argument in the extant literature, my argument against euthanasia can be categorized as neither principled nor nonprincipled, which makes it significant because it may be the first of a new category of argument against the concept and practice to enter the discourse on euthanasia. As a corollary, since we prove that unbearable suffering logically entails death, when it is authentic signifying that death is imminent, because euthanasia’s only purpose is to end unbearable suffering by inducing death, euthanasia is completely obviated. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to present an evidence-supported curriculum covering the fundamentals of logic, reasoning, and argumentation skills to address the emphasized basic knowledge, skills, and abilities required to be scientifically literate, which will prepare the public to understand and engage with science meaningfully. An analytic-synthetic approach toward understanding the notion of public is taken using a theoretical biomimetics framework that identifies naturally occurring objects or phenomena that descriptively captures the essence of a construct to facilitate creative problem-solving. (...) In the present case, the problem being solved is how to reconcile what is meant by public, how it ought to be interpreted, determining the diverse levels of confidence in science that exist, and various understandings of science all with one another. The results demonstrate there is an inherent denotative-connotative inconsistency in the traditional notion of public that can be explicated through the concept of a fractal allowing for comprehension of the relationship between public confidence in, and understanding of, science. (shrink)

Allegations of fraud involving falsification as research misconduct may result in severe consequences for those convicted. The focus of this article is the Public Health Service’s (PHS) definition of falsification . A well-articulated revised definition is required for veritable instances of falsification as misconduct to be consistently identified and potentially offer a framework for elucidation. A philosophical critique of the explicit definition is undertaken to determine what comprises falsification at its core, which could substantially reduce the number of allegations of (...) fraud as suspected instances of misconduct. The flaw in the PHS definition of falsification is due to circular logic, which allows anything to be proven according to it. Furthermore, to be confident that falsification has occurred, one must be certain of what is true when it has not occurred, which is demonstrated not to be plausible. falsification was found to be the most common type of fraud as misconduct alleged yet the rarest to be determined to occur because the flawed definition confounds what constitutes an occurrence of it. In addition to conceptual ambiguity and ignorance, allegations of falsification are suggested to occur strategically as maneuvers by researchers who may exploit the inherent flaw in the definition to eliminate rival competitors. -/- The purpose of part two is to critique the definition of falsification as research misconduct according to the Public Health Service (PHS) in order to better understand what it entails. In support of this purpose, the approach decided upon for analysis was philosophical including framing the issue borrowing from both mereological and epistemological perspectives. Through the consideration given to parthood relations of mereology, we gained insight from a cognitive imperfection standpoint about similarities that exist between the epistemic constraints on knowledge and the nature of violations concerning research misconduct. Findings from the examination of a case study include the significance of accuracy in representation in falsification as misconduct and the core dimensions comprising an instance of falsification, which are Deliberateness, Alteration, and Inclusion. Given that either behavior or actions must occur that violate these three aspects in order to qualify as an instance of misconduct under falsification, the author proposes that, at a minimum, any revisions made to the definition of falsification stipulate what he refers to as the Violation Imperative. (shrink)

Shun Kwong-loi argues that the distinction between first- and third-person points of view does not play as explanatory a role in our moral psychology as has been supposed by contemporary philosophical discussions. He draws insightfully from the Confucian tradition to better elucidate our everyday experiences of moral emotions, arguing that it offers an alternative and more faithful perspective on our experiences of anger and compassion. However, unlike the distinction between first- and third-person points of view, Shun’s descriptions of (...) anger and compassion leave unarticulated what would be necessary to differentiate these responses from non-moral responses. Here, I make a friendly suggestion on how this explanatory gap might be filled, providing complementary grounding for Shun’s observations by way of K. C. Bhattacharyya’s phenomenological analysis of feeling. It fills the gap by means of a gradation in the possible depth of emotional responses found in the a priori structure of a feeling experience for any subject. The payoff of such a comparison between Shun’s explication of Confucian moral psychology and Bhattacharyya’s explication of rasa theory is not only a possible phenomenological grounding for the former but also a potential way to articulate a missing ethics in Bhattacharyya’s thought. (shrink)

[Commentary on Kwong-loi Shun, “Anger, Compassion, and the Distinction between First and Third Person” Australasian Philosophical Review 6.1 (Issue theme: Moral psychology— Insights from Chinese Philosophy), forthcoming.] -/- In maintaining that gratitude fails to reflect a perspectival distinction based on whether the grateful agent is the direct beneficiary of the benefactor’s good will, Kwong-loi Shun suggests that gratitude might be felt to benefactors for benefits bestowed to strangers. With an eye toward understanding the form that gratitude might take (...) on this kind of view, I consider two mutually exclusive ways of unpacking this proposal in the context of Shun’s other commitments. On the first (expansive) approach, responses of grateful reciprocation are extended to persons who presently receive only our approval or approbation. The expansive route, however, entails treating gratitude and its negative counterpart asymmetrically, for reasons that are nonobvious. On the second (restrictive) approach, gratitude in effect collapses into approval, and our interpersonal practices are rid not only of angry payback (of the sort associated with resentment), but also of the 'positive payback' presently associated with gratitude. The restrictive route, however, excises from our practices features of gratitude that have considerable interpersonal value. (shrink)

Shun argues that the distinction made between emotions experienced from the first-person perspective and those from the third-person perspective does not capture our everyday emotional experience. My proposal is that even if we accept this claim, first- and third-person perspective taking is still crucial in the development of our emotional psychology. This is so in two respects. First, the features of intimacy and impartiality that mark adult emotional response are a product of a developmental process that involves perspective taking. (...) Second, perspective taking is a crucial part of refining and developing virtuous emotional responses. (shrink)

Emotions often misfire. We sometimes fear innocuous things, such as spiders or mice, and we do so even if we firmly believe that they are innocuous. This is true of all of us, and not only of phobics, who can be considered to suffer from extreme manifestations of a common tendency. We also feel too little or even sometimes no fear at all with respect to very fearsome things, and we do so even if we believe that they are fearsome. (...) Indeed, instead of shunning fearsome things, we might be attracted to them. Emotions that seem more thought-involving, such as shame, guilt or jealousy, can also misfire. You can be ashamed of your big ears even though we can agree that there is nothing shameful in having big ears, and even though you judge that having big ears does not warrant shame. And of course, it is also possible to experience too little or even no shame at all with respect to something that is really shameful. Many of these cases involve a conflict between one’s emotion and one’s evaluative judgement. Emotions that are thus conflicting with judgement can be called ‘recalcitrant emotions’. The question I am interested in is whether or not recalcitrant emotions amount to emotional illusions, that is, whether or not these cases are sufficiently similar to perceptual illusions to justify the claim that they fall under the same general heading. The answer to this depends on what emotions are. For instance, the view that emotions are evaluative judgments makes it difficult to make room for the claim that emotional errors are perceptual illusions. Fearing an innocuous spider would simply amount to making the error of judging that the spider is fearsome while it is in fact innocuous. This might involve an illusion of some sort, but it certainly does not amount to anything like a perceptual illusion. In this chapter, I argue that recalcitrant emotions are a kind of perceptual illusion.. (shrink)

The author argues that there is no such thing as a unique and general taxonomy of non-at-issue contents. Accordingly, we ought to shun large categories such as “conventional implicature”, “F-implicature”, “CI”, “Class B” or the like. As an alternative, we may, first, describe the “semantic profile” of linguistic devices as accurately as possible. Second, we may explicitly tailor our categories to particular theoretical purposes.

Imperatives cannot be true or false, so they are shunned by logicians. And yet imperatives can be combined by logical connectives: "kiss me and hug me" is the conjunction of "kiss me" with "hug me". This example may suggest that declarative and imperative logic are isomorphic: just as the conjunction of two declaratives is true exactly if both conjuncts are true, the conjunction of two imperatives is satisfied exactly if both conjuncts are satisfied—what more is there to say? Much more, (...) I argue. "If you love me, kiss me", a conditional imperative, mixes a declarative antecedent ("you love me") with an imperative consequent ("kiss me"); it is satisfied if you love and kiss me, violated if you love but don't kiss me, and avoided if you don't love me. So we need a logic of three -valued imperatives which mixes declaratives with imperatives. I develop such a logic. (shrink)

Several philosophers have argued that if we examine our lives in context of the cosmos at large, sub specie aeternitatis, we cannot escape life's meaninglessness. To see our lives as meaningful, we have to shun the point of view of the cosmos and consider our lives only in the narrower context of the here and now. I argue that this view is incorrect: life can be seen as meaningful also sub specie aeternitatis. While criticizing arguments by, among others, Simon (...) Blackburn, Nicholas Rescher, and Thomas Nagel, I show that what determines assessments of the meaning of a life are the standards of meaningfulness one endorses rather than the size of the context in which that life is assessed. Employing non-demanding standards of meaningfulness to assess a life is compatible with examining it in the context of the cosmos at large. That is also the case if we accept Nagel's claim that to examine a life sub specie aeternitatis is to examine it externally, impersonally and objectively: life can be evaluated as meaningful also when under these perspectives if the standards of meaningfulness we adopt are not overly challenging. Nor does the contingency of our existence, realized sub specie aeternitatis, render our life meaningless. Contrary to a commonly accepted view, then, examining our lives sub specie aeternitatis does not necessitate that we see them as meaningless. (shrink)

For much of the first fifty years of its existence, analytic philosophy shunned discussions of normativity and ethics. Ethical statements were considered as pseudo-propositions, or as expressions of pro- or con-attitudes of minor theoretical significance. Nowadays, in contrast, prominent analytic philosophers pay close attention to normative problems. Here we focus our attention on the work of Searle, at the same time drawing out an important connection between Searle’s work and that of two other seminal figures in this development: H.L.A. Hart (...) and John Rawls. We show that all three thinkers tend to assume that there is but one type of normativity within the realm of social institutions – roughly, the sort of normativity that is involved in following the results of chess – and that they thereby neglect features that are of crucial significance for an adequate understanding of social reality. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: There is an abundance of scholarship on John Dewey. Dewey's writings are vast, so scholars try to find the crux that connects their many themes into a distinctive vision for philosophy and life. Many claim that the democratic way of life is the center of Dewey's philosophical vision. Others claim that Dewey's response to Darwin was the impetus for a philosophical experimentalism that could envision a better life (...) by responding to the needs in an age of modern industry. Some claim that the crux is a dynamic and non-mechanistic naturalism that Dewey develops to critically undo the dualisms of tradition, most especially the distinction between nature and culture. There has even been an effort to interpret each of these themes within Dewey's theory about the conditions for aesthetics in life, the life of art within an experience, and an experience of life as art. Arguably, no strategy is more preferable than another because each is plausible. Each plausibly selects a crux that connects the many themes across an array of writings, since Dewey's philosophy is multimodal by design and shuns reductionism for pluralism. Even amidst plurality, through many modes of activity and existence, each of these themes and all of Dewey's writings have a concern for meaning in life and how life is a process of meaning-making. And yet, meaning, for Dewey, is irreducible to verbal or written language and is made by more than propositions, but extends beyond the divide of nature and culture to potentially encompass all of life and life's processes. This expansive conception of meaning has more in common with semiotics, especially those of Charles Sanders Peirce, than any philosophy of language. And yet almost no scholar has sought to semiotically interpret Dewey's philosophy as a whole. Perhaps, though, Dewey's multimodal and pluralistic vision for philosophy and life also has a semiotic crux that intersects with the others in ways that are fundamentally important. There are scholars who have dealt with semiotic themes or insights with implications for semiotics in Dewey's writings. None have sought to semiotically interpret Dewey's philosophy as a whole, or, as a consequence, to chronologically survey Dewey's writings to determine if there is a conceivably Deweyan approach to semiotics that might contrast with or contribute to the more dominant approaches. There is a reason scholars may not have sought a Deweyan approach to semiotics. Dewey did not have an explicit theory of semiotics. There is no attempt to devise a doctrine of signs in Dewey's writings. Never did Dewey try to classify the fundamental types of sign, analyze the relations of signification by which they differ, or methodically explain how the logic of signification works. This contrasts sharply with Charles Sanders Peirce. Peirce has an explicit theory of semiotics that divides the fundamental types of sign into icons, indices, and symbols by their distinct relations of signification that are at work in the logic of inference by the categories. During his second year at Johns Hopkins, Dewey was actually Peirce's student in a class on logic. This already suggests the possibility of influence. Dewey's writings around 1883 even espouse the central thesis of Peirce's semiotics. All signs, however else their significations may differ, are triadic relations for both Peirce and Dewey. Whether and how far Peirce's logic was an influence on Dewey at Johns... (shrink)

The event that King Kuai of Yan demised the crown to his premier Zizhi, is a tentative way of political power transmission happened in the social transforming Warring States Period, which was influenced by the popular theory of Yao and Shun’s demise of that time. However, this tentative was obviously a failure, coming under attacks from all Confucian, Taoist and Legalist scholars. We may understand the development of the thinking concerning the issue of political legitimacy during the Warring States (...) Period by analyzing the different commentaries by different schools on this unusual event, and get some beneficial inspirations. (shrink)

Madness and Modernism is undoubtedly one of the most profound and perspicacious treatments of an illness that is utterly baffling to most laypersons and academics alike. Sass artfully brings together two obscure, complex, and unnerving realms -- the schizophrenic and the modern and postmodern aesthetic -- into mutual enlightenment. The comparisons between schizophrenic symptoms such as loss of ego boundaries, perspectival switching, and world catastrophe with modern literature and art is so adroit that it is almost eerie. The reader finds (...) herself peering into a borderline incomprehensible realm with increasing levels of clarity, by which she gains insight into the utterly chaotic, confused, and bizarre. The lucidity Sass brings to the obscure and confused is a reflection of the many contradictions he introduces to his readers as being entirely paradigmatic of both madness and modernism: that of desiring human contact but also shunning it entirely, of being both afflicted by disease but also exercising a sort of agency, and indeed, an ideal intellectual freedom within the confines of such an affliction, of moving both towards an objectifying materiality of the external world and a total subjectivization of perception, of the tendency towards the hyperabstract and the utterly concrete (between being too "far away" or "too close," respectively). Sass is able to make sense of a world in which these contradictions exist side by side simultaneously, and the disconcerting confusion this causes is palpable to the reader. Sass demonstrates not only his penetrating intellect, but also his unwavering patience and empathy, both in the treatment of the subject matter and the treatment of the subjects suffering from this extraordinary illness. The book is required reading for anyone interested in phenomenological psychiatry, or even psychiatry more generally. (shrink)

Although most cultures have held honorableness to be a virtue of the first importance, contemporary analytic ethicists have just begun to consider honor’s nature and ethical worth. In this essay, I provide an analysis of the honor ethos and apply it to business ethics. Applying honor to business may appear to be a particularly challenging task, since (for reasons I discuss) honor has traditionally been seen as incompatible with commerce. Nonetheless, I argue here that two of the central virtues of (...) the honor ethos—competiveness and magnificence—are perfectly apt ones for rich business executives, who plausibly can be expected to work more for prestige and the thrill of competition than for wealth itself. In addition to making top executives more honorable people, the virtues of competitiveness and magnificence would have positive social effects: honorable competitiveness would intrinsically dispose executives to shun anti-competitive practices, and magnificence would encourage tycoons to redistribute their fortunes voluntarily through philanthropy. (shrink)

The volume provides an updated perspective on international aspects of various developments in media and culture. It includes discussions on how the digital environment contributes to the transformation and re-interpretation of existing phenomena, such as violence-on-demand in online movies, the internet appeal of virtual gangsta rappers, or the revived battle rap tradition, which operates outside the commercial limitations of the music industry and generates more views on social media than most recording artists. -/- The book offers a new consideration of (...) long-term trends and developments, and demonstrates in various examples how formerly marginal practices like gaming or the previously shunned Turkish movie industry have turned into influential tools of social change. In addition, the reciprocity of media content and political settings is underlined in a focus on the Arab world and the reconstruction of impulses from transnational media outlets to recent forms of citizen journalism, as well as in the case of governments’ approaches to media policy in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The book places the spotlight on pressing issues, such as the ongoing enforcement of information control in the name of public health or the local politics and practices that hinder the process of democratization in authoritarian systems. -/- . (shrink)

Explanations of former South African President Thabo Mbeki’s public and private views on the aetiology of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the country remain partial at best without the recognition that the latter presuppose and imply a postmodernist/postcolonialist philosophy of science that erases the line separating the political from the scientific. Evidence from Mbeki’s public speeches, interviews, and private and anonymous writings suggests that it was postmodernist/postcolonialist theory that inspired him to doubt the “Western” scientific consensus on HIV/AIDS and to implement (...) a public health policy that dragged its feet on full roll-out of antiretroviral therapy, causing thousands of avoidable deaths. A weak reductio ad absurdum allows us to conclude from this premise that postmodernist/postcolonial critique of “Western” science ought to be shunned. A comparative argument from consequences further suggests that in a situation where a misguided health policy has lead to a humanitarian catastrophe, and where postmodernist/postcolonialist critique of science can and has been used to justify this policy, an alternative theory ought to be preferred on which such justification would not be possible. The paper closes with a call for a non-relativist alternative to postmodernist/postcolonialist philosophy of science, and evaluates the potential of recent developments in ‘Studies of Expertise” to yield such. (shrink)

Despite the characteristically secular and ‘disenchanted’ spirit of our time, many maintain a kind of tolerance apropos to religiosity, provided only that it remains to be an individual and private affair. This nevertheless prepared and eventually led to the rise of a movement committed to the denigration of religion’s frontiers, especially on the grounds of its rationality and moral authority – the new atheism. Compared to its older forms, the neo-atheistic crusade is more aggressive in approaching religious beliefs, proclaiming how (...) their ‘irrationality’ is to be shunned on account of an encompassing scientific understanding and explanation of the world and its phenomena. Its influence owes greatly to the intellectual assurance and vitriolic style of its Four Horsemen whose respective fields account for an elaborate attack on the religious enterprise. Given the neo-atheistic contentions – that religious beliefs are ‘irrational’ and are responsible for an irrational picture of reality, thus, making religion ‘dangerous’ – this study provides an epistemological critique of the aforementioned through the compatible frameworks of Alvin Plantinga and Jacques Maritain. It concludes that with all its merits, the new atheism from the standpoint of the synthesis of Plantinga and Maritain fails to eject religion and religious beliefs from the realm of human knowledge and morality. (shrink)

In the first section of this essay, I offer a brief overview of Hegel’s dozen or so mentions of dance in his Lectures on Aesthetics, focusing on the tension between Hegel’s denigration of dance as an “imperfect art” and his characterization of dance as a potential threat to the other arts. In the second section, I turn to an insightful essay from Hans-Christian Lucas on Hegel’s “Anthropology,” focusing on his argument that the Anthropology’s crucial final sections threaten to undermine Hegel’s (...) entire philosophy. And in the final section, I offer my own reading of the Anthropology, connecting the threads of my previous two sections. More specifically, I attempt to show that Hegel has in effect quarantined dance in what he terms “the dark regions” of madness in “The Feeling Soul.” Overall, I suggest that this quarantining is ultimately as problematic for Hegel as it has been for dance. Because without dance, complete with its associations with people disempowered in their embodiment, this crucial transitional section in the Anthropology remains burdened with a corporeal remainder that problematizes the entire system. Put simply, Hegel must – by his own logic – learn to dance gracefully with those he would rather shun. (shrink)

The Qurʾānic term, ‘ẓann,’ is usually understood and translated as conjecture. However, I argue that the Qurʾān uses ‘ẓann’ to mean dogmatic zeal or, in other words, being zealous to a certain belief. For conjecture, the Qurʾān uses the root ‘ḥ-s-b,’ such as, ‘ayaḥsabu.’ Although the Qurʾān may criticize some people's conjectures, it does not criticize the act of formulating opinions with the root ‘ḥ-s-b.’ However, the Qurʾān does criticize the act of ‘ẓann.’ This further emphasizes the distinction between conjecture (...) and ‘ẓann,’ according to the Qurʾān. The main emphasis is that when the Qurʾān requires people to shun most ‘ẓann,’ it is argued that it is asking to shun zealous beliefs and dogmas, and it is not asking to shun the formulation of conjectures. The method used is philological, in which the cognates are analyzed in their contexts and compared with their uses in the Qurʾān. Defining ‘ẓann’ as dogmatic zeal rather than conjecture has far-reaching implications in understanding Qurʾānic epistemology and the epistemic process it expects its audience to have. (shrink)

In the words of Charles Peirce from 1901, “man is but a degenerate monkey, with a paranoic talent for self-satisfaction, no matter what scrapes he may get himself into, calling them ‘civilization…’” Peirce’s concept of degenerate monkey draws attention both to our neotenous or prolonged newborn-like nature as “degenerate” in the mathematical sense of a genetic falling away from more mature genomes of other primates, and also to our monkeying around with the long evolutionary narrative of foraging, through the advent (...) of agriculture, settlement, and civilization. -/- Homo sapiens, man the knower, is the way we humans like to distinguish ourselves from the rest of nature. But if we consider ourselves as degenerate monkeys, perhaps homo errans, man the blunderer, would have been a better term, calling attention to our softened instinctive intelligence, in contrast to the “unerring instincts of other races,” as Peirce put it. -/- I take Peirce’s term “degenerate monkey” as not limited to moderns, but applicable to homo sapiens sapiens, anatomically modern humans, generally. Considering humans as degenerate monkeys is a key to understanding human development, in my view, precisely because we need to attune ourselves to the instinctive intelligence of the environment, drawing its intelligence into our dematured, blundering selves through abductive inference, and therein finding our maturity. Without that attunement to the Others, monkey goes mad, monkeying in its mirror of itself, fatally fixated, like Narcissus, and with similar results: planet of the degenerate monkeys, monkeying to mayhem. -/- As Cornelius, the ape archaeologist and historian in The Planet of the Apes stated it, reading from the sacred scrolls: “Beware the beast Man, for he is the Devil's pawn. Alone among God's primates, he kills for sport or lust or greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him; drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of death.” Or as Ralph Waldo Emerson put it: “The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization.” . (shrink)

In this essay I take the opportunity to recast some insights from my extensive study over the last decade of Wittgenstein’s remarks on music into a coherent and concise portrayal of Wittgenstein’s philosophical underpinning and upshots pertaining to his perception of the modern music scene in interwar Austria. The gist of the present essay is to show that, for better or for worse, Wittgenstein’s personal taste in music was powered by philosophical reasoning, which was organic to his philosophical development, and (...) that ultimately his philosophical attitude to the music scene of interwar Austria manifests a deeply probing gradation. I are argue that we can distinguish between four varieties of the absurd in the music of interwar Austria, according to Wittgenstein. First is the nonsensical absurd of the incapability of seeing that the nonsensicality of the form of progress is incomprehensible. This category pertains to music which straightforwardly tries to emulate the various maxims and formulations derived from the form of progress. Such nonsensically absurd music typifies progressive Romantic composers such as Richard Strauss, Max Reger, and the early Arnold Schoenberg. Second is the vacuous absurd of the incapability of seeing what the form of progress renders incomprehensible. This category pertains to music which denounces the predominantly nonsensical maxims and formulations of modernity, thus destining itself to keeping on groping for something which it cannot express. Such vacuously absurd music is best exemplified, in Wittgenstein’s mind, by Josef Labor. Third is the philosophical absurd of rendering what is incomprehensible (from the perspective of a cultured person) comprehensible within the same purview. For Wittgenstein, Mahler’s music betokens such incommensurability, evoking a relativist philosophical puzzle: whether cultural progress is real, and it is us who have been left behind, or whether culture has really been vanquished, and we are the only ones left to notice it. The very thought of an artwork of “a totally different sort” remains invariably hypothetical. Fourth is the praxeological absurd of giving rise to an auxiliary, praxeologically dislodged musical language, replacing the transparency of human gesture with exact rules of comprehensibility. From Wittgenstein’s perspective, the shunning of the expanse of lived experience in a musical language fit for the meaning-blind would be the inglorious spot assigned to Arnold Schoenberg’s vision of the music of the future. (shrink)

German Lutheran scholar Johann Friedrich Weitenkampf (d.1758) sets out to explain and refute the Turkish concept of fate, dividing his dissertation into two sections: the first outlining the Turkish-Muslim view of fate; and the second seeking to prove the invalidity of the Muslim concept of fate with philosophical argumentation. He begins with some brief notes on the historical origin of the Turks, turning then to the backstory of the Qur’an, which he claims can be divided into six sections or topics, (...) the last of which concerns its teachings on fate. According to Weitenkampf, in mainstream Islamic thought, fate is predetermined and immutable. Weitenkampf categorizes most Turks as Jabrites who believe that God is the source of all evil and that men do not have free will. Therefore, men are compelled to do evil or good through God’s omnipotence. He offers examples of how this belief is manifested in the actions and values of the Turks. According to Weitenkampf, since Turks believe in predestination, they do not flee plague-ridden cities or shun contact with those infected. They do not fear death. If they suffer, they believe fate decreed it. In battle, this makes them brave to the point of foolhardy. Weitenkampf also paraphrases an exhortation from the Qur’an in which Muslims are told not to avoid danger, as God has already determined their fate. . . . Weitenkampf’s dissertatio is a symptom of the struggle between the weakened Lutheran orthodoxy and the rise of Pietism and rationalism in the wake of the Enlightenment in the eighteenth century. Unlike other Lutheran authors, he analyzes Islamic thought through systematic philosophical argumentation, deeply influenced by his logic and metaphysics teacher Knutzen, who tried to combine Wolffan Enlightenment rationalism with pietistic spirituality. (shrink)

After noting how academic philosophers have shunned psychobiography, the author brings to focus the psychobiographical sources of Martin Heidegger's "turn" from a hermeneutic phenomenology to a form of metaphysical mysticism.

In this article, the author examines how Diogenes of Sinope and Plato employed the analogy of the dog in order to illustrate two very different conceptions of the philosopher. Although in both cases the analogy of the dog is used to exemplify and explain certain moral or psychological characteristics of the philosopher, the author argues that the differences between Diogenes’ and Plato’s usages of the analogy are both more essential and more philosophically significant. Thus, against those scholars who claim that (...) there is a tight link between the Cynic’s and Plato’s analogy, the author demonstrates that these two versions of the paradigm should be understood independently from one another. The article is accordingly devoted to contrasting Diogenes’ and Plato’s respective usages of the analogy of the dog in order to bring out the profound rift separating their rival conceptions of the philosopher: whereas Plato’s guardian assumes the responsibility of protecting the just society and its institutions, Diogenes’ philosopher, by contrast, defends a marginal way of living that shuns institutions altogether. (shrink)

In 1 Peter 1:3-7 we read that the Christians were facing persecution because of their faith and the author reminds them that every trial is a test of their faith. The trials and consequential suffering can be withstood because they are able to look forward to an inheritance – eternal life with God. Christians can endure all trials and suffering because of the hope of glory and ultimate joy. There is a grace afforded by God in the presence to match (...) whatever trial or suffering they might face. Thus it appears that there is both a purpose – one being the testing, transforming and purifying of one’s faith and a great prize for those who endure suffering – the Lord himself rewarding us. It is with this thought I will end this essay - with this belief of an inheritance, a resurrection and the gift of immortality. However, I will not shun asking the difficult questions, nor will I avoid critical reflection and analysis of a number of the contradictory or unpleasant answers. I will not eschew the lack of answers relating to evil and suffering – the pains of the scourges of poverty, persecution and oppression, the ravages of war and natural disasters, and all the inequity and injustice that has fallen throughout history – often on the innocent. This wickedness and agony that has throughout history indiscriminately befallen Christians and non-believers alike, has initiated great dismay, depression and consternation for many and some have even rejected the concept of God and the Gospel because of the malevolence and affliction they have been subjected to. The horrendous profundity and extent of human suffering and the history of the inhumanity of people makes the idea of a loving Creator seem quite implausible and predisposes many to accept a naturalistic theory of religion. At the end of this essay I will attempt to show that the declarations that the writer of 1 Peter makes concerning the Christian’s inheritance and suffering proffers some expectation for those who are faced with the quandary of evil and offer some hope now to enable them to endure whatever life has thrown onto their journey. Whilst I will with candour endeavour to query the issues and questions relating to evil I am conscious of the fact that many books and essays have been written by vastly more erudite authors. Consequently I acknowledge that what I have to say is ultimately nothing more than the personal reflection birthed in my own life’s experiences and learning. (shrink)

This book is discussing patterns of radical religious thought in popular forms of Black music. The consistent influence of the Five Percent Nation on Rap music as one of the most esoteric groups among the manifold Black Muslim movements has already gained scholarly attention. However, it shares more than a strong pattern of reversed racism with the Bobo Shanti Order, the most rigid branch of the Rastafarian faith, globally popularized by Dancehall-Reggae artists like Sizzla or Capleton. Authentic devotion or calculated (...) marketing?Apart from providing a possible answer to this question, the historical shift of Bobo adherents from shunned extremists to firmly anchored personifications of authenticity in mainstream Rastafarian culture is being emphasized. A multi-layered comparative case study attempts to shed light on the re-contextualization of language as well as expressed dogmatic perceptions and symbolism, attitude towards other religious groups and aspects of ethnic discrimination. Further analysis includes the visibility of artists and their references to practical and moral issues directly derived from two obscure ideologies that managed to conquer airwaves and concert halls. (shrink)

This book can be useful for college seniors or graduate students who have studied law to some extent. It also can inspire law professors, business people, Members of the National Assembly, administrative officials, in addition to all intellectuals who suffer from whipping or beating due to an incomprehensible legal structure and mandates relevant with their routine desk work. -/- Chapter 1 of this book examines the essence of existing constitution and international law theories directed to the nature of state power, (...) market and civil democracy in a rapidly developing international society in the age of globalization. Most of discussions had been expended to introduce and survey a new legal perception and its logic of reasoning as a law indebted to the concept of world law theory. Chapter 2 studies the core contents of international law according to the chapter on international law and international relations of the United States. It was spelled out to comply with the explanations and comments incorpated within the 4th edition of the Restatement of the United States. -/- Chapter 3 refers to the legal system characterized as a public law and concerning a regulatory measure over the world market by states. An idealistic class of citizens, who emerged for a capitalist hegemony, generally have a status of sovereign, which came into being as owed to their revolution. However, it is also true that the citizens as an individual or laity are required to obey the regulations of state in the market. The interstate commerce clause of the United States Constitution is generally viewed as being shunned with an intention that state governments' measures to regulate the market should not hinder the prosperity of US market at the federal level. WTO laws known to be the most important international trade law, in fact, have a structure similar to the interstate commerce clause of United States Constitution. In this point of view, scholars gave a name to WTO as the world economic constitutional system. In the same vein, WTO member countries should not hinder the prosperity of a single world market as if the Clause requires pursuing that of a single federal market. Chapter 4 summarizes the core of legal norms, which is purported to study the jurisprudence of global market in coverage of fundamental principles espousing the freedom of contract, laws of sales, contract, documentary letter of credit, basic rule on the agencies of civil law. Therefore, we will be exposed to the laws of United Nations convention on the sales contract (CISG), the United Nations contract law, popularly cllled Principles as well as short introductions for the agency laws and cases relating the civil dispute of documentary L/Cs. -/- I am unfeigned to confess that this book is neither thorough nor complete in terms of the craftsmanship of necessary exhaustiveness. So its contents may insufficiently cover issues or discussions as contrary to the author's purpose. However, I have exerted utmostly to include and cover as much as possible what I think is necessary for readers to grasp new theories and basic principles. I plan to add necessary revisions and supplements as opportunities arise. As a scholar, I always feel cautious and sorry about publishing books. However, the development of global market, civil democracy, and the universal legal system related to them is certainly Darwinistic and an evolutionary joy that can be duly sensed in the field of law. I dare to recommend that readers can enjoy. (shrink)

Misogynistic tendencies are not strange, rather this attitude pervades various strata of our existence. They are vocally audible and visibly present within the political, economic, social, cultural and religious spheres of our societies. Misogyny is an extreme hatred against women by men, and women against women. The purview of this paper is to explore misogyny in Christianity, analyze the origin and extent of misogyny within Christianity and how it has affected the position of women within the church. This paper discovered (...) that misogyny in Christianity is traced to its roots, during the period of the early church fathers and that misogyny has affected negatively the ecclesiastical positions assigned to women in most churches. Misogyny has negative implications for Christian ethics which focuses on love, not hatred. The paper adopts the historical and survey methods of data collection and used the qualitative methods to analyze the data collected. One of the recommendations made in this paper is that churches and religious organizations must shun misogynistic attitude as it is against Christian ethics and teachings. The APA style of documentation is applied to this work. -/- . (shrink)

The question “What is the meaning of life?” is longstanding and important, but has been shunned by philosophers for decades. Instead, contemporary philosophers have focused on other questions, such as “What gives meaning to the life of a person?” According to James Tartaglia, this research on “meaning in life” is shallow and pointless. He urges philosophers to redirect their attention back to the fundamental question about “meaning of life.” Tartaglia argues that humanity was not created for a purpose and, therefore, (...) is meaningless. He assumes that humanity could not be meaningful unless we were created for a purpose. I will outline a different way that humanity could become meaningful. In addition, I will explain how the research on “meaning in life” is important for understanding how humanity could become meaningful. (shrink)

Critical notice of Paul Feyerabend's Farewell to Reason. The basic difficulty with Feyerabend's argument is not that he goes too far in rejecting traditional philosophical views but that he does not go far enough. We should indeed dismiss philosophical attempts to forge a "direct line to heaven" and forswear introducing "caricatures" of the rationalist's conception of reason to accommodate the complexities of history. But we should also shun the temptation to regard tradition as a surrogate for reason and to (...) elevate freedom and democracy to the status of explanatory philosophical principles. It is no less a mistake to follow the relativist and fetishize cultural diversity than it is to follow the rationalist and fetishize reason. To recognise that we are on our own is not to repudiate rationalism in favour of relativism, but to bid farewell as firmly and as finally to both. (shrink)

Hegel endorsed proofs of the existence of God, and also believed God to be a person. Some of his interpreters ignore these apparently retrograde tendencies, shunning them in favor of the philosopher's more forward-looking contributions. Others embrace Hegel's religious thought, but attempt to recast his views as less reactionary than they appear to be. Robert Williams's latest monograph belongs to a third category: he argues that Hegel's positions in philosophical theology are central to his philosophy writ large. The book is (...) diligently researched, and marshals an impressive amount of textual evidence concerning Hegel's view of the proofs, his theory of personhood, and his views on religious community.Many of... (shrink)