The medieval Islamic philosophers held a certain conception of the divine unity that assumes the necessary existent to be both one and simple. The oneness of the necessary existent meant that it is the only necessary existent and its simplicity meant that it admits no composition whatsoever – it is pure essence and its essence is necessary existence. In The Incoherence of the Philosophers al-Ġazālī presents, with elaboration, an exposition of the philosophers' conception of the divine unity, several arguments for (...) its two components, and his critique of these arguments. In this paper I focus on six of the arguments attributed to the philosophers. Following the textual evidence, I reconstruct these arguments and offer two possible interpretations of them. The first interpretation, which I call the many-argument interpretation, sees one of the arguments as employing the simplicity of the necessary existent to establish its oneness and the other five arguments as invoking oneness to establish simplicity. The second interpretation, which I call the one-argument interpretation, doesn't offer a new reading for the first argument but sees the other five arguments as defending the simplicity of the necessary existent based on its basic concept. I argue for the superiority of the one-argument interpretation. Résumé Les philosophes de l'Islam classique ont une doctrine de l'unité divine selon laquelle l'existant nécessaire est à la fois unique et simple. Son unicité signifie qu'il est le seul existant nécessaire, sa simplicité qu'il n'admet aucune sorte de composition; il est pure essence et son essence est existence nécessaire. Dans la Destruction des Philosophes, al-Ġazālī présente avec force détails un exposé de la doctrine de l'unité divine des philosophes, plusieurs arguments en faveur de ses deux composantes, ainsi que sa critique de ces arguments. Je me concentre ici sur six des arguments qu'il attribue aux philosophes. En suivant les données textuelles, je reconstruis ces arguments et en propose deux interprétations possibles. La première, que j'appelle l'interprétation “à arguments multiples”, identifie l'un des arguments comme s'appuyant sur la simplicité de l'existant nécessaire pour établir son unicité, et les cinq autres comme s'appuyant sur son unicité pour établir sa simplicité. La seconde, que j'appelle l'interprétation “à argument unique”, conserve la première lecture du premier argument mais voit dans les cinq autres une défense de la simplicité de l'existant nécessaire fondée sur sa notion fondamentale. J'argumente en faveur de la supériorité de l'interprétation “à argument unique”. (shrink)

It is a fundamental intuition about truth that the conditions under which a sentence is true are given by what the sentence asserts. My aim in this paper is to show that this intuition captures the concept of truth completely and correctly. This is conceptual deflationism, for it does not go beyond what is asserted by a sentence in order to define the truth status of that sentence. This paper, hence, is a defense of deflationism as a conceptual account of (...) truth. This defense is developed in four stages. In the first stage I present a distinction between two types of deflationism, conceptual and metaphysical. This is the central stage of the argument and its main conclusion is that conceptual deflationism when joined with the principle of bivalence is inconsistent with metaphysical deflationism, that is, conceptual deflationism together with bivalence entails a non-deflationary metaphysical account of truth. In the second and third stages of the argument I argue that the totality of the Tarskian biconditionals, when interpreted as definitional biconditionals, offers a description of the nature of truth. In the fourth, and final, stage of the argument I advance a positive case for conceptual deflationism. I explain how the revision theory of truth provides this sort of deflationism with its best evidence: a clear demonstration of its consistency and a compelling argument for its material adequacy. (shrink)

Centuries after his death, al-Ghazali remains one of the most influential figures of the Islamic intellectual tradition. Although he is best known for his _Incoherence of the Philosophers_, _Moderation in Belief_ is his most profound work of philosophical theology. In it_,_ he offers what scholars consider to be the best defense of the Ash'arite school of Islamic theology that gained acceptance within orthodox Sunni theology in the twelfth century, though he also diverges from Ash'arism with his more rationalist approach to (...) the _Quran_. Together with _The Incoherence of the Philosophers_, _Moderation in Belief_ informs many subsequent theological debates, and its influence extends beyond the Islamic tradition, informing broader questions within Western philosophical and theological thought. The first complete English-language edition of _Moderation in Belief_, this new annotated translation by Aladdin M. Yaqub draws on the most esteemed critical editions of the Arabic texts and offers detailed commentary that analyzes and reconstructs the arguments found in the work’s four treatises. Explanations of the historical and intellectual background of the texts also enable readers with a limited knowledge of classical Arabic to fully explore al-Ghazali and this foundational text for the first time. With the recent resurgence of interest in Islamic philosophy and the conflict between philosophy and religion, this new translation will be a welcome addition to the scholarship. (shrink)

_An Introduction to Metalogic_ is a uniquely accessible introduction to the metatheory of first-order predicate logic. No background knowledge of logic is presupposed, as the book is entirely self-contained and clearly defines all of the technical terms it employs. Yaqub begins with an introduction to predicate logic and ends with detailed outlines of the proofs of the incompleteness, undecidability, and indefinability theorems, covering many related topics in between.

This book reclaims logic as a branch of philosophy, offering a self-contained and complete introduction to the three traditional systems of classical logic and the philosophical issues that surround those systems. The exposition is lucid, clear, and engaging. Practical methods are favored over the traditional, and creative approaches over the merely mechanical. The author’s guiding principle is to introduce classical logic in an intellectually honest way, and not to shy away from difficulties and controversies where they arise. Relevant philosophical issues, (...) such as the relation between the meaning and the referent of a proper name, logical versus metaphysical possibility, and the conceptual content of an expression, are discussed throughout. In this way, the book is not only an introduction to the three main systems of classical logic, but also an introduction to the philosophy of classical logic. (shrink)

It is quite common to refer to al-Ghazālī as one of the most important thinkers in the Islamic intellectual tradition. Aladdin M. Yaqub’s Al-Ghazālī’s Moderation in Belief: al-Iqtiṣād fī al-i’tiqād shows that this remark is not hyperbolic. And this volume has many characteristics of a good translation of classical texts. First of all, Aladdin M. Yaqub is very consistent with his use of terminology. He explains his preferences for Arabic philosophical terms in “Note on the Translation”. (...) As is well known, Moderation in Belief is the first text in which classical Greek logic is systematically used in Islamic theology (see the “Fourth Introduction: On explaining the methods of proof that we employ in... (shrink)

The First Islamic Reviver: Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī and His Revival of the Religious Sciences. By Kenneth Garden. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. Pp. xiii + 238. $65, £41.99. Al-Ghazālī’s Moderation in Belief: Al-Iqtiṣād fī al-iʿtiqād. Translated by Aladdin M. Yaqub. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2013. Pp. xxvii + 311. $50, £35.

The Islamic psychology (IP) community in Europe has recently witnessed a heated debate about the credentials required to participate in the theoretical substantiation of IP and Islamically integrated psychotherapy and counseling. This debate has provided convenient circumstances for Muslim psychologists and Islamic scholars alike to rethink their roles within the flourishing movement. Specifically, the discussions hint toward the importance of adopting a collaborative research methodology for IP, in particular for basic research. The methodology of choice will need to define the (...) necessary qualifications and responsibilities of scholars and psychologists in a collaborative research process (personal collaboration) and evince its capability to appropriately marry knowledge and data, diverging research methods, and perspectives, concepts, and theories from Islamic studies and contemporary psychology (content‐related collaboration). Here, we devise and offer a case illustration of an Islamic Psychology Basic Research Framework (coined the SALAAM Framework). This framework uses the Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies (IIS) Model of Interdisciplinary Research, developed by the IIS at the University of Amsterdam. Our first aim is to appropriate the IIS model for the IP literature by applying the model's research process phases and technique for the integration of disparate bodies of knowledge—that is, the identification of common ground—to methodological approaches in the contemporary IP literature. Our second aim is to exemplify the devised SALAAM Framework using the relatively unexplored area of Islamic cognitive theories (ICTs), which remain underdeveloped in contemporary psychological literature, primarily because of a lack of commensurability with the nomenclature of contemporary psychology. We thus provide a primer on the potential scope of ICTs. Toward the end of this article, we discuss the potential of the project of interdisciplinary construction of Islamic psychological theory, and the ability of the SALAAM Framework to establish a research program in IP that centers on cognition. We finally offer our reflections on the distinctiveness of Islamic psychologies in comparison to mainstream and Christian psychology. (shrink)

Proceedings of the papers presented at the Symposium on "Revisiting Turing and his Test: Comprehensiveness, Qualia, and the Real World" at the 2012 AISB and IACAP Symposium that was held in the Turing year 2012, 2–6 July at the University of Birmingham, UK. Ten papers. - http://www.pt-ai.org/turing-test --- Daniel Devatman Hromada: From Taxonomy of Turing Test-Consistent Scenarios Towards Attribution of Legal Status to Meta-modular Artificial Autonomous Agents - Michael Zillich: My Robot is Smarter than Your Robot: On the Need for (...) a Total Turing Test for Robots - Adam Linson, Chris Dobbyn and Robin Laney: Interactive Intelligence: Behaviour-based AI, Musical HCI and the Turing Test - Javier Insa, Jose Hernandez-Orallo, Sergio España - David Dowe and M.Victoria Hernandez-Lloreda: The anYnt Project Intelligence Test (Demo) - Jose Hernandez-Orallo, Javier Insa, David Dowe and Bill Hibbard: Turing Machines and Recursive Turing Tests — Francesco Bianchini and Domenica Bruni: What Language for Turing Test in the Age of Qualia? - Paul Schweizer: Could there be a Turing Test for Qualia? - Antonio Chella and Riccardo Manzotti: Jazz and Machine Consciousness: Towards a New Turing Test - William York and Jerry Swan: Taking Turing Seriously (But Not Literally) - Hajo Greif: Laws of Form and the Force of Function: Variations on the Turing Test. (shrink)

Füzuli Qurbanovun “Heydər Əliyev və yeni liderlik: fəlsəfi-elmi təhlil” kitabı AMEA Fəlsəfə və Sosiologiya İnstitutunun Elmi Şurasının 05.04.2023-cü il tarixli, 02 saylı iclasının qərarı ilə çapa məsləhət görülmüşdür. Əsərin elmi redaktorları prof. İlham Məmmədzadə və t.e.d. Eynulla Mədətli, rəyçiləri prof. Etibar Nəcəfov, prof. Cahangir Məmmədov və redaktoru Qabil Camalovdur. Müəllif kitaba “Ön söz”lə başlayır. Burada Heydər Əliyevin şəxsiyyət kimi davranışları, bir vətəndaş olaraq mövqeyi, başçı-lider vəhdətində dövlət xadimi kimi Azərbaycana olan böyük sevgisindən söhbət açılır. Sonra isə Heydər Əliyevi dövlət başçısı (...) və lider kimi doğru anlamaq üçün Azərbaycanın müstəqilliyini ürəkdən sevmənin zəruri olduğu vurğulanır. (shrink)

In this book, Yaqub describes a simple conception of truth and shows that it yields a semantical theory that accommodates the whole range of our seemingly conflicting intuitions about truth. This conception takes the Tarskian biconditionals as correctly and completely defining the notion of truth. The semantical theory, which is called the revision theory, that emerges from this conception paints a metaphysical picture of truth as a property whose applicability is given by a revision process rather than by a (...) fixed extension. The main advantage of this revision process is its ability to explain why truth seems in many cases almost redundant, in others substantial, and yet in others paradoxical. Yaub offers a comprehensive defense of the revision theory of truth by developing consistent and adequate formal semantics for languages in which all sorts of problematic sentences can be constructed. Yaqub concludes by introducing a logic of truth that further demonstrates the adequacy of the revision theory. (shrink)

Business Ethics, the Environment &Responsibility, Volume 31, Issue 3, Page 718-740, July 2022.

Business Ethics, the Environment &Responsibility, Volume 31, Issue 3, Page 718-740, July 2022.

This collection addresses a post-WWII shift in the hierarchy of scientific explanations, where the highest goal moves from reductionism towards some ...

For the theorists of crisis, the revolutionary state comes into existence through violence, and due to its inability to provide an authoritative katechon (restrainer) against internal and external violence, it perpetuates violence until it self-destructs. Writing during extreme economic depression and growing social and political violence, the crisis theorists––Joseph de Maistre, Juan Donoso Cortés, and Carl Schmitt––each sought to blame the chaos of their time upon the Janus-faced postrevolutionary ideals of liberalism and socialism by urging a return to pre-revolutionary moral (...) and religious values. They are united by three counterrevolutionary principles, all of which are purported to remedy revolutionary violence: traditional constitutional fidelity, the philosophy of the decision, and opposition to bourgeois liberalism. This essay is followed by the first complete English translation and publication of Donoso’s letter of October 24, 1851, which contains Donoso’s only reference to the “discussing class,” a political entity later popularized by Schmitt in his 1922 work Political Theology. (shrink)

The Mongols’ invasion of the territories of the Islamic world, especially Baghdad, the seat of the Islamic Caliphate, had great consequences, including the fall of Baghdad and the Bani Abbas Caliphate, the killing of the Caliph, and extensive destruction in the geography of their invasion. About half a century after the invasion of the Mongols, Ibn Taymiyyah (1263-1328), regardless of historical documents, accused Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, a prominent thinker, of collusion and cooperation with Hulagu Khan. After Ibn Taymiyyah Harrani, these (...) accusations were followed and disseminated in religious, historical, rijal (the study of hadith narrators and their personality), and even moral books by his students, such as Ibn Qayyim al Jawziyya (1292-1350). This article is an attempt to deny these accusations. Relying on the earliest historical documents, it tries to describe the historical event as it happened. In this regard, the article first provides the text of Nasir al-Din al-Tusi’s short treatise “On the Baghdad Incident”, included in Aladdin Atamalik Juveyni’s “Tarikh-i Jahangusha”, and then presents its descriptive interpretation separately. Although this treatise is short, it contains all the important points, from Hulagu Khan’s decision to go to war to the conquest of Baghdad and the analysis of the internal factors of the fall of the caliphate. This treatise, above all, is a very solid argument. For its author first of all was the witness of the Baghdad events. Secondly, in this writing, Nasir al-Din al-Tusi examines the Mongols’ attack on Baghdad but does not mention his own activity or role in the attack on Baghdad. Thirdly, if he had an activity and a role in this incident, or if he had an intention to take revenge on his religious opponents considering the situation, he should at least have hinted and expressed his approval, which is not the case at all. (shrink)

The role of digitization and globalization have changed consumers’ online buying behaviors, specifically in the times of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. This seriously influences the online retail industry in developing countries that are already struggling to move toward digital trading through e-business. Pakistan being a developing country is no exception, and it is, therefore, pertinent to examine factors that contribute to digital trading. Employing theories of reasoned action and the technology acceptance model, this study aims to investigate how personal innovativeness (...) and perceived usefulness impact consumers’ online purchase intentions through a serial mediational model. The data were collected through an online survey from 410 respondents. Structural Equation Modeling was used to test the proposed model. This study showed significant results for the direct effect of personal innovativeness and perceived usefulness on online purchase intentions as well as the indirect serial effect via internet browsing and attitude toward online purchasing. The study results have some important practical implications for selling firms, especially in the times of COVID-19. The study suggests that online retailers should be more responsive to the aforementioned factors to facilitate consumers to spend more time browsing, which influences consumers’ interest and intention to make online purchases. As the social distancing and lockdown approaches were implemented in Pakistan and other parts of the world, the trend toward online purchases has increased. Due to this shift in the overall purchasing behavior of consumers and the potential for strong growth in e-commerce, organizations need to consider the post-COVID situation to expand their business in an online platform for addressing the future pandemic crisis. (shrink)

The Mongols’ invasion of the territories of the Islamic world, especially Baghdad, the seat of the Islamic Caliphate, had great consequences, including the fall of Baghdad and the Bani Abbas Caliphate, the killing of the Caliph, and extensive destruction in the geography of their invasion. About half a century after the invasion of the Mongols, Ibn Taymiyyah (1263-1328), regardless of historical documents, accused Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, a prominent thinker, of collusion and cooperation with Hulagu Khan. After Ibn Taymiyyah Harrani, these (...) accusations were followed and disseminated in religious, historical, rijal (the study of hadith narrators and their personality), and even moral books by his students, such as Ibn Qayyim al Jawziyya (1292-1350). This article is an attempt to deny these accusations. Relying on the earliest historical documents, it tries to describe the historical event as it happened. In this regard, the article first provides the text of Nasir al-Din al-Tusi’s short treatise “On the Baghdad Incident”, included in Aladdin Atamalik Juveyni’s “Tarikh-i Jahangusha”, and then presents its descriptive interpretation separately. Although this treatise is short, it contains all the important points, from Hulagu Khan’s decision to go to war to the conquest of Baghdad and the analysis of the internal factors of the fall of the caliphate. This treatise, above all, is a very solid argument. For its author first of all was the witness of the Baghdad events. Secondly, in this writing, Nasir al-Din al-Tusi examines the Mongols’ attack on Baghdad but does not mention his own activity or role in the attack on Baghdad. Thirdly, if he had an activity and a role in this incident, or if he had an intention to take revenge on his religious opponents considering the situation, he should at least have hinted and expressed his approval, which is not the case at all. (shrink)

Some theories of goodness are descriptively rich: they have much to say about what makes things good. Neo-Aristotelian accounts, for instance, detail the various features that make a human being, a dog, a bee good relative to facts about those forms of life. Famously, such theories of relative goodness tend to be comparatively poor: they have little or nothing to say about what makes one kind of being better than another kind. Other theories of goodness—those that take there to be (...) absolute goodness—are comparatively rich: they offer grounds for judging some types of things better than others because they have more absolute goodness. Moorean accounts, for example, can tell us that humans and human experiences are superior to bees and blades of grass. But such theories tend to be descriptively poor: they struggle to tell us in virtue of what this is so. In this essay we motivate and flesh out a view that splits the difference between accounts of goodness as relative and accounts of goodness as absolute. Such a view holds promise only if the mechanics of this kind of metaphysics of goodness can be worked out. Here we present a view on which the paradigm for absolute goodness is God and the paradigm for each kind of relative goodness is a divine idea. (shrink)