The course Science, Technology, and Society is taken by about 500 engineering students each year at Bilkent University, Ankara. Aiming to complement the highly technical engineering programs, it deals with the ethical, social, cultural, political, economic, legal, environment and sustainability, health and safety, reliability dimensions of science, technology, and engineering in a multidisciplinary fashion. The teaching philosophy and experiences of the instructor are reviewed. Community research projects have been an important feature of the course. Analysis of teaching style based on (...) a multi-dimensional model is given. Results of outcome measurements performed for ABET assessment are provided. Challenges and solutions related to teaching a large class are discussed. (shrink)

U ovom radu razmatraju se i uspoređuju koncepcije filozofije povijesti što su ih razvili Ibn Haldun i Vico. Dvojica utemeljitelja filozofije povijesti živjeli su i poučavali na dvije mediteranske obale. Pitanje na koje se pokušava dati odgovor odnosi se na narav odnosa između Ibn Haldunove i Vicove mediteranske provenijencije i njihovih cikličkih filozofijskih teorija povijesti.In diesem Aufsatz werden die geschichtsphilosophischen Konzeptionen von Ibn Chaldun und Vico nachgedacht und kompariert. Diese Begründer der Geschichtsphilosophie lebten und lehrten auf zwei gegenüberstehenden mediterranischen (...) Küsten. Es wird die Frage um die Natur des Verhältnisses zwischen ihrer medirerranischer Herkunft und die zyklischen philosophischen Geschichtstheorien gestellt. (shrink)

According to Ibn Khaldūn, man is a social entity deeply influenced by the geo-economics-politics of the environment in which he lives. The effect is seen as so strong that nearly all of these structures in their relationship to human beings are dominated by it. In this system, we see human beings as a creature who is both able to adapt himself to the environment and able to evolve in this harmony. From the perspective of Ibn Khaldūn, man cannot be evaluated (...) or defined separately from the environmental conditions, the technique and architecture he has developed. Ibn Khaldūn sees the primary source of this change to be the desire to make life both more prosperous and bearable. Therefore, the most natural motivations that affect man’s desire to alter the natural world are the environmental challenges that he encounters. The challenges that are imposed upon man in the natural world are those that have led to human progress. From badāwa (nomadic society) to ḥaḍāra (sedentary society) and so to the ceaseless drive of human progress that has served to make life more endurable, every effort in this sense leads to a physical and moral loosening as the incessant struggle to survive that defines human existence is made more bearable. Physical slack by breaking the resistance of man to resist the environmental conditions; and moral looseness by making man more vulnerable to the temptation of desires, pleasures and welfare that are the cause of moral dilemmas. Ibn Khaldūn’s moral thought with its social, political, and other fields of application are all contexts that enable an understanding of the devaluation of money-hedonist morality in all ways. This article aims to analyze the social, political and economic dilemmas and challenges that the capitalist, consumption-based money-hedonist morality (obesity, social media addiction, consumption, and moral devaluation in the face of financial, virtual and imagined valuations, etc.) from the perspective of Ibn Khaldūn. Summary: Man is endowed with both good and evil. Ibn Khaldūn notes that man tends to misuse these two orientations with a higher inclination towards evil, and that social conditions have an effect on this. He sees another characteristic of man, that they develop habits; accordingly, man is the child of his habits. Habits are second nature to man and affects all of his perceptions, particularly notions concerning truth. At the same time, human beings are under the constant influence of both habits, culture, and climate and geography; and all of these together affect our ethics, psychology and characteristics. Thus, man is a historical, social being that is changed, transformed and determined by adapting to these cultural, social, political and ecological conditions. The concept of Money-Hedonism is one that we have created by combining the terms monetarism, an economic concept, and hedonism, a concept in moral philosophy; the resulting term we seek to produce essentially translates as the adoration of Money. As is well known, hedonism refers to a philosophy of life that has its origins in the ancient Greek world which sees the purpose of life as one in which the pursuit of pleasure is the highest good. Whereas, Monetarism is an American-based economic view developed by Milton Friedman in 1970, linking all the balance in the economy to the supply and demand of money. According to this, the demand for money is operation, precaution and motives of speculation of individuals the amount of money they want to keep in cash on them. The power of an exchange tool increases with the amount and quality of what it is achievable in its utilization. In this respect, money has been an unprecedented source of power in modern society as a means by which change can be achieved. The increase in the power of money as an effective means as manifesting power has led to a socio-cultural and socio-economic superstructure around this power. In the life of an individual that is part of such a culture and is unable to isolate himself from the economy in which he lives, the values that can be expressed with money are consequently formed. In this structure, since the measure of life is money, money determines the quality of human life and human pleasure to a far greater degree than at any time in history. Thus, those living in this age have developed a new moral philosophy of value formed by the combination of these two concepts (monetarism and hedonism), which we have defined as Money-Hedonism. The money-hedonist individual is one that is in love with money, the joy of having it, the pleasure of using it, who desires it with immeasurable passion and ambition and is willing to use all legitimate and illegitimate methods of obtaining it. The most prominent characteristics of this type of individual is egoism, a desire to possess, hatred and mistrust. Ibn Khaldūn argues that the inhabitants of a city that live a settled life and who are living in the city have become economically prosperous and absorbed by consumption and pleasure, and, consequently morally degenerate as a result of the abuse of their evil nature. As can be understood from Ibn Khaldūn’s explanations, the basic element that determines the transition of people from the badāwi way of life to ḥaḍāri (settled) is the change in the livelihoods and related needs. He perceives this change as progressing from necessity to luxury, and, with this change, ethical concern in the nature of people being replaced by aesthetic care. In this way, since aesthetic concern reveals the dissatisfaction of the human self, man always pursues what is perceived to be better and more beautiful, and therefore he easily tends to any malignancy that may disrupt his religious and worldly peace. The ḥaḍāra community of Ibn Khaldūn versus the badāwa represent a modern society with a much more heterogeneous population, with a significant increase in lifestyle diversity along with urbanization. However, the determinative effect of the relationship with nature or the way in which society engage in economic activities have not changed. While modern people are urbanized, they are also heterogeneously shaped by psycho-social necessities demanded by urbanization. Man has created a new socio-psychological condition that not only affects the socio-economic but the way of forming a relationship through the accelerated development of new communication methods, facilitating access to information, and the opening of new methods of communication field between institutions. While man’s connection to nature has become disconnected, he no longer perceives himself as human being in nature but as a human within the city, the individual urban life and the law define this perception. The rupture from nature has created an inevitable result of alienation to nature as well as the estrangement of man with his own nature. The liberal policies adopted with capitalism have encouraged competition and free entrepreneurship. In the time that Ibn Khaldūn lived, man who created himself with his struggle in the nature brings himself / herself into the economic structure of competition in the modern period. Unlike in more traditional societies of the past, the modern way of life not only expresses itself in our new way of life and moral values, but also by statistical values. The exploitative and mathematical world, which forms the current economic science, shapes the socio-economic and socio-psychological structure of modern man. It is understood that the life brought by luxury renders the dynamic, subjective, disciplined sense of morality dysfunctional by destroying the moral values of man, particularly by reducing their feeling of shame. As a result, while the world of value of money-hedonism is solid, materialistic and cold; man in trying to exist in this world of value carries a flexible, spiritual and emotional nature. As such, human beings are pushed into social anomaly situations such as a constant conflict, dilemma, suicide, insecurity and solitude in this world of value. (shrink)

Este artículo estudia cómo historiadores árabes tan influyentes y renombrados como Ibn Ḫaldūn (m. 808/1406) y al-Maqrīzī (m. 845/1442) describen los reinados de los reyes cristianos de Iberia que fueron contemporáneos suyos, y, especialmente, cómo describen el reinado de Pedro I de Castilla (g. 1350-1366 y 1367-1369). El artículo ofrece un análisis en profundidad de los fragmentos dedicados a Pedro I, al que Ibn Ḫaldūn conoció personalmente, y muestra que su muerte a manos de su medio hermano Enrique II (g. (...) 1366-1367 y 1369-1379) recibió gran atención en Kitāb al-ʿIbar de Ibn Ḫaldūn y Durar al-ʿuqūd al-farīda de al-Maqrīzī. Pone de relieve asimismo que la información sobre el reino de Castilla que proporcionan ambos autores, aunque alterada, guarda relación con fuentes castellanas contemporáneas, y que parte de esa información relativa a la dār al-ḥarb en el otro extremo del Mediterráneo llegó de alguna manera al Egipto mameluco, donde Ibn Ḫaldūn y al-Maqrīzī (y su coetáneo al-Qalqašandī a través de Ibn Ḫaldūn) la incorporaron a sus respectivas obras. (shrink)

Interdisciplinary courses on science, engineering and society have been successfully established in two cases, at Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey, and at the University of Hamburg, Germany. In both cases there were institutional and perceptual barriers that had to be overcome in the primarily disciplinary departments. The ingredients of success included a clear vision of interdisciplinary themes and didactics, and the exploitation of institutional opportunities. Haldun M. Ozaktas in Ankara used the dynamics of an accreditation process to establish courses on (...) engineering and society. At the University of Hamburg the introduction of optional courses into all curricula allowed for the establishment of a seminar series on physics and society, as well as on peace education and peace building. Both of these approaches have a weakness in common: the courses can disappear once their initiators have left, unless the interdisciplinary themes are integrated into compulsory core curricula. (shrink)

In the Borisova’s O. V. article on the basis of analysis of works of some medieval Arabic authors the different models of historical process open up and the of genius attempt of the sharp changing of the Koran picture of the world, accomplished by the Arabic theologian and philosopher Ibn Haldun, is analysed, that, however, appeared unsuccessful. However a negative result is in science is too a result. On some important features of works of the Arabic authors paid attention (...) in science first. (shrink)

Este trabajo analiza el lenguaje subjetivo empleado por el intelectual y político andalusí Lisān al-Dīn Ibn al-Ḫaṭīb (m. 1375) en su obra de exilio Nufāḍat al-ǧirāb. El objetivo es explorar la utilidad de un enfoque lingüístico en la comprensión del lugar que ocupa este texto dentro del proceso de transición cultural del Occidente islámico hacia el paradigma moderno europeo. El estudio se divide en tres partes: en la primera, se hace una breve introducción al autor, a su contexto socio-político y (...) al contenido de la obra; en la segunda, se plantea una metodología cuantitativo-cualitativa a través de la cual se estructura el texto misceláneo digitalizado en función de sus géneros y se especifica un esquema de anotación que permite extraer las instancias de los fenómenos lingüísticos más destacados; y en la tercera, se procede al análisis de los datos obtenidos en torno a la acción, la emoción y la evaluación. El análisis muestra una compleja codificación de la subjetividad en la Nufāḍa donde, a diferencia del Taʿrīf de Ibn Ḫaldūn, las marcas de expresión en primera persona, aunque significativas, son escasas. Sin embargo, se identifica un abundante uso de adjetivos evaluativos a lo largo de la obra, con una riqueza léxica que permite revelar de forma explícita el punto de vista del sujeto autor. Este hallazgo demuestra la utilidad de una metodología híbrida en la aproximación a textos histórico-literarios premodernos, así como la necesidad de incorporar el análisis lingüístico, empírico y comparativo al estudio de la transición epistemológica señalada. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to provide evidence that Ibn Bāǧǧa’s commentaries on al- Fārābī’s logical writings reveal a perpetuation of al-Fārābī’s logic in Andalusia and that they also assist us in the recognition of the nature and achievement of this logic. Ibn Bāǧǧa’s Introduction or Eisagoge is a commentary on al-Fārābī’s introductory Letter and the Five Aphorisms, as well as subsequent logical treatises of al-Fārābī. Ibn Bāǧǧa, in agreement with al-Fārābī, presents logic as consisting of five syllogistic arts, (...) rhetoric, poetry, dialectic, sophistry and demonstration. These arts are constituted by both the form and matter of logic, the matter referring to the five syllogistic arts in which the form of logic is employed. Ibn Ḫaldūn later testifies to this comprehensive account of the five syllogistic arts articulated primarily by al-Fārābī but also in some measure by Ibn Sīnā, and says that, by his time, this account of the syllogistic arts had been replaced by a more limited a... (shrink)

Contributors: -/- John Beatty (British Columbia); Kelly James Clark (Ibn Haldun, Istanbul); Angela Coventry (Portland State); Thomas Holden (UC Santa Barbara); Willem Lemmens (Antwerp); Robin Le Poidevin (Leeds); Jennifer Marusic (Edinburgh); Kevin Meeker (South Alabama); Amyas Merivale (Oxford); Peter Millican (Oxford); Dan O’Brien (Oxford Brookes); Graham Oppy (Monash); Paul Russell (Lund); Andre C. Willis (Brown).

This article undertakes a comparative examination of the social ontologies, or theories of civilization, proposed by John Searle and Ibn Khaldun. It suggests that a careful juxtaposition of Searle and Ibn Khaldun's social ontologies yields complementary perspectives on the emergence and nature of social reality. They both delineate a distinction between two categories of entities: human-independent and human-dependent. The former makes up the natural world, while the latter constitutes the social world. Both scholars attempt to understand the second category of (...) entities, which Searle refers to as human civilization and Ibn Khaldun calls ʿumrān. Although Searle and Ibn Khaldun share a common understanding regarding the importance of human activity in shaping social reality, their perspectives diverge when it comes to elucidating the mechanisms behind this phenomenon. Does the social world arise primarily from cognitive processes, or is it predominantly a consequence of linguistic expressions and speech acts? Searle asserts that language forms the basis of social reality, whereas Ibn Khaldun puts forth a social ontology based on reason. While Ibn Khaldun's social ontology explains the construction of tangible social entities such as buildings, Searle's theory can explain how is it that a mere physical structure transforms into an epistemologically objective fact—a university. Ultimately, this paper suggests that viewing the social world through the lenses of these two theories provides an intriguing and holistic perspective. This article suggests that the juxtaposition of these two ontological frameworks enriches our comprehension of the processes that give rise to the ontological-physical and epistemological-institutional dimensions of social entities. (shrink)