This article presents an analysis of a short treatise entitled Ādāb al-Baḥth wa al-Munāẓarah (The art of discussion and disputation) by the celebrated Ottoman scholar Abu al-Khayr ‘Iṣām al-Dīn Aḥmad ibn Muṣṭafā ibn Khalīl Ṭāshkubrīzādah or Ṭaşköprüzade (d. 968 AH/ 1561 CE). An overview of the nomenclature and a brief introduction about the author and his work will be presented along with an annotated English translation of the text in order to highlight Ṭaşköprüzade’s contribution to this nearly forgotten discipline.

Modern zamanlarda dinî bilginin edinim ve aktarım yolları daha çok teknolojinin getirdiği imkanlar etrafında şekillenmektedir. Sosyal medya platformları güncel haberlerin yanı sıra dinî bilgilerin de paylaşıldığı mecralar olmuş ve dinî bilginin kontrolsüzce kitlesel etkileşime açık hale gelmesine yol açmıştır. Ülkemiz özelinde dinî gün ve gecelere özel önem atfedildiği varsayımından hareketle pek çok kişi, kurum ve platform bu zaman dilimlerinde hitap ettikleri kitlelere kutsallık atfedilen zamanlarla ilgili dinî içerikler üretmektedir. Bir haber sitesinin dinî bilgiyi paylaşması bir kenara taharetten vasiyete kadar dinin (...) bütün alanlarını kapsayacak şekilde içerik üretmesi, fetva vermesi ve yönlendirici birtakım uygulamaları tavsiye etmesi, önemli bir hazırlık ve alt yapı çalışması gerektirir. Dinî içerik üretenlerin modern zamanda sıklıkla yapılan kopyala-yapıştır düşüncesi içinde hareket etmeleri, milyonlarca takipçisi olan platformlarda dinî dezenformasyonun önünü açabilir. Bununla birlikte paylaşılan bilgilerin içinde yer verilen görsellerin seçiminde yapılan dikkatsizlik, kitlelerin dine ait algılarının olumsuz şekillenmesine neden olabilir. Esasında ucu açık bir platform olan internet ortamında bilginin paylaşımından ziyade doğruluğu ve güvenilirliği konuları her geçen gün daha da önem kazanmakla birlikte içeriklerin medyatik formlar taşıması/magazinleşmesi bir başka problemi doğurmaktadır. Yayın ilkelerinde “bilginin evrenselliğine inanarak toplumun gelişmesi için bilgilendirici ve eğitici yayınları ön yargılardan arınmış saplantısız bir yaklaşımla ortaya koyduğunu” belirten haber7.com isimli sitede, Yasemin bölümü Masiva alt başlığında dinî içerikler paylaşılmaktadır. İlgili bölümde kıyamet alametleri, fal baktırmak, kabir azabı, arife günü duası, üç ayların fazileti, cuma günü zikirleri başta olmak üzere tövbe namazı, evlilik, aile içi huzuru temin için yapılması istenen fiiller ve nazar boncuğu takma gibi pek çok konu hakkında bilgi bulunmaktadır. Masiva platformu dinî bilgileri paylaşırken birtakım görseller kullanmaktadır. Bu çalışmada dinin medyatikleşmesi konusu üzerinde durulacak popüler din algısının dinî içerik paylaşımındaki rolüne temas edilecektir. Muhafazakâr yayın çizgisine sahip olduğu düşünülen haber7.com sitesinde özellikle dinî/mübarek kabul edilen zaman dilimlerinden üç aylarla ilgili üretilen dinî içerikler, doğruluk ve güvenilirlik ilkeleri açısından incelenecektir. Ayrıca ortaya konulan verilerin analizi, başta hadis olmak üzere fıkıh ilmi açısından gerçekleştirilecek; özellikle hadis olarak zikredilen metinlerin kaynakları ve sıhhat değerleri tespit edilecektir. Çalışmanın nihai hedefi, dinî olduğu varsayılan bilgilerin paylaşım amacı, mahiyeti, kaynağı, doğruluğu ve güvenilirliği gibi problematikleri tespit etmek, dinî bilgilerin bilgilendirme aracı olarak kullanılırken dikkat edilmesi gereken noktalara işaret etmektir. (shrink)

If one thing that the failed coup by a small but some of the top hierarchy of Turkish armed forces on that fateful July 15, 2016 day made clear, it was: the ordinary civilians, unarmed as they were poured into the streets to defend the government whatever way they can. This massive public sympathy and support for Turkish resident Erdogan and his government would be hard, if not impossible to understand, without knowing the historical intellectual, academic, and moral combat between (...) the modernists and Islamist groups working within the country. Mustafa Kamal had turned Turkey, mostly by force, from Ottoman Empire into the secular mode using military power. Various Islamic revolutionary outfits struggled for the revival of Ottoman Empire. Among them Bedi-uz-Zaman Said Nursi managed to cast a strong influence. A little slow but steadfast effort influenced by Nursi movement. Islam-shy Western powers managed alternate power structure against sitting President Tayyep Erdogan. They, however, failed due to result oriented social work delivered by his regime as Mayor and Prime Minister. It is a lesson for other revolutionaries and Governments especially for Islamic revolutionaries that if politicians deliver no power can oust them like a bee from butter. (shrink)

Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (1838-97) was a pan-Islamic thinker, political activist, and journalist, who sought to revive Islamic thought and liberate the Muslim world from Western influence. Many aspects of his life and his background remain unknown or controversial, including his birthplace, his religious affiliation, and the cause of his death. He was likely born in Asadabad, near present-day Hamadan, Iran. His better known history begins when he was 18, with a one-year stay in India that coincided with the Sepoy Mutiny (...) of 1857-59. In what would become a life of constant travel, he soon went to Mecca to perform Hajj, before returning to Afghanistan to join the service of the country's ruler, Dost Mohammad Khan (1793-1863). He later sided with Dost's son Mohammad Aʻzam, who ultimately lost in a power struggle with his British-supported brother Sher Ali. Al-Afghani's political activism eventually took him to Paris, London, Tehran, Saint Petersburg, and Constantinople. It was during his second stay in Egypt (1871-79) that he cemented his role as a reformer. He found in Cairo a class of young intellectuals who gathered around him, established newspapers, and used these papers to disseminate his ideas. Chief among al-Afghani's Egyptian disciples were scholar Muhammad ʻAbduh, journalist ʻAbd Allah al-Nadim, and nationalist politicians Mustafa Kamil and Saʻd Zaghlul. Al-Afghani's influence on both modernist and traditionalist Islamic thought continues to the present. An activist who sought to effect change through political journalism and public speaking, he did not write many books. This treatise, entitled al-Radd ʻalā al-dahrīyīn (Refutation of the materialists), was a rebuttal of the views of the pro-British Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan, who had argued that science is more important than religion in the rise of civilizations. First written in Persian following al-Afghani's exile from Egypt to India, it was translated into Arabic by his student Muhammad ʻAbduh, with the help of al-Afghani's assistant Arif Efendi. (shrink)

Çalışma, Muhammed b. Mustafa el-Alâî’ye (ö. 1234/1818) nispet edilen Şerḥ-i İrâde-i cüzʾiyye risâlesinin ona aidiyeti üzerine yoğunlaşacaktır. Muhammed b. Mustafa el-Alâî’nin kendisine ait olduğunu söylediği ve ona nispet edilen Şerḥ-i İrâde-i cüzʾiyye risâlesi aslında Dâvûd-i Karsî’nin (ö. 1169/1756) Risâle fi’l-iḫtiyârâti’l-cüzʾiyye ve’l-irâdâti’l-ḳalbiyye adlı risâlesinin kısmen değiştirilmiş bir versiyonudur. Alâî, Karsî’nin risâlesinden ihtiyaç duymadığı bazı bağlam ve konuları çıkararak ve gerekli gördüğü bazı başlıkları da Ebû Saîd el-Hâdimî’nin (ö. 1176/1762) el-Berîḳatu’l-maḥmûdiyye eserinden eklemeler yaparak oluşturduğu Şerḥ-i İrâde-i cüzʾiyye risâlesi, içerik açısından dikkate alındığında (...) intihalin en bariz görüldüğü bir eser niteliğindedir. Osmanlı ilim düşüncesi dikkate alındığında irade ve insan fiilleri konusunda büyük bir literatürün ortaya konulduğu ve bu metinlerin konu hakkında belli bir fikrin yerleşmesinde etkisi olduğu bilinmektedir. Belli bir dönemde telif edilen risâlelerin muhteva olarak sonraki risâle ve eserlerin muhtevasını etkilemiş olması ve bu nedenle kısmî tedâhüllerin olması sıkça karşılaşılan bir durumdur. Fakat başkasına ait bir telif üzerinde tikel bir değişiklik yaparak eseri kendisine nispet etmek ilmî olarak kabul edilemez bir durumdur. Araştırmanın konusu olan Alâî’nin risâlesi de ikinci türden bir risâle hüviyetindedir. Risâlenin tamamına yakın bir bölümü Karsî’nin konu hakkındaki risâlesi kısmen değiştirilerek oluşturulmuş ve Dâvûd-i Karsî’ye herhangi bir atıfta bulunulmamıştır. Bu çalışmada amaçlanan ise Alâî’nin kendisine nispet ettiği bu risâlenin aslında Karsî’ye ait olduğunu karşılaştırmalı tablolar üzerinden ortaya koymaktır. Bu bağlamda hem Karsî hem de Alâî’ye ait her iki metin tablolar üzerinden baştan sona kadar karşılaştırılmış; ortak ve farklı noktalar tespit edilerek gösterilmeye çalışılmıştır. Karşılaştırmalar neticesinde risâlenin Karsî’ye aidiyeti kesin şekilde tespit edildiğinden bahsi geçen intihal olgusunun bizzat Alâî tarafından mı, yoksa başka birisi tarafından mı yapıldığı sorusuna dikkat çekilmiştir. Ayrıca Alâî’nin Ebû Saîd el-Hâdimî’den kaynak göstermeden alıntı yaptığı yerler de tespit edilerek metin üzerinde farklı bir renkle gösterilmiştir. Son olarak bütünsel bir bakış imkânı sunması için Alâî’ye ait risâlenin tahkiki de yapılmıştır. Metnin tahkikinde Karsî’nin metninde mevcut olup Alâî’nin metninde olmayan ve anlamı tamamlayan kelimeler ile cümleler köşeli parantez içinde gösterilmiştir. Ayrıca Karsî’nin metninde metin-şerh ayrımı olduğundan Alâî’nin risâlesindeki bu ayrım da tespit edilmiş böylece metin bold ve parantez içinde gösterilirken şerh ise normal yazı stiliyle gösterilmiştir. Çünkü bu metin-şerh ayrımının gösterilmesi, metnin anlaşılması ve bütünlüğü açısından elzem bir durum arz etmektedir. (shrink)

Most philosophers agree that causal knowledge is essential to decision-making: agents should choose from the available options those that probably cause the outcomes that they want. This book argues against this theory and in favour of evidential or Bayesian decision theory, which emphasises the symptomatic value of options over their causal role. It examines a variety of settings, including economic theory, quantum mechanics and philosophical thought-experiments, where causal knowledge seems to make a practical difference. The arguments make novel use of (...) machinery from other areas of philosophical inquiry, including first-person epistemology and the free will debate. The book also illustrates the applicability of decision theory itself to questions about the direction of time and the special epistemic status of agents. (shrink)

Causal decision theory (CDT) cares only about the effects of a contemplated act, not its causes. The article constructs a case in which CDT consequently recommends a bet that the agent is certain to lose, rather than a bet that she is certain to win. CDT is plainly giving wrong advice in this case. It therefore stands refuted. 1 The Argument2 The Argument in More Detail2.1 The betting mechanism2.2 Soft determinism2.3 The content of P 2.4 The argument again3 The Descriptive (...) Premise3.1 Causal decision theory3.2 Causal decision theory prefers A14 The Normative Premise5 Objections5.1 Table 1 and Table 2 are misleading5.2 The agency theory of causation5.3 The payment mechanism5.4 Newcomb’s problem5.5 Against the normative premise5.6 Drop soft determinism. (shrink)

This paper argues that evidential decision theory is incompatible with options having objective values. If options have objective values, then it should always be rationally permissible for an agent to choose an option if they are certain that the option uniquely maximizes objective value. But, as we show, if options have objective values and evidential decision theory is true, then it is not always rationally permissible for an agent to choose an option if they are certain that the option uniquely (...) maximizes objective value. (shrink)

has offered evidential decision theorists a defence against the charge that they make unintuitive recommendations for cases like Newcomb's Problem. He says that when conditional probabilities are assessed from the agent's point of view, evidential decision theory makes the same recommendation as intuition. I argue that calculating the probabilities in Price's way leads to no recommendation. It condemns the agent to perpetual oscillation between different options. Price's Argument Instability Objections Conclusion.

This article offers the concept of `global modernity' (in the singular) as a way to understand the contemporary world. It suggests that the concept helps overcome the teleology implicit in a term such as globalization, while it also recognizes global difference and conflict, which are as much characteristics of the contemporary world as tendencies toward unity and homogenization. These differences, and the appearance of `alternative' or `multiple' modernities, it suggests, are expressions, and articulations, of the contradictions of modernity which are (...) now universalized across, as well as within, societies. If we are to speak of alternative or multiple modernities, which presently valorize the persistence of traditions and `civilizational' legacies, we need to recognize that the very language of alternatives and multiplicity is enabled historically by the presupposition of a common modernity shaped by a globalizing capitalism. (shrink)

Deductive inference seems to reveal semantic connections between their premise(s) and conclusion that were there all along. This looks inconsistent with Wittgenstein's later views on meaning. The paper argues that W's treatment of aspects suggests a Wittgensteinian treatment of deduction that accommodates the troublesome phenomenon without conceding its force.

Opponents of Causal Decision Theory (CDT) sometimes claim (i) that it gives the wrong advice in Egan-style cases, where the CDT-endorsed act brings news that it causes a bad outcome; (ii) that CDT gives the right advice in Newcomb cases, where it is known in advance that the CDT-act causes you to be richer than the alternative. This paper argues that (i) and (ii) cannot both be true if rational preference over acts is transitive.

Published in 1953, Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations had a deeply unsettling effect upon our most basic philosophical ideas concerning thought, sensation and language. Its claim that philosophical questions of meaning necessitate a close analysis of the way we use language continues to influence Anglo-American philosophy today. However, its compressed and dialogic prose is not always easy to follow. This collection of essays deepens but also challenges our understanding of the work's major themes, such as the connection between meaning and use, the (...) nature of concepts, thought and intentionality, and language games. Bringing together leading philosophers and Wittgenstein scholars, it offers a genuinely critical approach and demonstrating Wittgenstein's relevance for contemporary philosophy. This volume will appeal to readers interested in the later Wittgenstein, in addition to those interested in the philosophy of language, the philosophy of mind, metaphysics and epistemology. (shrink)

Probably many people have cyclic preferences: they prefer A to B, B to C and C to A for some objects of choice A, B and C. Recent work has resurrected the objection to cyclic preference that agents possessing them are open to exploitation by means of ‘money pumps’. The paper briefly reviews this work and proposes a general approach to problems of sequential choice that makes cyclic preference immune to exploitation by means of these new mechanisms.

Tourism, as an industry, has become one of the most dynamic sectors of the world economy these days and has specific features that are different from other industries. In the tourism industry, production and consumption points occur spatially at the same time. In addition, the tourism industry contributes to the economic growth of developed regions and can simultaneously distribute the wealth created geographically. It is notable that the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has caused many challenges in the tourism industry (...) regarding the presence of tourists in tourism centres and the closing of all tourism service chains, including food, entertainment, transportation and travel services worldwide. Tourism-related businesses, which are considered as invisible export and one of the engines of development and occupation, have been rendered obsolete. In other words, the businesses, as well as multiple units and activities in the related chain, have been damaged and employees of this industry have lost their jobs. This has led to the recession and regressive course of the developing and large industry of tourism in the world. It is worth noting that the tourism industry includes various sections, the most important of which is religious tourism. All religions in the world have different religious places, works, traditions and customs, which have become amongst the most important tourist attractions. Meanwhile, Muslims and the religion of Islam play a significant role in this branch of tourism. The Hajj, pilgrimage to holy places and the existence of mourning ceremonies or religious celebrations of Muslims are amongst the largest religious tourism events in the world. Given the importance of this issue, the present study aimed to evaluate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on religious tourism in Iraq in 2021. This field study was conducted on 4500 Muslim managers and staff of restaurants, hotels, grocery stores, clothing stores and souvenir shops around the holy shrines of imams and religious places in Karbala, Najaf, Kufa, Samarra and Kazemi. According to the results, the tourism of Iraq, which is mainly limited to Muslim religious sites in several major Iraqi cities, has also seen a decline in the number of religious tourists. The negative effects of COVID-19 on religious tourism have also been proved statistically by the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS), as µ ≥ 3 has been counted in all indices.Contribution: Our findings offered new insights into the impact of COVID-19 on tourism, based on statistical analysis. In this study, the authors showed how COVID-19 affects various aspects of religious tourism, which has not been addressed in previous researches. (shrink)

İnsanı diğer varlıklardan ayıran en önemli özelliği bilinç (akıl) sahibi ve seçme hürriyetine sahip olmasıdır. İnsanlık tarihi boyunca insanın hürriyeti, bu hürriyetin sınırları, mahiyeti sorgulana gelmiştir. İnsan özgürlüğü konusunda genellikle iki çeşit yaklaşım söz konusudur: Bunlardan birincisi filozofların getirmiş oldukları yaklaşım diğeri ise dinlerin getirmiş oldukları yaklaşımdır. Hürriyet kavramı katı bir tarif/tanımlama kalıbına kolayca sığabilen bir kavram değildir. Mantıkçıların “ağyârını mâni‘ efrâdını câmi‘” diye nitelendirdikleri tam ve tümel bir tanım yapılamamıştır. Dolayısıyla filozoflar, bilginler kendi çağlarının düşünce ortamına, entelektüel birikime göre (...) hürriyet kavramını temellendirmeye çalışmışlardır. Yukarıda da ifade edildiği gibi hürriyet meselesi çözümü zor bir konudur. Bu nedenden dolayı bu çalışmamızda öncelikle hürriyet kavramının etimolojik tahlilini, tanımını yaptıktan sonra Mâtürîdî kelâm düşünürlerinin hürriyet problemine yaklaşım tarzları, çözüm önerileri ve tanımlama biçimleri değerlendirilmeye çalışılacaktır. Mâtürîdî kelâm düşünürleri derken kastımız spesifik anlamda İmam Mâtürîdî ve onun en güçlü takipçisi olan Ebü’l-Muîn en-Nesefî’nin çözüm şekilleri üzerinde durulacaktır. (shrink)

This study will examine how Dāvūd al-Qarṣī, an 18th-century Ottoman scholar, resolved the paradox between human freewill and God being the creator of everything in his work Risālâh fi’l-ikhtiyārāt al-juzʾiyyah wa’l-irādāt al-qalbiyyah. In addition, in this study, the critical edition and translation of the risālah will also be provided. The treatise which is the subject of the present study is a link in the series of works written under the title of human acts in the Islamic thought tradition regarding al-irādah (...) al-juzʾiyyah, afʿāl al-ʿibād, khalq al-aʿmāl, qaḍā, and qadar. This risālah is one of the rare examples prepared with the method of “mamzūj annotation (sharḥ)”, which is a method in which “text” and “annotation” are intertwined. Qarṣī examines in detail a total of seven views, four of which are famous (mashhūr) and three of which are non-famous, about voluntary acts. Qarṣī interprets the approaches and views of the non-famous sects and includes them in the famous sects and allocates approximately 4/3 of the work to these sects. In the final stage of the work, the author states that the view of Māturīdīs is parallel with the predecessor’s (Salaf) view of “Neither jabr nor tafwīḍ; rather, it is merely a situation between these two approaches.” Qarṣī, who was inspired by Athīrī Maḥmad Afandī (d. 1092/1681), says that voluntary acts come about by the sum of “two powers (qudrat)”, “two wishes (mashīʾat)” and “one taqwīn”. Also, according to this, the first four of them are proximate causes, while the attribute taqwīn is the influencing factor. Qarṣī acts from the meanings of the term action (fiʿl) and the “theory of state (ḥāl)” in order to prove that human beings are true agents (fāʿil) on the one hand and to protect God’s attribute of creation on the other. In fact, the concept of “state (ḥāl)”, used in understanding divine attributes and some ontological issues, was applied to acts by the Māturīdī mutakallim Ṣadr al-Sharīʿa al-Thānī (d. 747/1346). Thus, a doctrine of action was developed, and this doctrine was accepted and used by the later period Māturīdī mutakallims. With reference to Ṣadr al-Sharīʿa, Qarṣī tries to justify the issue based on the meanings of the the term action and the modes of existence of these meanings. He says that action has two implications; one of them is the “infinitive meaning” (al-maʿnā al-maṣdarī) and the other is “the thing that comes with this infinitive meaning (al-ḥāṣıl bi-maṣdar)”. The infinitive meaning of the act constitutes the “non-thing aspect” of the action, and the meaning of the action that is created with the infinitive indicates “the thing aspect” thereof. Thus, because the aspect of the action that is not existentand therefore not a thing is not subject to creation, the agency and responsibility of human beings are grounded. Similarly, Qarṣī maintains that the mashīʾat, which means will, qaṣd and al-irādah al-juzʾiyyah, was not created because its existence in humans is in the form of succession and it is of a state-like (ḥāl) existenceOn this account. Qarṣī manages to preserve both human freewill and the absolute creativity of God due to the non-existent and non-thing aspect of the act on the one hand, and will (irādah), mashīʾat and qaṣd not being subjected to creation on the other. (shrink)

Hegel’in Jena döneminde zamanın diyalektiği sorununu yalnızca Tinin Fenomenolojisi’nin “Duyusal Kesinlik” bölümünde ele aldığına yönelik genel anlayış, geçtiğimiz yüzyılda orta Jena dönemi derslerine ait el yazmalarının yayımlanmasıyla yeni bir boyut kazanmıştır. 1804-1805 ile 1805-1806 yıllarına ait olan “Jena Sistem taslakları”nda Hegel’in doğanın zamanın üç boyutuna dair kapsamlı bir diyalektik geliştirdiği görülür. Bu çalışmada Christophe Bouton, söz konusu iki sistem taslağında doğanın soyut zamanına ait momentlerin ürettiği sonlu diyalektiğin Hegelci mantıksal ikili sonsuzluk teorisiyle nasıl aşıldığını inceler. Bouton’a göre orta Jena dönemi (...) taslakları sadece Hegel’in düşünsel gelişim sürecine ışık tutmaz, aynı zamanda Hegel’in Berlin döneminde açıkça ortaya koyacağı doğanın zamanı ile Tinin zamanı olarak tarih arasındaki ilişkiyi de temellendirir. Bu bağlamda Heidegger, Koyré ve Bloch gibi yorumcuların aksine Bouton, Hegelci zaman diyalektiğinin kökeninde geçmişin ya da geleceğin önceliği tezini reddeder. Bouton’a göre Hegel felsefesinde zamanın anlamı, zamanın diğer iki boyutundan yalıtılmış olan geçmişte değil, üç zamansal boyutu kendinde içeren somut şimdidedir. Bouton, zaman ve zamana tabi olan hadiselerin yarattığı açmazın yanı sıra, ezeli ve ebedilik ile somut şimdi arasındaki ilişkiyi Jena dönemi ile Berlin dönemine ait dersler ışığında inceler. (shrink)

Justice is an important concept in philosophy since ancient times and a key phenomenon in human life (in societies). First a judge at a court, two sides, their witnesses, Lawyer-A and Lawyer-B are considered in this quasi-essay inquiry. Then pointed out that, which lawyer better develops his/her arguments, his/her side will be advantageous. Reality conceals on the one side, truth (and rightness) stands on the other. However this will be risky in social life; it may be understood by an ordinary (...) man (or someone who doesn’t have a proper philosophical insight) as “who - obeying the rules- better diverts reality and shows that (s)he is right, his/her side wins.” Not only knowledge, but also philosophy itself loses prestige in such a tableau. Stemming from ‘Gettier-pictures,’ a “murderingevent” is presented thereafter. By help of pseudo-philosophers Prof. Truth, Prof. Reality and E.G. (“eyeglasser”) some perspectives related to “knowledge” and “knowing” are discussed while trying to analyze the mentioned event. At the end, (reflecting in the place of me) E.G. states some features (which are important for him) concerning knowledge. In this paper, ‘subject-dependency’ and internalizability (or better, interiorizability) of knowledge will be traced somehow; in addition to a search towards ‘relevant’, ‘valuable’, ‘illicit’, and ‘proper’ kinds. (shrink)

Science has been dazzlingly successful in explaining nature. Scientific advances also have led to certain undesirable, though unintended, side effects, one of which is alienation from the spiritual. Revelation comes from the Divine. But what is the status of authenticity of a particular piece claimed to be revelation? What is its historical validity and current state of preservation? This essay proposes to develop a list of rational criteria, in consultation with all stakeholders, for addressing the subject. The aim is to (...) bring objectivity into this discourse by placing it more on the turf of reason rather than basing it on considerations of faith and prior allegiance. (shrink)

The essay presents a novel counterexample to Causal Decision Theory (CDT). Its interest is that it generates a case in which CDT violates the very principles that motivated it in the first place. The essay argues that the objection applies to all extant formulations of CDT and that the only way out for that theory is a modification of it that entails incompatibilism. The essay invites the reader to find this consequence of CDT a reason to reject it.

The best justification of time-discounting is roughly that it is rational to care less about your more distant future because there is less of you around to have it. I argue that the standard version of this argument, which treats both psychological continuity and psychological connectedness as reasons to care about your future, can only rationalize an irrational—because exploitable—form of future discounting.

This discussion note examines a recent argument for the principle that any counterfactual with true components is itself true. That argument rests upon two widely accepted principles of counterfactual logic to which the paper presents counterexamples. The conclusion speculates briefly upon the wider lessons that philosophers should draw from these examples for the semantics of counterfactuals.

The best-known argument for Evidential Decision Theory (EDT) is the ‘Why ain’cha rich?’ challenge to rival Causal Decision Theory (CDT). The basis for this challenge is that in Newcomb-like situations, acts that conform to EDT may be known in advance to have the better return than acts that conform to CDT. Frank Arntzenius has recently proposed an ingenious counter argument, based on an example in which, he claims, it is predictable in advance that acts that conform to EDT will do (...) less well than acts that conform to CDT. We raise two objections to Arntzenius’s example. We argue, first, that the example is subtly incoherent, in a way that undermines its effectiveness against EDT; and, second, that the example relies on calculating the average return over an inappropriate population of acts. (shrink)

Vision is known to improve human postural responses to external perturbations. This study investigates the role of vision for the responses to continuous pseudorandom support surface translations in the body sagittal plane in three visual conditions: with the eyes closed, in stroboscopic illumination and with eyes open in continuous illumination with the room as static visual scene. In the frequency spectrum of the translation stimulus we distinguished on the basis of the response patterns between a low-frequency, mid-frequency, and high-frequency range. (...) With EC, subjects’ mean sway response gain was very low in the LFR. On average it increased with EO/SI and more so with EO/CI. In contrast, the average gain in the MFR decreased from EC to EO/SI and further to EO/CI. In the HFR, all three visual conditions produced, similarly, high gain levels. A single inverted pendulum model controlling center of mass balancing about the ankle joints formally described the EC response as being strongly shaped by a resonance phenomenon arising primarily from the control’s proprioceptive feedback loop. The effect of adding visual information in these simulations lies in a reduction of the resonance, similar as in the experiments. Extending the model to a double inverted pendulum suggested in addition a biomechanical damping effective from trunk sway in the hip joints on the resonance. (shrink)

Despite some promising steps in the right direction, organizational analysis has yet to exploit fully the theoretical and empirical possibilities inherent in the writings of Pierre Bourdieu. While certain concepts associated with his thought, such as field and capital, are already widely known in the organizational literature, the specific ways in which these terms are being used provide ample evidence that the full significance of his relational mode of thought has yet to be sufficiently apprehended. Moreover, the almost complete inattention (...) to habitus, the third of Bourdieu’s major concepts, without which the concepts of field and capital (at least as he deployed them) make no sense, further attests to the misappropriation of his ideas and to the lack of appreciation of their potential usefulness. It is our aim in this paper, by contrast, to set forth a more informed and comprehensive account of what a relational – and, in particular, a Bourdieu-inspired – agenda for organizational research might look like. Accordingly, we examine the implications of his theoretical framework for interorganizational relations, as well as for organizations themselves analyzed as fields. The primary advantage of such an approach, we argue, is the central place accorded therein to the social conditions under which inter- and intraorganizational power relations are produced, reproduced, and contested. (shrink)

The reflections that follow are written by Roisin Winston, Zoe Carletide, Naomi McLeod and Bahar Mustafa. These four young women outline their experience of feminism and in so doing suggest ways in which the Next Generation are thinking about ‘feminism’ and its relevance to their modern day lives. Topics discussed include sexuality, cultural differences, sex education, rape, and how the face of feminism is changing or needs to change. Thoughts range from a belief that the word ‘feminism’ has too many (...) negative connotations and thus it seems the term, and therefore the movement, is restricted by the glass ceiling which it aims to fight. Another view is that ‘Feminism,’ like any movement, will remain as relevant as it always has been until no person of any gender is coerced or compelled to act, think, feel or endure anything which has reductive gender inequality at its core. (shrink)

The paper distinguishes versions of the 'Agency theory of causation' and defends some of them against the charge of circularity.

We aim to show how collective emotions can be incorporated into the study of episodes of political contention. In a critical vein, we systematically explore the weaknesses in extant models of collective action, showing what has been lost through a neglect or faulty conceptualization of collective emotional configurations. We structure this discussion in terms of a review of several “pernicious postulates” in the literature, assumptions that have been held, we argue, by classical social-movement theorists and by social-structural and cultural critics (...) alike. In a reconstructive vein, however, we also lay out the foundations of a more satisfactory theoretical framework. We take each succeeding critique of a pernicious postulate as the occasion for more positive theory-building. Drawing upon the work of the classical American pragmatists–especially Peirce, Dewey, and Mead–as well as aspects of Bourdieu's sociology, we construct, step by step, the foundations of a more adequate theorization of social movements and collective action. Accordingly, the negative and positive threads of our discussion are woven closely together: the dismantling of pernicious postulates and the development of a more useful analytical strategy. (shrink)

A resolution must give “seeing it differently” a sense that makes it clear that it is seeing that one is doing differently and not something else that is going on at the same time. The Berlin school of gestalt psychology took the view that alongside the colors and shapes traditionally thought to compose the visual field was a similarly perceptible aspect of “organization”. Wittgenstein considers the possibility of a physiological explanation of aspect change. This chapter details the Wittgenstein's account that (...) it is worth making three general comments about what explaining a psychological concept involves, according to his later philosophy. It focuses on Wittgenstein's writings on sensory aspects and non-sensory aspects. Kant's proposal was that the intuition is of an a priori manifold; but perhaps what is more plausible is that the objects of synoptic vision are not themselves individuals but concepts. (shrink)

This paper presents a new approach to theorizing and empirically investigating a phenomenon variously described by sociologists as internalized oppression or symbolic violence. Located at the intersection of internal worlds and external reality, the intrapsychic and the interpersonal and social, this object of inquiry—here termed self-negation—is crucial to many forms of societal domination. The paper explores its inner workings, analytically disaggregating it into an array of psychosocial processes drawn from the psychoanalytic theory of the defenses. Much of the work’s originality (...) consists in showing how these processes operate across multiple systems of domination and drive many and varied outward manifestations of the phenomenon. (shrink)

Volume 28, Issue 4, December 2024, Page 301-314.

A passive brain–computer interface based upon functional near-infrared spectroscopy brain signals is used for earlier detection of human drowsiness during driving tasks. This BCI modality acquired hemodynamic signals of 13 healthy subjects from the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex of the brain. Drowsiness activity is recorded using a continuous-wave fNIRS system and eight channels over the right DPFC. During the experiment, sleep-deprived subjects drove a vehicle in a driving simulator while their cerebral oxygen regulation state was continuously measured. Vector phase analysis (...) was used as a classifier to detect drowsiness state along with sleep stage-based threshold criteria. Extensive training and testing with various feature sets and classifiers are done to justify the adaptation of threshold criteria for any subject without requiring recalibration. Three statistical features along with six VPA features were used. The average accuracies for the five classifiers are 90.9% for discriminant analysis, 92.5% for support vector machines, 92.3% for nearest neighbors, 92.4% for both decision trees, and ensembles over all subjects’ data. Trajectory slopes of CORE vector magnitude and angle: m and m are the best-performing features, along with ensemble classifier with the highest accuracy of 95.3% and minimum computation time of 40 ms. The statistical significance of the results is validated with a p-value of less than 0.05. The proposed passive BCI scheme demonstrates a promising technique for online drowsiness detection using VPA along with sleep stage classification. (shrink)

The qirāʾāt or variae lectiones represent the vast corpus of Qurʾānic readings that were preserved through the historical processes associated with the textual codification and transmission of the Qurʾān. Despite the fact that differences among concomitant readings tend to be nominal, others betray semantic nuances that are brought into play within legal discourses. Both types of readings remain important sources for the history of the text of the Qur’ān and early Arabic grammatical thought. While some recent scholars have questioned the (...) historical function and nature of the corpus of qirāʾāt, others have argued that specific types of variant readings were the resultant products of attempts to circumvent legal inconsistencies which were found in text of the Qurʾān or were generated through legal debates. Following a preliminary review of the historical framework of the genesis of qirāʾāt through reference to early grammatical literature, an attempt will be made to shed some light on the role that semantic variation among concomitant readings played in the synthesis and interpretation of law. The aim will be to draw attention to the subtle theoretical frameworks employed by jurists for their contextualization and analysis. This will also include a review of attitudes towards the forms of qirāʾāt that classical scholarship designated as being anomalous or shādhdha. (shrink)