A central thesis of Frankish's argument for illusionism is the claim that illusionism is possibly true. This is what the realist about phenomenal consciousness must deny. Frankish's argument for that premise is based on a widely shared understanding of phenomenal consciousness as being a matter of certain events instantiating special properties. I argue that the illusionist's reasoning is difficult to avoid if one accepts this common account. A positive argument for the thesis that the mere possibility of illusionism can be (...) excluded is developed. It uses a proposal about how the notion of phenomenal consciousness should be taken to pick out the phenomenon it refers to. Given that account it becomes obvious that the illusionist cannot be understood as seriously accepting his own theory. The belief in illusionism thus turns out to be an illusion. (shrink)

How the colonial photograph revolutionized the very nature of perception.

The rational choice paradigm has proved to be a fruitful means of analysis and explanation in various disciplines concerned with questions of practical rationality, but in various attempts to extend its fields of application the deficiencies of the original account of rational choice have become evident. This paper tries to give a systematic overview of ways in which the rational choice paradigm can be extended and modified.

This article is an outline of the current issue of Filosofija.Sociologija, thematically divided into five sections. Starting from the most abstract thematically one and going down to reflections on actualities. Here I try to give it a meaningful structure and a flavour of a general Zeitgeist residing now in our contemporary academia.

This paper applies an Islamic perspective to understand the lack of business responsibility witnessed in recent times. A link is developed between the dominant materialistic-secular worldview and lack of business responsibility. The paper argues that a materialistic-secular worldview tends to disconnect economics from ethics, gives privilege to economic values over spiritual values, and confers primacy to legal/bureaucratic mechanisms over ethical and spiritual mechanisms for ensuring compliance to business responsibilities. It suggests that these orientations could account for the weak sense of (...) business responsibility and unethical behaviours reported in earlier works. To remedy this, the paper proposes the broadening of problem-solving methodologies so that both material and ethical/spiritual dimensions of business responsibility are given due consideration. In addition, the paper offers four suggestions, derived from religious traditions, for nurturing the spirit and letter of business responsibility. (shrink)

Is a subject who undergoes an experience necessarily aware of undergoing the experience? According to the view here developed, a positive answer to this question should be accepted if ‘awareness’ is understood in a specific way, - in the sense of what will be called ‘primitive awareness’. Primitive awareness of being experientially presented with something involves, furthermore, being pre-reflectively aware of oneself as an experiencing subject. An argument is developed for the claims that pre-reflective self-awareness is the basis of our (...) understanding of what it is to be an experiencing subject and that that understanding reveals what being an experiencing subject consists in and what it is for experiences to belong to one single experiencer. Claim is used in an argument in favor of the so-called simple view with respect to synchronic and diachronic unity of consciousness. (shrink)

1 Grasping Properties I will present an argument for property dualism. The argument employs a distinction between having a concept of a property and grasping a property via a concept. If you grasp a property P via a concept C, then C is a concept of P. But the reverse does not hold: you may have a concept of a property without grasping that property via any concept. If you grasp a property, then your cognitive relation to that property is (...) more intimate then if you just have some concept or other of that property. To grasp a property is to understand what having that property essentially consists in. (shrink)

Pervasive usage and the development of social media networks have provided the platform for the fake news to spread fast among people. Fake news often misleads people and creates wrong society perceptions. The spread of low-quality news in social media has negatively affected individuals and society. In this study, we proposed an ensemble-based deep learning model to classify news as fake or real using LIAR dataset. Due to the nature of the dataset attributes, two deep learning models were used. For (...) the textual attribute “statement,” Bi-LSTM-GRU-dense deep learning model was used, while for the remaining attributes, dense deep learning model was used. Experimental results showed that the proposed study achieved an accuracy of 0.898, recall of 0.916, precision of 0.913, and F-score of 0.914, respectively, using only statement attribute. Moreover, the outcome of the proposed models is remarkable when compared with that of the previous studies for fake news detection using LIAR dataset. (shrink)

In the following I try to show that there is an attractive notion of citizenship which is independent of any kind of collective identity. Citizenship is understood as one form of social interaction. It is argued that in order to understand social interaction adequately, it is necessary to introduce a structural theory of practical rationality, to the extent this conception of citizenship is based on the theory of structural rationality.

There is a plurality of good reasons for action. An adequate theory of practical rationality has to be compatible with it even if it requires certain modifications of our everyday practices of reasoning. Usual theories of practical rationality do not pass this test. It is envisaged how to revise adequately our understanding of practical rationality.

The paradoxes and dilemmas of social choice theory can be taken as an argument against a certain view of democracy: For the identity theory democracy represents a collective actor standing for aggregated individual interests. According to a second model of society, democracy has its normative basis in structural traits of interaction and cooperation. Within the formal theory of politics both the Arrow-Theorem and the Liberal Paradox undermine the identity theory and give us reasons for the second, the normative theory which (...) takes democracy as being constituted by structural rules. (shrink)

In this book, German philosopher Julian Nida-Rümelin presents a theory of practical reason that is objectivist, or rather realist, as an alternative to the widespread subjectivism in the theory of rationality. This theory has pragmatic traits that can be read as a constructive counterpart to Nida-Rümelin's critique of consequentialism whilst embedding its conception of rationality in the conceptual framework of decision and game theory.

According to the experience property framework qualia are properties of experiences the subject undergoing the experience is aware of. A phenomenological argument against this framework is developed and a few mistakes invited by the framework are described. An alternative to the framework, the framework of experiential properties is presented and defended as preferable. It is argued that the choice between these two frameworks makes a substantial difference for theoretical purposes.

Das Interview behandelt folgende Fragen: Wo liegen die Grenzen der künstlichen Intelligenz? Könnte diese irgendwann einmal die menschliche Intelligenz übertreffen? Wie wird die Digitalisierung die Gesellschaft verändern? Inwiefern werden ethische Probleme auf die Menschheit zukommen, etwa durch die Entwicklung von Robotern? Was ist genau unter einer „Silicon-Valley-Ideologie“ zu verstehen, und inwiefern ist diese philosophisch problematisch? Was ist ein „Digitaler Humanismus“, und inwiefern kann er die gesellschaftlichen Probleme der Digitalisierung lösen?

In my argument for subject body dualism criticized by Ludwig I use the locution of a genuine and factual difference between two possibilities. Ludwig distinguishes three interpretations of this locution. According to his analysis the argument does not go through on any of these interpretations. In my response I agree that the argument is unsuccessful if ‘factual difference’ is understood in the first way. The second reading—according to a plausible understanding—cannot be used for the argument either. The discussion of this (...) reading raises fundamental issues about different notions of propositional content. I disagree with Ludwig's diagnosis with respect to the third reading. Contrary to Ludwig's claim, there is no modal error involved if ‘factual difference’ is understood in the third way. Ludwig's objection to the argument according to its third reading can be answered by pointing out that every individual has its identity conditions necessarily. At this point fundamental and general metaphysical issues (concerning the link between identity conditions and the nature of ontological categories and between transworld and transtemporal identity) prove relevant. Finally, I make more explicit how ‘factual difference’ should be understood in the context of the argument (this is a fourth reading not considered by Ludwig) and explain how this reading strengthens the argument (compared to the third reading) by weakening its central premise. I conclude that Ludwig's attempt at undermining the argument from transtemporal identity for subject body dualism is unsuccessful. (shrink)

Tanıtmaya çalışacağımız “Din ve Dünyevileşme: Kuzey Kıbrıs Örneği“ adlı bu eser, din sosyolojisi literatürüne kazandırılmış yerel bir sosyoloji çalışması örneğidir. Geçmişten günümüze Kıbrıs’ın durumunu tarihsel bir perspektifle ele alan Aydınalp, Kıbrıs halkının dinî hayatındaki değişimleri, günümüzdeki din ve dünyevileşme ilişkisini ilgili paradigmalar ekseninde açıklamaya çalışmıştır. Ayrıntılı bir şekilde ele aldığı din tanımlamalarından sonra sekülerleşme paradigmalarını tartışmaya açan Aydınalp, konuya “Türkiye’de Dünyevileşme Sosyolojisi” başlığı altında devam etmiştir. Bu bölümünde, kendi dinî hayatımızdaki değişimleri anlamaya çalışırken, sekülerleşme kavramının içeriğinin daha yerel unsurlarla ele (...) alınıyor oluşu, çalışmanın önemli noktalarından birisini oluşturmaktadır. İlerleyen bölümlerde modern dünyanın getirilerinden olan bireyciliğin/bireyselliğin bizdeki izdüşümünün, Batı’dan farklı olduğuna dikkat çeken Aydınalp, bu durumu daha iyi temellendirmek için “özerk dünyevileşmeler” kavramını ileri sürmüştür. Bu yeni kavram ile kendi sosyolojik problemlerimizi kendi kavramlarımızla açıklama çabasında olduğu dikkat çekmektedir. Araştırmanın uygulama bölümünde ise, doğrudan gözlem, anket ve mülakat tekniklerinin yanı sıra fenomenolojik bakışa da yer veren Aydınalp, metodolojik çeşitlilikten yararlanma yoluna gitmiştir. Böylece çalışmasında, sahadan gelen verilerle daha somut ve geçerli bilgilere ulaşması mümkün hale gelmiştir. (shrink)

Advance Care Planning, of which Advance directive is only a part, is a process of planning for future medical care under circumstances of impaired decisional capacity. Advance care planning involves a structured discussion between patient and ideally their primary care physician to explore the goals of care in the context of current and hypothetical illness states, discusses treatment options in the context of these goals of care and finally articulates and docu- ments treatment and care preferences of the patient.1 Advance (...) care planning should be a routine part of preventive health care in order to avoid unneces- sary extra ordinary measures against a person’s wishes and to reserve resources which are wasted in futile care. Instead advance care planning is either non-existent or severely under-utilized in primary care practice in Pakistan. The author explores the factors that prevent Pakistani physicians’ from incorporating advance care planning into practice. In addition to this, various steps in terms of the principles, policies and procedures are discussed which could help physicians and institutions navigate the advance care planning process. (shrink)

Unser natürliches Verständnis der transtemporalen Identität bewusstseinsfähiger Wesen unterscheidet sich grundlegend von unserem Verständnis der transtemporalen Identität von Dingen, die wir nicht für bewusstseinsfähig halten. Der Unterschied beruht letztlich auf begrifflichen Besonderheiten unseres selbstbezogenen Denkens. Wir haben ein von Kriterien der transtemporalen Identität freies Verständnis der eigenen transtemporalen Identität und diese Kriterienfreiheit überträgt sich auf unsere Gedanken über andere bewusstseinsfähige Wesen. Diese begrifflichen Besonderheiten werden beschrieben und als angemessen verteidigt. Ihre Angemessenheit impliziert allerdings einen Subjekt-Körper-Dualismus nach welchem erlebende Subjekte einer (...) eigenen ontologischen Kategorie zuzurechnen sind. (shrink)