Imam Malik, the founder of one of the four major sects of fiqh, named his work Muwatta, which compiled authentic narrations. It is also the first fiqh formulation that survive to the present day. The Muvatta, as a work that conveys the practices of the Medina society in the period of the Companions, allows to see the religious life of the Prophet and the Companions. This work, which constitutes one of the first written sources of fiqh and hadith, is a (...) response to the western criticism, especially regarding the authenticity of hadiths. Conveying the Muvatta in the same way, the narrators in different geographies of the world revealed that authentic hadiths had also been the tradition of the Muslim community since the time of the Prophet. (shrink)

The need to create art is found in every human society, manifest in many different ways across many different cultures. Is this universal need rooted in our evolutionary past? The Art Instinct reveals that it is, combining evolutionary psychology with aesthetics to shed new light on fascinating questions about the nature of art.

The need to create art is found in every human society, manifest in many different ways across many different cultures. Is this universal need rooted in our evolutionary past? The Art Instinct reveals that it is, combining evolutionary psychology with aesthetics to shed new light on fascinating questions about the nature of art.

Dini sahada tartışılan bazı kavramlar birden fazla disipline konu olmuş ve bu kavramlar her disiplinde farklı açılardan ele alınmıştır. Dinî nasların anlaşılmasında önemli yeri olan hakikat ve mecaz bu tür kavramlardandır. Hakikat ve mecaz salt dilbilimsel kavramlar gibi görünseler de birçok dini disipline önemli ölçüde konu olmuşlardır. Fıkıh usûlü, bu kavramları yoğun bir şekilde konu edinen temel dini disiplinlerden biridir. İlk dönem dil kaynaklarında mecaza dair bir tanım yapılmamışsa da ana hatlarıyla “lafzın dilde vazedildiği anlam dışında kullanılması” mecaz kabul edilmiştir. (...) Günümüze ulaşan ilk fıkıh usulü eserinin müellifi İmam Şâfiî (öl. 204/820) ve Mu‘tezilî öncülerden Câhiz (öl. 255/869), Ebû Ali el-Cübbâî (öl. 303/916) ve Ebû Hâşim el-Cübbâî (öl. 321/933) de görüşlerini temellendirirken kavram tanımı yapmadan mecazı kullanmışlardır. Kelamcı usûlcülerden ilk defa mecaz tanımı yapan Ebû Abdullah el-Basrî’den (öl. 369/979-80) iki farklı tanım nakledilmiştir. Ebû Abdullah’ın yaptığı bu tanımlar ana hatlarıyla sonraki asırlarda yaşayan usûlcülerin tanımları üzerinde etkili olmuşsa da yakın takipçileri tarafından kabul görmemiştir. Cessâs (öl. 370/981) ve Bâkıllânî (öl. 403/1013) düşünsel mülahazalar içermeyen sade bir tanım yaparken Mu‘tezilî usûlcülerden Ebü’l-Hüseyin el-Basrî (öl. 436/1044) mecaza dair kelâmî mülahazalar içeren komplike bir tanım geliştirmiştir. Ebü’l-Hüseyin, yaptığı tanımda lafzın mecazi anlamda kullanıldığını ortaya koymak için ilk olarak hitabın türünün temel belirleyici unsurlardan biri olduğuna dikkat çekmiştir. Ebü’l-Hüseyin yaptığı tanımda ikinci olarak lafzın hakiki anlamı gibi mecazi anlamının da bir vazՙ ile olduğuna işaret etmiştir. Ayrıca yaptığı tanımda açık şekilde ifade etmese de konu çerçevesinde yaptı değerlendirmelerde lafzın mecazi anlamda kullanıldığını ortaya koymak için karinenin temel belirleyici unsurlardan biri olduğunu vurgulamıştır. Ona göre lafız, ancak hakiki anlamda kullanılmasına engel bir karinenin olması durumunda mecazi anlama hamledilir. Mu‘tezilî usûlcülerin mecaz tanımlarını konu edinen bu çalışmada öncelikle İlk beş asırda dilcilerin ve Mu‘tezile dışındaki fıkıh usûlcülerinin ortaya koydukları mecaz tanımları incelenmiştir. Daha sonra Mu‘tezilî usûlcülerin mecaz tanımları değerlendirilmiştir. Mu‘tezilî âlimlerin mecaz tanımları içerisinde ekolün düşünsel mülahazalarını dikkate alan Ebü’l-Hüseyin el-Basrî’nin tanımı yakından incelenmiştir. Mu‘tezilî düşünürlerden Kādî Abdülcebbâr’ın mecaz anlayışını yansıtan tanımı günümüze ulaşmadığı için Ebül-Hüseyin’in tanımı incelenirken Kādî Abdülcebbâr’ın görüşleri de irdelenmiştir. Böylece Ebül-Hüseyin’e ait fıkıh usulü sahasında yoğun kelâmî mülahazalar ihtiva eden mecaz tanımının temelde Kādî Abdülcebbâr’a dayandığı ortaya konulmuştur. Çalışmamızda son olarak Ebül-Hüseyin’den nakledilen mecaz tanımının diğer ekollere mensup usûlcüler üzerindeki etkisi de ortaya konulmuştur. Bu tanımın söz konusu usûlcülerden Fahreddin er-Râzî (öl. 606/1210) tarafından kabul gördüğü belirtilmiş ve Râzî’nin bu tanım çerçevesindeki görüşleri Mu‘tezile’nin düşünsel zemininde tartışılmıştır. (shrink)

In this research, the key elements of lectio divina, which is a Western spiritual practice, were tried to be mentioned. Many new practices emerged in the transition from desert monasticism, where early Christian monasticism emerged, to the settled monastic order, which attached little importance to reading other than the Bible. The habit of reading has also become one of the indispensable elements of the monastery after the transition to the settled monasteries. The entry of this term into monastic literature dates (...) back to St. Benedict (480-547), who included it in the daily monastic calendar as a kind of monastic discipline. The lectio practice applied in monasteries brought along some questions such as what the content of this reading activity is, how long it lasts and how it should be practiced. In this regard, the contributions of Cassiodorus (490-583), who was also a contemporary of St. Benedict, to the monastic literature and the ideal of the monastic school, are important. In addition, in this study, information is given about the monastery copying activities, which have an important place to be directly related to the lectio and ensuring the preservation of knowledge and transferring it to the next generations. From this point of view, it has been tried to examine the comments made by the monastic leaders from the early period to the 12th century on the pagan literature, which is not included in the Bible and religious works read in the monastic libraries. Lectio divina gained popularity among monasteries affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church, and by the 12th century it had developed into the four-stage reading process known today by Guigo II. The details of this four-stage process were tried to be given in the last section and the study was concluded after the evaluations made in the conclusion section. (shrink)

Today as it was in the past, faith in shafaat is accepted by some groups while it is rejected by some others and both sides base their views on the Qur’an. When we examine the Qur'an, we see that some of the verses related to the theme refer to the existence of shafaat and the other part of it speaks the absence of shafaat. The Qur'an is a divine book which superstitious cannot get close to it in anyway. One of (...) the most important characteristics of the Qur’an is that there are no contradictory information and provisions that lie against each other. However, the Qur’an was taken as a reference for both denial and proscription of shafaat. Both the approval and rejection of the Qur'an the same intercession is a paradoxical situation incompatible with the divine word. This leads us to determine two different types of shafaat accepted and rejected according to the Qur'an and the differences between them; therefore, this leads us also to examine the related verses holistically. In this respect, we will try in this article to examine the verses about the possibility and impossibility of shafaat in the Qur’anic integrity. In the same way, we will try to determine the nature of the shafaat that the Qur’an rejects and approves of. (shrink)

Aesthetic theoriesmayclaim universality, but they are normally conditioned by the aesthetic issues and debates of their own times. Plato and Aristo- tle were motivated both to account for the Greek arts of their day and to connect aesthetics to their general metaphysics and theories of value. Closer to our time, asNo¨el Carroll observes, the theories of Clive Bell and R.G. Collingwood can be viewed as “defenses of emerging avant-garde practices— neoimpressionism, on the one hand, and the mod- ernist poetics of (...) Joyce, Stein, and Eliot on the other.”1 Susanne Langer can be read as provid- ing a justification for modern dance, while the ini- tial version of George Dickie’s institutional the- ory “requires something like the presupposition that Dada is a central form of artistic practice” in order to gain intuitive appeal. The. (shrink)

One of the most striking features of speculative theology (kalaam) as it developed within the Ash'arite tradition of Islam is its denial of causal power to creatures. Much like Malebranche in the seventeenth century, the Ash'arites saw this denial as a natural extension of monotheism and were led as a result to embrace an occasionalist account of causality. According to their analysis, causal power is identical with creative power, and since God is the sole and sovereign creator, God is the (...) only causal agent. To assert anything else is to compromise monotheism. This position, of course, was in direct opposition to the prevailing accounts of causality within the philosophical tradition of Islam at the time. The philosophers (falaasifa) had by and large taken over accounts of causality from Aristotle and the Neoplatonists and adapted them in accordance with their own set of concerns. In such accounts, while God stands as the first cause, secondary causationis unambiguously affirmed, even if variously understood. Thus, as they offered a sophisticated account of causal action in direct opposition to the occasionalist thesis, thefalaasifa posed something of challenge to the theologians. (shrink)

This paper reexamines Adorno’s conception of utopia within the context of his critique of the concept of progress. It contests the standard interpretation which conveys Adorno’s conception of utopia to be imbued with an essentially extra-historical idea of redemption. I argue, contrary to this view, that the motif of redemption surfacing in Adorno’s conception of utopia negates a specific type of historical life – life under which historical consciousness sinks into oblivion – rather than history per se. In order to (...) reveal the historicality of Adorno’s conception of utopia, I examine his fragmentary yet consistent critique of the concept of progress, which, far from calling for total abandonment, aims to access and unearth its truth-content. Last but not least, I visit Adorno’s suggestion regarding the consonance of utopia with genuine progress, assessing its implications vis-à-vis a characteristic feature of mythological life, the ratio of self-preservation. (shrink)

Seventeen philosophical thinkers ask: What is creativity? What are the criteria of creativity? Should we assign logical priority to creative persons, processes, or products? How do various forms of creativity relate to different domains of human activity?

İbn Arabî’nin Fusûsü’l-hikem’in Âdem Fassı’nda yer verdiği umûr-ı külliye kavramı, Fusûs şârihleri tarafından muhtelif şekillerde alımlanmıştır. Kimi sufîler bu kavramı küllilere kimisi de zihnî varlık tartışmalarına hasretmek suretiyle ele alma taraftarı olmuştur. Yakın dönemde yapılan araştırmalar bunun izinden giderek söz konusu kavramla külliler tartışması arasında irtibat kurmaya çalışmaktadır. Biz bu çalışmamızda, Meşşâî felsefe geleneğinde metafiziğin ilm-i küllî kısmının temel meselelerine karşılık gelen umûr-ı âmme kavramı ile Fusûs’da yer alan umûr-ı külliye arasında bir irtibatın imkânını sorgulayacağız. Bunu yaparken özellikle ilk şârih (...) Cendî’nin umûr-ı külliyeyi umûr-ı âmme kavramı ile karşılamasından hareket ederek bu bakış açısının sonraki dönem şârihleri arasında nasıl yankı bulduğunu Afîfüddin Tilimsânî, Abdürrezzâk el-Kâşânî, Davud el-Kayserî, Sâinüddin İbn Türke, Yazıcıoğlu Mehmed Efendi, Molla Câmî gibi düşünürlerin yorumları eşliğinde ele alacağız. Bu bağlamda umûr-ı külliyenin Tanrı ile âlem arasındaki irtibatı kurma-daki metafiziksel yönü ve ikinci akledilirler olarak değerlendirilmesi gibi on-tolojik ve epistemolojik cihetleri dikkate alınarak, umûr-ı âmme kavramı etrafında yapılan tartışmalarla benzer yönleri ortaya konulmaya çalışılacaktır. Bu sayede söz konusu yorum ve benzerliklerden yola çıkarak, bu kavram çiftinin, dile getirildikleri düşünce geleneklerinin yakınlaşmasına bir zemin teşkil edip etmeyeceği tartışılacaktır. (shrink)

South Korea created miracles out of a mess in the second half of the twentieth century. They have built an industrial production and export giant called Han Miracle and a democratic culture. They also began to create a cultural fever worldwide called the Korean Wave. However, what makes the Korean modernisation story unique compared to other development experiences in Asia is neither its industrial development nor its democratisation. The rapid Christianisation, especially the Protestantisation of Korea, which walks alongside modernisation, is (...) what makes this story special. Catholics entered Korea first, but they failed due to various reasons. Then, a peasant movement called Tonghak, which is organised around a syncretic religion named Cheondogyo, began to rise. They even started a nationwide uprising and gained massive supporters, but they could not succeed in expanding aggressively after the Japanese occupation. The latest comers, the Protestants, eventually became the largest religious group in South Korea. The Protestants studied the Catholics’ failure and the Tonghak movement’s success well and created a syncretic folk religion that did not exclude local religious elements. This syncretism was the key to their mind-blowing success in South Korea. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Descartes and the Last ScholasticsBlake D. DuttonRoger Ariew. Descartes and the Last Scholastics. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999. Pp. xi + 230. Cloth, $42.50.The attempt to understand Descartes vis-à-vis the scholastic tradition dates back to the studies of Etienne Gilson early in this century. Though Descartes saw himself as a revolutionary who would overthrow the Aristotelianism entrenched in the universities, Gilson was able to demonstrate his reliance upon (...) a variety of scholastic sources for important terminology, distinctions, and arguments which permeate his writings. Unfortunately, this line of investigation was largely ignored among Anglo-American scholars who were generally hostile to Scholasticism and uninterested in contextualizing Descartes's thought. However, since the mid-eighties there has been a distinct shift in attitude as scholars have increasingly turned their attention to the place of Scholasticism within Descartes's intellectual environment. Among these, Roger Ariew has to be counted as one of the most sophisticated, and his new book, Descartes and the Late Scholastics, marks an important contribution to the growing literature on the topic.Ariew's book is actually a collection of essays published over the last decade, including two which he co-authored with Marjorie Grene. Many of these have been substantially expanded to include fresh material and reworked so as to give the whole a greater sense of continuity. After a marvelous opening chapter in which he lays out his overall account of Descartes's attitude towards Scholasticism, Ariew presents the remaining essays in two large groups: those dealing with the immediate context of Descartes's thought and those dealing with its reception through the early part of the eighteenth century.Among the more interesting results of the first group of studies is Ariew's claim that the scholastic climate in and around Paris during Descartes's lifetime was predominately Scotistic rather than Thomistic. He shows this by looking at positions taken by a number of Parisian schoolmen on important issues which typically divided Scotists and Thomists. Ariew goes on to argue that not only was the Parisian environment Scotistic, but that Descartes aligned himself with the Scotists on many key issues in both physics (e.g., that time is independent of motion) and metaphysics (e.g., that the principle of individuation is a form). This is certainly an intriguing claim since most studies of this type have viewed Descartes in relation to Aquinas and those Jesuit thinkers who were broadly Thomistic in outlook. In bringing to light this Scotistic background, Ariew has opened up an important new line of inquiry.Other topics included in this first section are the literary and philosophical background [End Page 275] to the "new way of ideas" of which Descartes is a founder, the place of Descartes's doctrine of matter and form in seventeenth century debates over hylomorphism, and the reaction of Scholastics to the observational results of the new astronomy. What emerges in these essays is not only a highly nuanced view of Descartes's relation to Scholasticism, but an important corrective to still prevalent views of the Scholastics as reactionary and blindly opposed to developments within the new science. This last point is made with particular force in the fifth essay entitled "Scholastics and the New Astronomy." There Ariew argues that the astronomical observations of Galileo et alia were not in themselves decisive for overthrowing the Aristotelian cosmology as it had been articulated in the seventeenth century. This is because scholastic astronomers were generally accepting of such findings (e.g., sunspots) and were able to accommodate them within their own systems by making relatively minor adjustments. Although these systems ultimately proved themselves inadequate, Ariew makes a strong case that the Aristotelianism of the seventeenth century was sufficiently fluid to accommodate most of what the astronomers offered up. Thus the necessity for a radical overhaul of basic philosophical and scientific assumptions was by no means as evident as standard histories of this period would have us believe.The second section of the book is dedicated to debates over Cartesianism and its fate in the generations immediately following Descartes's death. Here Ariew provides a wealth of detail about various condemnations of Cartesianism, a comparative study of... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.1 (2003) 130-131 [Access article in PDF] Steven Nadler. Spinoza's Heresy: Immortality and the Jewish Mind. New York: Oxford University Press, Clarendon Press, 2001. Pp. xvi + 225. Cloth, $35.00. Steven Nadler's Spinoza's Heresy opens with the following declaration: "It is a splendid mystery" (1). The mystery, of course, is how a gifted son of the Jewish community of Amsterdam, a young man (...) whom one might have expected to grow naturally into the role of a respected rabbi, came to be expelled from that community. What Nadler finds so mysterious is not the simple fact of Spinoza's expulsion—itself a common form of discipline among the Jews of Amsterdam—but the vehemence and finality with which he was expelled. The writ of expulsion accuses Spinoza of "abominable heresies" and "monstrous deeds" and goes on to heap layer after layer of curse upon him. It is, in Nadler's judgment, the harshest writ ever to be pronounced against a member of that community. What, then, were the views so abominable and the deeds so monstrous that account for this? What had Spinoza said and done to raise such ire among his fellow Jews? That is the mystery Nadler's book attempts to solve.Needless to say, Nadler is not the first to take up this challenge. The question of what lay behind Spinoza's expulsion has been of perennial interest to scholars, and what keeps it alive, in part, is its resistance to definitive resolution. Most importantly, Spinoza had not yet begun to write at the time of his expulsion, and his surviving correspondence is silent on the matter. Nevertheless, it is tempting to look to his Ethics and Theological-Political Treatise for clues. But if we are to do so, as Nadler encourages us to, we must not only determine which of the views they contain can be attributed to the young Spinoza, but show how his holding of them explains the events that transpired.Nadler begins with the documentary evidence. Although sparse, the sources point to three views at the root of Spinoza's troubles: that God exists only philosophically; that the Law is not true; and that the soul is not immortal. Acknowledging that each of these may have played a role in the expulsion, Nadler singles out the last for special scrutiny and concludes that it was decisive. His reasons for doing so emerge in the last chapter of the book. Despite broad latitude within the Jewish tradition as a whole, the Jews of Amsterdam were particularly sensitive on the issue of immortality and did not take kindly those who denied it. Indeed, they had a history of confrontation with "heretics" on this issue. This was partly a function of a general concern not to arouse unwanted attention from the politically powerful Calvinists within Dutch society. But it also stemmed from an intense interest in the afterlife among the Sephardim, who, being of Marrano heritage, were naturally concerned about the postmortem fate of Jewish converts to Catholicism. Though the community was divided on what that fate would be, the entire debate on the question was carried out on the shared assumption of personal immortality. This, together with a deep commitment to immortality on the part of each of its leading rabbis, conspired to make Jewish Amsterdam an inhospitable place for anyone holding views like those Spinoza was to express. In Nadler's words, immortality "was simply the wrong issue to pick on in Jewish Amsterdam in the 1650's" (156).Nadler's thesis is intriguing, and the light that he throws on the Spinoza affair in the course of developing it is considerable. However, a question remains. Although Nadler does an impressive job of clarifying why Spinoza's views on the afterlife would have been so volatile within the Amsterdam community, we might still wonder why the other two theses he is reported to have held do not merit equal consideration. This is particularly true of his denial of the authority of the Law. Whatever... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 40.1 (2002) 118-119 [Access article in PDF] Book Review The Cambridge Companion to Augustine Eleonore Stump and Norman Kretzmann, editors. The Cambridge Companion to Augustine. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Pp. xv + 307. Cloth, $59.95. Paper, $21.95. Given the immeasurable influence of Augustine upon the Western tradition, a volume devoted to him in the Cambridge Companion Series has been long overdue. Fortunately, (...) the lacuna has been filled by a work that exhibits the quality of scholarship and clarity of presentation that has become a hallmark of this series. Ably edited by Eleonore Stump and Norman Kretzmann, it will serve admirably as a guide for students and professionals alike, with much that is of interest to seasoned Augustine scholars.As Stump tells us in her introduction, the eighteen essays of the volume are loosely grouped according to eight topics. These are philosophy of religion, metaphysics and theology, philosophy of mind, theory of knowledge, philosophy of language, ethics, political philosophy, and Augustine's influence. As is apparent from this list, the essays cut a vast swath through Augustine's corpus, though they focus on what is of greatest interest to philosophers. In addition, since Augustine did not recognize a clean division between philosophy and theology, much that we now classify as theology gets attention as well.In keeping with the aim of the series, the character of the essays is, for the most part, expository. Each author takes pains to explain the outlines of Augustine's position on the particular topic under consideration, and most do so with considerable attention to the evolution of his thought and the context in which he wrote. Christopher Kirwan's essay, for example, not only traces the development of Augustine's philosophy of language from his early De magistro and De dialectica through his mature De doctrina Christiana, but highlights those areas in which the influence of Stoic dialectic can be detected. Similarly, John Rist's essay on faith and reason includes a discussion of the relation of Augustine's views on credibilia to the Platonic tradition, and Paul Weithman's essay on political theory examines Augustine's critique of Ciceronian ideals of political society. Thus, while systematic in their exposition, the essays give due recognition to the fact that Augustine's views evolved through continual reassessment of the antique heritage in light of changing concerns and circumstances, particularly an increasing concern to articulate the foundations of a new, scripturally inspired, vision of God, humanity, and society. [End Page 118]In addition to exposition and historical analysis, many of the authors use their essays as occasions for constructive philosophical engagement. Perhaps the best of these is Stump's essay. Noting the pervasive disagreement among interpreters over Augustine's doctrine of free will, she distinguishes three positions available to defenders of free will--compatiblism, common libertarianism, and modified libertarianism--in order to bring greater conceptual clarity to the interpretive task. She then shows that in his early work, De libero arbitrio, Augustine develops an essentially libertarian position (though which form he is committed to remains ambiguous), but that this account comes into tension with his views concerning the action of grace on the will as they were later developed in opposition to the Pelagians. In itself this is not a startling claim, but Stump's analytical skills enable her to identify precisely where the tension lies, and she suggests a way that Augustine could have resolved this tension without compromising his basic commitments.If there is any quibble to be had with the volume, it is that several of the essays are too compressed. Roland Teske's essay on the soul and William Mann's essay on evil, for example, run a mere seven and nine pages each. Though informative, given the centrality of these topics to Augustine's thought, they would have been more useful had they been expanded. Because of this, the most satisfying essays are those in which the authors stretch out. Scott MacDonald's piece on the divine nature is particularly good in this regard. In... (shrink)

Erken dönem Mu’tezile kelâmcılarından biri olan Ebû Ca’fer Muhammed b. Abdullah el-İskâfî, kelâm ilmi ile ilgili sahip olduğu bilgi birikimini kullanarak İslam inanç ilkelerini daha çok akli ilkelerle savunmuştur. Mu’tezilenin genel metoduna uygun olarak tevhid, zat sıfat ilişkisi, halku’l-Kur’an, adalet, hüsün ve kubuh gibi konuları teşbihten uzak tenzihi önceleyen bir bakış açısıyla açıklamaya çalışmıştır. Allah’ın varlığını akli olarak ispat etmek amacıyla âlemin bütün unsurlarıyla hâdis olduğunu savunmuştur. Ayrıca yaşadığı dönemde sosyal bir problem olan imâmet konusu ile ilgili daha faziletli imâm (...) varken faziletli olanın imâm olmasını meşru görerek Şia ile diğer Müslümanlar arasındaki bu sorunu çözmeye çalışmıştır. Makalede müellifin ilahiyat ve âlem ile ilgili görüşleri daha çok klasik kelâm kaynaklarından, imâmet ile ilgili düşünceleri ise müellifin eserlerinden faydalanılarak tespit edilmeye çalışılmıştır. Çalışmamız, İslam düşüncesinin teşekkül döneminde İslam inancını savunan kelâmcıların görüşlerini dönemin şartları gözetilerek tarafsız bir şekilde ortaya koymayı hedeflemektedir. Bilindiği gibi İslam kelâmının oluşumuna katkı sunan ilk dönem kelâmcılarının yazdığı eserlerin büyük bir kısmı günümüze ulaşmamıştır. İslam kelâmının hangi şartlarda oluştuğu ve şekillendiğinin doğru bir şekilde öğrenilmesi açısından erken dönem kelâmcılarının görüşlerinin bilinmesi önem arz etmektedir. (shrink)

ABSTRACTAs efforts towards reconciling the thought of Hannah Arendt and Theodor Adorno gained momentum in the last decade, it seems an array of essential discrepancies have been failing to receive due attention. This article aims to foreground and explore one particular philosophical difference which stands in the way of such endeavours, focussing on Adorno’s and Arendt’s conceptualization of nature. It is argued that while Adorno’s philosophy is poised to redeem nature from the pangs of false enlightenment, Arendt’s redefinition of political (...) existence upholds not only the careful separation of politics from nature but also emphasizes the former’s superiority. Revisiting a set of arguments raised by Adorno against fundamental ontology such as the questions of hypostasis and tautology, it is explored in what ways Arendt’s conceptualization of nature as eternal recurrence markedly and perhaps irreconcilably differs from the normative import of Adorno’s understanding, which emphasizes the concrete unity of nature with history. (shrink)

On the surface, the world of fashion may seem like a utopia: the glamour, the ability to purchase confidence and performance, giving people the freedom of self-expression. However, many of us are masked from the dystopia that drives this industry. The business models of fast fashion often thrive on exploiting land and people, through supply chains that are as opaque as offshore banking scandals, with many middlemen and much finger- pointing. The way clothing is consumed is much like a subscription (...) model, with consumers paying low costs more frequently, rather than investing a large amount into a long-lasting garment. This all results in poor-quality and -performance clothing, excessive waste of... (shrink)

In the polemical literature against Judaism, it is stated that Islam is the last religion, Prophet Muhammad was foretold in the Bible, and the Bible is distorted. Among the authors of such works, there are many who embraced Islam from Jews and Christians. Through their works, these converts show Muslims how serious they are in embracing Islam. In this article, the treatise under the evaluation was first brought to the agenda in 1867 by Gustav Flügel (d. 1870). Flügel claimed that (...) the author of the treatise was a Spanish or Moroccan convert Jew named Rakili. However, recent researches have revealed that Rakili is the name of the copyist and the author is an unknown Jew. Due to the Hebrew words in the text of the treatise, the author is thought to be a Jewish convert. The author of the treatise makes use of intensive quotations from Tanakh. However, it seems that the criticism of the treatise is not as strong as Ibn Hazm. The author also quotes from the Jewish oral tradition. Although the author is thought to be a Jewish convert, it is difficult to say that there is a very strong polemic of Judaism. Rather than showing that the Torah has been tampered with, using the passages of Tanakh, he wants to demonstrate that the Israelites went astray. In doing so, he tries to refute the Jewish claim of chosenness. Instead of stating that the Jews were not at the point of religious representation of God’s message, the author claims that Muhammad's followers were the addressees of this election. This method, which we occasionally encounter in other polemical treatises, appears as a much more intense and central agenda in this treatise. The most original aspect of this treatise at issue is the Ishmael-Isaac, Hagar-Sarah and Moses- Muhammad comparisons. The author insistently emphasizes that the chosen line is not the lineage of Isaac, but the lineage of Ishmael. As a natural consequence of this, he tries to prove that Muhammad is the greatest prophet to be obeyed and followed. What is interesting here is that the author, as a Jewish convert, tried to refute the idea of the chosennes of Jewish nation. According to him, there is an election not through Sarah and Isaac, but through Hagar and Ishmael. It is seen that those who have converted do such things both to prove their sincerity and to be accepted by Muslim administrators. The author’s glorifications of the Prophet Muhammad and his miracles by scorning Moses' miracles and Jewish ancestors can be described as an extreme attitude in this sense. The author also devotes a place to the subject of Biblical prophecies about the Prophet Muhammad. In this part, the author of the treatise stated that the gematria (abjad) value of some words in the Torah and the word Muhammad are equal. He claims that there are passages pointing to Muhammad. However, these passages are known in the polemical literature and are issues that were mentioned before the author. Apart from these widely known passages, there are some other passages he quoted. But these passages are also based on strained interpretations. Again, in some passages he quoted from Tanakh, it is seen that he was flexible and not loyal to the text. One of the points that the author dwells upon is the sins committed by the Israelites and the curses that were inflicted on them. The author of treatise supports this with passages different from Tanakh. Drawing attention to the fact that the Jews were cursed in their own books, which they consider sacred, the author tries to show that a nation so cursed cannot be a chosen people. The author, contrary to the Jews' expectation of the Messiah, points out that Jesus will come back, break the cross, kill the pig, and rule the earth. The writer, who reported the hadith that the Jews would be killed in the End Times, even reports that when the Jews hid behind the stones, the stones would say "There is a Jew behind me, come and kill". According to him, the time for Jews to repent has passed, because they could not take this opportunity by denying Muhammad either. The author has an interesting explanation as to why the hereafter and resurrection are not mentioned in the Torah. According to this claim, when God sent down the Torah to Moses, he ordered the Israelites to keep their orders and refrain from their prohibitions. Since God knows the hardness and stubbornness of the hearts of the Israelites, that most of them are devilish, engaged in magic and pagan cults, and prefer the world to the hereafter, he did not mention the issues such as heaven, hell, reward and punishment in the Torah. On the contrary, in many parts of the Torah, God said to them if you keep my orders, your sustenance will increase, your generation will increase, fertility will increase, and you will win victories over your enemies. (shrink)

The present study examined the effects of gender on the emotional responses (physiology, self-reports of emotion, and emotional facial behaviour) of European Americans (EA) and Hmong Americans (HA) while they relived past emotional events. Women were more emotionally reactive than men: They demonstrated greater changes in electrodermal reactivity overall, reported experiencing more intense emotion while reliving anger and love, and smiled more while reliving happiness and love. The pattern and magnitude of these differences were similar for EA and HA, suggesting (...) that to some degree, the effects of gender on emotional response may hold across ethnic groups. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 27.1 (2003) 241-254 [Access article in PDF] Darwin and Political Theory Denis Dutton [Erratum]IN THE 1970s, during the oil crisis, B. F. Skinner suggested a way that the United States's energy shortage could be alleviated. People should be rewarded, he argued, for coming together to eat in large communal dining halls, rather than cooking and eating at home with their families. His reasoning was irresistible: (...) large cooking pots have a lower ratio of surface area to volume. There would be therefore a considerable saving in energy in massive public kitchens, compared with numberless small individual pots cooking in private kitchen stoves across the nation.Of course, Skinner must have known his idea would have to overcome objections based on ingrained middle-class prejudices. Some parents would feel aggrieved: placing children before big communal pots would rob mothers of the pleasures of preparing foods and feeding their own offspring. Others might object that the only foods adequate to a big, round energy-efficient vessels are stews or soups; they might complain about endless boiled fare. Families of one ethnic background or another might dislike the relatively uniform diet, despite the hearty, nutritious goodness of stew. I can imagine Skinner's frustration: Why are people so stubborn? Why can't they look beyond minor details and see the sheer reasonableness of the proposal?The story is cited by Steven Pinker in The Blank Slate as yet another dream of a better-engineered world shattered by the ornery persistence of human nature. Based on his work with rats and pigeons, Skinner was sure that the proper conditioning applied to human beings could eliminate aggression, overpopulation, pollution, and inequality. In Skinner's utopia, Pinker wisecracks, "The noble savage became the noble pigeon." [End Page 241]B. F. Skinner was just another daft step on a long utopian road that stretches back through Marx, Rousseau, Hobbes, and St. Thomas to Plato. These political philosophers, as well as those who, like Aristotle, are skeptical of utopianism, base their visions on some understanding, argued or merely implied, of human nature. All political systems—free or totalitarian, monarchist or republican—tend to posit some notion of the natural human being. In recent generations many thinkers have been inclined to regard competing conceptions of human nature as stuck in eternal conflict, embodying basic commitments about the human condition that are independent of evidence, originating instead in the religion, culture, or individual temperament of the political philosopher.Evolutionary psychology gives hope against this pessimism. Political philosophers are right to posit a natural background that underlies construction of political systems, evolutionary psychologists say, but it required Darwin finally to explain that background to us. A lucid attempt to spell out the implications evolution for politics has now been published by Paul H. Rubin, a professor of economics and law at Emory University, in the form of Darwinian Politics: The Evolutionary Origin of Freedom (Rutgers University Press, $25.00, paperback). Some of his conclusions are what anyone familiar with evolutionary psychology might suppose even without picking up the book. Others come as a surprise, and were unexpected even by Rubin himself. The book is both fascinating and unpredictable.The scene of evolution is the Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness, the EEA, essentially the Pleistocene, the whole, long period lasting from 1.6 million years ago up until the shift to the Holocene with the invention of agriculture and large settlements 10,000 years ago. Our present intellectual constitution was achieved by about 50,000 years ago, or 40,000 before the Holocene. Keep in mind the immensity of this time scale: calculating at twenty years for a generation, there were 800,000 generations of humans and proto-humans in the Pleistocene, while there have been a mere 500 generations since agriculture and the first cities. It was in the earlier, much longer period that selective pressures created genetically modern humans. These pressures might have pushed only very slightly in one direction over another. But a slight pressure over hundreds of thousands of generations—toward a taste for sweet, say, or a wariness of snakes—... (shrink)

Evolutionary psychology has much to say about the origins of human political structures. Paul Rubin argues persuasively that given our hard-wired sociality, democracy is the best, most stable political arrangement we can hope for. He is correct in this view.