In this paper, using the tenets of Situation-Bound Utterances and referring to Pragmatic Act Theory, the verb mordan, and its different realisations are analysed among Persian speakers. Through the analysis of authentic talk in interaction, this study aims to ponder nonstandard meanings of the term mordan and its different SBUs. The primary focus of the study is on strings of linguistic events as well as the “conventions of usage” or cultural understanding that may lead to standard and nonstandard meanings considering (...) mordan and its different SBUs. The findings suggest that the SBUs regarding mordan, a neglected sociolinguistic context, not only is affected by its actual situational characteristics but also by prior context encoded in utterances used, which manifests culture-specific ways of thinking. Overall, 19 SBUs and 7 generic categories were identified with regard to the verb mordan in Persian. This paper exhibits that mordan is a versatile verb, which, when combined with situational/contextual factors, conveys different nonstandard functions that fulfil social needs. This study will also refer to linguistic features underlying SBUs that are influential in assigning various distinct meanings to the verb mordan in Persian. (shrink)

The topic of disease mechanisms is of clinical importance, as our understanding of such mechanisms plays an important role in how we approach devising treatments for disease. In this paper, I critique an argument made by Mauro Nervi, in which he asserts that pathology is often better viewed in the context of distinct theoretical mechanisms. I use this critique as a starting point to argue that viewing pathology as a broken-normal, malfunctioning mechanism is more therapeutically practical and more relevant to (...) clinical drug design, than creating a theoretical separation of pathology from physiology. (shrink)

The NIH-funded Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies® (BRAIN) Initiative has led to significant advances in what we know about the functions and capacities of the brain. This multifaceted and expansive effort supports a range of experimentation from cells to circuits, and its outputs promise to ease suffering from various neurological injuries, diseases, and neuropsychiatric conditions. At the midway point of the 10-year BRAIN Initiative, we pause to consider how these studies, and neuroscience research more broadly, may bear on human (...) characteristics and moral concepts such as identity, agency, and others. This midway point also offers us an opportunity to evaluate the sociology and impacts of BRAIN Initiative-funded investigations to ensure that ethical standards of fairness and justice pervade the scientific process itself. Neuroethics inquiry provides a mechanism to invite relevant, novel expertise from the wide array of disciplines that intersect with biomedicine in neuroscience research. As the BRAIN Initiative and the broader field of neuroscience proceed, neuroethics serves as a central component of neuroscience inquiry to i) foster necessary and beneficial collaborations for responsible discovery; ii) ensure a rigorous, reproducible, and representative neuroscience research process; and iii) explore the unique nature of study of the human brain through accurate and representative models of its function and dysfunction. (shrink)

Cet ouvrage est l'hommage qu'une des deux filles de Jean Klein (1912-1998), Nita, comédienne et artiste, a décidé de rendre à son père, un des plus célèbres maîtres spirituels du XXe siècle, pour le centième anniversaire de sa naissance. Nita Klein a rassemblé ici de nombreux souvenirs de conversations avec Jean Klein, des inédits, des photographies autour de la question de l'art et de la spiritualité. Jean Klein a été philosophe et un maître spirituel remarquable auteur d'une oeuvre (...) essentielle qui a infuencé de nombreux enseignants contemporains comme Eric Baret, Jean-Bouchart D'Orval, Francis Lucille, Jean-Marc Mantel etc. Même si Jean Klein n'appartenait à aucune école, sa quête de la vérité a rencontré l'Advaïta Vedânta (Non-Dualité) dont il a dit lui-même que " ce n'est pas un système, une religion, une technique. Ce n'est même pas une philosophie, c'est simplement la vérité. " Mais Jean Klein était aussi violoniste (il pratiqua toute sa vie le violon) et s'intéressait à toutes les formes d'art : au théâtre, à la peinture (il était ami de Hans Hartung), à la danse (son autre fille, Malavika, est professeur de danse indienne). Il s'agit donc dans ce livre d'une rencontre entre l'intuition d'un artiste et la recherche indienne de la vérité, recherche plus orientée vers la perception globale de la Réalité que vers les certitudes offertes par le savoir. Nita Klein nous invite à découvrir comment la spiritualité authentique conduit à la création artistique ; comment, dans l'art du théâtre, l'interprétation d'un personnage, peut atteindre à la vérité, quand la personnalité du comédien consent à s'effacer. " En l'absence du "Moi", il y a seulement la vie. ", dit Jean Klein. Et pas seulement dans le théâtre, mais dans la peinture, le dessin, la danse. La Non-Dualité, avec Jean Klein, est une ouverture à la Beauté. (shrink)

We were delighted to be asked by the editors of the American Journal of Bioethics to provide this editorial in response to Dr. Ariane Lewis’s paper “An Overview of Ethical Issues Raised by Medicole...

This bibliography of Ludwig Wittgenstein is limited to the doctoral dissertations submitted in North American Universities. It covers almost all aspects of Wittgenstein's thought. Compared with K.T. Fann's "Wittgenstein Bibliography", published in the International Philosophical Quarterly Vol. 7 1967 pp. 311-339, where there are only seventeen references to Ph.D. dissertations, this present list cites more than one hundred and twenty five. Further, the dissertations which have been published are indicated.

Researchers studying human behavioral genetics have made significant scientific progress in enhancing our understanding of the relative contributions of genetics and the environment in observed variations in human behavior. Quickly outpacing the advances in the science are its applications in the criminal justice system. Already, human behavioral genetics research has been introduced in the U.S. criminal justice system, and its use will only become more prevalent. This essay discusses the recent historical use of behavioral genetics in criminal cases, recent advances (...) in two gene variants of particular interest in the criminal law, MAOA and SLC6A4, the recent expert testimony on behalf of criminal defendants with respect to these two gene variants, and the future direction of behavioral genetics evidence in criminal cases. (shrink)

Violence has always accompanied human societies, and appeared in various forms of artworks such as movie, painting, and even cave art, but Persian painting by showing the utopian calm images surprisingly kept itself away from representing the violence, even in the scenes of war and slaughter. This paper aims to study the Persian painting –with focus on the early Safavid dynasty as the age of glory of Iranian art- on the basis of Žižek’s theory, to show that invisible violence floated (...) in Persian painting regardless of its extreme calm beauty and its different context from contemporary philosophy. Žižek categorizes the violence into three modes: visible subjective, and two modes of objective violence -Symbolic and Systematic - which are invisible and flow in latter layers. By going to deeper level of creation and content of Persian images which were illustrated in the court and on the command of rulers of the time, it is concluded that some elements of invisible violence such as strict law, visual symbols like “Qizilbash Hat”, the issue of the language, neighbor, fear of error, repetition of historical characters, extremism and nonviolent situation can be analyzed in the content or illustration of Persian Painting. (shrink)

Pepper & Nettle argue that the more present-oriented behavior associated with a low socioeconomic status is an adaptive response to having relatively little control over the future. However, a study of fasters during Ramadan shows that self-imposed deprivation, which carries no implications regarding the ability to realize deferred rewards, is associated with loss and risk aversion.

How are social protections evolving in the developing world, particularly as those nations confront the challenges of globalization? Scholars in this special issue examine the challenges, continuity, and changes in social protections across the developing world over the last few decades. The common theme that emerges from this informative group of papers is that developing nations are confronting unique politico-economic difficulties as well as opportunities for the development of their welfare programs. This is a vastly understudied topic. The studies in (...) this issue tackle some of the unanswered questions of the globalization–social protection debate in developing economies, with a particular focus on how politics plays into the relationship. These articles hope to initiate a dialogue and offer suggestions for further research in this critical area of study. (shrink)

Regarding Alfarabi's writings on the grammatical dimension of language that within some of them he mentions to the Greek, the sources of his citation are the focal point of my paper.

We will focus on the theory of complete concept in the philosophy of Leib-niz. We will not emphasise the epistemological aspects, but rather will concentrate on the metaphysical implications of this theory. Some questions requiring an answer will be: are there two individual substances of the same kind? What is the nature of a substance that is only possible? What kind of notion has the unactualised possible? What is the nature of the relationship between individual substance and the complete no-tion? (...) In order to answer these questions, we will present in the first part of the paper the concept of individual substance, in the second part, we will focus on the problem whether the possible objects have or have not a complete concept, and in the third part we will give some additional arguments to support our answer. (shrink)

A large part of Richard Rorty’s works focus on criticizing the received view about philosophy. He argues, in his historical reconstruction of philosophical activity, that there has always been a misconception about philosophy in the history of philosophy. This misconception assumes that philosophy aims to grasp the ultimate knowledge, so it desperately engages in an attempt to achieve “truth”. In this view, which he calls representationalism and points to it by the metaphor of the mirror of nature, knowledge aims to (...) represent something out of mind, and the duty of philosophy is to put forward a theory about the representation. According to Rorty, based on this popular view philosophy is a foundational discipline that aims to evaluate epistemological claims of other disciplines. Rorty attempts to criticize and reject this Cartesian epistemological agenda for philosophy. Rorty’s approach to philosophy is therapeutic; that is, he tries to resolve philosophical problems rather than solve them. By adopting a historical method, Rorty seeks to show that “philosophy as epistemology” is a result of the dominance of what he calls the metaphor of the mirror of nature. From a critical rationalist perspective, the present article intends to critique Rorty’s views on epistemology. In this paper, Rorty’s historiographical approach is criticized in several ways. First, Rorty offers a one-sided and biased reconstruction of the history of philosophy to fit the abovementioned metaphor. Secondly, he treats history as rigid data from which it is possible to draw doctrinal conclusions. Whereas, as critical rationalists have said time and again, history by itself has no meaning. Moreover, Rorty’s justificationism is criticized. Rorty maintains that knowledge needs to be justified, and since it cannot be justified through representation, it must be justified by the consent of society. In other words, agreement in a group of people can provide an epistemic authority. Thus, both Rorty’s view and foundationalism, despite their differences, share justificationism in epistemology. That is, they both believe that knowledge needs to be justified. On the other hand, as critical rationalists have shown, justification in any shape and form, whether internal or external, is neither possible nor necessary. We also attempt to illustrate how Rorty’s epistemological approach results in confusion between epistemology and psychology; moreover, his epistemological behaviorism still suffers from some sort of justifications. In conclusion, Rorty expresses his criticism of epistemology with the metaphor of the mirror of nature. According to him, foundationalism is the result of the conflation of the Platonic conception of knowledge as something unchangeable, with the Cartesian mind that seeks certainty. However, his ignorance of the main crux of the matter in epistemology causes his own suggestion of epistemological behaviorism to suffer from the same problem, that is justificationism, which now appears in another form, i.e., social consensus. While, as critical rationalists repeated time and again, justification is neither possible nor necessary and not even desirable. They have shown that a non-justificationist approach to knowledge aimed at truth as a regulative idea could be a better approach. (shrink)

During the 1982 Canadian Philosophical Association Meeting in Ottawa, a workshop on the philosophy of religion in Canada was held. Its participants were all contributors to a previously published book edited for the University of Ottawa Press, entitled Analytical Philosophy of Religion in Canada, who were thus given the opportunity to comment on their own positions and to reply to the criticism that had been made of them.

L’une de très importants idées sur l’idéalisme transcendantale kantien vise les notions qui sont impliquées dans cette démarche philosophique: l’espace, le temps et la réalité. On a ici le motive pour lequel nous nous proposons de presenter les relations entre l’existence et la réalité, d’une partie, et l’actualité et la réalité, d’autre partie, dans le conditions que la plupart des traductions de Kant usent dans un mode indistincte les termes “réalité ” et “actualité”.

Application of technologies has an important role in agricultural development. Identifying and assessing the impacts of agricultural technologies is necessary. This study aimed at assessing the impacts of laser levelling economically, socially, environmentally, and technically in the viewpoint of the agricultural experts and identifying factors determining their perception of the impacts. The study samples (151 experts) were selected using multi-stage random sampling in Fars Province, Iran. The results revealed that experts considered uniform distribution of water, using conservation tillage, facilitating agricultural (...) activities, decreased water consumption and decrease of water wasting as the most important technical impacts of laser levelling technology. The most environmentally important impacts were the decrease of soil erosion and retention of crop residues. Experts stated the most significant social impacts as improvement in villages living conditions and sense of belonging to rural areas. Besides, an increase of income and reduction of inputs costs were among the economic impacts of laser levelling technology. According to the results, attitude towards water and soil resources conservation and environmental beliefs had the highest direct effect on individual perception toward impacts. Practical recommendations have been presented based on the results of the study. (shrink)

The conventional production model based on extensive use of chemical inputs such as pesticides is increasingly challenged. Organic agriculture is considered as one of the most important alternative agricultural systems to produce healthy food without any chemicals. Current models are not suitable for prediction of environmental behaviors. The current study aims to analyze the diffusion of organic agriculture to produce healthy food with the environmental sociology approach among farmers. The study was conducted using the survey research and multi-stage random sampling (...) in Fars province, in the south of Iran. The samples included 215 farmers. The reliability of the questionnaire was confirmed by conducting a pilot study out of the main sample. The results showed that the farmers have strong attitude to the environment and are for the most part, highly intentioned to perform organic activities. Based on the results, the farmers’ intention toward adoption of organic agriculture, environmental identity, and responsibility of pro-environmental behavior, and their moral norms play an important role to accept organic agricultural activities. There are also some effective factors in implementation of organic agriculture including farmers` increasing awareness about the principles of organic farming, controllability of environmental behaviors as well as their accessibility to the resources and facilities for organic farming. The study emphasized that the attitude and enhancing the knowledge do not lead to pro-environmental behaviors and organic activities directly. Using the models and environmental sociology theories is more efficient to explain pro-environmental behaviors. To this aim, some suggestions were presented to increase the adoption of organic activities and persuade the Iranian farmers to select this kind of cultivation. (shrink)

With regard to the importance of discovering the method of Farabi and his circle in working and involving with the ancient Greek texts such as Plato nomoi / Laws, in this paper I will explore and examine Introduction / Conclusion of Farabi summary.

Positive changes or transformations have been the subject of study within spiritual traditions as well as humanistic and transpersonal psychology. The aim of the current study is to understand the process of transformation among Moslems in Indonesia, who follow spiritual practices, to achieve the nafs al-muṭma ínnah [tranquil self]. Ten participants in Yogyakarta province were involved in this study. They were recruited using nafs al-muṭmaʾinnah scale developed by the authors. In-depth interviews of both the participants and their significant others were (...) conducted. To analyse the data, an interpretative phenomenological analysis was employed. Five themes emerged from the data, including deviation from the basis of religious environment, spiritual discipline, transformative experiences, new characters and a continuous process. We conclude that participants experience spiritual-religious transformation and achieve the state of nafs al-muṭma ínnah [tranquil self]. The process of transformation occurs gradually after a sudden experience, and it continuously happens throughout the course of life. Three factors contribute to the transformation, including the role of predisposition, the role of a spiritual guide and the role of spiritual experiences.Contribution: As the study of spiritual-religious transformation is mainly conducted within a Judea-Christian tradition, this study significantly contributes to the literature by providing spiritual-religious transformation from an Islamic-Sufi perspective. (shrink)

In recent years, scholars have sought to investigate the impact that ethical leaders can have within organisations. Yet, only a few theoretical perspectives have been adopted to explain how ethical leaders influence subordinate outcomes. This study therefore draws on social rules theory (SRT) to extend our understanding of the mechanisms linking ethical leadership to employee attitudes. We argue that ethical leaders reduce disengagement, which in turn promotes higher levels of job satisfaction and organisational commitment, as well as lower turnover intentions. (...) Co-worker social undermining is examined as a moderator of the relationship between ethical leadership and disengagement, as we suggest that it is difficult for ethical leaders to be effective when co-worker undermining prevails. To test the proposed model, questionnaires were administered to 460 nurses in Romanian hospital settings over three time points separated by two-week intervals and the hypotheses were tested using generalised multilevel structural equation modeling (GSEM) with STATA. The findings revealed that ethical leadership has a beneficial effect on employee attitudes by reducing disengagement. However, the relationship between ethical leadership and disengagement was moderated by co-worker social undermining, such that when undermining was higher, the significance of the mediated relationships disappeared. These results suggest that while ethical leaders can promote positive employee attitudes, their effectiveness is reduced in situations where co-worker undermining exists. (shrink)

Background: In order to prove their commitment to the nursing profession, nurses need to base their professional activities on certain acknowledged values. Although a large number of studies have addressed professional values in nursing, only a few studies are available on the identification and comparison of nurses’, nursing students’, and nursing instructors’ understanding of such values. Objective: The study aims to compare nurses’, nursing students’, and nursing instructors’ perception of nursing professional values. Research design: In this descriptive-comparative study, data were (...) collected using Weis and Schank’s Nurses’ Professional Values Scale–Revised. The data were analyzed using the SPSS statistical software (v 22). Participants and research context: A total of 299 nurses, 341 nursing students, and 100 nursing instructors from multisite, 20 different wards from 3 university hospitals and associated nursing schools located in the cities of Shiraz, Fasa, and Jahrom in Fars province, participated in 2016. Ethical considerations: The Institutional Review Board of the researchers’ primary university has verified that the study complies with research ethics. Findings: The total mean scores of the nurses’, nursing students’, and nursing instructors’ perception were found to be 4.23 (0.44), 3.92 (0.50), and 4.34 (0.35), respectively, in the domain of justice—this domain was the subjects’ top priority—and 3.40 (0.56), 3.29 (0.49), and 3.55 (0.36), respectively, in the domain of activism—this domain was attached the least importance by the subjects. There were significant differences across the three groups’ perception in all of the dimensions of professional values ( p < 0.001). Discussion: The three study groups’ overall mean scores fall within the range of relatively important or important. Several studies show the same results, but there are still controversies in this regard. Conclusion: There is need for plans to increase nurses’ awareness of certain professional duties and improve their professional performance in all areas alongside their care duties. (shrink)

Exploring illusions of control in a wide variety of domains, the authors posit a practical way to minimize negative consequences.

Leibniz sustains three arguments for spontaneity: the argument from the complete notion, the argument from substantial forms and the argument from monadicspontaneity. In order to see the nature of spontaneity and whether the spontaneity is an inferior value with respect to freedom, as it appears in the Theodicy, inthe first part of the paper I will present spontaneity in connection with the theory of complete notion; in the second part, spontaneity and substantial forms; in the third part, spontaneity of monads; (...) then I will finish with a more general view about spontaneity and freedom. (shrink)