As a contemporary neo-Sadraian philosopher, Muhaqeq Isfahani has proposed his own account of the ontological argument for the existence of Allah. This account of the argument is unprecedented and has caught the attention of many contemporary thinkers. There have been proposed five accounts of this argument upon three pivots. First is the concept of necessary being as a mental concept. Second is the concept of necessary being so far as it denotes something beyond the concept. And third is the very (...) reality of necessary being existing by itself in the outside world. Each of the above accounts is open to some criticisms. Prof. Mahdi Ha’iri Yazdi has leveled four criticisms at that account of the argument such as counter-argument, begging the question, the confusion of categorical proposition with non-categorical one. The proponents of ontological argument have raised objections to Ha’iri’s criticisms. Most of those objections are not valid for they stem from the insufficient consideration of the fact that concepts such as “necessary being”, “God”, “partner of Creator” and the like are philosophical secondary intelligible. Accordingly, most of Prof. Ha’iri’s criticisms against Muhaqeq Ishafani are valid and thus the ontological argument fails to prove the existence of Allah. (shrink)

While extensive scholarship has been dedicated to the emotional experiences of transplant patients, little is known about the emotional experiences of transplant co‐ordinators. Semi‐structured face‐to‐face interviews conducted with ten transplant co‐ordinators who have worked for more than 20 years in this job. The transplant co‐ordinators spoke of negative feelings and moral distress with regard to futile care of deceased donor family members as well as of living donors. Transplant co‐ordinators experience intense negative feelings, emotional pain, and moral distress on a (...) daily basis. Transplant co‐ordinators play a pivotal role in the process of obtaining consent for live or dead donation of organ; however, their well‐being and job satisfaction are impaired by contradictions between their moral values and the tasks they are instructed to perform. The study exposes the silent emotional suffering of transplant co‐ordinators; main findings show that the transplant co‐ordinators are torn between contradictory expectations and a gap between values and praxis. It is recommended to offer them training and support for the sake of their retention. (shrink)

Science -Philosophy ; Philosophy and science ; Religion and science.

This volume consists of nine essays on the political teaching of such Muslim philosophers as al-Kindi and al-Razi, as well as the more familiar al-Fârâbî, ...

In this paper, we provide a macro level analysis of the visibility of philosophy of science in the sciences over the last four decades. Our quantitative analysis of publications and citations of philosophy of science papers, published in 17 main journals representing the discipline, contributes to the longstanding debate on the influence of philosophy of science on the sciences. It reveals the global structure of relationships that philosophy of science maintains with science, technology, engineering and mathematics and social sciences and (...) humanities fields. Explored at the level of disciplines, journals and authors, this analysis of the relations between philosophy of science and a large and diversified array of disciplines allows us to answer several questions: what is the degree of openness of various disciplines to the specialized knowledge produced in philosophy of science? Which STEM and SSH fields and journals have privileged ties with philosophy of science? What are the characteristics, in terms of citation and publication patterns, of authors who get their philosophy of science papers cited outside their field? Complementing existing qualitative inquiries on the influence of specific authors, concepts or topics of philosophy of science, the bibliometric approach proposed in this paper offers a comprehensive portrait of the multiple relationships that links philosophy of science to the sciences. (shrink)

Transplant coordinators play a pivotal role in the process of obtaining consent for live or dead donation of organs. The objective of the project is to unveil emotional experiences and ethical conduct of transplant coordinators using a qualitative research methodology. Ten transplant coordinators who have worked for more than 20 years in this job were recruited by using a purposive sampling technique. The transplant coordinators spoke of negative feelings and moral distress with regard to futile care of family members of (...) deceased donors as well as of living donors. Transplant coordinators experience moral distress on a daily basis; being compelled to compromise their integrity causes moral distress and moral residue, hence, training and support should be offered to them. (shrink)

Having constituted a new epoch in human history and a new religiouspolitical order, the revealed religions challenged the tradition of Greek philosophy to adjust to, investigate, and make intelligible a religiouspolitical order based on prophecy, revelation, and the divine law. The challenge led certain Arab and Muslim philosophers to reassess the relative distance between the thought of the Greek masters, and the doctrines propagated by the revealed religions, and to make use of such works as Plato's Republic and Laws, rather (...) than Aristotle's Politics, when offering a philosophic account of the new religious–political phenomenon and of such new disciplines as the science of the divine law and the science of revealed theology. Les religions révélées, en inaugurant une ère nouvelle dans l'histoire humaine et un nouvel ordre “religio-politique”, ont constitué un défi pour la tradition de la philosophie grecque. Celle-ci devait s'adapter a un ordre religio-politique fondé sur la prophétie, la révélation et la loi divine, en faire un objet d'investigation et le rendre intelligible. Ce défi conduisit certains philosophes arabes et musulmans à réévaluer la distance qui sépare la pensée des maîtres grecs des doctrines propagées par les religions révelées. Il les conduisit aussi à faire usage d'oeuvres telles que la République et les Lois de Platon, plutôt que la Politique d'Aristote dans leur effort de rendre compte philosophiquement du phénomène religio-politique nouveau et des nouvelles disciplines telles que la science de la loi divine et la science de la théologie révélée. (shrink)

John Cottingham, a contemporary English philosopher, considers the best way to understand religious beliefs to be an empathic understanding. He calls his theory “the epistemology of involvement”. Based on this theory, in order to understand religious beliefs, one should put aside the detachment approach and by entering the life of faith, provide the conditions for the realization of the religious experiences of the believers, and at the same time, maintain the critical opinion in this sympathetic participation in religion. He considers (...) such an approach to be a middle way between Kierkegaard's irrationalism and Plantinga's relativism and considers it generalizable to other philosophical fields. This approach faces criticism. First, before entering a religious life, it is necessary to evaluate its worldview, and this evaluation precedes the practical system and literary and emotional texts of that religion. Second, there is no connection between an empathetic understanding of religion and entering into a life of faith, and thirdly, by entering into a life of faith, the acceptance of a belief will be involuntary, and after the realization of such a belief, it is not possible to criticize it. (shrink)

This study is designed to delve into the issue of culture from the lens of pragmatics as far as the translation of Persian expressions is concerned. To this end, the researchers explored two problematic areas in translation: the first one is a universally challenging element of language, i.e. metaphor, while the other one is an Iranian culture-specific element of language, i.e. Taarof. To uncover the reason behind such difficulty and various techniques to handle such culturally dependent concepts in the act (...) of translation, the researchers sampled a few English subtitles of Iranian films and examined them both qualitatively and quantitatively drawing on the Gricean maxims. The results revealed a high number of infringements both in the translated instances of metaphor and Taarof as far as the maxim of manner, i.e. being perspicuous, is concerned. This highly-frequent flaw in the openness in translation could be mainly attributed to a vast cultural chasm between the source and target language, which makes such culturally-oriented translations a tall order even on the part of the most accomplished translators. (shrink)

In this work, Muhsin Mahdi--widely regarded as the preeminent scholar of Islamic political thought--distills more than four decades of research to offer an authoritative analysis of the work of Alfarabi, the founder of Islamic political philosophy. Mahdi, who also brought to light writings of Alfarabi that had long been presumed lost or were not even known, presents this great thinker as his contemporaries would have seen him: as a philosopher who sought to lay the foundations for a new understanding of (...) revealed religion and its relation to the tradition of political philosophy. Beginning with a survey of Islamic philosophy and a discussion of its historical background, Mahdi considers the interrelated spheres of philosophy, political thought, theology, and jurisprudence of the time. He then turns to Alfarabi's concept of "the virtuous city," and concludes with an in-depth analysis of the trilogy, Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle. This philosophical engagement with the writings of and about Alfarabi will be essential reading for anyone interested in medieval political philosophy. (shrink)

The special theory of relativity holds significant interest for scientific perspectivists. In this paper, I distinguish between two related meanings of “perspectival,” and argue that reference frames are perspectives, provided that perspectival means “being conditional” rather than “being partial.” Frame-dependent properties such as length, time duration, and simultaneity, are not partially measured in a reference frame, but their measurements are conditional on the choice of frame. I also discuss whether the constancy of the speed of light depends on perspectival factors (...) such as the idealized definition of the speed of light in a perfect vacuum and the Einstein synchronization convention. Furthermore, I argue for the view that the constancy of its speed is a robust property of light according to the conditions of currently acceptable experimental setups pertaining to special relativity, and conclude that this view supports perspectivism. (shrink)

metempsychosis is the concept of the transmigration of a human or animal soul into another human, animal, plant, or even an inanimate object. The theory of metempsychosis poses a challenge to the belief in resurrection (maʿād), making it necessary to reject metempsychosis before proving maʿād. Avicenna presents two arguments against metempsychosis. The first argument, found in numerous works, rejects metempsychosis on the grounds that it requires the union of two soul s within a single body. Avicenna alludes to the second (...) argument in his Al-Isharat wa al-Tanbihat but postpones its full explanation to another unspecified work. Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, Fakhr al-Din Razi, and Qutb al-Din Razi have proposed different interpretations of this second argument. The variations in interpretation revolve around the number of implications Avicenna expressed for this modus ponendo and his reasons for rejecting them. Among these interpretations, only Qutb al-Din Razi's aligns more closely with Avicenna's original words. In the other two interpretations, there are either deficiencies or excesses compared to Avicenna's work. (shrink)

This book, first published in 1957, is the study of 14th-century Arab historian Ibn Khaldun, who founded a special science to consider history and culture, based on the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle and their Muslim followers. In no other field has the revolt of modern Western thought against traditional philosophy been so far-reaching in its consequences as in the field of history. Ibn Khaldun realized that history is more immediately related to action than political philosophy because it studies the (...) actual state of man and society. He found that the ancients had not made history the object of an independent science, and thought it was important to fill this gap. A factual acquaintance with the conclusions of Ibn Khaldun's reflections on history is not the same as the full comprehension of their theoretical significance. When these fundamental questions are answered, it becomes possible to pose the specific question of the relation of Ibn Khaldun's philosophy of history, or his new science of culture, to other practical sciences and, particularly, to the art of history. After an exposition of the major trends of Islamic historiography, part of this book attempts to answer this question through the analysis of the method and intention of the sections of the 'History' where Ibn Khaldun himself examines the works of major Muslim historians, shows the necessity of the new science of culture, and distinguishes it from other practical sciences. (shrink)

This study examines the impact of the level of religious observance on the attitudes toward end‐of‐life (EOL) decisions and euthanasia of Jews in Israel—where euthanasia is illegal—as compared to Jews living in the USA, in the states where euthanasia is legal. A self‐reporting questionnaire on religiosity and personal beliefs and attitudes regarding EOL care and euthanasia was distributed, using a convenience sample of 271 participants from Israel and the USA. Findings show that significant differences were found in attitudes between Jews (...) of different levels of religious observance with respect to patient autonomy, right to die with dignity, and dying in familiar and supportive surroundings. The USA and Israeli Jews have similar knowledge regarding EOL care and expressed similar attitudes and perceptions toward the issues of authority of medical staff and religious figures and patient's autonomy. Findings indicate that the level of religious observance has more potency in shaping their attitudes and perceptions of EOL decisions than the state law. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings with regard to multicultural health systems and providing practical recommendations. (shrink)

Speeches of the author on theory of knowledge in the context of Islamic philosophy.

Recently there is an increasing technological development in intelligent tutoring systems. This field has become interesting to many researchers. In this paper, we present an intelligent tutoring system for teaching information security. This intelligent tutoring systems target the students enrolled in Advanced Topics in Information Security in the faculty of Engineering and Information Technology at Al-Azhar University in Gaza. Through which the student will be able to study the course and solve related problems. An evaluation of the intelligent tutoring systems (...) was carried out and the results were promising. (shrink)

My study aims to offer a Schopenhauerian reading of Henry James's The Portrait of a Lady and D. H. Lawrence's The White Peacock. Throughout the dissertation, I am driven by two goals. First, I aim to examine the selected novels by considering Schopenhauer's philosophy. Secondly, I shall investigate why characters, especially the heroines, having recognised that their marriage was basically a mistake, still remained in their tormented relationships. Why it is important to answer this question and what makes this a (...) unique concern, especially in James's novel, is the possibility that previous studies and many other critiques have questioned the destiny of these heroines in regard to the novelists' anti-feminist tendencies or their social and personal concerns, while I believe that by using Schopenhauer's philosophy I can provide a deeper conceptualisation of the novels' ending. In so doing, in the second chapter I will describe the reception of Schopenhauer's philosophy in England, and the direct and indirect presence of his philosophy in Lawrence's and James's Works. In the third chapter, I concentrate on Schopenhauer's concept of freedom, morality and the will in James's novel. My fourth chapter considers Lawrence's philosophy of love and reveals how his philosophy differs from Schopenhauer's. Furthermore, it draws his readers' attention to the Schopenhauerian notion of the will-to-live, acknowledged in Lawrence's novel. (shrink)

Previous empirical studies have suggested that language is primarily used to exchange social information, but our evidence on this derives mainly from English speakers. We present data from a study of natural conversations among Farsi speakers in Iran and show that not only are conversation groups the same size as those observed in Europe and North America, but people also talk predominantly about social topics. We argue that these results reinforce the suggestion that language most likely evolved for the transmission (...) of information about the social world. We also explore sex differences in conversational behavior: while the pattern is broadly similar between the sexes, men may be more sensitive than women are to discussing some topics in the presence of many other people. (shrink)

Technological enthusiasm is a value that can influence engineering, shape technologies and subsequently transform human lifestyles. Despite its significant role, up until now, there has been little research done on this value. The dominant idea is that this value is commendable. However, based on consequentialism, a recently proposed idea describes TE as neither morally commendable nor reprehensible. In this paper, three arguments are presented against this recent idea, and a new idea is introduced, which challenges not only commendation for TE (...) but also neutrality of TE. Further, it is shown that a virtue ethics approach can be adopted to evaluate the moral role of TE. In the approach, TE can be considered a character trait or a virtue/vice. Then, three arguments are proposed to indicate that TE is not a virtue but a vice. This paper illustrates some advantages of virtue ethics in ethical evaluation of a problem in which consequentialism or utilitarianism is not effective. (shrink)

Engineering, as a complex and multidimensional practice of technology development, has long been a source of ethical concerns. These concerns have been approached from various perspectives. There are ongoing debates in the literature of the philosophy of engineering/technology about how to organize an optimized view of the values entailed in technology development processes. However, these debates deliver little in the way of a concrete rationale or framework that could comprehensively describe different types of engineering values and their multi-aspect interrelations in (...) real engineering practices. Approaching engineering values from a meaning-based perspective, as in this paper, can be a reliable method of tackling such a controversial problem. This paper therefore proposes that technology development be considered a systemic normative practice and attempts to provide a comprehensive view of various built-in values, their different origins and features, and a way of prioritizing them in real engineering processes. Studying two cases of the Zayandeh Rood Dam and the Abbasi Dam will lead to practical insights into how to understand norms in technology development and incorporate them into engineering practice. (shrink)

After a brief review of the relationship between science and value, this paper introduces the value of ‘traditionality’ as a value in the pure and applied sciences. Along with other recognized values, this value can also contribute to formulating hypotheses and determining theories. There are three reasons for legitimizing the internal role of this value in science: first, this value can contribute to scientific progress by presenting more diverse hypotheses; second, the value of external consistency in science entails this value; (...) and third, this value helps to eliminate some of the adverse social and cultural effects of Western science in non-Western societies. ‘Traditionality’ is an extrinsic epistemic value, according to the first two reasons, and at the same time, is an ethical value, according to the last reason. Also, the ethics of belief is adopted to further confirm the ethical role of this value. Finally, this paper discusses three potential criticisms that can be levelled against this idea and responds to each of them. (shrink)

John Cottingham focuses on two types of religious experience: general religious experience and specific religious experience. According to him, general experiences do not require special and complex education, scientific research or philosophical theorizing, but are a simple act of accepting a gift. Of course, unlike everyday observations, such experiences are not available to everyone and their realization requires special conditions. Regarding specific religious experiences, he also believes that when dealing with parts of the Bible that contain reports of such experiences, (...) one should neither have a naturalistic or demythologizing approach, nor an appearance-oriented approach; Rather, these verses should be interpreted in such a way that both its amazing content is preserved and this content does not conflict with modern science. Using the basics of Islamic philosophy, this work has a critical review of both parts of his view. The result of these criticisms is that due to the personal nature of evidences from religious experiences, the epistemological guarantee of these experiences is obtained through the rational and revelatory method. And based on this, these experiences cannot be considered as an independent path alongside the rational and revelatory path. Also, the observation of specific religious experiences is not a sensory observation and occurs in the container of human imagination and fantasy, without being a part of these experiences, they have become a characteristic of the self. (shrink)

The role of culture in a field as vast as applied linguistics is so pronounced and vital that even a highly selective overview might not be sufficient to be comprehensive. What follows might be a synoptic account of the role of culture in the realm of applied linguistics. The enigmatic point which even makes the vast field of applied linguistics goes to unbeaten tracks is the similar nature of culture. Due to the aforementioned point, here the canonical overlap of them (...) is emphasised. Moreover, as culture and language are intrinsically intertwined, we decided to have a more cultural stance rather than a linguistic one. Therefore, first, we go through the major studies in connection with language and culture. These studies might fall into three broad categories, namely those relating to epistemology of culture, those relating to its relation to language, and finally those relating to its presentation through a given language. Then, we touch on the trends, and in the end we try sum up and to unravel, or better to say, to come to grips with this enigmatic riddle, culture. In other words, in conclusion, we attempt to portray what culture will be. (shrink)

In pursuit of moralities and beliefs in the grey area of culture, the researchers carried out a study on Top Notch series to pinpoint the trace of ethics. This paper seeks to unfold the representation of ethics as an indubitable part of culture in Top Notch series. After having extracted all culturally and ethically-related topics and texts of Top Notch Series, 25 instances, featuring 6 patterns, were collected. Later these 6 patterns were dubbed as: violence, superstition, modesty,individualised ethics, religion, and (...) modernity. Having analysed these 6 themes, well representing beliefs and moralities, the researchers came to the conclusion that both misrepresentation of ethics and underrepresentation and overrepresentation of different cultures are at work. The results show a reconsideration of therepresentation of ethics, or better to say reconsideration of misrepresentation of ethics which might find its root in wrong dominance of culture over ethics. (shrink)

The perplexing relationship between consciousness and quantum mechanics remains one of science's greatest enigmas. The "wavefunction collapse" phenomenon, where a quantum system's superposition of possibilities resolves into a single definite state upon measurement, has ignited heated debates about the role of consciousness in shaping reality. This article delves into the heart of this "quantum quagmire," exploring various interpretations of wavefunction collapse and their implications for the nature of consciousness and the observer-observed relationship.

Throughout his philosophy, Kant relies on the crucial concepts of “objective validity” and “objective reality,” pivotal in arguments such as the “Transcendental Deduction of the Categories” and the “Refutation of Idealism” in his Critique of Pure Reason. However, the lack of desired clarity in Kant’s usage impedes scholarly progress. Despite their significance, “objective validity” and “objective reality” have not received sufficient attention in secondary literature. Consensus on whether they represent the same idea remains elusive, and even among those recognizing them (...) as distinct concepts, disagreement persists regarding their precise meanings. In this paper, I show that these concepts are distinct. I argue that a concept is objectively valid when our right or entitlement to apply it to objects is established independently and prior to any intuition. Conversely, a concept is objectively real when presented to us in intuition, either in pure intuition, as seen in geometrical figures, or in empirical intuition, as evident in material objects. This interpretation, however, falls short of fully elucidating Kant’s use of these terms due to his lack of systematicity in their application across concepts, intuitions, objects, cognitions, representations, synthesis, and even ideas, God, and purposiveness. Consequently, while shedding light on many instances, this interpretation encounters limits. (shrink)

Freedom is one of the major elements in Henry James’s The Portrait of a Lady. In an age when American women were usually engaged or married, James’s heroine, Isabel, was somewhat ahead of her time in hoping for a marriage in which she could still be independent. She was very fond of her liberty and afraid of losing it, but does her return to her husband, Osmond, at the end of the novel suggest that she has put an end to (...) her eagerness for freedom? It is an underlying argument of this study that James’s novel, in its last scene, covers a different aspect of freedom which, through a Schopenhauerian approach, delivers a different insight into liberty. This perception of freedom in The Portrait of a Lady has never been considered in connection with Arthur Schopenhauer’s view on the experience of freedom. The implicit critical point on which the paper is founded is that, although Schopenhauer is not conspicuously mentioned in James’s notes, there is important evidence that shows the convergence between the thoughts of Schopenhauer and Henry James; that is, that evidence through which this study aims to analyse the heroine’s final decision in the last scene. (shrink)

This paper draws on the phenomenological-hermeneutical approaches to philosophy of science to develop realist perspectivism, an integration of experimental realism and perspectivism. Specifically, the paper employs the distinction between “manifestation” and “phenomenon” and it advances the view that the evidence of a real entity is “explorable” in order to argue that instrumentally-mediated robust evidence indicates real entities. Furthermore, it underpins the phenomenological notion of the horizonal nature of scientific observation with perspectivism, so accounting for scientific pluralism even in the cases (...) of inconsistent models. Overall, realist perspectivism is proposed as the way to go for (phenomenologically-hermeneutically minded) philosophers of science. (shrink)

Financial risks are among the most important risks in the construction industry projects, which significantly impact project objectives, including project cost. Besides, financial risks have many interactions with each other and project parameters, which must be taken into account to analyze risks correctly. In addition, a source of financial risks in a project is the contract, which is the most important project document. Identifying terms related to financial risks in a contract and considering their effects on the risk management process (...) is an essential issue that has been neglected. Hence, an integrated model for evaluating financial risks and their related contractual clauses were presented. To this end, the effect of financial risks on the project cost was simulated using a system dynamics model. Moreover, terms related to financial risks in a contract text were identified and extracted using text mining, and their effect was included in the system dynamics model. The model was implemented in a hospital construction project in Tehran as a case study, and its results were analyzed. The innovation of the research is integrating text mining and the system dynamics model to investigate the effect of financial risks and related contractual clauses on the project cost. (shrink)

This paper first explores in detail a regenerated theory in philosophy of mind, known among contemporary philosophers as ‘emergentism’. By distinguishing strong and weak versions of the theory, I explain two important explanatory challenges presented by physicalists against this theory. In the following, I provide a brief overview of Sadr al-Muta’allihin’s theory of the incipience and degrees of the soul, examining similarities and differences between this theory and strong emergentism. Then, underlining the main aspects of similarity between the two theories, (...) I consider the challenges presented by physicalists against emergentism as reconstructible against Sadra’s theory. Surveying some explanations by Sadraean philosophers of the soul-body relationship, I ultimately argue that Sadra’s theory is inadequate in face of the objections and doubts raised by contemporary physicalists. My assessment is that Sadra’s philosophy is in need of further development to meet those explanatory challenges. (shrink)

Despite recent noticeable changes in women’s educational opportunities in developing countries such as Iran, there is still much controversy surrounding the common assumption that a direct relationship exists between women’s empowerment and formal literacy. According to the social semiotic method, the present research explores the hidden side of the female educational experience and its relationship with empowerment. In the current study, we conducted 39 interviews and analyzed the collected data using Van Leeuwen’s semiotic approach. The results are based on the (...) analysis of three semiotic sources, all of which are ubiquitous in the daily life of Iranian students: uniforms, queues, and homework. The findings indicate that the emphasis on the ideological aspects of educational experiences, in the form of a ritualistic approach by the educational system’s agents, causes a gradual semantic break between students and educational goals. Such an emphasis also instills an ambiguous and contradictory understanding in the student’s mind, of which the final result is the alienation and internalization of passive patterns of social action. (shrink)

This paper concerns the recent revival of entity realism. Having been started with the work of Ian Hacking, Nancy Cartwright and Ronald Giere, the project of entity realism has recently been developed by Matthias Egg, Markus Eronen, and Bence Nanay. The paper opens a dialogue among these recent views on entity realism and integrates them into a more advanced view. The result is an epistemological criterion for reality: the property-tokens of a certain type may be taken as real insofar as (...) only they can be materially inferred from the evidence obtained in a variety of independent ways of detection. (shrink)

What has been noticed during the history of human thought and human life is that forms, figure, feelings of pleasure and aesthetic perception, are not the only subjects that belong to the sphere of art. In fact, art includes other aspects, such as themes and content. As a matter of fact, each art work could be considered as outstanding, not only because of its form, but because of its theme and content, as well. However, art works in the western classical (...) art, were inspired by mythology and religion and their form has been a reflection of that content. In this paper art is going to be discussed through its religious themes and contents. Therefore, first, I will analyze some approaches to religious themes and content in art works through discussion of religion as its background. And, second, I will try to establish a method which will distinguish between religious and non-religious themes and contents in the works of art. (shrink)

John Cottingham, a contemporary English philosopher, believes that it is necessary to pay attention to the emotional aspect of faith in two ways: (1) the impact of the emotional aspect in human conversion and explanation of the problem of evil, and (2) attention to the language of religion and its function in philosophical issues. From his point of view, conversion is not a forced process but achieved through internal acceptance. This acceptance is not realized just by listening to rational arguments, (...) but it is a response from all the intellectual, emotional, moral, and spiritual aspects of a person. In Cottingham’s view, the problem of evil needs an emotional explanation that considers the world based on Divine providence and God’s love. He also believes that although religious beliefs have propositional and cognitive content, such content is expressed in layers of figurative and literary metaphors in the form of symbolic language. The discovery and extraction of content from these layers need a unique method, so, the literal analysis of these phrases results in misunderstanding. Paying attention to the emotional aspect of human conversion is a valuable point, but weakening the rational aspect in this field is not in favor of religion, and this is one of the important weaknesses of Cottingham's thought. Regarding the emotional explanation of the problem of evil, generalizing it to all human beings -especially the prophets- is not true. Also, not all religious content can be understood by symbolic language, rather, religion consists of different propositions, many of which have a literal meaning. (shrink)

The relationship between reason and faith is one of the most important topics in the philosophy of religion. This issue has been investigated from several aspects. One of these aspects is the relationship between action and religious belief. John Cottingham, a contemporary analytical philosopher, emphasizes the primacy of religious practice over belief, as well as the involuntary nature of belief. In his opinion, the factor that causes people to become religious is not intellectual discussions about God but the internal aspects (...) of religion itself and the transforming power of religious practices in human life and experiences. In the present work, a critique has been made of his point of view with an explanatory-critical method. Criticisms that his point of view includes: First, the belief resulting from the course of action is only psychological certainty and such certainty is beyond the logic of verification. Secondly, knowledge of God and the practical system is a condition for entering it and precedes it. The third criticism is the problem of the plurality of religions and practical systems which causes people to mistrust reasons of the heart. The fourth criticism is that entering into a practical system is a confirmation of its benefits and anyone who does not believe this would have no reason to enter such a system. Introduction John Cottingham is a contemporary English philosopher, and one of the contemporary theorists in the field of the relationship between reason and faith. The relationship between reason and religious faith can be examined from four aspects: 1) The relationship between reason and the epistemological area of faith, 2) the relationship between reason and the practical area of faith, 3) the relationship between reason and the commitment area of faith, and 4) the relationship between reason and the area of faith. Explanation of Cottingham’s view Cottingham’s view can be presented in seven steps: -/- Criticism of the current situation in analytical philosophy; Changing the topic of discussion from the religious field to the spiritual field in order to expand the topic of discussion to non-religious spiritual fields; Comparison of spiritual practice with devotional orders in the past philosophical tradition; Understanding religion is based on practical participation in it; -/- This introduction is expressed according to Pascal’s point of view. According to Pascal, faith should be acquired in the atmosphere of a living tradition of practical religious worship, not through discussion and analysis in a seminar room. The basis of this view is that issues related to the nature and existence of God are beyond the reach of reason. -/- The role of emotions in human understanding; -/- Using Nussbaum’s point of view, Cottingham says: There are types of truth that the intellectual effort to obtain is equivalent to not reaching them. Religious truth is also a part of these truths. Because religious truths are beyond the direct understanding of humans and trying to understand them through logical analysis is moving away from them. -/- Involuntary belief; -/- Human belief, whether religious or otherwise, is not optional and there is a kind of passivity in all human perceptions. According to Cottingham, this point is shared by philosophers such as Hume and Descartes. Cottingham is also influenced by Pascal in this introduction. According to Pascal, although belief in God is not optional, there are indirect ways such as participating in religious activities to realize it, which are available to humans. The role of these ways in the formation of belief is a preliminary role and creating the ability to accept. -/- The necessity of trusting the witnesses of the heart; -/- According to Cottingham, such a thing is necessary for the human condition, and this issue exists in all fields of human knowledge, as well as in human daily life. For example, to go to work, a person must believe that when he turns the switch on the car, the car will not explode, even if such a belief is not the result of checking the car’s electrical system, you still have to trust this article or you will lose your job. Cottingham’s conclusion from the seven premises is that the factor that causes people to become religious is not intellectual discussions about God but the internal aspects of religion itself and the transformative power of religious practices in human life and experiences. Accordingly, faith in God is a product of trust and participation in a living community of faith. When the truth of religion is obtained through faith, and faith depends on a practical religious tradition, then there will be no other choice but to enter into the practical system of religion. Of course, he emphasizes that entering the life of faith does not mean abandoning the critical method in content analysis, and the previous reasons resulting from religious practice must be supplemented or regularized by subsequent intellectual reflections. According to Cottingham, worship precedes rational theory in four ways: 1) temporally; 2) heuristically; 3) psychologically; 4) morally Critical Review In the following, I will do a critical review of Cottingham’s view. His view on the priority of action over religious belief and that the understanding of religion is based on practical participation faces criticisms: First, the belief resulting from participation in religious actions is only psychological certainty and such certainty is beyond the logic of confirmation. Secondly, knowing God and the practical system is a condition for entering this system and has precedence over it. The third criticism is the problem of the plurality of religions and practical systems which causes people to mistrust reasons of the heart. The fourth criticism is that entry into a practical system is a confirmation of its benefits and anyone who does not believe this would have no reason to enter such a system. Therefore, at this stage as well, it is necessary to have a rational way to confirm the usefulness of this path. His view on Doxastic voluntarism is also under the involuntary approach of indirect belief, which is Pascal’s view. This component is also present in the opinions of Allamah Tabatabai. The difference between Cottingham and Allameh’s points of view is that Cottingham and Pascal consider rational arguments to be inefficient in the realization of belief and scientific verification, and they consider a practical commitment to be necessary for the realization of such verification, but Allameh Tabatabai considers scientific premises and rational proof to be the necessary conditions for faith. Conclusion Although the theory of the precedence of action over belief is faced with numerous criticisms, it is an undeniable matter. Paying attention to different levels of religious faith makes the value of theoretical discussions as well as paying attention to practical refinement and participation in spiritual actions be considered together. (shrink)

Muslim scholars have had different approaches toward modern technologies. Defining the situation in various Islamic countries is dependent on knowing the approaches adopted by their scholars. These approaches create norms which can shed light on the reasons for the success and failure of access to technology and its transference. The present article sets out to analyze the views of the Qom seminary scholars in Iran about the development of modern technologies within the framework of the development sociology using the qualitative (...) methodology of grounded theory. To this end, such techniques as conducting interviews and investigating documents have been used to gather the data. The authors find four paradigm models regarding modern technologies among the Qom seminary scholars. These models are classified into two general categories: optimistic and pessimistic. In the end, an “appropriate technology” approach is introduced as an approach singled out by the researchers. (shrink)

I offer a counterexample to Timothy Williamson’s conjecture that knowledge is the most general factive mental state; i.e., that every factive mental state entails knowledge. I describe two counterexamples (Ernest Sosa’s and Baron Reed’s) that I find unpersuasive, and argue that they fail due to a specific feature they have in common. I then argue that there is a primitive mental state that is factive but does not entail knowledge, and that constitutes a counterexample to Williamson’s conjecture that is not (...) subject to the problems faced by Sosa’s and Reed’s counterexamples. Je propose un contre-exemple à la conjecture de Timothy Williamson selon laquelle la connaissance est l’état mental factif le plus général, c’est-à-dire que tout état mental factif implique la connaissance. Je décris deux contre-exemples (développés par Ernest Sosa et Baron Reed) que je considère comme étant peu probants, et je souligne que l’un et l’autre échouent à convaincre de par une caractéristique spécifique qu’ils partagent. Je soutiens ensuite qu’il existe un état mental primitif, factif mais n’impliquant pas la connaissance : ce dernier constitue un contre-exemple à la conjecture de Williamson sans être sujet aux problèmes rencontrés par les deux contre-exemples précédents. (shrink)

MyJay is an open-source robot designed to facilitate play between children with and without physical disabilities. The robot acts as a proxy for children with upper limb challenges, allowing them to participate in physical games with their peers. Our design was inspired by the FIRST Robotics Competition, which involves teleoperating robots to manipulate objects. Taking a user-centred perspective, we consulted therapists and conducted remote interviews with children with disabilities and their guardians at various stages of the design process. We then (...) conducted an in-person feasibility study with 18 typically developing children in a school setting. The study involved children teleoperating the robot to pick up and throw balls into a designated goal, and the interaction was evaluated using the user experience questionnaire and the Robotic Social Attributes Scale. The results of the study show great potential for MyJay to act as a play mediator in various scenarios, and the response from the children was positive. The ultimate aim of our research agenda is to pave the way towards creating more inclusive play environments through robot-mediated interactions, breaking barriers posed by physical limitations. (shrink)