By investigating conceptions of experience from Descartes to Kant, this book shows that one of the central questions of the early-modern period was how humans can instantiate in their actions the principles of rational moral agency, while at the same time responding with their bodies to the causal play of nature. Through the analysis of this question, the book draws attention to the bodily underpinnings of the ability to experience thoughts and feelings. It thus challenges overly subjectivist interpretations that concentrate (...) on the inner realm of the experiencing mind and because of this fail to account for the worldly dimension of being experientially responsive to the affections of the body. (shrink)

We discuss the variety of sorts of sympathy Hume recognizes, the extent to which he thinks our sympathy with others’ feelings depends on inferences from the other’s expression, and from her perceived situation, and consider also whether he later changed his views about the nature and role of sympathy, in particular its role in morals.

Early modern philosophers after Ren? Descartes are commonly distinguished as either rationalists or empiricists: rationalists are understood to agree with Descartes that reason is the source of knowledge, while empiricists are seen to emphasize the role of the senses within processes of knowledge acquisition. In recent years, this classic distinction has increasingly come under scrutiny. It is objected that, in its simplicity, the distinction tends to conceal the various cross-categorial influences thinkers of the early modern era had on each other.1 (...) In "The History of Scepticism,"2 Richard Popkin provided an alternative approach to early modern philosophy: instead of focusing on the opposition between the two rival camps of empiricists and rationalists, he tells us to concentrate on "la crisepyrrhonienne,"3 for it is this crisis that lay at the heart of early modern philosophy and preoccupied rationalists as much as empiricists. (shrink)

The problem of other minds has widely been considered as a special problem within the debate about scepticism. If one cannot be sure that there is a world existing independently of one's mind, how can we be sure that there are minds - minds which we cannot even experience the way we experience material objects? This book shows, through a detailed examination of David Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature, that these concerns are unfounded. By focusing on Hume's discussion of (...) sympathy - the ability to connect with the mental contents of other persons - Anik Waldow demonstrates that belief in other minds can be justified by the same means as belief in material objects. The book thus not only provides the first large-scale treatment of the function of the belief in other minds within the Treatise, thereby adding a new dimension to Hume's realism, but also serves as an invaluable guide to the complexity of the problem of other minds and its various responses in contemporary debate. (shrink)

By placing Hume’s account of communication in the context of some less known seventeenth- and eighteenth-century French resources on rhetoric and language, this essay argues that Hume based his und...

Hume holds that sympathy is both crucial for making moral judgments and a distorting influence that prevents us from assessing the virtue of characters impartially. He writes, When any quality, or character, has a tendency to the good of mankind, we are pleas’d with it, and approve of it; because it presents the lively idea of pleasure; which idea affects us by sympathy, and is itself a kind of pleasure. But as this sympathy is very variable, it may be thought, (...) that our sentiments of morals must admit of all the same variations. We sympathize more with persons contiguous to us, than with strangers: With our countrymen, than with foreigners. This essay will argue that Humean sympathy can play a .. (shrink)

Tanrı’nın varlığı kanıtlama (isbât-ı vâcib) kelâm ilminin diğer tüm meselelerin kendisine dayandığı en başta gelen gayesidir. Kelâmcıların özelliği inşa ettikleri bir bilgi teorisi ekseninde bunu ortaya koymaya çalışmalarıdır. Kelâmda mevcut, ma’dum, kadîm, muhdes, cevher, araz gibi ontolojik kavramların daha genelde bilinenler (malumat) kümesinin unsurları olmasından da anlaşılacağı üzere kelamcılar Tanrı’nın varlığı konusunu bilgiye konu olmak bakımından ele almaktadırlar. Bu durum kelâmcılara göre Allah’ın varlığının bilgisine (marifetgullah) ulaşmanın bir epistemoloji meselesi olduğunu ortaya koyar. Bu makalede Mu’tezile kelamında önemli bir yeri olan (...) Kādî Abdülcebbâr’ın (ö. 415/1025) Tanrı’nın varlığını benimsediği bilgi teorisi ekseninde nasıl ispat etmeye çalıştığı ortaya konulacaktır. Bu doğrultuda makalede öncelikle Kādî’nin bilgiyi nasıl tanımladığı ve bu tanımında kendisinden önceki kelâmcılardan benzeşip farklılaştığı yerler ele alınacaktır. Ardından Kādî’nin bilgi edinme kaynaklarını “zorunlu” ve “iktisabi” bilgi türleri kapsamında nasıl tasnif ettiği ele alınacaktır. Son olarak Kādî’nin Tanrı’nın varlığını ortaya koyduğu bilgi teorisini ekseninde akli delilere dayalı olarak nasıl ispat etmeye çalıştığı ele alınacaktır. (shrink)

One and a half months after Victor Hugo died in 1885, Beşir Fuad published a biography of him, in which Fuad defended Emile Zola’s naturalism and realism against Hugo’s romanticism. This resulted in the most important dispute in nineteenth-century Turkish literary history, the hakikiyyûn and hayâliyyûn debate, with the former represented by Beşir Fuad and the latter represented by Menemenlizâde Mehmet Tahir. This article focuses on the form of this debate rather than its content, and this focus reveals how (...) the tension between classical and post-classical Islamic intellectual history had become deeply embedded in Ottoman Turkish literary history by the late 1800s. This particular event demonstrates two points: that dialectical disputation was viewed negatively as a return to the seemingly primitive practices of an antiquated mentality, as opposed to the relatively enlightened apodictic argumentation ; and that trajectories of Ottoman Turkish literary history can be understood within the context of general Islamic intellectual history. (shrink)

n his 1785 review of Herder’s Ideen zur Geschichte der Menschheit Kant stresses the negative effects of sensibility and imagination in undermining philosophy. This essay will offer a defence of Herder against Kant in order to gesture towards a more positive account of the cognitive function of these capacities. I will argue that the eighteenth-century fascination with the experimental sciences and the demand to engage in anti-speculative philosophy in fact called for the integration of sensibility and imagination. The reason for (...) this call is that it is in virtue of these capacities that the mind is able to focus on the world of particulars and avoid the kind of metaphysical speculation that came under attack for its failure to account for the experienceable reality of human life. By analysing which cognitive role Herder attributes to our sensible and imaginative engagement with the world, it will emerge that the kind of inquiry advocated as a remedy against school metaphysics was not a reductive form of verificationism that pits the benefits of observation against reason, but a position marked by the belief that the mind’s best results can be achieved only if it commits itself to an integrated use of its rational and non-rational capacities. (shrink)

In the Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge, Condillac argues that humans develop reason only once they have discovered the function of signs and the use of language in their encounters with others. Commentators like Hans Aarsleff and Charles Taylor believe that a precondition for this discovery is the presence of a special human capacity: the capacity to reflectively relate to what is given in experience. The problem with this claim is that it returns Condillac to a form of (...) innatism from which he was keen to escape, because it assumes that human minds are reflective qua original endowment. I argue that Condillac attributed limited value to explanations based on the static analysis of innate natures and instead opted for a dynamic examination of developmental trajectories enabled through species-specific embodied experiences. Through this dynamic approach, he was able to do two things at once: explain how it is possible that human cognition is of a unique superior kind, while at the same time defending the view that humans are like any other species in that they form species-specific mental features through their experiential engagement with the contingent circumstances of life. (shrink)

Herder brings the entire human being into focus by tracing its connections with the natural, cultural, and historical world. The first part of the volume examines the various dimensions of Herder’s philosophical understanding of human nature through which he sought methodologically to delineate a genuinely anthropological philosophy. This includes his critique of traditional metaphysics and its revision along anthropological lines; the metaphysical, epistemological, and physiological dimensions of his theory of the soul-body relationship; his conception of aesthetics as the study of (...) the sensuous basis of knowledge; and the relationship between the human and natural sciences. The second part then examines further aspects of this understanding of human nature and what emerges from it: the human-animal distinction; how human life evolves over space and time on the basis of a natural order; the fundamentally hermeneutic dimension to human existence; and the interrelatedness of language, history, religion, and culture. (shrink)

Commentators usually agree that Locke's discussion of thinking matter is intended to undermine the plausibility of the belief in the existence of the soul. In this paper I argue that, instead of trying to reveal the implausibility of this belief, Locke seeks to rid the concept of the soul of its traditional cognitive and moral functions in order to render references to the soul redundant in philosophical explanations of the nature of human beings and their place in the world. On (...) this reading, the driving force behind Locke's discussion is not a sceptical problem posed by the impossibility of proving the existence of the soul, but the wish to maximize the ability of limited creatures such as ourselves to engage positively with their lives in the here and now. Locke's experience-focused philosophy will here present itself as a position with significant moral implications. (shrink)

The present volume joins contributions to early modern debates on nature and norms in thought with decidedly contemporary perspectives, thereby hoping to shed new light on developments in early modern philosophy as well as enrich current discussions on the relation between nature and norms. Clearly, the relation between mind and world poses perennial problems and debates. How do we explain that thoughts and other mental states have content? What makes it the case that some thought is about this rather than (...) that thing? Do our perceptions and thoughts match the world? How do we categorize things? Do our concepts carve up nature at its joints? Is thinking a kind of action? Where does it take place? Is it embodied? What makes thoughts and sentences true or false? Do beliefs aim at truth? Do true beliefs constitute knowledge? What makes our thoughts adequate? Can our beliefs fail to reach epistemic goals? Does thought depend on interaction with other thinkers? Can other animals think too? Do we need language to think? Can we ever be sure about anything? (shrink)

In this essay I will argue that although Rousseau often invokes the concept of nature as a fixed point of reference in the evaluation of personal traits, and individual and collective practices, a closer look at the dynamics of the educational programme laid out in his Emile shows that for him human nature has to emerge in a process that combines the influence of nature and artifice. This process is essentially enabled by Emile's sensibility that, as I will claim, can (...) be conceived as a natural property geared towards development and change in relation to a specific social environment. By confronting him with artfully orchestrated stimuli, this environment ensures that he “naturally” develops in line with a normatively laden conception of society. (shrink)

Philosophen der Frühen Neuzeit werden gemeinhin als Ideen-Theoretiker verstanden, wobei Ideen als eine Barriere zwischen dem denkenden Subjekt und der Welt begriffen werden. In dem vorliegenden Artikel geht es mir darum, eine kritische Überprüfung des überholten Begriffsschemas anhand einer Auseinandersetzung mit Humes Theorie der Assoziation anzuregen. Es wird gezeigt, dass Ideen in der Interaktion zwischen dem Subjekt und seiner sozialen und natürlichen Umwelt entstehen. So ist es nicht die innere Privatheit des Bewusstseins, die für die Herausbildung von Ideen maßgeblich ist, (...) sondern auf Erfahrung gestützte Gewohnheitsbildung und Assoziation. Die Etikettierung als Ideen-Theoretiker verdeckt diesen grundlegenden Aspekt frühneuzeitlichen Denkens, so dass es oft zu einer Überbetonung skeptischer Probleme und anschließenden Rettungsversuchen kommt, die einem besseren Verständnis eher hinderlich als förderlich sind. (shrink)

By investigating one of the major inconsistencies that Hume's parallel treatment of the identity of persons and objects issues, this essay offers an unconventional account of what it needs to avoid a dualist picture of mind and world. It will be argued that much hinges on the question of whether or not one is willing to allow the principally unperceivable to enter into one's concept of reality. Hume, as will be shown, rejects this approach: he denies that we have reason (...) to think that there are substances that divide the world into two separate realms. The strategic value of this move is that it enables us to think of minds in terms similar to those underlying our conception of physical objects without urging us to engage in reductionist or eliminativist projects. (shrink)

Plato’s view on pleasure in the Republic emerges in the course of developing the third proof of his central thesis that the just man is happier than the unjust. Plato presents it as the “greatest and most decisive” proof of his central thesis, so one might expect to find an abundance of scholarly work on it. Paradoxically, however, this argument has received little attention from scholars, and what has been written on it has generally been harshly critical. I believe that (...) this treatment of the argument has been unfair and that the relevant passages deserve a more careful and charitable interpretation. In this paper, I take up two serious charges that scholars have leveled against this proof, that it is inconsistent and that it involves a “fatal ambiguity”. I show that these charges result from misinterpreting Plato’s text, and I offer an alternative interpretation of the relevant passages. In doing so, I hope to shed some light on the complexities involved in Plato’s unappreciated third proof. (shrink)

Research suggests that organizational justice has important impacts on work-related attitudes and behaviors, such as organizational citizenship behavior. In this article, we explore the extent to which individualism moderates the relationship between organizational justice and OCB among citizens in Kyrgyzstan. We make additional contributions to the literature because we know very little about these constructs in this former Soviet Union country, Kyrgyzstan, an under-researched and under-represented region of the world. Results of our data collected from 402 managers and employees in (...) Kyrgyzstan offer the following new discoveries. All three justice constructs are related to OCB. Individualism moderates only the distributive and interactive justice to OCB relationships. We develop an intricate theory with provocative implications: Procedural justice produces obedience. For “individualists,” interactional justice inspires loyalty and, interestingly, distributive justice “can only buy” participation, but “can’t buy” loyalty. Therefore, for individualists, interactional justice outweighs distributive justice for organizational loyalty. Based on Kyrgyz citizens’ justice, OCB, and individualism, our theory reveals novel insights regarding culture, money attitude, and intrinsic motivation and provides critical and practical implications to the field of business ethics. (shrink)

In this paper, I investigate the logical relation between two claims: observations are theory-laden1 and there is no empirical common ground upon which to evaluate successive scientific theories that belong to different paradigms. I, first, construct an argument where is the main premise and is the conclusion. I argue that the term „theory-laden” has three distinct senses: semantic, psychological and epistemic. If ‘theory-laden’ is understood in either epistemic or psychological senses, then the conclusion becomes a claim about people. If incommensurability (...) is to be a claim about theories, then ‘theory-laden’ in the main premise should be understood in the semantic sense. I, then, argue that there is a further distinction to be drawn between the absolute and relative senses of theory-laden. The relative sense of theory-laden allows observations that are relatively neutral between the theories under examination. I then conclude that the argument from theory-ladenness only shows that foundational empiricism is not a tenable philosophical position, but it fails to show that no empirical test can decide between successive theories that belong to different paradigms. (shrink)

Rigveda, Hint alt kıtasının en eski metinlerinden biri olarak, antik Vedik dönemin dini, felsefi ve kültürel yaşamına dair paha biçilmez bilgiler sunar. Bu kutsal kitap, karmaşık ilahiler, ritüeller ve mitolojik anlatılar yoluyla Hindistan’ın manevi ve düşünsel mirasının temellerini şekillendirir. Bu çalışma, Hint kültürünün köklerini ve gelişimini anlamada kritik bir rol oynayarak, yüzyıllar boyunca süregelen dini ritüeller, sosyal yapılar ve kozmolojik anlayışların şekillenmesine dair önemli veriler sunar. Makale, Rigveda’da yer alan Vedik yacña (kurban) ritüelini mercek altına alır; özellikle Soma kurbanının detaylı (...) ritüellerine ve rahiplerin bu törenlerdeki kritik rollerine dikkat çeker. Bu inceleme, eski Hint toplumunda rahiplerin dini ve sosyo-ekonomik etkilerini vurgulayarak, onların toplumdaki yerini ve önemini tartışır. Seçilen ilahilerin niteliksel tematik analizi, karmaşık ritüelistik çerçeveyi çözerek rahiplerin çok yönlü işlevlerine ve Vedik toplumunun toplumsal ve ruhani dengesini korumak için çok önemli bir rahip ücretlendirme biçimi olan ‘dakşiṇā’ sisteminin etkilerine ışık tutmaktadır. Araştırma, ritüelistik performanslar ile doğal dünya arasında simbiyotik bir ilişki olduğunu ileri sürerek, bu ritüellerin etkili bir şekilde uygulanmasının başta yağış olmak üzere çevresel olayları etkilediğine inanıldığını ve böylece insan dini pratiklerinin kozmik düzenle iç içe geçtiğini öne sürmektedir. Metinsel incelemeyi bilimsel yorumlarla bütünleştiren bu çalışma, Vedik kurban uygulamalarına dair kavrayışımızı geliştirmekte ve bunları Vedik dünya görüşünün şekillenmesinde merkezi bir rol oynayan manevi niyetler, maddi sonuçlar ve kozmolojik ilkelerin sofistike bir sentezi olarak tasvir etmektedir. Çalışma, bu eski ritüellerin ruhban sınıfı ile halk arasında nasıl karşılıklı bir dinamik oluşturduğunu, sosyal hiyerarşileri güçlendirirken aynı zamanda topluluğun manevi ve maddi refahını nasıl sağladığını incelemektedir. Bulgular, Vedik ritüellerin yalnızca dini törenler olarak değil, eski Hindistan’ın kültürel ethosunu, toplumsal yapılarını ve dini doktrinlerini şekillendiren temel unsurlar olarak kalıcı etkisinin altını çizmektedir. Rigveda’da ifade edildiği şekliyle kurban uygulamaları, toplumsal uyum için kritik bir araç olarak ortaya çıkmakta, ruhani ve zamansal olanın birbirine bağlılığına dair köklü bir inancı yerleştirmekte ve böylece Vedik dinin aşkın ve pragmatik boyutlarına dair incelikli bir bakış açısı sunmaktadır. Bu çalışma, Vedik kurban ritüelleri, sosyal düzenin oluşumu ve kadim Hint düşüncesinde tanrısalın nasıl algılandığı arasındaki kompleks bağlantıyı açıklamakta, böylece bu eski törenlerin Hinduizm’deki sonraki dini ve kültürel pratikler üzerindeki kalıcı etkisini ve mirasını detaylı bir şekilde ortaya koymaktadır. (shrink)

Nancy Cartwright (1983, 1999) argues that (1) the fundamental laws of physics are true when and only when appropriate ceteris paribus modifiers are attached and that (2) ceteris paribus modifiers describe conditions that are almost never satisfied. She concludes that when the fundamental laws of physics are true, they don't apply in the real world, but only in highly idealized counterfactual situations. In this paper, we argue that (1) and (2) together with an assumption about contraposition entail the opposite conclusion (...) — that the fundamental laws of physics do apply in the real world. Cartwright extracts from her thesis about the inapplicability of fundamental laws the conclusion that they cannot figure in covering-law explanations. We construct a different argument for a related conclusion — that forward-directed idealized dynamical laws cannot provide covering-law explanations that are causal. This argument is neutral on whether the assumption about contraposition is true. We then discuss Cartwright's simulacrum account of explanation, which seeks to describe how idealized laws can be explanatory. (shrink)

Sober [2011] argues that some causal statements are a priori true and that a priori causal truths are central to explanations in the theory of natural selection. Lange and Rosenberg [2011] criticize Sober's argument. They concede that there are a priori causal truths, but maintain that those truths are only ‘minimally causal’. They also argue that explanations that are built around a priori causal truths are not causal explanations, properly speaking. Here we criticize both of Lange and Rosenberg's claims.

Kant introduces empiricism as a deficient position that is unsuitable for the generation of scientific knowledge. The reason for this is that, according to him, empiricism fails to connect with the world by remaining trapped within the realm of appearances. If we follow Galen’s account of the debate ensuing among Hellenistic doctors in the third century B.C., empiricism presents itself in an entirely different light. It emerges as a position that criticises medical practitioners who stray away from the here and (...) now by indulging in theory-driven a priori forms of reasoning. In so doing empiricism remains at all times committed to the world and its agents. In this paper Galen’s account of empiricism will serve me as a means to unravel the dynamics of a discussion that aims to reassess the standards of a dogmatic scientific practice. By looking at Bacon’s and Gassendi’s perception of the ancient medical tradition I will furthermore show that the understanding of what empiricism is crucially depends on the understanding of what scepticism is. (shrink)

In this essay I endeavour to discern a possible foundation for Hume's underlying assumption that human minds are similar to each other. The aim of this is to provide a new approach towards A Treatise of Human Nature that links Books II and III with Hume's epistemological discussion in Book I by providing a detailed analysis of the structural parallels and differences between sympathy and causal reasoning. Against this background, the belief in other minds will turn out to pertain to (...) the class of natural beliefs which draw their legitimacy from Hume's attack on the metaphysical notion of reason. (shrink)

In this essay I argue that one of the things that matters most to Descartes' account of mind is that we use our minds actively. This is because for him only an active mind is able to re-organize its passionate experiences in such a way that a genuinely human, self-governed life of virtue and true contentment becomes possible. To bring out this connection, I will read the Meditations against the backdrop of Descartes' correspondence with Elisabeth. This will reveal that in (...) Descartes' writings there is a crucial connection between the conception of ourselves as dreamers and the idea that we fail to realize our true potential as self-determined, active agents. Dreams, as Descartes conceives them, are passively received mental states that inhibit our freedom to use reason at will. To awaken here takes the form of activating our thoughts, which holds the key to freeing ourselves from the stimulus-response patterns that Descartes takes to be at work in animal conduct. Applied to the Meditations, these insights suggest that this work engages in questions far beyond the epistemological agenda. By activating the mind, the Meditations teach us how to realize our true human potential as virtuous thinkers and passionate agents. (shrink)

This essay argues that Herder’s conception of history as a form of natural growth is grounded in his claim that humans are a part of nature and develop historically situated forms of reason in communication with the features of their natural and social environments. By stressing this developmental aspect of human reason, Herder not only helps us to correct an overly universalistic conception of reason that ignores the importance of situational contexts in the shaping of cognitive structures; he also allows (...) us to comprehend that the very capacity that has traditionally been seen as distinguishing humans from all other animals—namely human reason—evolves out of a capacity we share with them, namely the capacity to adapt to specific environmental demands. (shrink)

Research into spirituality and its impact on the work environment has been bourgeoning. In an attempt to explore the role of Islamic spirituality in the workplace, this study examines the influence of Islamic spirituality on job satisfaction and organisational commitment through work ethics. Data are obtained by an online Likert-scaled questionnaire survey based on one thousand Muslim employees from various economic sectors in Indonesia and analysed through structural equation modelling (SEM). The findings demonstrate that Islamic spirituality positively influences job satisfaction (...) and organisational commitment as two dimensions of work attitudes and that work ethics mediate that influence. There is also evidence that job satisfaction positively influences organisational commitment, but work ethics does not moderate that influence. The findings related to the role of work ethics, which mediates the effect of Islamic spirituality on job satisfaction and organisational commitment, can be considered the contribution of this study. (shrink)

In this article, I engage with the queries, comments, and suggestions raised by my commentators. I proceed in the order of the original contributions, which more or less follows the order to the ch...

By examining the concept of experience in the theorizing of Descartes, Locke, Hume, Rousseau, Herder and Kant, Experience Embodied ventures to provide a re-evaluation of one of the most firmly esta...

Hume’s account of sympathy has often been taken to describe what the discovery of so-called mirror neurons has suggested, namely, that we are able to understand one another’s emotions and beliefs through experiences that require no mediating thoughts and exactly resemble the experiences of the observed person. I will oppose this interpretation by arguing that, on Hume’s standard account, sympathy is a mechanism that produces ideas and beliefs prior to the emergence of shared feelings. To stress this aspect of Humean (...) sympathy is to show that the experiences, which mirror neurons apparently cause us to have, may well count as inferentially derived emotion-laden beliefs, thus undermining the opposition between experience-grounded and inference-based accounts of mind-reading. (shrink)

In his 1785-review of the Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit, Kant objects to Herder's conception of nature as being imbued with active forces. This attack is usually evaluated against the background of Kant's critical project and his epistemological concern to caution against the “metaphysical excess” of attributing immanent properties to matter. In this paper I explore a slightly different reading by investigating Kant's pre-critical account of creation and generation. The aim of this is to show that Kant's struggle (...) with the forces of matter has a long history and revolves around one central problem: that of how to distinguish between the non-purposive forces of nature and the intentional powers of the mind. Given this history, the epistemic stricture that Kant's critical project imposes on him no longer appears to be the primary reason for his attack on Herder. It merely aggravates a problem that Kant has been battling with since his earliest writings. (shrink)

Abū al-Ḥusayn Aḥmad b. Yaḥyā Ibn al-Rāwandī(815–860 or 910), perhaps one of the most controversial figures in early Islamic history, is frequently called the “arch-heretic” (zindīq or mulḥid) of Islam. He was born in Khurasan around 815 CE. but flourished among intellectuals in ninth century in Baghdad. Around the year 854, he left Baghdad to escape political persecution and died either in 860 or in 910, according to some sources. The details of his early life are unknown, and documentation of (...) Ibn al-Rāwandī began to surface once he became an intellectual enemy of his fellow Muʿtazilites, the rationalist thinkers of Islamic thought at the time. Information on Ibn al-Rāwandī is gathered mostly from the writings of his opponents. From these sources, we learn that both Muslims and non-Muslims (especially Jews) wrote polemics against Ibn al-Rāwandī in which they acknowledged the serious threat his work posed not only to Islam, but also to Judaism and all Abrahamic religions. (shrink)

We provide experimental evidence that subjects blame others based on events they are not responsible for. In our experiment an agent chooses between a lottery and a safe asset; payment from the chosen option goes to a principal who then decides how much to allocate between the agent and a third party. We observe widespread blame: regardless of their choice, agents are blamed by principals for the outcome of the lottery, an event they are not responsible for. We provide an (...) explanation of this apparently irrational behavior with a delegated-expertise principal-agent model, the subjects’ salient perturbation of the environment. (shrink)

In this paper, I investigate the nature of a priori biological laws in connection with the idea that laws must be empirical. I argue that the epistemic functions of a priori biological laws in biology are the same as those of empirical laws in physics. Thus, the requirement that laws be empirical is idle in connection with how laws operate in science. This result presents a choice between sticking with an unmotivated philosophical requirement and taking the functional equivalence of laws (...) seriously and modifying our philosophical account. I favor the latter. (shrink)

Arap şiirinde özhiciv kültürünü yansıtan örneklerin analiz edildiği bu çalışmada, klasik Arap şiirinde özhiciv olgusu şiirin aykırı bir teması perspektifinden incelenmiştir. Câhiliye sonrası Arap toplumunda devletleşmeyle birlikte kabile birliğine dayalı sistemin nispeten yerini bireyselliğe bırakması ve bireyin kabile taassubundan bağımsızlaşması, hiciv anlayışında bazı dönüşümleri beraberinde getirmiştir. Böylece korkutmak, azarlamak ve itibarsızlaştırmak gibi hicivde aranan ve onu etkili kılan pek çok özellik işlevini yitirerek yerini eğlendirme ve güldürmeye bırakmıştır. Bu çerçevede özhiciv gibi ilginç bir tür ortaya çıkmış ve bu türde nitelikli (...) örnekler sergilenmiştir. Arap edebiyatının farklı dönemlerinde kendini hicvetmeye dair örneklerin izini süren bu çalışmada, ilgili malzemenin analizi yoluyla bu olgunun öncüleri, arka planındaki etkenler ve kullanıldığı bağlamlar tespit edilip ortaya konulması amaçlanmıştır. Arap dili ve belagati sahasında hiciv konusunu işleyen çeşitli düzeylerde akademik çalışmalar mevcuttur. Ancak tespit edebildiğimiz kadarıyla ülkemizde klasik Arap edebiyatında kendini hicveden şairleri doğrudan konu edinen herhangi bir çalışmaya rastlanmamıştır. Böylesine özgün bir tema üzerinde, Arap edebiyatının farklı dönemlerini kapsayacak şekilde derinlemesine ve ayrıntılı müstakil çalışmaların eksikliği, bu konunun ele alınmasını zorunlu kılan ana etkenlerden birisi olmuştur. Müstesna bir tema hüviyetini arz eden özhicve dair verilerin klasik edebî kaynaklarda dağınık olarak yer alması ya da yeterince ele alınmamış olması, bu olgunun Arap şiirinin kültürel sistemine aykırılığıyla birlikte, üzerinde düşünülmesi gereken önemli konular arasındadır. Bu çerçevede önce özhiciv ve ilintili kavramlar üzerinde durularak aralarındaki fark ortaya konulmaya çalışılmış, ardından özhicvin tarihçesi ve klasik Arap şiirindeki yeri ele alınmıştır. Son olarak doğrudan ve dolaylı olarak kendini hicvederek nadide örnekler sergileyen ve özhiciv geleneğinin gelişmesinde rol oynayan bazı şairler üzerinde durulmuştur. (shrink)

Thirteen scholars offer new essays exploring the question at the heart of J. G. Herder's thought: How can philosophy enable an understanding of the human being not simply as an intellectual and moral agent, but also as a creature of nature who is fundamentally marked by an affective openness and responsiveness to the world and other persons?