Context: Immunity includes cognitive concepts: the organism is thought to specifically recognize foreign materials and develop a memory of these encounters. Vaccines are thought to work by enhancing this immunological memory. Lymphocytes are key cells and specific antibodies are key molecules in immune recognition. Antibodies are blood proteins called “immunoglobulins.” Spontaneously formed immunoglobulins are seen as “natural” antibodies to dietary components and commensal bacteria. Immune cognition is used simply as a didactic metaphor. Problem: Do the cognitive aspects of immunology stem (...) from the activities of cells and molecules, or are they ascribed by the immunologist operating as a human observer? (1) An immense variety of immunoglobulins may bind to the same antigen with different binding energies. It is the immunologist who arbitrates the boundary between those that are specific (and declared antibodies) and those that are not. Specific antibodies serve as functional labels pasted onto natural immunoglobulins, as if they were recognizing elements. Is this “arbitration” the true cognitive event ascribed to immunoglobulins and lymphocytes? (2) A major impasse exists between progress in experimental immunology and its translation into clinical results. A proper understanding of immunological activity demands a wider view of an organism’s biology and, also, of the interference of human observers in delineating experimental realities, such as the specificity of immune recognition. Maturana’s biology of cognition and language provides one such approach. Method: Use of Maturana’s biology of cognition and language concepts to describe immunological activity. Results: A whole new understanding of immunological activity is suggested. Implications: A major change in the way of seeing is proposed that may eventually help the translation of this knowledge into clinical results. Furthermore, the immune system may also become a proper model for cognitive analyses. (shrink)

Upshot: According to Biology of Cognition and Language (Maturana’s approach) the immune system is not a cognitive system and defining of a cognitive paradigm is not what we understand as a Maturanian approach to immunology. The true cognitive actions in immunology are performed by immunologists acting as observers, not by body organs or systems. Stimuli and responses are not adequate concepts in the description of systems. As a closed network of cellular/molecular interactions, the immune system yields patterns of activity as (...) is transparent in robust conserved profiles of reactivity of natural immunoglobulins, as investigated by Nóbrega et al. and Cohen et al., which offer the opportunity to unravel its natural, spontaneous activity. Dietary materials, products of the commensal microbiome are the most abundant and common elements continuously incorporated to the network activity and, thus, also represent an important avenue of investigation. (shrink)

In this paper we pursue the study of the variety of m -generalized Łukasiewicz algebras of order n which was initiated in [1]. This variety contains the variety of Łukasiewicz algebras of order n . Given , we establish an isomorphism from its congruence lattice to the lattice of Stone filters of a certain Łukasiewicz algebra of order n and for each congruence on A we find a description via the corresponding Stone filter. We characterize the principal congruences on A (...) via Stone filters. In doing so, we obtain a polynomial equation which defines the principal congruences on the algebras of . After showing that for m > 1 and n > 2, the variety of Łukasiewicz algebras of order n is a proper subvariety of , we prove that is a finitely generated discriminator variety and point out some consequences of this strong property, one of which is congruence permutability. (shrink)

İslâm hukuku, gelişmiş bir hukuk teorisine sahiptir. Edille-i erbaa’nın yanında yorum ve akıl yürütmeye dayalı birçok hüküm elde etme teorisi türetilmiştir. Bunların mahiyeti ve nasıl kullanılacağı İslâm hukukçuları tarafından süreç içerisinde geliştirilmiştir. İslâm hukukçuları, hüküm elde etme yöntemlerinin gerek yanlış kullanımı gerekse bu yöntemlerin kapsamının genişletilmesiyle ortaya çıkan problemli sonuçların düzeltilmesinde bazı ilimlerden ve tekniklerinden yararlanmışlardır. Disiplinler arası bu çalışmalarla özellikle kıyas işlemine ve illete yöneltilen eleştirilerin doğru bir şekilde tespit edilmesi amaçlanmıştır. Bu eleştiri ve itirazların haklı bir nedene ve (...) delile dayanıp dayanmadığını ortaya koyma noktasında istifade edilen ilimlerden biri de münâzaradır. İslâm ilim geleneğinde fıkıh ve kelamla birlikte müstakil bir ilim haline gelen münâzara, mezheplerin teşekkül ettiği dönemlerde oluşmaya başlamıştır. Daha çok fıkıhta kendisine pratik alan bulan münâzara, özellikle usûl-i fıkhın önemli bir bölümü oluşturan kıyasın yorumlanmasına etki etmiş ve hatta istidlâl yöntemleri arasına olduğu varsayılmıştır. Usûl-i fıkıhta pek çok münâzara yönteminden istifade edilmiştir. Bunlardan biri de fesâdü’l-vaz‘dır. En çok kullanılan tanımıyla fesâdü’l-vaz‘, bir illete o illetin gerektirdiği şeyin zıddı olan bir hükmün bağlanması şeklinde tarif edilmektedir. Bu ise illeti bütünüyle geçersiz kılan bir durumdur. Fesâdü’l-vaz‘da, mu‘teriz istidlâlde bulunana, bu yönteme mahsus itirazları yönelterek kıyasın hatalı olduğunu ispat etmeye çalışmaktadır. Fesâdü’l-vaz‘, kıyas kurgusunun temeline yöneltilen bir itiraz türü olduğundan usûlcüler tarafından illete yöneltilen kuvvetli itiraz türlerinden biri olarak kabul edilmiştir. Bununla birlikte bu itiraz türünün hangi illete yöneltilebileceği hususu İslâm hukukçuları arasında tartışılmıştır. Hanefîler fesâdü’l-vaz‘ı sahih bir itiraz yöntemi olarak kabul ederler ancak bununla müessir illete itirazda bulunulamayacağını düşünürler. Zira Hanefîler’e göre müessir vasfın doğruluğu Kitap, sünnet ve icmâ ile ortaya konulmuştur. Bu delillerin fasit vasıf üreteceği düşünülemez. Şâfiîler’e göre ise fesâdü’l-vaz‘ ile her türlü illete ve hükme itiraz edilebilir. Hatta bazı Şâfiî hukukçuları, bu yöntemin kıyasa mahsus olmayan genel bir itiraz türü olduğunu düşünmektedirler. Mezheplerin hem kıyasın şartlarına hem de fesâdü’l-vaz’ın mahiyetine yükledikleri bu farklı yorumlardan dolayı fürû meselelerde farklı sonuçlar ortaya çıkabilmektedir. Bu çalışmada İslâm hukuk usûlünde kıyas işlemine yöneltilen bir itiraz türü olarak fesâdü’l-vaz‘ incelenmiş ve mukayeseli fürû örnekler tespit edilerek fesâdü’l-vaz‘ın mahiyeti ortaya çıkarılmaya çalışılmıştır. Böylelikle, İslâm’da hukuk mantığında önemli bir yere sahip olan ve kıyas adı altında toplanması mümkün olan hukukî akıl yürütme yöntemlerinin çeşitliliğinin tespit ve tahlil edilmesi hedeflenmiştir. (shrink)

Some people have supposed that utility is good in itself, non-in-strumentally good, as distinct from good because conducive to other good things. And in modern versions of this view, utility often means want-satisfaction, as distinct from pleasure or happiness. For your want that p to be satisfied, is it necessary that you know or believe that p, or sufficient merely that p is true? However that question is answered, there are problems with the view that want-satisfaction is a non-instrumental good. (...) What if you want something only because you have a false belief? What if the time at which you want that p is fifty or five hundred years before the time to which p itself refers? To meet these difficulties, qualifications have to be introduced, and much has been written about how exactly these qualifications are to be framed.1 There is however what may be a rather more serious objection to the view that want-satisfaction is a non-instrumental good, or rather to the combination of that view with the principle that it is sufficient for your want that p to be satisfied simply that p is true. The objection is that this combination forces you to give undue weight to the mere acquisition of desires when you come to make judgements about changes in the value of things. It forces you to say that for any true proposition p, which initially you do not want to be true, your mere acquisition of a desire that p will, other things being equal, make the world better. Non-instrumental value can be increased merely by multiplying desires, even though everything else remains the same. Surely, however, improving the world is not as easy as that. (shrink)

Throughout history, the nature of the UGCC is at the center of the attention of researchers. Until now, they are divided into "Westerners" - supporters of Romanization of the church, that is, its purely Catholic nature, and "Byzantines" - those who defend its eastern rite. In addition, the study of the history of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church can be divided into two groups: negativist works and apologetic works. The first group is primarily represented by the works of Ukrainian Soviet (...) historians of the postwar period, which have very well-known names: "Unia: the path of betrayal and disgrace", "UniCity - an instrument of clerical anti-communism", "Uniate Church - enemy of the Ukrainian people", "The reactionary role of the union in the history of Ukrainian people "etc. Of course, the significance of such ideologically exacerbated "research" as a scientific development is doubtful. They have, if not scientific, but rather a journalistic character. (shrink)

When do two mental items belong to the same life? We could be content with the answer -just when they have certain volitional qualities in common. An affinity is noted between that theory and Berkeley's early doctrine of the self. Some rivals of the volitional theory invoke a spiritual or physical owner of mental items. They run a risk either of empty formality or of causal superstition. Other rivals postulate a non-transitive and symmetrical relation in the set of mental items. (...) They must allow in consequence either for joint ownership of one and the same mental item, or for incompatible simultaneous decisions by one and the same person, or for new forms of death. This makes them disquieting. Another rival invokes a transitive and symmetrical relation defined in terms of co-consciousness. Even that allows for incongruous simultaneities. The volitional theory is free from such disadvantages. (shrink)

The purpose of this essay is to show that there was one person, perhaps only one, who developed a rigorously scientific cosmology nearly two thousand years ago. Cosmology is the largest of all subjects, with a long history, and the cosmology considered here is the one that endured for the longest part, nearly three-quarters, of that history. By cosmology I mean a description of the universe as a whole and of the arrangement of its principal parts. But by scientific cosmology, (...) I mean something more. For a cosmology to be considered scientific, three criteria must be met: it must be quantitative, physical, and empirical. Quantitative means that it must assign some scale of distances and sizes to its parts. Physical means that it must rest upon some kind of physical or mechanical principles, causes, for the ordering and motion of its parts. Finally, empirical means that it must either be derived from observation or, if derived theoretically, as from physical or mechanical principles, it must be confirmed by observation. I set out these criteria, which may not be exclusive or exhaustive but are surely within reason, in order to define our subject and exclude mythological or theological cosmologies, which generally meet none of the criteria, and philosophical cosmologies, as those of Plato, Aristotle, and Descartes, which may meet one or two in some way, although not rigorously, but surely do not meet all three. I am not concerned with whether the cosmology or the criteria upon which it is based are correct. Compared to our present understanding, the scale may be off by orders of magnitude, the physics may be entirely mistaken, and the observations may be inaccurate. But if all three are present I would call the cosmology scientific, and if not I would not call the cosmology scientific. (shrink)

Ukraine has a special geopolitical location in Europe - between East and West, South and North. The specificity of this provision is due to multi-year contacts between peoples who lived or passed through its territory, the interactions of different cultures, traditions and worldviews. As a result, there is a rather varied ethno-national and religious palette of Ukrainian population. In today's conditions of building an independent state and civil society, this can be both a positive and a negative factor. Recent events (...) and practices show that the problem of religious and ethnic renaissance has acquired a special political and spiritual significance. Different directions of Christianity, other religions, existing for centuries on the Ukrainian ethnic basis, have been influenced by a wide range of social and national life. In addition, ethno-national and religious processes took place differently in the western and eastern regions of Ukraine, in the village and in the city. (shrink)

_The purpose _of this article is to find out whether philosophical and anthropological studies of human nature affect the legitimization of decisions about human life and death, using the example of a philosophical analysis of the problem of euthanasia. _Theoretical__ basis._ Philosophically and anthropologically based situational analysis in bioethics is chosen as the research methodology, which reveals the legitimation of euthanasia as a complex and highly responsible moral decision, which should be based on both the consideration of all the patient’s (...) special circumstances and the competent and adequate application of fundamental knowledge about the human being. _Originality._ From a philosophical point of view, it would be correct to legalize euthanasia, but under the condition of significantly limiting the cases of its application, clearly defining the conditions for its provision and strict control over its implementation. It is morally unacceptable to justify either murder or torture, so euthanasia appears as an attempt to avoid both at the same time. _Conclusions._ Specific solutions to practical problems often indicate the necessary direction for solving theoretical difficulties. Thus, making proper moral decisions about euthanasia requires reliance on fundamental knowledge about human beings, but at the same time it provides arguments "for" and "against" artificial termination of life. The basic principles of bioethics – autonomy, nonmaleficence, beneficence and respect for the dignity of human life – serve as criteria for making balanced ethical decisions both in theory and in practice. These principles should be complemented by a coherent ethical, legal and philosophical position on euthanasia, which is achieved through legitimation procedures. Decisive for making a decision on euthanasia should be the strong desire of the patient himself. (shrink)

The purpose of the study is to identify a common theoretical basis for the study of human life as capital and unconditional higher value. Theoretical basis is based on the value-laden and revised structural constructivism, provided by the French philosopher and sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, critical analysis of the concepts of capital as the embodiment of social expectations, the biological concept of the value of human life, as well as the concepts of its sanctity. Originality. It is proved that one should (...) not consider the value of human life as capital only but instead takes into account its different value interpretations, especially when forming the social identity of a person. Moreover, in each of the value systems, the value of human life can be recognized as unconditional, which does not prevent the coexistence of such different value interpretations within the framework of one social identity, which then inevitably becomes a multiple social identity. Conclusions. Human life cannot be considered as a result of integrating economic expectations into the concept of "advertising" capital: first, expectations may well be inadequate; second, expectations by themselves are not directly related to capital; third, expectations do not necessarily lead to development; fourth, one should clearly distinguish between the spontaneous "expectations" and the values that express people’s strong motivation as members of social communities. The multiplicity of possible cultural conditions that affirm the unconditional value of life indicates that this unconditionality is always relevant rather than absolute. The multiple social identities could be used to add value to the protection of human life, the affirmation of multiple social identities is a means of affirming the unconditional value of human life – it is unconditional in several alternative ways. (shrink)

N. M. L. Nathan; VIII*—Democracy, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 93, Issue 1, 1 June 1993, Pages 123–138, https://doi.org/10.1093/aristotelian/.

Some Christians combine a doctrine about Christ which implies that there is more than one divine self with the doctrine that God revealed to the Jews a monotheism according to which there is just one divine self. I suggest that it is less costly for such Christians to achieve consistency by abandoning the second of these doctrines than to achieve it by abandoning the first.