Buddhist ethics on environment protection.

Open peer commentary on the article “Developing a Dialogical Platform for Disseminating Research through Design” by Abigail C. Durrant, John Vines, Jayne Wallace & Joyce Yee. Upshot: The experimental conference format described by Durrant et al. is intended to create an open platform for dissemination and knowledge creation. The field of open design, in which designers create structures to support creative action by others, offers relevant insights and alternative approaches. For example: while it is logical to see openness as open (...) choice, it can be productive to instead think of openness as constructed through a balance of structure and choice. (shrink)

On the controversial questions between al-Rāzī and al-Ṭūsī, Islamic philosophy; Islamic history to 1800; dissertation.

We discuss our surgical philosophy concerning the subtle interplay between the size of the surgical margin taken and the resultant morbidity from ablative oncological. procedures, which is ever more evident in the treatment of head and neck malignancy. The extent of tissue resection is determined by the "trade off" between cancer control and the perioperative, functional and aesthetic morbidity and mortality of the surgery. We also discuss our dilemmas concerning recent minimally invasive endoscopic microsurgical. techniques for the trans-oral laser removal. (...) or co-ablation of aero-digestive tract tumours, which result in a minimal. surgical margin of oncological clearance. By a process of inductive argument as to the nature of the surgical margin, we consider whether the risks of taking a lesser margin with adjuvant therapy is justified by the attendant gain in reduced surgical morbidity and the possible costs in tumour control. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. (shrink)

Sufis mainly focused on the properties of the nafs (soul) and its positive and negative effects on human life. Thus, they tried to correct the nafs with various training methods to eliminate its possible harms to humans. The aim of the present study, where we discuss the approach of Muhammad bin Abd al-Malik ad-Daylami (d. 589/1193), a mystic of the 6th century after hegira, to soul, is to investigate the rise of soul in the spiritual realm based on his manuscripts. (...) In the study, the nature of the soul, its properties and the positions it occupied in the spiritual realm were investigated based on Daylemi's Arabic treatise “Me‘aricü'n-nüfûs”. In the treatise, Daylem, explained the positions of the soul in the spiritual realm with a unique interpretation and approach. Furthermore, the study is centered on Daylemî's views on soul, and the views of theologians, philosophers and other Sufis were included where necessary. Daylemi argued that the soul will rise in the spiritual realm, although struggle and piety had been prioritized. He also declared that this could lead to the grace of the corporeal soul. According to Daylemi, there were basically eight attributes of the soul, and these attributes were not randomly included in the human soul, and each fulfilled a rask for humans to rise in the spiritual realm. However, although these attributes were suitable for development and training in essence, when they are left to their own devices, they could either stand still or lead to corruption. Daylemi argued that the soul was corporeal during the creation of human beings from soil, so it could not be called spiritual, but the nature of the human soul became pleasant because Allah passed this earthly substance through certain stages. Daylemi argued that the soul's experience through these states occured entirely in the spiritual realm and it could not leave the body because the soul gives life to the body and from him dies as soon as the soul leaves the body. Comparing this process to the rays of the sun, Daylemi stated that the soul of a human being shined in different degrees after reaching the stage of contentment, so that the human is enlightened in the realm of the kingdom, stronger than the sun. Because although the sun is in the sky, its rays could reach the ground, and it is possible for its rays to circulate in the spiritual realm even though the soul remains in the body. Daylemi, who believed that inspection had a significant effect on the ascension to the spiritual realm, argued that for enlightenment to become a skill in the servant and to remain, the servant should prioritize inspection at the beginning, otherwise the servant’s light would decrease and fade away. Finally, Daylemi discussed the question of whether it was possible for the corporeal soul to transform into a luminous state, and based on certain verses and hadiths, he argued that it was possible for the corporeal soul to transform into a spiritual light. (shrink)

Articles on Hindu religion, society, and philosophy.

This research was conducted to study the ethical issues involved in managing change-related issues and assess whether people in organizations perceive them to be ethical. Besides assessing people's perceptions of ethicality, it also explored the reasons people give for judging a situation as ethical or unethical. Research was conducted using scenarios involving ethical dilemmas related to lay offs, skills obsolescence, misinfor mation and preference for younger over older employees. Results show that the respondents were divided over three situations, namely, lay (...) offs, misinformation and preference for younger employees. The issue of skills obsolescence was considered unethical by most. The reasons given for judging a situation were different, implying that the ethical and unethical were not treated as two ends of a continuum. (shrink)

From Aristotle to the present, memory has been grasped as a trace or impression of lost reality – bridging physiological experience and consciousness. Philosophers have vainly sought the nature of this bridge. The present-day physiologizing/naturalizing of consciousness is not resolving their congenital continuity, in which the very existence and practice of life is rooted. We have to change our approach. The Aristotelian congenital ties between memory and temporality, acquire crucial significance in our primogenital ontopoiesis of life. It reveals memory to (...) be the factor that carries this coalescence and the becoming of life itself. This can be the fruit only of the generative springs of life, first phenomenology/philosophy, the ontopoietic logos of life. In this collection we explore memory in the constitution of reality: rememorizing and interpretation, consciousness/action, facts/imagination, history/myths, self-realization/metamorphosis. (shrink)

Stephen Davies’ book shows admirable sensitivity to the complexities of aesthetic appreciation, the making of art, and evolutionary explanation. Our critical comments focus on his understanding of how the natural and the cultural are to be distinguished. We suggest that recent work on the evolution of cognition undermines any strict distinction between that which is learned, and therefore within the domain of culture or technology, and that which is part of human nature, and therefore within the domain of evolution. These (...) further complexities offer rich options for how to understand the evolution of art, at the same time as problematizing efforts to demarcate cultural and evolutionary explanation. (shrink)