I argue that Metz's undertaking, in seeking a ‘comprehensive basic norm' to underpin African ethics, is similar to Hans Kelsen's postulation of the Grundnorm in his Pure Theory of Law. But African ethics does not need to be underpinned by an approach such as Kelsen's. In my view, Metz's preference for seeking to develop a Grundnorm rests upon a failure to attend carefully to the distinctness of African ethical thinking from Western ethical thinking. This failure is manifest in a spurious (...) distinction between ‘moral anthropology' / ‘cultural studies' and ‘normative theory'. It is also manifest in Metz's failure to attend carefully to the work of Wiredu and Bujo, both of whom present systematic, critical analyses of African ethical thinking while implicitly rejecting the quest for a Grund norm as being unAfrican. South African Journal of Philosophy Vol. 26 2007: pp. 347-355. (shrink)

On Avicenna, 980-1037, a Muslim philosopher.

The concept of natural behavior is a key element in current Dutch policy-making on animal welfare. It emphasizes that animals need positive experiences, in addition to minimized suffering. This paper interprets the concept of natural behavior in the context of the scientific framework for welfare assessment. Natural behavior may be defined as behavior that animals have a tendency to exhibit under natural conditions, because these behaviors are pleasurable and promote biological functioning. Animal welfare is the quality of life as perceived (...) by the animal. Animals have evolved cognitive-emotional systems (“welfare needs”) to deal with a variable environment. Animals do not only have so-called physiological needs such as the need for food, water, and thermal comfort. They also need to exercise certain natural behaviors such as rooting or nest-building in pigs, and scratching or dust-bathing in poultry. All needs must be taken into account in order to assess overall welfare. The degree of need satisfaction and frustration can be assessed from scientific information about the intensity, duration, and incidence of (welfare) performance criteria such as measurements of behavior and/or (patho)physiology. Positive welfare value relates to how animals are inclined to behave under natural conditions, in preference tests, and in consumer-demand studies. Negative welfare value relates to stress, frustration, abnormal behavior, aggression, and reduced fitness. Examples are given to illustrate how the need to perform natural behaviors can be assessed following the general principles for welfare assessment, providing a first approximation of how different natural behaviors affect animal welfare. (shrink)

Ecological psychology (EP) and the enactive approach (EA) may benefit from a more focused view of lived temporality and the underlying temporal multiscalar nature of human living. We propose multiscalar temporality (MT) as a framework that complements EP and EA, and moves beyond their current conceptualisation of timescales and inter-scale relationships in organism-environment dynamical systems. MT brings into focus the wide ranging and meshwork-like interdependencies at play in human living and the questions concerning how agents are intimately entangled in such (...) meshworks, utilising them as resources for skilful living. We develop a conceptual toolkit that highlights temporality: Firstly, we address lived temporality. We use a case study from psychotherapy to show how a person’s skilful engagement with the world is best described as adaptive harnessing of interdependencies of constraints residing across a wide range of timescales. We call this skill time-ranging. Secondly, the case study provides a proof of concept of the integration of an idiographic approach to human conversing and a more general theory of emergent organisation rooted in theoretical biology. We introduce the existing concept of constraint closure from theoretical biology and scale it up to human interactivity. The detailed conceptualisation of constraint interdependencies constitutes the backbone of the proposal. Thirdly, we present a heuristic mapping of what we call organising frames. The mapping guides the conceptualisation of the emergence of inter-scale relationships and serves as an epistemic tool that brings together nomothetic and idiographic approaches. Finally, we combine new ideas with re-interpretations of existing EP and EA concepts and elaborate on the need of a fresh new look at the implicit and sometimes missing conceptualisations of temporality in the EP and EA literature. (shrink)

A free logical analysis of singular terms couched in terms of the semantic theory of Keenan and Faltz is shown to avoid problems with both Frege's and Russell's treatments. At its heart is the proposal of Keenan and Faltz to reverse the usual mode-theoretic conception of individuals and properties, taking the latter as primitive and the former as derived therefrom. A simple extension of the notion 'property' is then shown to enable a parallel treatment of definite generics.

Günümüze kadar süregelen bir mezhep olarak Zeydiliğin Yemen bölgesinde geçirdiği süreçlerden birisi de 16. yy.’da imametini ilan eden Mansûr-Billâh Kâsım b. Muhammed ile başlayan ve Cumhuriyetin ilanına kadar iktidarın soyundan gelenlerin devam ettirdiği dönem bulunmaktadır. Ancak Kâsımîler dönemi olarak bilinen bu sürece dair literatürde yeterli bilgi bulunmamaktadır. Mansûr-Billâh Kâsım b. Muhammed’in akaid, fıkıh, usul gibi alanlarda kıymetli eserlerinin yanı sıra kaleme aldığı ufak bir risalesi de bulunmaktadır. Bu çalışmada ise Kâsımî Hanedanlığının kurucusu olarak bilinen Mansûr-Billâh Kâsım b. Muhammed’in oğlu Müeyyed-Billâh (...) Muhammed b. Kâsım için kaleme aldığı vasiyet metninin literatüre kazandırılması amaçlanmaktadır. (shrink)

From pre-Christian times until the present day, philosophers have discussed whether, given evil, belief in God can logically be maintained. Theists and non-theists remain unconvinced by one another's arguments. This study re-examines the question of God and evil from a neutral standpoint and claims that neither side has come to adequate grips either with the question itself or with the other side's case, chiefly because of failure to distinguish the kinds of problem raised by evil.

The study of actions is of major importance in social science regardless of whether the investigator is or isn’t a behaviorist. Actions constitute much if not all of an observational substratum which both prompts explanation and confirms prediction. Actions are of interest both as samples of what an animal can do and as symptoms of underlying structures, either psychic or physical. Doubtless, actions as symptoms of underlying structures are, in the long run, of greater importance in social science than actions (...) as samples of capacities, for to be able to predict an organism’s further performance on the basis of knowledge of capacities is not necessarily to understand the organism. Understanding actions, if it is indeed the desideratum of social science—as I take it to be—involves more, however, than the viewing of actions as symptomatic of underlying structures. Actions are obviously bearers of meaning in and for a given social context, and this meaning is for both the agent and actual or imagined spectators. Spectators can be said to do their viewing both at the time the action takes place and also, in a sense, at later times when recalling or reading reports of a now past action. (shrink)

The question of the role of science in the development of our society, and the role of the social sciences in particular, loomed large in the decisions of the 23rd Congress of the CPSU. This was a consequence of the tasks posed by the present stage of the building of communism. The proceedings and decisions of the Congress emphasized the rapid advance of science, its increasing influence upon all aspects of the material and intellectual life of society, and the need (...) to assure high rates of scientific and technological progress on the basis of the growth of all branches of knowledge and the extensive introduction of the achievements of science into industry. In the Report of the Central Committee of the CPSU to the Congress, considerable attention was given to the social sciences, upon which the party is now placing even greater responsibility. "The elaboration of important problems in economics and politics, philosophy and sociology, history and law, and in other social sciences, in close association with the practical work of the building of communism," said L. I. Brezhnev, "is a most important task for Soviet scholars." Further, he emphasized: "The development of the social sciences and the introduction of their recommendations in practice play no less important a role than the employment of the achievements of the natural sciences in the sphere of material production and the development of the intellectual life of the people" . These statements call for thorough consideration. (shrink)