A recent target article in the American Journal of Bioethics (AJOB) considered the right of transgender (trans) children to access pubertal suppression (Priest 2019). We were concerned by publicati...

Some New Mechanists have proposed that claims of compositional relations are justified by combining the results of top-down and bottom-up interlevel interventions. But what do scientists do when they can perform, say, a cellular intervention, but not a subcellular detection? In such cases, paired interlevel interventions are unavailable. We propose that scientists use abduction and we illustrate its use through a case study of the ionic theory of resting and action potentials.

The main question that Firestone & Scholl (F&S) pose is whether “what and how we see is functionally independent from what and how we think, know, desire, act, and so forth” (sect. 2, para. 1). We synthesize a collection of concerns from an interdisciplinary set of coauthors regarding F&S's assumptions and appeals to intuition, resulting in their treatment of visual perception as context-free.

Graphical Abstract2013 marks the 50th annual Drew festival in Uto City, Japan, celebrating the work of University of Manchester botanist, Dr. Kathleen Drew-Baker. Her insight into the reproductive biology of algae was the key to efficient farming of the seaweed “nori” which is a familiar component of Japanese food.

A B S T R A C T Detailed examination of audio recordings of business-to-business `field-sales' encounters are used to report one way in which salespeople elicit verbal expressions of affiliation from their prospective customers — by reciprocating second assessments which affiliate with, trade off and build on prospects' own assessments. This article outlines the prototypical features of these junctures of assessment-affiliation and describes how salespeople can mobilize such assessments to build extended sequences of `rapport' that take the form of (...) adjacent and mutual expressions of substantive verbal affiliation. Consideration is also given to explicating both the interactional basis of these sequences as well as the socially obligating influence such affiliation and rapport can have on sales outcomes. (shrink)

Revising Clouds for publication some five years after its third-place showing in the City Dionysia of 423 b.c., Aristophanes retooled the first parabasis to praise the play's propriety, omitting as it did distasteful matter and gratuitous buffoonery, which—along with the judges’ crassness—accounted, he says, for its failure.

Philosophers have cataloged a range of genealogical methods by which different sorts of normative conclusions can be established. Although such methods provide diverging ways of pursuing genealogical inquiry, they typically converge in eschewing historiographic methodology, in favor of a uniquely philosophical approach. In contrast, one genealogist who drew on historiographic methodology is Michel Foucault. This article presents the motivations and advantages of Foucault's genealogical use of such a methodology. It advances two mains claims. First, that Foucault's early 1970s work (...) employs a distinct genealogical method, which borrows from contemporary historiographic models of explanation to expand the range of objects that are proper to genealogical accounts of historical change. I demonstrate how Foucault modifies two central commitments of Nietzsche by broadening the dimensions of genealogical inquiry and explanation. Second, that historical method has normative relevance for genealogy, insofar as different historiographic choices can lead to different normative conclusions. I motivate this second claim by explaining how Foucault's multidimensional genealogical method expands both (a) the range of objects that are subject to evaluative assessment, and (b) the set of possible prescriptive recommendations that follow from such assessment. (shrink)

At various times in his "Pre-critical" and "Critical" periods, Kant presented an argument about the nature of space that has come to be called the "Incongruous Counterparts" argument. First presented in his 1768 essay, Concerning the Ultimate Foundation for the Differentiation of Regions in Space, the argument holds that two objects, such as two human hands, might be exact counterparts, that is, identical in "size and proportion and... the situation of the parts relative to each other," and yet might be (...) still "incongruent," that there is no continuous rigid motion which brings them into coincidence in space; or, that they are, though counterparts, incongruently left and right hands. This argument appears in 1768, in the Dissertation of 1770, the Prolegomena of 1783 and the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science in 1786. Unfortunately, while the details of the argument are virtually the same, the conclusions are not. Kant seems to have claimed that the argument shows: that a Leibnizean, relational theory of space was wrong; that a theory of absolute space was correct; that space was a pure form of sensibility and that space was transcendentally ideal, i.e., that space was not and could not be a feature of things in themselves. In the secondary literature, commentators who have dealt with this issue have simply noted the odd history of the argument and lamented it. Buroker's ambitious and interesting thesis in this book is not only that Kant's use of the argument is consistent and interconnected, but that the argument can be seen as the "origin" of Kant's idealism. She argues both of these points by arguing, in the great majority of cases, more for a logical than an actual or historical connection among the conclusions Kant drew from the argument; i.e., that she can illuminate the reasoning that led Kant from a rejection of Leibniz's relational view to his radical separation between sensibility and understanding, and then to his view that things in themselves are both unknowable and non-spatial. (shrink)

Experimental taxonomy was a diverse area of research, and botanists who helped develop it were motivated by a variety of concerns. While experimental taxonomy was never totally a taxonomic enterprise, improvement in classification was certainly one major motivation behind the research. Hall's and Clements' belief that experimental methods added more objectivity to classification was almost universally accepted by experimental taxonomists. Such methods did add a new dimension to taxonomy — a dimension that field and herbarium studies, however rigorous, could not (...) duplicate. Nonetheless, experimental techniques were never completely divorced from traditional taxonomic methods. In practice, all experimental taxonomists employed a combination of descriptive and experimental methods. Most researchers freely acknowledged a debt to traditional taxonomy. Furthermore, the greater rigor of twentieth-century taxonomy was not due entirely to experimentalism. Both the experimental and descriptive aspects of taxonomy were improved by the increased use of quantitative methods, particularly statistics.52From the beginning, a number of experimental taxonomists were interested primarily in classification. But many approached their research from fields other than taxonomy. These botanists were concerned primarily with ecological and genetic problems rather than with classification. There is little indication that they drew a sharp distinction: for example, taxonomic and cytogenetic conclusions were interwoven in Babcock and Stebbins' 1938 study of Crepis 53 (this was even more true of Babcock's final mongraph on the genus, published in 1947). Similarly, the extensive series of monographs, “Experimental Studies on the Nature of Species,” initiated by the Carnegie Institution group in 1940 combined ecological, cytogenetic, and taxonomic conclusions. Indeed, the significance of the major projects completed by experimental taxonomists was largely due to the fact that they were comprehensive studies rather than strictly taxonomic or cytogenetic.In a general sense, the primary motivation behind much of experimental taxonomy was evolutionary. Beginning in the second decade of the century Hall and Clements exhorted taxonomists to take an explicitly evolutionary perspective on research. Hall undoubtedly spoke for the majority of experimental taxonomists when he stated, “If there be anything at all to organic evolution, then taxonomy is dealing with the products of evolution and it is this that gives to taxonomy both its highest mission and its greatest responsibility.”54Aside from a common interest in evolution, however, the theoretical orientations of experimental taxonomists were varied. This diversity is strikingly illustrated by the evolutionary views of members of the Carnegie Institution research group. Experimental taxonomy was initiated by Clements as one aspect of his Lamarckian study of adaptation and speciation. In contrast, Hall's research was inspired by a broad concern for evolutionary problems. Hall rarely referred to specific evolutionary mechanisms; rather, he applied a general conception of evolutionary processes to deduce phylogenetic relationships. His later associates at the Carnegie Institution explicitly dissociated themselves from Clements' theoretical framework. The neo-Darwinian interpretations of adaptation and speciation presented by Clausen, Keck, and Hiesey could hardly have been more different than those of Clements. However, this major shift in theoretical orientation should not obscure significant similarities between the research of Clements and later Carnegie workers. In terms of research problems and methodology, the first volume of “Experimental Studies on the Nature of Species” was an extension of the Clementsian research program. Clausen, Keck, and Hiesey's monograph was the mature discussion of transplant experimentation that Clements had very tentatively initiated during the first decades of the twentieth century. The bond that linked the members of the Carnegie Institution research group to experimental taxonomists in general was one of shared methodology rather than common theoretical orientation. While Clements' evolutionary views were eventually repudiated, his enthusiasm for innovative experimental methods was shared by later workers.The development of experimental taxonomy faced significant problems. During the period 1920–1950 this area of botanical research remained a hybrid discipline. The aims and scope of experimental taxonomy were never articulated in a completely unified manner. Consequently, even among experimental taxonomists, there were disagreements over the relation of their research to other botanical endeavors. Even though experimental taxonomy had close ties with general taxonomy, a number of experimental taxonomists questioned the “taxonomic” nature of their research55. Even to the extent that this hybrid discipline could be identified as a branch of taxonomy, problems arose. Taxonomists, as we have seen, were justifiably skeptical of what appeared to be a rapid influx of untested methods and ideas. Experimental taxonomists were not merely incorporating well-accepted methods from ecology and cytogenetics; during the period 1920–1950 the fields from which experimental taxonomists borrowed were themselves undergoing major theoretical and methodological changes. Despite problems and conflicts, experimental taxonomists did contribute improvements to classification. Furthermore, they made significant contributions to plant ecology and evolutionary genetics.The development of experimental taxonomy indicates that twentieth-century botanists were not necessarily isolated in naturalist and experimentalist camps. The joint session of taxonomists, cytologists, and geneticists at the 1926 International Congress of Plant Sciences indicates communication among specialists fairly early in the century. The papers and commentaries presented during this session do not reveal the hostility and intolerance that supposedly characterized encounters between experimentalists and naturalists. Nor do they suggest incompatible conceptual worlds separating geneticists and taxonomists.Discussions between taxonomists and other specialists were not limited to a single international congress. Particularly during the 1930s discussions among specialists appear to have been fairly widespread. Groups such as the Biosystematists and the Society for the Study of Systematics in Relation to General Biology served as forums for discussion among biologists from a variety of disciplines. The naturalist-experimentalist dichotomy tends to obscure the broad research interests of a number of prominent twentieth-century botanists. Most of the experimental taxonomists cannot be characterized adequately as either naturalists or experimentalists. Traditionally trained taxonomists such as Hall, Keck, and Turrill throughout their careers participated in both experimental and herbarium research. And a number of specialists in fields other than taxonomy took an active interest in taxonomic problems, not necessarily limited to experimental aspects. For example, Anderson suggested a number of innovations to make herbarium collections more amenable to statistical analysis.This historical study of experimental taxonomy indicates a different relationship between experimentalism and taxonomy than that portrayed by the naturalist-versus-experimentalist dichotomy. F. E. Clements originated experimental taxonomy as a revolt against descriptive botany. In retrospect, this revolution was not vigorously waged and was not successfully completed. Experimental taxonomy was never an entirely experimental approach to botanical research. Even the most ardent advocates of experimentalism relied heavily on methods inherited from traditional taxonomy. Moderate exponents of experimental taxonomy stressed the compatibility of experimental methods, field observation, and herbarium techniques. Attempts to fuse cytogenetics, ecology, and taxonomy during the period 1920–1950 resulted in an impressive body of research. However, this fusion constituted neither a repudiation of descriptive botany nor a complete revision of taxonomic theory of practice. (shrink)

Philip Kitcher is a leading figure in the philosophy of science, and he is part of a growing community of scholars who have turned their attention from the field’s long-time focus on questions of logic and epistemology to the relation between science and society. Kitcher’s book Science, Truth, and Democracy (2001) charted a course between relativism and realism, arguing that the aims of science emerge from not only scientific curiosity but also practical and public concerns. The book also drew (...) on John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice (1999) to develop an ideal of “well-ordered science,” and then applied the ideal to various aspects of the scientific research agenda. Ten years later, complex public issues like climate change have grown more urgent, and with many people questioning mainstream science on climate change, evolutionary biology, vaccines, stem cell research, and other topics, the tensions between science and democracy seem more pronounced than ever. Kitcher’s Science in a Democrat. (shrink)

In this book, published in 1686, the scientist Robert Boyle attacked prevailing notions of the natural world which depicted 'Nature' as a wise, benevolent and purposeful being. Boyle, one of the leading mechanical philosophers of his day, believed that the world was best understood as a vast, impersonal machine, fashioned by an infinite, personal God. In this cogent treatise, he drew on his scientific findings, his knowledge of contemporary medicine and his deep reflection on theological and philosophical issues, arguing (...) that it was inappropriate both theologically and scientifically to speak of Nature as if it had a mind of its own: instead, the only true efficient causes of things were the properties and powers given to matter by God. As such, A Free Enquiry into the Vulgarly Received Notion of Nature represents one of the subtlest statements concerning the philosophical issues raised by the mechanical philosophy to emerge from the period of the scientific revolution. (shrink)

This study was conducted during 111 days of coronavirus disease 2019 lockdown and reviewed current media articles that revealed government bodies and institutions have come to view people not as priceless treasures, but in terms of the money they can generate and the economic value they may give to a nation. This view was contrasted with the historic Christian concept of inherent royalty and value that is intrinsic to all people, and embodied in monarchs and bishops. This study focuses on (...) a review of historical literature and biblical texts around monarchy and the episcopacy in light of current media articles related to COVID-19. It found that politics and policy need to be grounded into the more fundamental aspects of our human condition and that it is the compassion and care people have for those who are more fragile: be it financially, physically, mentally or spiritually, that bishops and monarchs should be embodying in a time of COVID-19.Contribution: This study drew its key insights from contested historical thoughts on the role of monarchs and bishops. The results of this line of thinking challenge us as we consider the future function and role of these positions, and what they mean in times of crises. The key insight gained is the reminder that the lives of all people in our communities are important as each person holds an intrinsic value that cannot be traded for the sake of a country’s economy and business desires to turn a profit during the COVID-19 pandemic. (shrink)

As we navigate post-pandemic educational recovery and future-oriented design, the Handbook of Research in Online Learning: Insights and Advances emerges as a scholarly authority to illuminate existing questions and catalyze conversations on imperative transformations in education. Tailored for researchers, designers, educators, administrators, and stakeholders, this handbook delves into the nuanced landscape of online learning. Curated by leading experts, each chapter provides a deep exploration of critical online teaching and learning dimensions. Whether you're navigating the complexities of instructional design, exploring the (...) impact of digital learning on diverse student populations, or delving into the transformative potential of AI, each chapter illuminates critical aspects of online education. It merges current significant works with unpublished manuscripts, embodying the interdisciplinary essence of online learning research. Grounded in diverse theoretical frameworks and research methods, it offers theoretical insights and actionable guidance for cutting-edge educational methodologies. This handbook is not just a compendium; it's an indispensable guide for shaping the future of education. Contributors are: Michael Ahlf, Stephen Allen, Tonya Amankwatia, Fatih Ari, Ismahan Arslan-Ari, Michael K. Barbour, Gail Alleyne Bayne, Karen Bellnier, M. Aaron Bond, Victoria Brown, George Bradford, William Cain, Sumie Chan, Lauren Cifuentes, Laura DaVinci, Gina Deckard, Shernette Dunn, Anne Fensie, Holly Fiock, Sara Flowers, Carla Karen Fortune, Theodore Frick, Michael M. Grant, Alexis Guethler, Dan He, Atsusi "2c" Hirumi, Charles B. Hodges, Stephanie Hostetter, Michael Houdyshell, Fethi A. Inan, Frank Jamison, Amir Kalan, Meryl Krieger, Jessica Lantz, Mary Lefaiver, Juhong Christie Liu, Noble Lo, Barbara Lockee, Fatemeh Marzban, Trey Martindale, Sara McNeil, Laura McNeill, Stephanie Moore, Martha Lorena Obermeier, Larisa Olesova, Jennifer Jihae Park, Sanghoon Park, Yujin Park, AnthTony Pina, Drew Polly, Yingxiao Qian, Thomas Reeves, Christiane Reilly, Jennifer Richardson, Aubrey Rogowski, Leanne Rutherford, Kay Seo, Sanga Song, Edwin Teye Sosi, Stefan Stenbom, Sharon Stidham, David Tai, Hengtao Tang, Torrey Trust, Shannon Tucker, Denis Unal, Lucas Vasconcelos, Charles Xiaoxue Wang, Florence Williams, Ying Xie and Fan Xu. (shrink)

The present volume is welcome for a dual reason; one that it marks the resumption, after a period of over twenty years, of the scholarly translations of St. Bonaventure, begun under Boehner; the second is the intrinsic value of the translation and lengthy introduction, almost a third of the book. Since the Saint Anthony Guild and Franciscan Herald Presses have published some of the shorter and more popular writings of the saint, it is fitting that the Franciscan Institute, noted for (...) its more technical philosophical and theological studies, should have chosen this series of disputed questions. They are undoubtedly one of Bonaventure's most mature and important writings, stemming from his days as the Franciscan regent master of theology at the University of Paris. The translator has already distinguished himself with a number of other articles and translations of the Seraphic Doctor. His scholarly and informative introduction falls into three chapters, one on the historical background, a second on the originality of Bonaventure's general trinitarian theology, and the third on the specific themes treated in this set of disputed questions. The first throws new light on the origin of the Dionysian and Richardian elements that separate Bonaventure's treatment of the trinity from that of Aquinas. Bonaventure became acquainted with pseudo-Dionysius and Richard of St. Victor through the Summa fratris Alexandri attributed to Alexander of Hales and the early Franciscan Masters at the Paris house of studies. Fontal plenitude, fecundity, and goodness, that figured largely in the Greek Fathers, are developed by Bonaventure in an original and personal way. The incompleteness of the Dionysian model is filled in by Richard's psychological analysis of love and his conception of personhood. Innascibility as the key characteristic of the Father is given a positive twist; it implies one who is first in an absolute sense as the summation of Parmenidean perfection and whose fontal plenitude is not only the source of the dual procession in the Trinity, but spills over into a richly diverse and continuing creation that bears in varying degrees the stamp of its triadic source. Man as microcosm mirrors this most of all, especially that man in whom the Logos, or macrocosm of archetypal ideas, became incarnate. It is only in treatment of the Son and his relationship to creation as exemplar cause that the distinctive influence of Augustine appears. In the final introductory chapter, the specific Trinitarian themes of unity, based on a dynamic rather than a static Aristotelian notion of deity, simplicity, infinity, eternity, immutability, necessity, and primacy are discussed and what emerges is a deeper appreciation of the synthetic genius of Bonaventure, who drew from such a myriad of sources, yet wove his material into a unique system in which philosophy functions not as a propadeutic to theology, but as an integral and essential part. For that reason the work is of far wider interest than an arcane theological study that only philosophers with a penchant for history might read with profit.--A.B.W. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:MIMESIS AND EMPATHY IN HUMAN BIOLOGY William B. Hurlbut, M.D. Stanford University Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself: I am the Lord. (Leviticus. 19:18) The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy (...) whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness! (Matthew. 6:22-23) On the levels both ofcommon discourse and scientific description, the concept of empathy has found renewed popularity. Like a bridge that spans disparate realms, the idea of empathy can reconnect neurophysiology with psychology and social theory, and reestablish the grounds for a natural concept of ethics. Specifically, it can connect mimetic theory with a possible basis in biology, since empathy seems to represent an extension ofmimetic processes across the animal kingdom. For this reason, empathy/mimesis might be the grounds for a concept of ethics based on natural observation. Drawn from a German term Einfühlung, which means "feeling into," empathy carries the concept of "getting into the feelings of someone else" (deWaal 79). As a medium for the formation of meaningful bonds and William Hurlbut15 sensitive associations, the concept of empathy has taken on, in popular discourse, the somewhat sentimental notion ofsympathy. In the scientific description, however, empathy is seen as the highest human expression of a broader biological capacity for mimesis that seems inextricable from the very progress ofthe phylogenetic process. Among the earliest life forms, organisms drew information from one another to pattern and coordinate such basic biological functions as reproduction and nurture. But with the increased complexity of multicellular creatures, new means of communication arose, making possible more flexible adaptation and sociability. Gradually the direct chemical coordination suitable for collectives or swarms gave way to richer and more individual communication between organisms of higher forms of differentiation. The externally evident demarcation ofthe head region, with its organs ofsensory perception and communication, evolved in parallel with internal cerebral structures capable ofprocessing more complex impressions of the surrounding environment and coordinating greater freedom of motion. These vital powers of action and awareness in turn came to be governed, guided and integrated by an inner felt sense of need, goal or purpose. As Leon Kass says, "desire, not DNA, is the deepest principle of life" (Kass 1994, 48). This quality of "inwardness" is paralleled by an equally complex differentiation and integration of the external "look" ofthe animal. This "look," which is the literal translation of the Latin root of our word species, is the result of a genetically determined plan as important as any internal vital organ. It provides the unity of form that reveals or selectively conceals the inner life of the organism. It communicates and coordinates vital information regarding sexual and other social interactions. This upward process ofcomplex integrated organization of the "inner life" and the external action and presentation of selfreaches its fullest expression in the human form. Along with upright posture and its freeing ofthe hands as tools of "gnostic touching," comes a reordering of the senses and a highly flexible, furless canvas of selfpresentation we call the face (Kass 1985, 287). Upwards through mammalian evolution there is a progressive refinement of the structures of the face that facilitate active and increasingly subtle communication and penetration into the life of the other. With more than 30 finely tuned muscles of facial expression and vocal control, human beings are capable of a wide array of communicative 16 Mimesis andEmpathy expressions of emotions and intentions. Paul Ekman claims to have discerned more than 1 8 forms of smiling, each with a distinct meaning (66). With upright posture came a retraction ofthe snout and bilateral stereoscopic vision. Sight replaced smell as the prominent sense. Whereas smell required direct chemical contact, and sound gave formless information, sight gave a knowing and accurate encounter with the form and unity ofwholes. Sight allowed rapid perception ofobjects and actions at distant horizons. The detached beholding of sight allowed a deeper and more accurate apprehension of... (shrink)

ABSTRACT Online research has become a critical recruitment modality for understanding and reducing health disparities among hidden populations most at risk for HIV infection. There is a lack of consensus and guidelines for the responsible conduct of online recruitment for HIV risk populations. Using semi-structured phone interviews, this study drew on the experiences of principal investigators engaged in online HIV research to illuminate scientific and ethical benefits and challenges of social media recruitment. Using Thematic Analysis five major themes emerged: (...) sampling advantages and disadvantages; challenges of data integrity; control of privacy protections; researcher competence and responsibility; and resources. (shrink)

Quattrocki and Friston (2014) argued that abnormalities in interoception—the process of representing one’s internal physiological states—could lie at the heart of autism, because of the critical role interoception plays in the ontogeny of social-affective processes. This proposal drew criticism from proponents of the alexithymia hypothesis, who argue that social-affective and underlying interoceptive impairments are not a feature of autism per se, but of alexithymia (a condition characterized by difficulties describing and identifying one’s own emotions), which commonly co-occurs with autism. (...) Despite the importance of this debate for our understanding of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and of the role of interoceptive impairments in psychopathology, more generally, direct empirical evidence is scarce and inconsistent. Experiment 1 examined in a sample of 137 neurotypical (NT) individuals the association among autistic traits, alexithymia, and interoceptive accuracy (IA) on a standard heartbeat-tracking measure of IA. In Experiment 2, IA was assessed in 46 adults with ASD (27 of whom had clinically significant alexithymia) and 48 NT adults. Experiment 1 confirmed strong associations between autistic traits and alexithymia, but yielded no evidence to suggest that either was associated with interoceptive difficulties. Similarly, Experiment 2 provided no evidence for interoceptive impairments in autistic adults, irrespective of any co-occurring alexithymia. Bayesian analyses consistently supported the null hypothesis. The observations pose a significant challenge to notions that interoceptive impairments constitute a core feature of either ASD or alexithymia, at least as far as the direct perception of interoceptive signals is concerned. (shrink)

Approaching comparison through attention to stories of gods rather than through explicit doctrines, and in particular to stories of gods in their infancy and childhood, is an arresting proposal in comparative theology. It was this unusual character which first drew my attention to Kristin Johnston Largen’s Baby Krishna, Infant Christ. Largen’s prose is fluid and clear, and the structure of the argument is also readily apparent. And thus the work held my attention and convinced me that it is deserving (...) of review here.An introduction and first chapter offer a description of and an apology for comparative theology. Part I, comprising chapters two and three, is focused on ‘Baby Krishna,’ first recounting some of the main stories of Krishna from the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, before reflecting on the significance of those stories from the perspective of understanding how salvation is conceived and experienced in those Hindu traditions for which Krishna bhakti is crucial.The fourth and fifth chapters, .. (shrink)

The Occupy Wall Street movement of 2011 and its corollaries, Occupy Sandy and Occupy Debt, have been largely understood as secular movements. In spite of this, religious actors not only participated, but in some cases played an integral role within the movement, lending material support, organizing expertise, and public statements of support. We rely on interviews with faith leaders in New York and Oakland, and engage in an analysis of print and online media to explore the role of religious actors (...) and groups in Occupy Wall Street. Religious participants were often long-time veterans of progressive political struggles and drew inspiration from their faith traditions. Nonetheless, religious commitments were secondary to political objectives shared by themselves and their secular counterparts. Religious leaders believed they offered symbolic authority to the movement and highlighted this in their engagement in the hope of giving it greater moral weight. Current discussions on postsecularism and public religions are considered. (shrink)

In the era Islam emerged, Arabs were calling Jews and Christians as Ahl al-Kitāb, respecting them and affected by them in many ways. When they failed in their debates against the Prophet, they were referring to the scholars of Ahl al-Kitāb and relying on the information they got from them, they were trying to force and beat the Prophet intellectually by their questions. In the Meccan period, no clashes had happened between the Muslims and Ahl al-Kitāb. Jewish scholars had been (...) admitting that they knew the similarity in the topics of Qurʾān and Tawrāt, the Qurʾān were telling the truth and the Prophet was conveying the message of the truth. In some of the verses, these right attitudes of the scholars of Ahl al-Kitāb are used as a reference against Mus̲h̲riks. In the verses said, those scholars are praised and indicated as a source of information for the Prophet as well. The verses related with the topic were understood in parallel with the context and direct meaning of the Nass by some scholars, yet, they were explained not taking the Nuzul environment and process into consideration by some other scholars. It is mentioned that ʿAbdallāh b. Salām and his friends who became Muslims in Medina period have been told in these verses. In this study, level of validity for these interpretations will be evaluated based on Qurʾān –relationship and the fact that some of the asbab al-nuzul (circumstances of revelation) are known to be jurisprudential; and it will be argued that the true meaning of the naṣṣ is overshadowed.Summary: Tafsir is an effort to understand the divine address, and also to understand the relationship between Muslim, polytheist, and People of the Book (Ahl al-kitāb) in the revelation and experience in this context. Since these issues are not explained in a wide and clear manner in the Qur’ān, the hadīths, prophetic biography, narratives of asbâb al-nuzul and the opinions of the companions and the views of the Companions and Tābi‘īn gain importance in understanding the verses. As the narrations of asbâb al-nuzul contain some problems, it is proposed to evaluate this information based on sigas and hadīth method in classical Qur'ānic sciences studies. Although this approach is effective in solving many problems, it does not solve all problems.The question of whether the narrators of asbâb al-nuzul is the real reason for the verse has been discussed from the very beginning. According to Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1328) al-Zarkashī (d. 794/1392) and al-Dihlawī (d. 1176/1762), the expression that “This verse has been revealed on this particular event” does not mean that the verse is revealed particularly and only for this event but rather that it is revealed for an event which is similar to that event, and that, subject verse also covers this provision. A. Nedim Serinsu and A. Rıza Gül also drew attention to this fact and the narratives were divided into two as the real cause of nuzul and virtual cause of nuzul. When this issue is not known, it may become inexorable to analyze and make observations, and there may be problems regarding the interlocutors, date of births, being Meccan or Medinan.Those who want to learn the first-hand meaning of the verses, their interlocutors and the environment of nuzul are facing difficulties to choose between the contradictory narrations especially in narrative-weighted commentaries. It is necessary to pay attention to some points to evaluate the narrations correctly and make the right choice. These points are prophetic biography, the stages of nuzul, information about being Meccan or Medinan, the stages of development of relations between polytheists and Muslims, and tafsīr explanations about nuzul. One of the issues with contradictory narratives and interpretations is ʿAbdallāh b. Salām. As one of the notables of the Medina Jews, he came to him when the Prophet arrived in Kuba, he asked some questions, and when he got the right answers, he became a Muslim saying that they could only be known by a prophet. It is claimed that he believed in the period of Mecca and the eighth year of the Hijr, but this information was not well accepted.Although it was not very intense in Mecca, there were certain relations between Jews and Christians and Muslims. Since there was no conflict between Muslims and the People of the Book, these verses are often praised by their scholars, and they were also cited as a reference for the Prophet and idolaters Some Meccan verses mention the following: Jews who are righteous; the fulfilment of the requirements of the book, and the prayers of the Muslims that will not be wasted; the fact that the scholars of the Israelites know the truths in the Qur'an should be a proof for the idolaters; The Ahl al-kitāb know that the Qur'ān is a divine book; if he has doubts about the verses revealed to the Prophet, he should ask the Jewish scholars; Jews witnessed and believed the truth of the prophethood of the Prophet; the fact that Ahl al-kitāb were delighted with the Qur'ān. In the exegesis of these verses, it has been commented that the interlocutors are ʿAbdallāh b. Salām and his friends, Prophet Muhammad's companions, Selman al-Fârisî, Ali and the kitāb who believed in the Prophet.Since the commentators did not consider the process experienced with the Ahl al-kitāb sufficiently, the verses that were written before becoming Muslim were associated with ʿAbdallāh b. Salām. However, Masrūk (d. 63/683), Sha'bî (d. 104/722) and Said b. Jubayr (d. 94/713 [?]) refused to relate the Meccan verses to ʿAbdallāh b. Salām because they had considered the process of nuzul. When the revelations are evaluated on the basis of the Qur'ān and prophetic biography relationship and the process of nuzul, it is understood that the interlocutors are the scholars of Ahl al-kitāb who know and acknowledge that the Qur'ān and the prophethood are right, as some commentators have indicated. In this case, it is understood that the commentators make comments that are not appropriate to the context, wording and nuzul process of the verses based on the narratives that are not true and that they use the name of ʿAbdallāh b. Salām as a kind of filling material since the information about the interlocutors is limited. It is not acceptable to praise one of them in the revelations when we evaluate the Ahl al-kitāb by generalizing the truth, their hostility towards Islam and the wars. However, there were no clashes with Jews and Christians in Mecca and there were scholars who expressed the truth. They were praised when necessary, and also cited as a reference source for the Prophet and idolaters. In addition, in the verses that criticize the Ahl al-kitāb in the verses Medinan, those who make the mistakes in question are not criticized as a whole. As in these examples, we need to evaluate the verses in the context of the individual process, not with the influence of our established perceptions and with a wholesale mind. Otherwise, unintentional results can be reached. It can be claimed that the Predecessors fell to an anachronism in their explanations about ʿAbdallāh b. Salām which did not conform to the date and time. However, when we consider the views of Ibn Taymiyya, al-Zarkashī and al-Dihlawī, it is understood that the Predecessors expressed views in terms of exegesis, opinion-based sampling rather than an anachronism. These interpretations of the Predecessors also depict that the information available to the interlocutors of the verses is insufficient. The fact that the historical information errors in Predecessors’ illustrations and explanations show that the information transferred from them should be examined carefully and that one must not surrender him/her without investigation. It is a clear fact that those who accept interpretations based on ijtihâd as an actual asbâb al-nuzul fall into anachronism. In this respect, it is understood that asbâb al-nuzul narrations should be evaluated in accordance with the principles mentioned and it is necessary to distinguish between those who tell the real reason and those who do not and make a preference among them. (shrink)

The contribution of the generation of Tâbi’un in the formation of Islamic sciences in general and in the development of hadith in particular is known. Various studies have been done on the quality of this contribution. Being a part of such an aim is among the targets of this study as well. Not to conducted any work on the hadithism of especially Abdullah b. Abbas' student and after him Atâ ibn Abi Rabah who the most famous teacher of the Mecca (...) school was another encouraging reason. While examining the life and scientific personality of Ata who was one of the early personalities, it has been tried to reach some results with the information obtained from the sources from the first period, especially the fatwa and rumors belonging to him. Atâ who was leading an observable, active political life, lived in the intellectual and social turmoil that emerged in the early period. Atâ who drawing attention with his educator personality, added his own experiences to the scientific heritage he received from the companions in the first instance Ibn Abbas, and had been passed it on to the next generations. Being a fatwa authority in Makkah mufti and pilgrimage organizations for many years is one of his important experiences. In addition to being well-known for his devotion to the Sunnah, he has been taken place between those known among the generation of Tâbi’un with his fatwa and ijtihad. Ata, who is a critical hadith reciter, is accepted as the absolute authority in the hadith. The fact that he was one of the first to make talfiq in the hadith shows that he knew the diversity of the sources he reported and the many tarikh of the narrations. He wrote narrations and encouraged writing of hadith. He contributed to the development of hadith terms with some of the hadith concepts he used and drew attention with the abundance of mursal hadiths. (shrink)

Here, I shall argue that Van Helmont needs to be added to the list of sources on which Newton drew when formulating his doctrine of absolute time. This by no means implies that Van Helmont is the factual source of Newton's views on absolute time (I have found no clear-cut evidence in support of this claim). It is by no means my aim to debunk the importance of the other sources, but rather to broaden them. Different authors help to (...) explain different aspects of Newton's conception of absolute time. (shrink)

Muʽtazilah is one of the kalām schools in which intellectual freedom is seen the most and therefore divergences within the sect are the most common. Although al-usûl al-ḥamsa/five principles constitute the main framework on which Muʽtazilah has agreed, opposing ideas have emerged within the sect on the principles of ʽadl (divine justice) and al-manzilah bayna al-manzilatayn and on the issues of nature and imamah. As a matter of fact, Muʽtâzilī scholars wrote many refutations to each other on the disputed issues. (...) One of those who have opposing views within the Muʽtazilah is Muḥammad b. Shabīb al-Baṣrī (d. mid 3rd/9th century), who lived between the end of 2nd and the middle of the 3rd century of hijra. Ibn Shabīb is one of the students of Ibrāhīm Ibn Sayyār al-Naẓẓām (d. 231/845), who was one of the leading scholars of Muʽtazilah. He initially opposed the principle of al-manzilah bayna al-manzilatayn, while he was Muʽtezilî, and accepted the Murji’ah approach on this issue. However, after he accepted the idea of irjā’, he continued his loyalty to Muʽtazilah with regard to the principles of tawhīd (divine unity) and ʽadl. Ibn Shabīb, who had a theological assembly of his own and is respected by the people in Baṣra, was an important scholar who stands out with his comprehensive knowledge of religious and philosophical schools of his time. In the doxographical tradition, his adoption of Murjī’ ideas is generally emphasized, except that he has not been referred to much. However, when the sources of kalām are examined meticulously, it is understood that he influenced many Muslim theologians with his works and views and that he was a source for them regarding many topics. The most important reason for this is that he was one of the first scholars to defend the Islamic belief against various philosophical and religious movements. Naturally, this situation provided him with a wide knowledge of religious and philosophical trends. Considering the quotations made from him, it is understood that he recorded this accumulation in a doxographical work. Another remarkable feature of Ibn Shabīb is that he was one of the first scholars to write in the genre of Kitāb al-Tawhīd. It is possible to see both contextual and methodological effects of this work in the quotations and narratives of Al-Māturīdī's book with the same name. What makes him different is that he adopts Muʽtazilī and Murjī’ ideas at the same time and develops a unique discourse on the subjects of grave sins and waʽīd (divine warning). Although he was raised in a strong tradition of thought such as Muʽtazilah, his ability to oppose his sect and his teacher Al-Naẓẓām and also to develop a different definition of faith despite accepting the doctrine of irjā’, makes him stand out as an original and intellectual personality. His different definition of faith is important in that it represents a more moderate approach to the issue of takfīr. For, he drew an encompassing framework based on the Quran and the Sunnah regarding the definition of faith and the conditions of takfīr, thus, he tried to preserve the unity of Muslims. He did not consider the denial of controversial issues that are not explicitly included in the Quran and Sunnah as a reason for takfīr. With this attitude, Ibn Shabīb took an important approach in ensuring social peace and free thought. In this article, all the information contained in Muʽtazilī sources, and doxographical works related to the life, scientific personality and theological views of Ibn Shabīb are gathered and analyzed, and then his theological thought is reconstructed based on these data. From this point of view, identifications and evaluations have been made regarding the issues that make him different and unique in the history of Muslim thought. (shrink)

In the mid fourth century b.c. some Roman gentes drew on a Pythagorean tradition. In this tradition, Numa's role of Pythagoras’ disciple connected Rome with Greek elites and culture. The Marcii, between 304 and 300 b.c., used Numa's figure, recently reshaped by the Aemilii and the Pinarii for their propaganda, to promote the need for a plebeian pontificate. After the approval of the Ogulnium plebiscite, the needs for this kind of propaganda fell away. When Marcius Censorinus became censor, Numa's (...) pontificate was no longer relevant for promoting the gens. For this reason, the Marcii used another genealogy for similar propagandistic effect: the figure of Marsyas, a symbol of plebeian ideals. (shrink)

The Winter Garden Photograph was my Ariadne, not because it would help me discover a secret thing, but because it would tell me what constituted that thread which drew me toward Photography. I had understood that henceforth I must interrogate the evidence of Photography, not from the viewpoint of pleasure, but in relation to what we romantically call love and death. Ultimately — or at the limit — in order to see a photograph well, it is best to look (...) away or close your eyes. “The necessary condition for an image is sight,” Janouch told Kafka; and Kafka smiled and replied: “We photograph things in order to drive them out of our minds. My stories are a way of shutting my eyes.”... (shrink)

This paper examines James Conant’s pragmatic theory of science – a theory that has been neglected by most commentators on the history of 20th-century philosophy of science – and it argues that this theory occupied an important place in Conant’s strategic thinking about the Cold War. Conant drew upon his wartime science policy work, the history of science, and Quine’s epistemological holism to argue that there is no strict distinction between science and technology, that there is no such thing (...) as “the scientific method,” and that theories are better interpreted as policies rather than creeds. An important consequence that he drew from these arguments is that science is both a thoroughly value-laden, and an intrinsically social, enterprise. These results led him to develop novel proposals for reorganizing scientific and technological research – proposals that he believed could help to win the Cold War. Interestingly, the Cold War had a different impact upon Conant’s thinking than it did upon many other theorists of science in postwar America. Instead of leading him to “the icy slopes of logic,” it led him to develop a socially- and politically-engaged theory that was explicitly in the service of the American Cold War effort. (shrink)

Many years ago, C.B. Martin drew our attention to the possibility of ‘finkish’ dispositions: dispositions which, if put to the test would not be manifested, but rather would disappear. Thus if x if finkishly disposed to give response r to stimulus s, it is not so that if x were subjected to stimulus r, x would give response z; so finkish dispositions afford a counter‐example to the simplest conditional analysis of dispositions. Martin went on to suggest that finkish dispositions (...) required a theory of primitive causal powers; there, I think, he was mistaken. All that they require is an improved conditional analysis, and this improved analysis can be built upon whatever treatments of properties and of laws we may favour on other grounds. (shrink)

In _On The Soul_ (425a-b), Aristotle drew a distinction between those qualities that are perceptible only via a single sense and those that are perceptible by more than one. The latter qualities he called.

At the beginning of the 1950s most students of animal behavior in Britain saw the instinct concept developed by Konrad Lorenz in the 1930s as the central theoretical construct of the new ethology. In the mid 1950s J.B.S. Haldane made substantial efforts to undermine Lorenz''s status as the founder of the new discipline, challenging his priority on key ethological concepts. Haldane was also critical of Lorenz''s sharp distinction between instinctive and learnt behavior. This was inconsistent with Haldane''s account of the (...) evolution of language, and, according to Haldane, inconsistent with elementary genetics. British attitudes to the instinct concept changed dramatically in the wake of Daniel S. Lehraman''s 1953 critique of Lorenz, and by the 1960s Lorenz drew a clear distinction between his own views and those of the English-speaking ethologists. The inconsistencies between Lorenz''s ideas and the trends in contemporary evolutionary genetics that are reflected in Haldane''s critiques may help to explain why the Lorenzian instinct concept was unable to maintain itself in Britian. (shrink)

Mencius, who lived in the 4th century B.C., is second only to Confucius in importance in the Confucian tradition. The _Mencius_ consists of sayings of Mencius and conversations he had with his contemporaries. When read side by side with the _Analects_, the _Mencius_ throws a great deal of light on the teachings of ConfuciusMencius developed many of the ideas of Confucius and at the same time discussed problems not touched upon by Confucius. He drew out the implications of Confucius' (...) moral principles and reinterpreted them for the conditions of his time. As the fullest of the four great Confucian texts, the _Mencius_ has been the required reading amongst Chinese scholars for two thousand years, and it still throws considerable light on the character of the Chinese people. (shrink)

ArgumentThe new English term “empathy” was translated from the GermanEinfühlungin the first decade of the twentieth century by the psychologists James Ward at the University of Cambridge and Edward B. Titchener at Cornell. At Titchener's American laboratory, “empathy” was not a matter of understanding other minds, but rather a projection of imagined bodily movements and accompanying feelings into an object, a meaning that drew from its rich nineteenth-century aesthetic heritage. This rendering of “empathy” borrowed kinaesthetic meanings from German sources, (...) but extended beyond a contemplation of the beautiful to include a variety of experimental stimuli and everyday objects in the laboratory. According to Titchener's structural psychology, all higher thought could be reduced to more elemental aspects of mind, and experimental introspection showed empathy to be constituted of kinaesthetic images. The existence of kinaesthetic images, Titchener argued, formed an incisive critique of the view that thought could take place without images, held by one of Titchener's major psychological rivals, the school of thought-psychologists in Würzburg, Germany. The new term “empathy” in early American academic psychology therefore delineated a kinaesthetic imaginative projection that took place on the basis of ontological difference between minds and things. (shrink)

Although moral case deliberation (MCD) is evaluated positively as a form of clinical ethics support (CES), it has limitations. To address these limitations our research objective was to develop a thematic CES tool. In order to assess the philosophical characteristics of a CES tool based on MCDs, we drew on hermeneutic ethics and pragmatism. We distinguished four core characteristics of a CES tool: (a) focusing on an actual situation that is experienced as morally challenging by the user; (b) stimulating (...) moral inquiry into the moral concepts, questions and routines in the lived experience of the CES tool user; (c) stimulating moral learning by exploring other perspectives; and (d) incorporating contextual details. We provide an example of a CES tool developed for moral dilemmas over client autonomy. Our article ends with some reflections on the normativity of the CES tool, other application areas and the importance of evaluation studies of CES tools. (shrink)

We report three experimental studies of reasoning with double conditionals, i.e. problems based on premises of the form: If A then B. If B then C. where A, B, and C, describe everyday events. We manipulated both the logical structure of the problems, using all four possible arrangements (or ''figures" of their constituents, A, B, and C, and the believability of the two salient conditional conclusions that might follow from them, i.e. If A then C , or If C then (...) A . The experiments showed that with figures for which there was a valid conclusion, the participants more often, and more rapidly, drew the valid conclusion when it was believable than when it was unbelievable. With figures for which there were no valid conclusions, the participants tended to draw whichever of the two conclusions was believable. These results were predicted by the theory that reasoning depends on constructing mental models of the premises. (shrink)

Hegel's philosophy has been a fundamental reference point for a broad network of mid-twentieth century anticolonial thinkers and activists, a major inspiration for figures such as W. E. B. Du Bois, Frantz Fanon, C. L. R. James, Martin Luther King Jr. and Angela Davis, among others. James's Notes on Dialectics (1948) constitutes one of the most significant textual engagements with Hegel from within that internationalist tradition. Even though James considered Notes to be his most important work and one of his (...) lasting contributions to Marxist theory, it remains the least read and studied of his books. In comparison to the abovementioned thinkers, all of whom drew inspiration from Hegel's social and political philosophy, in his monograph, James turns instead to Hegel's most difficult text, the Science of Logic, as the true locus of Hegel's critical theory. Situating James's study within the Marxist philosophical tradition, this essay explores how James interprets, appropriates and makes use of Hegel's dialectic. (shrink)

"In the great English tradition of the lay specialist, Barfield, a lawyer, modernizes the Platonic dialogue format to focus on the philosophic problems of reality and ways of knowing.. This is the solvent mind at its best-distinguished exchanges giving provocative, open-ended results at every point. Highly recommended. of permanent value." Owen Barfield, who died in 1997 shortly after entering his hundredth year, was one of the seminal minds of the twentieth century, of whom C. S. Lewis wrote "he towers above (...) us all." His books have won respect from many writers other than Lewis, among them T. S. Eliot, J. R. R. Tolkein, and Saul Bellows, and John Lukacs. He was born in North London in 1898 and received his B.A. with first-class honors from Wadham College, Oxford, in 1921. He also earned B.C.L., M.A., and B.Litt. degrees from Oxford and was a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He served as a solicitor for twenty-eight years until his retirement from legal practice in 1959. Barfield was a visiting professor at Brandeis and Drew Universities, Hamilton College, the University of Missouri at Columbia, UCLA, SUNY-Stony Brook, and the University of British Columbia, Vancouver. His books include seven others published by The Barfield Press: Romanticism Comes of Age, Worlds Apart: A Dialogue of the 1960s, Unancestral Voice, Speaker's Meaning, What Coleridge Thought, The Rediscovery of Meaning, and History, Guilt and Habit. (shrink)

In April 1741 there appeared a slim volume entitled An Apology for the Life of Mrs Shamela Andrews by a certain Mr Conny Keyber, whose name is generally supposed to conceal that of the novelist Henry Fielding. Shamela, to give the book its more familiar title, was a parody of Samuel Richardson's epistolary novel Pamela: or Virtue Rewarded, which had been published to great acclaim the previous year. In a series of letters purportedly sent to each other by the main (...) characters, the story unfolds of the honest servant-girl Pamela, her efforts to avoid seduction by her master Mr B., and her eventual marriage to him. Fielding's chief target was the morality of the book , but in passing he drew cruel attention to some of the pitfalls of the epistolary form as a vehicle for narrative. One passage in particular deserves quotation, from Letter VI, which Shamela writes to her mother at twelve o'clock on Thursday night: Mrs Jervis and I are just in Bed, and the Door unlocked; if my Master should come – Odsbods! I hear him just coming in at the Door. You see I write in the present Tense, as Parson Williams says. Well, he is in Bed between us, we both shamming a Sleep, he steals his Hand into my Bosom, which I, as if in my Sleep, press close to me with mine…. (shrink)

Educational Theory, Volume 71, Issue 3, Page 371-388, June 2021.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Literature as Fable, Fable as ArgumentLester H. HuntIIn an ancient Chinese text we find the following exchange between the Confucian sage Mencius and one of his adversaries:Kao Tzu said, "Human nature is like whirling water. Give it an outlet in the east and it will flow east; give an outlet in the west and it will flow west. Human nature does not show any preference for either good or (...) bad, just as water does not show any preference for either east or west.""It certainly is the case," said Mencius, "that water does not show any preference for either east or west, but does it show the same indifference to high and low? Human nature is good just as water seeks low ground. There is no man who is not good; there is no water that does not flow downwards."1The subject of this colloquy is a familiar one in philosophy as we know it in the West. Its form and style are also vaguely familiar: it is a clashing exchange of theories, in which the speakers do not seem to be speaking merely to express themselves, but in order to persuade others that they are right. Yet at the same time it seems quite alien to us. It would be hard to find anything in it that a Western philosopher since the time of Plato would recognize as an argument. The participants seem to be speaking entirely in illustrative analogies and clever aphorisms, not in arguments at all. The style seems to be literary rather than philosophical. Yet what they are doing does look curiously like arguing. There is a rhythm of statement and counter-statement, in which each speaker seems to be answering the claims of the other.A related, though different, sort of ambiguity, in which the author [End Page 369] really does seem to be both arguing and not arguing, can be found in the following text, traditionally attributed to a Westerner of the sixth century B.C.:Between the North Wind and the Sun, they say, a contest of this sort arose, to wit, which of the two would strip the goatskin from a farmer plodding on his way. The North Wind first began to blow as he does when he blows from Thrace, thinking by sheer force to rob the wearer of his cloak. And yet no more on that account did he, the man, relax his hold; instead he shivered, drew the borders of his garment tight about him every way, and rested with his back against a spur of rock. Then the Sun peeped forth, welcome at first, bringing the man relief from the cold, raw wind. Next, changing, he turned the heat on more, and suddenly the farmer felt too hot and of his own accord threw off the cloak, and so was stripped.Thus was the North Wind beaten in the contest. And the story means: "Cultivate gentleness, my son; you will get results oftener by persuasion than by the use of force."2Here Aesop, to use the traditional name for the author of this ancient fable, is plainly doing something "literary": he is telling a story. But narration in the Aesopian mode is never simply telling a story, and in this case what is present in addition to the story seems to have something logical about it. Personally, I read this fable with a certain sense, however faint, that I am being enlightened by it. That of course is Aesop's aim. He is not merely expressing his opinion, but in some way showing us the truth of it. This is the sort of thing that, in philosophy, is done through argument. However, as in the text from the Mencius, it seems there may be no argument here.Clearly, we are dealing with forms of persuasion that are common at certain times in the development of a culture: namely, those periods when the philosophical muse is a mere suckling babe. We are looking, one might think, at a level of development so rudimentary that the distinction between argument as we think of it today and other forms of persuasion has not been made... (shrink)

Ibn al-Qāṣṣ (d. 335/946), one of the representatives of the Shāfiʿī school of law in the 4th/10th century, compiled a short treatise of extraordinary nature: Fawāʾid Ḥadīth Abī ʿUmeyr. In this work, he deduces sixty different wajhs (verdicts, comments) from a ḥadīth reporting the Prophet’s interest and affection to a child known as Abū ʿUmayr and his family during a visit he paid after Abū ʿUmayr’s birdie died by jokingly telling him in rhyme, “yā Abā ʿUmayr, mā faʿala al-nughayr” (O (...) Abū ʿUmayr, what happened to the nughayr?) This study deals with the primary goal of the composition of the Fawāʾid, its content, and structural qualities as well as the author’s approach in deducing verdicts. As one of the aṣḥāb al-wujūh, the author’s legal/madhhab notion and the literalist and external perspective he developed regarding the interpretation of texts, seems to have directly affected his deductive reasoning and determined his approach. This concise work not only sheds light over certain aspects of the relationship between ḥadīth and fiqh at the time of Ibn al-Qāṣṣ, but also exemplifies to what extent methodological tendencies and personal factors might affect the process of deriving verdicts from ḥadīth and could push the limits in that regard. Summary: Ibn al-Qāṣṣ (d. 335/946), one of the representatives of the Shāfiʿī school of law in the 4th/10th century, compiled a short treatise of extraordinary nature: Fawāʾid Ḥadīth Abī ʿUmeyr. In this work, he deduces sixty different wajhs (verdicts, comments) from a ḥadīth reporting the Prophet’s interest and affection to a child known as Abū ʿUmayr and his family during a visit he paid after Abū ʿUmayr’s birdie died by jokingly telling him in rhyme, “yā Abā ʿUmayr, mā faʿala al-nughayr” (O Abū ʿUmayr, what happened to the nughayr?) The report of Abū ʿUmayr, which is in the focus of the work, is, in essence, reflects a singular and special aspect of the close relationship between the Prophet and Anas b. Malik’s family. Nevertheless, it is surprising that many ḥadīth scholars from the early times, not only Ibn al-Qāṣṣ, have chosen this ḥadīth as an example in which they can demonstrate their skill in the field of fiqh al- ḥadīth. Fawāʾid seems to be a work in which the juridical point of view centered and resembles the classical fiqh commentaries in a sense. In the work, different variants of the Abū ʿUmayr report were brought together and evaluated within the framework of the text and textual possibilities as possible. The author also analyzed some words in the narrative text for being a base for a verdict, referred to Qurʾānic verses, prophetic ḥadīths, reports, and legal opinions, tried to solve the disputes and the conflicts among legal evidences in various ways, and stated occasionally his personal opinions. Fawāʾid reflects the author’s rich accumulation of legal knowledge, while at the same time gives an idea about his knowledge of ḥadīth and his approach to the ḥadīth. Considering what the author did and wanted to do, it is understood that he deals with ḥadīth as well as fiqh, and he has a certain level of relationship not only with fuqahāʾ (muslim jurisprudents), but also with ḥadīth scholars. Ibn al-Qāṣṣ’s interest in fiqh and ḥadīth must have lead him to take initiative to eliminate the tension between the ahl al-ḥadīth of Shāfiʿī school of law who focused on transmitting ḥadīths and the fuqahāʾ of Shāfiʿī school of law who care about the fiqh perspective, in that period of time. It can also be said that he tried to establish a reconciliation between the ahl al-ḥadīth (the traditionists) and the ahl al-raʾy (the rationalists) and bring the parties together in the middle way. The work seems to have been written as a result of such considerations. As Ibn al-Qāṣṣ was considered as one of the aṣḥāb al-wujūh, that is, as a jurist who was bound of a madhhab Imām for legal reasoning, he seems to have followed the methodology of Shāfiʿī school of law for deriving legal solutions from the sources. Legal notion of the author and his literalist and textualist perspective with regards to the interpretation of texts, seems to have directly affected his way of reasoning from the ḥadīth and determined his approach. This approach, as mentioned in many contemporary studies, is not sufficient and appropriate for the evaluation of ḥadīth texts, which were transmitted by meaning, not word-by-word, and shaped by the transmitter’s dispositions. It is also difficult to say that Ibn al-Qāṣṣ sufficiently considered the physical, historical, social, and cultural context surrounding the text as well as other extra-textual elements, which complete the meaning. This situation implies that some of the wajhs recorded in the work are the author’s attempt to find a base and evidence for his ideas, which he already had, rather than deductions drawn from the ḥadīth. It makes the scientific quality and accuracy of his efforts controversial. The verdicts presented in the work, as wajh and fāʾida are predominantly jurisprudential and compatible with the opinions of the Shāfiʿī School of law, however, there are also controversial ones, and the author pointed to them without revealing his own tendency. It does not seem that these wajhs in the work are systematically ranked. In this vein, similar wajhs are sometimes in succession, sometimes scattered, and some wajhs are repetitive. The degree of accuracy, clarity and quality of some wajhs also seem arguable. Zayn al-Dīn al-ʿIrāqī (d. 806/1404), who made a general evaluation of these wajhs, said that: “Some of the (meanings of the) wajhs in the work are apparent, some of them are hidden and some are strained.” The work’s editor drew attention in the footnotes to the wajhs, which might be subject to objection. The early ḥadīth scholars, who reported this ḥadīth in their compilations, deduced six or seven judgments from the ḥadīth under the headings (bāb) specified for this ḥadīth. This appears quite modest in comparison to the treatise of Ibn al-Qāṣṣ. The given ḥadīth has also taken its place in the fiqh literature, and it has been questioned in the context of the issue of Madīna’s being of ḥarām region (holy land) and hunting ban in this region. In conclusion, Ibn al-Qāṣṣ’s treatise of Fawāʾid Ḥadīth Abī ʿUmayr, is a short but worthy example of the ḥadīth literature in terms of its purpose and interesting content. This work can be considered as a study that exemplifies how the purpose of writing can be determinative on the structure of a work, and in particular to what extent methodological tendencies and personal factors might affect the process of deriving verdicts from ḥadīth and could push the limits in that regard. The author’s universe of meaning, which focused on the apparent meaning and to draw as many judgments as possible from the text, should be related to his personal intention and purpose as well as to the fiqh perspective of his time. Due to the textual approach and the method for drawing inferences, which are observed in the work, the tool-purpose relationship between the text and the judgment sometimes remains obscure and sometimes becomes unimportant. In some respects, this work is a striking example of the consequences of ignoring the context and historical reality surrounding texts for specific purposes. (shrink)

Modern science is big business. Governments, universities, and corporations have invested billions of dollars in scientific and technological research in the hope of obtaining power and profit. In The Price of Truth, David B. Resnik examines some of the important and difficult questions resulting from the financial and economic aspects of modern science.