The question of studying the metamorphosis of Europeans’ perception of the Islam is a topical issue now, because it helps to better understand the religious processes in modern Europe. Reconstructing the image of Islam in the ideas of the Christian peoples of the medieval Europe is the purpose of the study. To achieve this aim, I have used such methods as historical method, logical method, analysis, and hermeneutics. The research discusses the ideas of such authors as W.M. Watt, A.K.S (...) Lambton, W. B. Hallaq, I. P. Dobaev, P. Veimar and others. I have identified four components of the medieval image of Islam in Europe. Firstly, it is the idea of alienation of Islam and Muslims for European countries. I have showed that this idea was a result of two facts: (1) Muslim-Christian wars of this period; (2) absence of assimilation processes of Muslim population in European countries. The second component is the thought that Europeans can learn Muslim ideas and technologies. During the middle ages Europeans borrowed from Muslims a lot of important knowledge, ideas and techniques, as well as Muslims from Europeans. I argue that the idea, that Muslim religion is something incompatible with Christianity, is the third component of the image of Islam by Christian Europeans of the Middle Ages. In particular, Thomas Aquinas rejects the idea that Muslims, Jews and Christians have a common Scripture. According to him, Muhammad’s religion did not have worthy confirmation of the truth of the teachings. Thomas Aquinas interpreted the fact that great masses of people believed in Islam by suggestion that Islam appeals to the carnal desires of people, offering polygamy and the idea of physical pleasures in the paradise. Also, Thomas points out that Islam is a religion of sword and violence. Also, I have argued that a fear of large masses of Muslim population and their military successes was the fourth component in the image of Muslims by Europeans in the Middle Ages. (shrink)

Fetuses and their mothers (and other adults) share many objective interests. These include interests in disjunctive ways of achieving human well-being, including the formation and success of good projects such as particular friendships. Pursuing such good projects is in the individual’s interests and is what growing up is all about. Some interests are time-sensitive, and determining which interests apply at what stages in life requires asking which benefits are in some sense appropriate to the individual and still in his/her actual (...) or possible or even hypothetical future. Human individuals not only have interests in unconditional benefits to them, including the welfare of existing family members, but in conditional benefits to them, including the welfare of possible future family members. Even if not all interests apply to the individual at every stage, if an adult-type benefit is still in the (long-term) future, the young individual including the fetus has a stake in that benefit, conditional as the benefit may sometimes be. Fulfilment is enhanced by pursuit and conscious enjoyment of ‘human goods’, but as with adults, the stake in these remains strong even if psychological links with the long-term future in which this happens are tenuous or non-existent. (shrink)

Several studies have shown that preference is not necessarily synonymous with choice. In particular, the most preferred object from a set of objects presented in a non—choice context is not necessarily chosen when the same objects are options in a choice situation (Lichtenstein & Slovic, 1971, 1973; Tversky, Sattah, & Slovic, 1988) . Our research on the choice—preference discrepancy replicates these findings and thus bears some resemblance to the study by Tversky, Sattah, and Slovic (1988). Two competing explanations are tested.

The study examines the relative merits of a noncompatibility and a restructuring explanation of the recurrent empirical finding that a prominent attribute looms larger in choices than in judgments. Pairs of equally attractive options were presented to 72 undergraduates who were assigned to six conditions in which they performed (1) only preference judgments or choices, (2) preference judgments or choices preceded by judgments of attractiveness of attribute levels, or (3) preference judgments or choices accompanied by think-aloud reports. The results replicated (...) the prominence efTect for choices, but a prominence effect was also found for preference judgments. In accordance with the restructuring explanation, the think-aloud protocols indicated that options were more often restructured in choices than in preference judgments. However, restructuring could not explain the prominence effect observed for preference judgments. A modified compatibility hypothesis is offered as an alternative explanation. (shrink)

The study focused on the Digital Technology (DT) Competency of Certified Public Accountants (CPAs) in Ilocos Sur. This study will be beneficial for the upskilling of CPAs in Ilocos Sur and serve as a guide to development of competency-based curriculum for accounting students and intervention programs by accounting professional organizations. Using a validated survey instrument, the researcher considered 107 CPAs that responded. Total enumeration was used. The survey investigated the CPAs’ level of digital technology along five competency domains. Descriptive method (...) of research was utilized Their level of DT Competency is interpreted as “Proficient”. The study hints that they are not so far behind in terms of digital competency, and they have an enormous potential in relation to IT utilization, management, administration, and risk management. Reassessment of the BS Accountancy curriculum, encouraging CPAs to take advance studies and future research in this line is recommended. CPAs in Ilocos Sur can optimistically adapt to the ever-changing demands of the workplace. (shrink)

This essay considers the critical response to Hegel's view of Socrates we find in Kierkegaard's dissertation, The Concept of Irony. I argue that this dispute turns on the question whether or not the examination of particular thinkers enters into Socrates’ most basic aims and interests. I go on to show how Kierkegaard's account, which relies on an affirmative answer to this question, enables him to provide a cogent defence of Socrates' philosophical practice against Hegel's criticisms.

The term “value of life” can refer to life’s intrinsic dignity: something nonincremental and time-unaffected in contrast to the fluctuating, incremental “value” of our lives, as they are longer or shorter and more or less flourishing. Human beings are equal in their basic moral importance: the moral indignities we condemn in the treatment of e.g. those with dementia reflect the ongoing human dignity that is being violated. Indignities licensed by the person in advance remain indignities, as when people might volunteer (...) their living, unconscious bodies for surrogacy or training in amputation techniques. Respect for someone’s dignity is significantly impacted by a failure to value that person’s very existence, whatever genuine respect and good will is shown by wanting the person’s life to go well. Valuing and respecting life is not, however, vitalism: there can be good and compelling reasons for eschewing some means of prolonging life. (shrink)

A violation of procedure invariance in preference measurement is that the predominant or prominent attribute looms larger in choice than in a matching task. In Experiment 1, this so-called prominence effect was demonstrated for choices between pairs of options, choices to accept single options, and preference ratings of single options. That is, in all these response modes the prominent attribute loomed larger than in matching. The results were replicated in Experiment 2, in which subjects chose between or rated their preference (...) for pairs of options which were matched to be equally attractive either in the same session or 1 week earlier. On the basis of these and previous results, it is argued that the prominence effect is a reliable phenomenon. However, none of several cognitive explanations which have been offered appears to be completely viable. (shrink)

The use of writing or journaling as a tool toward healing is becoming increasingly accepted in the vernacular of healing litanies. Reference books, personal narratives, and research on the effects of writing on healing psychological discomfort are abundant. Heal Yourself with Writing, written by screenwriter Catherine Ann Jones, and published in 2013, won a Nautilus Book Award for 2014. The following review reflects a book that is a well-thought journey through the steps of intentional or focused writing for the express (...) purpose of moving from living from beliefs and thoughts that do not serve healthy wholeness or fullness of life, into living more freely and more authentically. (shrink)

Is the “act itself” of separating a pregnant woman and her previable child neither good nor bad morally, considered in the abstract? Recently, Maureen Condic and Donna Harrison have argued that such separation is justified to protect the mother’s life and that it does not constitute an abortion as the aim is not to kill the child. In our article on maternal–fetal conflicts, we agree there need be no such aim to kill (supplementing aims such as to remove). However, we (...) argue that to understand “abortion” as performed only where the death of the child is intended is to define the term too narrowly. Respect for the mother, the fetus, and the bond between them goes well beyond avoiding any such aim. We distinguish between legitimate maternal treatments simply aimed at treating or removing a damaged part of the woman and illegitimate treatments that focus harmfully on the fetal body and its presence within the mother’s body. In obstetrics as elsewhere, not all side effects for one subject of intervention can be outweighed by intended benefits for another. Certain side effects of certain intended interventions are morally conclusive. (shrink)

When a prominent attribute looms larger in one response procedure than in another, a violation of procedure invariance occurs. A hypothesis based on compatibility between the structure of the input information and the required output was tested as an explanation of this phenomenon. It was also compared with other existing hypotheses in the field. The study had two aims: (1) to illustrate the prominence effect in a selection of preference tasks (choice, acceptance decisions, and preference ratings); (2) to demonstrate the (...) processing differences in a matching procedure versus the selected preference tasks. Hence, verbal protocols were collected in both a matching task and in subsequent preference tasks. Silent control conditions were also employed. The structure compatibility hypothesis was confirmed in that a prominence effect obtained in the preference tasks was accompanied by a lower degree of attention to the attribute levels in these tasks. Furthermore, as predicted from the structure compatibility hypothesis, it was found that fewer comparisons between attribute levels were performed in the preference tasks than in the matching task. It was therefore concluded that both these processing differences may explain the occurrence of the prominence effects. (shrink)

The “principle of double effect” is a vital tool for moral decision making and is applicable to all areas of medical practice, including (for example) end-of-life care, transplant medicine, and cases of conscientious objection. Both our ultimate and our more immediate intentions are relevant in making and evaluating choices— though side effects must be kept proportionate and can be morally conclusive when linked with some intentions. Intentions help to form the character of doctors, and of human beings generally. While hypocrisy (...) is certainly possible in regard to this form (and other forms) of moral reasoning, double effect reasoning, sincerely practised, remains indispensable in identifying moral problems and solutions. (shrink)

Health services internationally struggle to ensure health care is “person-centered” (or similar). In part, this is because there are many interpretations of “person-centered care” (and near synonyms), some of which seem unrealistic for some patients or situations and obscure the intrinsic value of patients’ experiences of health care delivery. The general concern behind calls for person-centered care is an ethical one: Patients should be “treated as persons.” We made novel use of insights from the capabilities approach to characterize person-centered care (...) as care that recognizes and cultivates the capabilities associated with the concept of persons. This characterization unifies key features from previous characterisations and can render person-centered care applicable to diverse patients and situations. By tying person-centered care to intrinsically valuable capability outcomes, it incorporates a requirement for responsiveness to individuals and explains why person-centered care is required independently of any contribution it may make to health gain. (shrink)

What endogenous factors contribute to minority (Red Queen) or majority (Red King) domination under conditions of coercive bargaining? We build on previous work demonstrating minority disadvantage in non-coercive bargaining games to show that under neutral initial conditions, majorities are advantaged in high conflict situations, and minorities are advantaged in low conflict games. These effects are a function of the relationship between (1) relative proportions of the majority and minority groups and (2) costs of conflict. Although both Red King and Red (...) Queen effects can occur, we further show that agents’ increased initial propensity toward conflict advantages majorities. (shrink)

Ausgangspunkt ist die Frage, was Masse ist, wodurch sie insbesondere befähigt ist, Dauer zu konstituieren und deshalb - im Sinn des kinematischen Relativitätsprinzips - ebenso als bewegt wie als ruhend betrachtet werden kann. In einem Gedankenexperiment wird diese Frage, in Umkehrung der Perspektive, hier nicht von der Masse selbst, sondern von einer stehenden Lichtwelle her angegangen. In diesem Modell lassen sich masse-analoge Strukturen rekonstruieren, die in relativer Bewegung sein können. Die (empirisch bekannte) Unabhängigkeit der Lichtgeschwindigkeit vom Bezugssystem ist dabei nicht (...) vorausgesetzt. Doch kann gezeigt werden, dass die Lichtgeschwindigkeit Grenzgeschwindigkeit solcher relativer Bewegungen ist, dass dies für alle durch masse-analoge Strukturen konstituierte, relativ zueinander gleichförmig bewegten Bezugssysteme gilt und dass die Lichtgeschwindigkeit selbst in allen diesen Systemen gleich ist. Die Absolutheit der Lichtgeschwindigkeit und die Relativität der Massebewegungen erweisen sich so als zwar differente, aber intrinsisch zusammengehörende Momente des kinematischen Relativitätsprinzips: ein Beitrag zu einer Philosophie der Relativitätstheorie. - Die mathematischen Zusammenhänge werden im Anhang ausführlicher dargelegt. (shrink)

This essay defends a reading of Hegel as a metametaphysical antirealist. Metametaphysical antirealism is a denial that metaphysics has as its subject matter answers to theoretical questions about the mind-independent world. Hence, on this view, metaphysical questions are not, in principle, knowledge transcendent. I hold that Hegel presents a version of metametaphysical antirealism in the Science of Logic because he pursues his project by suspending reference to all supposed objects of metaphysical theory as practiced before him. Hegel introduces reference in (...) his theory only by the self-reference of thought to itself in the Doctrine of the Concept. I motivate the relevance of Hegel’s approach to metaphysics by comparing it to Kit Fine’s (2017) concept of “naïve metaphysics.” I argue that Hegel’s theory results from a comprehensively naïve metaphysics. (shrink)

In this book, the authors systematically define the new notion of linguistic graphs associated with a linguistic set of a linguistic variable. We can also define the notion of directed linguistic graphs and linguistic-weighted graphs. Chapter two discusses all types of linguistic graphs, linguistic dyads, linguistic triads, linguistic wheels, complete linguistic graphs, linguistic connected graphs, disconnected linguistic graphs, linguistic components of the graphs and so on. Further, we define the notion of linguistic subgraphs of a linguistic graph. However, like usual (...) graphs, we will not be able to arbitrarily connect any two linguistic words of a linguistic set associated with a linguistic variable. They can be related or adjacent depending on the linguistic variable associated with the linguistic set. This is an exceptional feature of a linguistic graph. (shrink)

This essay offers an account of Kierkegaard’s view of the limits of thought and of what makes this view distinctive. With primary reference to Philosophical Fragments, and its putative representation of Christianity as unthinkable, I situate Kierkegaard’s engagement with the problem of the limits of thought, especially with respect to the views of Kant and Hegel. I argue that Kierkegaard builds in this regard on Hegel’s critique of Kant but that, against Hegel, he develops a radical distinction between two types (...) of thinking and inquiry: the ‘aesthetic-intellectual’ and the ‘ethico-religious’. I clarify this distinction and show how it guides Kierkegaard’s conception of a form of philosophical practice that involves drawing limits to the proper sphere of disinterested contemplation. With reference to two rival interpretations of Kierkegaard’s approach to the limits of thought—which I call ‘bullet-biting’ and ‘relativizing’—I further show how my ‘disambiguating’ account can better explain how, and why, his work courts a form of self-referential incoherence, in which it appears that certain limits of thought are at once affirmed and violated. (shrink)

The current study is a pilot trial to examine the effects of a nonelective, classroom-based, teacher-implemented, mindfulness meditation intervention on standard clinical measures of mental health and affect in middle school children. A total of 101 healthy sixth-grade students (55 boys, 46 girls) were randomized to either an Asian history course with daily mindfulness meditation practice (intervention group) or an African history course with a matched experiential activity (active control group). Self-reported measures included the Youth Self Report (YSR), a modified (...) Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, and the Cognitive and Affective Mindfulness Measure –Revised. Both groups decreased significantly on clinical syndrome subscales and affect but did not differ in the extent of their improvements. Meditators were significantly less likely to develop suicidal ideation or thoughts of self-harm than controls. These results suggest that mindfulness training may yield both unique and non-specific benefits that are shared by other novel activities. (shrink)

This essay re-examines Kierkegaard's view of Socrates. I consider the problem that arises from Kierkegaard's appeal to Socrates as an exemplar for irony. The problem is that he also appears to think that, as an exemplar for irony, Socrates cannot be represented. And part of the problem is the paradox of self-reference that immediately arises from trying to represent x as unrepresentable. On the solution I propose, Kierkegaard does not hold that, as an exemplar for irony, Socrates is in no (...) way representable. Rather, he holds that, as an exemplar for irony, Socrates cannot be represented in a purely disinterested way. I show how, in The Concept of Irony, Kierkegaard makes use of 'limiting cases' of representation in order to bring Socrates into view as one who defies purely disinterested representation. I also show how this approach to Socrates connects up with Kierkegaard's more general interest in the problem of ethical exemplarity, where the problem is how ethical exemplars can be given as such, that is, in such a way that purely disinterested contemplation is not the appropriate response to them. (shrink)

While the idea of philosophy as conceptual analysis has attracted many adherents and undergone a number of variations, in general it suffers from an authority problem with two dimensions. First, it is unclear why the analysis of a concept should have objective authority: why explicating what we mean should express how things are. Second, conceptual analysis seems to lack intersubjective authority: why philosophical analysis should apply to more than a parochial group of individuals. I argue that Hegel’s conception of social (...) ontology, focused on his concept of “ethical life” (Sittlichkeit), helps to explain how concepts (and their explication) have both objective and intersubjective authority in the social domain. Hegel claims that modern institutions are the product of self-conscious purposes, so that they are conceptually constituted. Concepts do not just represent these objects and so depend on a contingent relation to them. As many contemporary social ontologists agree, this means that our concepts of these institutions are uniquely epistemically “transparent.” They have objective authority. Concepts have intersubjective authority in the modern world as well, according to Hegel. However, I show that this feature of Hegel’s account does not rely on the solution to a philosophical problem. Rather, since the concepts of modern ethical life are “essentially contested,” their content depends on the practical and political agreement of modern subjects. This means that concepts can only have objective authority if some prior intersubjective agreement has been reached. The role of philosophy as conceptual analysis is thus importantly dependent on political developments. (shrink)

In the Transcendental Aesthetic (TA), Kant is typically held to make negative assertations about “things in themselves,” namely that they are not spatial or temporal. These negative assertions stand behind the “neglected alternative” problem for Kant’s transcendental idealism. According to this problem, Kant may be entitled to assert that spatio-temporality is a subjective element of our cognition, but he cannot rule out that it may also be a feature of the objective world. In this paper, I show in a new (...) way how Kant’s view (focusing on his conclusions about space) is not subject to this objection, by showing that he does not make the denial about mind-independent reality that he is typically held to make. The argument develops consequences of a new reading of Kant’s expression “an sich selbst” (‘in itself’; ‘in themselves’). I argue that “an sich selbst” or “per se” has a special, judgment-level role, so that this expression does not form new noun-terms adjectivally. It follows that the conceptual unit of Kant’s “Conclusions” in the TA is simply “things” (Dinge), since “things in themselves” is not a nominal expression; Kant adopts the Wolffian ontological use of “thing” as the basic kind-term for any existent. The arguments that things per se are not in space are arguments that space cannot be a necessary property or relations of things as a kind. I show that this does not involve the positive claim about mind-independent reality that inspires the neglected alternative objection. (shrink)

This paper reexamines Kierkegaard's work with respect to the question whether truth is one or many. I argue that his famous distinction between objective and subjective truth is grounded in a unitary conception of truth as such: truth as self-coincidence. By explaining his use in this context of the term ‘redoubling’ [Fordoblelse], I show how Kierkegaard can intelligibly maintain that truth is neither one nor many, neither a simple unity nor a complex multiplicity. I further show how these points shed (...) much-needed light on the relationship between objective and subjective truth, conceived not as different kinds or species of truth but as different ways in which truth manifests itself as a standard of success across different contexts of inquiry. (shrink)

In recent years, academics and educators have begun to use software mapping tools for a number of education-related purposes. Typically, the tools are used to help impart critical and analytical skills to students, to enable students to see relationships between concepts, and also as a method of assessment. The common feature of all these tools is the use of diagrammatic relationships of various kinds in preference to written or verbal descriptions. Pictures and structured diagrams are thought to be more comprehensible (...) than just words, and a clearer way to illustrate understanding of complex topics. Variants of these tools are available under different names: “concept mapping”, “mind mapping” and “argument mapping”. Sometimes these terms are used synonymously. However, as this paper will demonstrate, there are clear differences in each of these mapping tools. This paper offers an outline of the various types of tool available and their advantages and disadvantages. It argues that the choice of mapping tool largely depends on the purpose or aim for which the tool is used and that the tools may well be converging to offer educators as yet unrealised and potentially complementary functions. (shrink)

Stephen Yablo’s notion of proportionality, despite controversies surrounding it, has played a significant role in philosophical discussions of mental causation and of high-level causation more generally. In particular, it is invoked in James Woodward’s interventionist account of high-level causation and explanation, and is implicit in a novel approach to constructing variables for causal modeling in the machine learning literature, known as causal feature learning (CFL). In this article, we articulate an account of proportionality inspired by both Yablo’s account of proportionality (...) and the CFL account of variable construction. The resulting account has at least three merits. First, it illuminates an important feature of the notion of proportionality, when it is adapted to a probabilistic and interventionist framework. The feature is that at the center of the notion of proportionality lies the concept of “determinate intervention effects.” Second, it makes manifest a virtue of (common types of) high-level causal/explanatory statements over low-level ones, when relevant intervention effects are determinate. Third, it overcomes a limitation of the CFL framework and thereby also addresses a challenge to interventionist accounts of high-level causation. (shrink)

Biological sex should be “acknowledged” and “accepted”—but which responses to gender dysphoria might this preclude? Trans-identified people may factually acknowledge their biological sex and regard transition as purely palliative. While generally some level of self-deception and even a high level of nonlying deception of others are sometimes justified, biological sex is important, and there is a nontrivial onus against even palliative, nonsexually motivated cross-dressing. The onus is higher against co-opting the body, even in a minor and/or reversible way, to make (...) a false communication concerning one’s sex. Hardest to defend is the destruction of sexual–reproductive functions and causally downstream functions such as lactation: due to the transcendent nature of sexual–reproductive functions, an appeal to the “principle of totality” here is misplaced. This is not to say that social, and milder medical, transition is absolutely excluded even for severe unmanageable dysphoria, nor that subsequent to any transition, detransition is necessarily required. (shrink)

This paper reconsiders certain of Kierkegaard's criticisms of Hegel's theoretical philosophy in the light of recent interpretations of the latter. The paper seeks to show how these criticisms, far from being merely parochial or rhetorical, turn on central issues concerning the nature of thought and what it is to think. I begin by introducing Hegel's conception of "pure thought" as this is distinguished by his commitment to certain general requirements on a properly philosophical form of inquiry. I then outline Hegel's (...) strategy for resolving a crucial problem he takes himself to face. For his account of the nature of thought depends upon the idea of a form of inquiry in which nothing whatsoever is presupposed; but this idea appears basically paradoxical inasmuch as the mere act of beginning to inquire in a certain way embodies an assumption about how it is appropriate to begin. Turning to Kierkegaard, I consider a key objection to the effect that Hegel's strategy for resolving this paradox depends on the incoherent idea of a purely reflexive act of thinking. Finally, I draw out some central features of the alternative account of "situated" thought and inquiry which Kierkegaard presents as distinctively Socratic. (shrink)

In the first part of this essay (Sections I and II), I argue that Kierkegaard's work helps us to articulate and defend two basic requirements on searching for knowledge of one's own judgements: first, that searching for knowledge whether one judges that P requires trying to make a judgement whether P; and second that, in an important range of cases, searching for knowledge of one's own judgements requires attending to how one's acts of judging are performed. In the second part (...) of the essay (Sections III and IV), I consider two prima facie problems regarding this conception of searching for knowledge of one's own judgements. The first problem concerns how in general one can coherently try to meet both these requirements at once; the second, how in particular one can try to attend to one's own acts of judging. I show how Kierkegaard's work is alive to both these problems, and helps us to see how they can be resolved. (shrink)

Abstract This paper offers an appraisal of Phillip Pettit's approach to the problem how a merely finite set of examples can serve to represent a determinate rule, given that indefinitely many rules can be extrapolated from any such set. I argue that Pettit's so-called ethnocentric theory of rule-following fails to deliver the solution to this problem he sets out to provide. More constructively, I consider what further provisions are needed in order to advance Pettit's general approach to the problem. I (...) conclude that what is needed is an account that, whilst it affirms the view that agents' responses are constitutively involved in the exemplification of rules, does not allow such responses the pride of place they have in Pettit's theory. (shrink)

Some cognitive processes appear to have “phenomenal” properties that are directly revealed to the subject and not determined by physical properties. I suggest that the source of this appearance is the method by which our brain processes sensory information. The appearance is an illusion. Nonetheless, we are not mistaken when we judge that people sometimes fee lpain.

In this essay I suggest that we view design principles in systems biology as minimal models, for a design principle usually exhibits universal behaviors that are common to a whole range of heterogeneous (living and nonliving) systems with different underlying mechanisms. A well-known design principle in systems biology, integral feedback control, is discussed, showing that it satisfies all the conditions for a model to be a minimal model. This approach has significant philosophical implications: it not only accounts for how design (...) principles explain, but also helps clarify one dispute over design principles, e.g., whether design principles provide mechanistic explanations or a distinct kind of explanations called design explanations. (shrink)

In Big Gods, Norenzayan (2013) presents the most comprehensive treatment yet of the Big Gods question. The book is a commendable attempt to synthesize the rapidly growing body of survey and experimental research on prosocial effects of religious primes together with cross-cultural data on the distribution of Big Gods. There are, however, a number of problems with the current cross-cultural evidence that weaken support for a causal link between big societies and certain types of Big Gods. Here we attempt to (...) clarify these problems and, in so doing, correct any potential misinterpretation of the cross-cultural findings, provide new insight into the processes generating the patterns observed, and flag directions for future research. (shrink)

Smarandache in 2019 has generalized the algebraic structures to NeutroAlgebraic structures and AntiAlgebraic structures. In this paper, authors, for the first time, define the NeutroAlgebra of neutrosophic triplets group under usual+ and x, built using {Zn, x}, n a composite number, 5 < n < oo, which are not partial algebras. As idempotents in Zn alone are neutrals that contribute to neutrosophic triplets groups, we analyze them and build NeutroAlgebra of idempotents under usual + and x, which are not partial (...) algebras. We prove in this paper the existence theorem for NeutroAlgebra of neutrosophic triplet groups. This proves the neutrals assocaited with neutrosophic triplet groups in { Zn, X} under product is a NeutroAlgebra of triplets. We also prove the non-existence theorem of NeutroAlgebra for neutrosophic triplets in case of Zn when n = 2p, 3p and 4p (for some primes p). Several open problems are proposed. Further, the NeutroAlgebras of extended neutrosophic triplet groups have been obtained. (shrink)

In terms of validity in Kripke frames, a modal formula expresses a universal monadic second-order condition. Those modal formulae which are equivalent to first-order conditions are called elementary. Modal formulae which have a certain persistence property which implies their validity in all canonical frames of modal logics axiomatized with them, and therefore their completeness, are called canonical. This is a survey of a recent and ongoing study of the class of elementary and canonical modal formulae. We summarize main ideas and (...) results, and outline further research perspectives. (shrink)

My central claim in this paper is that Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling is governed by the basic aim to articulate a real dilemma, and to elicit its proper recognition as such. I begin by indicating how Kierkegaard’s works are shaped in general by this aim, and what the aim involves. I then show how the dilemmaticstructure of Fear and Trembling is obscured in a recent dispute between Michelle Kosch and John Lippitt regarding the basic aims and upshot of the book. (...) Finally, I consider two critical questions: Why does Kierkegaard present his dilemmatic reasoning in the form of a “dialectical lyric”? And why does he write a book that aims only to articulate a dilemma, and not also to resolve it? (shrink)

Traditionally, the ideas of “intuitive” and “discursive” forms of understanding have been seen as near opposites. Whereas an intuitive understanding could have a direct grasp of something, a discursive understanding would always depend on what is given to it, as mediated by concepts. In this essay, I suggest that Paul Ricoeur’s conception of analogy presents a way of overcoming this opposition. For Ricoeur, an analogy works within discursive understanding, but it depends on an eventful insight that leads beyond what is (...) merely given in discourse. The analogy “gives more” for thought. Yet, as I argue, what analogy gives for thought is always explicable in conceptual terms: any intuitive understanding is commensurate with a discursive one. I illustrate Ricoeur’s mediation of discursive and intuitive understanding in particular with his conception of metaphor, which vividly depends on overcoming a discursive contradiction by analogical and intuitive means. Before introducing Ricoeur’s conception, I discuss the Kantian background of the intuitive/discursive distinction. In particular, I suggest how Goethe’s attempt to revitalize a notion of intuitive understanding can be compared to Ricoeur’s conception, though Ricoeur improves upon Goethe by grounding intuition in the specific phenomenon of analogy. (shrink)

This book is a translation of W.V. Quine's Kant Lectures, given as a series at Stanford University in 1980. It provide a short and useful summary of Quine's philosophy. There are four lectures altogether: I. Prolegomena: Mind and its Place in Nature; II. Endolegomena: From Ostension to Quantification; III. Endolegomena loipa: The forked animal; and IV. Epilegomena: What's It all About? The Kant Lectures have been published to date only in Italian and German translation. The present book is filled out (...) with the translator's critical Introduction, "The esoteric Quine?" a bibliography based on Quine's sources, and an Index for the volume. (shrink)

Tractatus Politico-Philosophicus (Political-Philosophical Treatise) of W. Julian Korab-Karpowicz proposes a new idea-system. Ideas concerning different topics related to politics are introduced. The work aims to establish the principles of good governance and of a happy society, and to open up new directions for the future development of humankind. It is also in part a critique of the epistemology of early Wittgenstein as presented in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. It argues that one can speak about politics and ethics with sense, and that (...) political philosophy is still a viable enterprise for us. This explanation is provided in response to the review of Tractatus Politico-Philosophicus by Katarzyna Heremska and a critical note of Pawel Kloczowski that were both published in Argument 6(1), 2016. (shrink)

This study investigates all available literature related to critical thinking in business education in a survey of publications in the field produced from 1990-2019. It conducts a thematic analysis of 787 articles found in Web of Science and Google Scholar, including a specific focus on 55 highly-cited articles. The aim is to investigate the importance of critical thinking in business education, how it is conceptualised in business education research, the business contexts in which critical thinking is situated, and the key (...) and more marginal themes related to critical thinking outlined in the business and business education literature. The paper outlines six key areas and topics associated with those areas. It suggests future directions for further scholarly work in the area of critical thinking in business education. (shrink)

Kant’s formula of universal law (FUL) is standardly understood as a test of the moral permissibility of an agent’s maxim: maxims which pass the test are morally neutral, and so permissible, while those which do not are morally impermissible. In contrast, I argue that the FUL tests whether a maxim is the cause or determining ground of an action at all. According to Kant’s general account of causality, nothing can be a cause of some effect unless there is a law-like (...) relation between the putative cause and effect. Applied to the case of action, no maxim can be the cause of an agent’s action unless there is a law-like relation between maxims of that kind and actions of that kind. The special capacity to act according to maxims as law-like causes is what Kant calls a will; the basic constitutive principle of the will is a non-normative principle I call the categorical declarative. While the actions of a perfectly good will would be described by the categorical declarative alone, human action is determined not only by the causality of the will, but also by competing causes, namely those stemming from inclination. There is thus need for a causal test for putative maxims. The test contained in the FUL is meant to determine whether an action could be grounded solely on the agent’s maxim, or whether it requires a cause external to the will. This account permits one to build eventual distinctions concerning the morality of actions on prior and independent distinctions concerning their causality. (shrink)

The articles included in this issue represent some of the most recent thinking in the area of critical thinking in higher education. While the emphasis is on work being done in the Australasian region, there are also papers from the USA and UK that demonstrate the international interest in advancing research in the area. -/- ‘Critical thinking’ in the guise of the study of logic and rhetoric has, of course, been around since the days of the ancient Greeks and the (...) early beginnings of universities. In a narrower sense, critical thinking has been central to higher education as a desirable attribute of graduates since at least the beginning of the twentieth century. The work of John Dewey, and others, emphasised the importance of ‘good habits of thinking’ as early as 1916. In 1945, the Harvard Committee placed emphasis on the importance of ‘thinking effectively’ as one of three desirable educational abilities in their General education in a free society. This was later endorsed in 1961 by the US-based Educational Policies Commission: ‘The purpose which runs through and strengthens all other educational purposes … is the development of the ability to think’ (Kennedy, Fisher, & Ennis, 1991, pp. 11–12). -/- In recent times, universities have made a point of emphasising the importance of critical thinking as a ‘generic skill’ that is central to most, if not all, subjects. There is not a university today (in Australia at least) that does not proudly proclaim that their graduates will – as a result of a degree program in their institution – learn to think critically. Further, there is rarely a subject taught that does not offer the opportunity to acquire skills in critical thinking. However, where is the evidence that we teach critical thinking in higher education? Disturbingly, despite our best intentions, it appears we may be teaching very little of it. (shrink)

In this book authors for the first time introduce the notion of super interval matrices using special intervals. The advantage of using super interval matrices is that one can build only one vector space using m × n interval matrices, but in case of super interval matrices we can have several such spaces depending on the partition on the interval matrix.

The systematic study of supermatrices and super linear algebra has been carried out in 2008. These new algebraic structures find their applications in fuzzy models, Leontief economic models and data-storage in computers.

First put forth in June 2005, the altered nuclear transfer-oocyte assisted reprogramming (ANT-OAR) proposal has been promoted as an ethically-acceptable alternative to the embryo-destructive methods now used to obtain embryonic stem cells. According to its proponents, the goal of ANT-OAR is to use the cloning process to create a pluripotent stem cell. This would be achieved through overexpression of the transcription factor Nanog (or a hypothetical substitute) both in the enucleated egg cell and in the somatic cell prior to transfer (...) of its nucleus. Although the ethical acceptability of ANT-OAR has been publicly debated, its scientific feasibility has not. This paper aims to help rectify this situation. It argues that ANT-OAR, as currently conceived, cannot realistically work. It presents evidence from the scientific literature showing that Nanog cannot single-handedly establish pluripotency in cells, but rather works together with a network of other transcription factors to maintain pluripotency. It argues that ANT-OAR is based on a flawed understanding of stem cell biology, and emphasizes that, in this debate about embryonic stem cells, scientists must strive to accurately and realistically assess the feasibility of the embryo research strategies they propose. (shrink)

This chapter describes the potential far‐reaching consequences of contemplative higher education for the fields of science and medicine.

Things and Their Place in Theories Our talk of external things, our very notion of things, is just a conceptual apparatus that helps us to foresee and ...

In this essay I propose that what design principles in systems biology and systems neuroscience do is to present abstract characterizations of mechanisms, and thereby facilitate mechanistic explanation. To show this, one design principle in systems neuroscience, i.e., the multilayer perceptron, is examined. However, Braillard (2010) contends that design principles provide a sort of non-mechanistic explanation due to two related reasons: they are very general and describe non-causal dependence relationships. In response to this, I argue that, on the one hand, (...) all mechanisms are more or less general (or abstract), and on the other, many (if not all) design principles are causal systems. (shrink)