Ecophilosophy is concerned with the critical study of ecological issues. It critiques the human- earth relationship advocating for friendly treatment of the environment. Philosophy’s interests in the environmental crisis dates back to the late 1960s. Among those who were at the forefront are Holmes Rolston III, Thomas Berry, and Richard Routley. The philosophical movement towards the environment was also inspired by Rachel Carson’s 1962 book, Silent Spring, Garrett Hardin’s The Tragedy of the Commons, Lynn White’s 1967 article, The Historical Roots (...) of the Ecological Crisis, Paul Ehrlich’s Population Bomb, and so forth. It is not that before the 1960s philosophers have not spoken about the environment. The unfortunate thing was that most of the philosophers that had spoken about the environment merely saw the environment or nature from a utilitarian perspective and nature was perceived as an object to be studied, evaluated and conquered without concern for environmental wellbeing. Yet, when the philosophic turn towards the environment began even till today, most of the voices are those of western and Euro-centric philosophers. Indigenous voices and wisdoms from non-western cultures are often ignored. The purpose of this paper is to argue for the place of African traditional ecological knowledge in ecophilosophy and environmental ethics. Through the method of critical analysis, what constitutes African traditional ecological knowledge and its place in global environmental ethics is examined. The paper finds and concludes that global environmental ethics will be incomplete and weakened without the inclusion of African traditional ecological knowledge. (shrink)

In the present article, I aim at showing a shift in Berkeley’s understanding of society in the late Siris. Although the work is primarily devoted to the curative qualities of tar-water and on the speculative level develops a new neoplatonic metaphysic of light, it should also be seen as a work in which Berkeley’s mature philosophy is expressed as a whole. Together with the fact that since the thirties Berkeley thought was more inclined towards practical, i.e. economic and social, issues, (...) this might be a premise for interpreting the Siris as a work in which a vision of society is presented. The parallelism of nature and society, of macrocosm and microcosm, and the claim that nature is not perfect, but is a dynamic, developing whole, makes it possible to treat society as an imperfect whole developed and perfected by human activity. If such a reading is correct it evidences the fact that in his Siris Berkeley abandoned the religious radicalism typical for his early works. (shrink)

The majority of translation theories remerging from the works of contemporary philosophers suffer from a lack of well-organized textual/semiotic analysis tools. Although such theories are specifically important because of their postulates, their incoherent methods normally make them difficult to be used or even sufficiently understood. Hermeneutic theories, however, have been re-visiting and re-constructing their principles, showing a remarkable tendency toward methodological and empirical investigation guided by their philosophy. Translational hermeneutics, as a major movement, has suggested six fundamental principles. Although this (...) contribution systemizes and simplifies hermeneutic conceptions, it still needs to construct a lingual analytic system for practical translation. Seeking to address this problem, this study views the six principles in the light of narratology and suggests a unified organization based on Ricoeur’s narrative theory by breaking the principles into a cognitive-existential dimension and a lingual/semiotic dimension. This framework processes both minimal and maximal language variables and addresses practical and pedagogical considerations. (shrink)

Because the topic is complex, the representatives of various scientific disciples have taken up the question of the corporeality of the human person. For example, biological and medical science researchers analyze the human body as a biological phenomenon, while those in the humanities, philosophy, or the social sciences consider the socio-cultural dimensions of corporeality. This article takes the latter approach both by considering the thoughts of select Christian philosophers and analyzing results obtained from a study carried out among people aged (...) 60 years and older in order to answer the following questions: Do the elderly perceive the human body as a biological or as a sociocultural reality? How does this same population understand the aging body? According to the results of this study, seniors perceive the human body at any age primarily as a biological reality. The way that the study participants experience the drama of aging, as St. Augustine calls it in his writings, could have influenced why they rarely consider the sociocultural dimension of aging. (shrink)

For all my small years of appreciating social import or product of philosophical reflection is the realization that all of human history has been a product of some critical reflection. Right from Thales’ curiosity to the present, human history has witnessed steady dialectical progress and desolation. From Galilean world view, Newtonian physics, to Wright Brothers airplane; and from the computer, atomic/nuclear/oxygen bomb, to the boundless social media of the contemporary, the world has had untold progress, with its devastating evil other-side–the (...) acme of which is a highly technologically united world that can be extinguished in few minutes by its own product. Such philosophical thought precipitated Goldman’s anarchism, colonialism, nationalism, Marxism, liberalism, conservatism, communism, fascism, and Nazism all which respectively became potent pressures in quest for change. Consequently, the contention of present article is that the much blood has flowed in every parts of the world as a result of the tensions arising from incompatible philosophical ideologies and the men and women who espoused them, culminating in a polarized world and the World Wars and others around the world. After a careful analysis of some of those pedestals for war-passions, the work discovers that although philosophical though has improved the world, it has also set-up the matrix for dissention. It concludes, therefore, only a new, impersonal humanitistic nonantagonistic philosophy could reverse the trajectory and avert another impending apocalypse. Philosophy ought to help in bringing about moral meaning, to a better, more rational world, not war. (shrink)

The objective of the paper is to present philosophical positions arguing the unity of nature: from the pantheistic doctrine of the Stoics and the version of pantheism proposed by G. Bruno and B. Spinoza, through the Leibniz concept which assumes that every element of nature is spiritual and capable of intentional actions, to contemporary doctrines. One of the concepts – the “deep ecology” of A. Naess, emphasizes the need for the subjective treatment of every element of nature – people, animals (...) and plants; it postulates the specific equality of all species. The assumptions of eco-philosophy are perfectly in line with the findings of contemporary nature researchers proving that the bonds between individual elements of a given ecosystem are deeper than previously assumed, forming a complex multi-level network. A violation of the precisely developed balance can have far-reaching negative effects including for humankind. Modern philosophers stress that people responsible for shaping ecological policy should aim at protecting entire ecosystems, and they should ensure the maintenance of its balance. This philosophical message can be dedicated especially to the politicians responsible for the decision on the unprecedented logging of the Bialowieza Forest. (shrink)

This study is an epistemological investigation into death state and some ways people are put to death in error due to misunderstanding of actual state of death. The study probes in philosophic mannerism into existing conditions under which people are certified dead and into understanding when someone is actually dead. It holds that there are no univocal conceptions about these conditions since their understanding vary from place to place and in the passage of time due to increase in knowledge and (...) development in medicine. Since some of those who are confirmed and pronounced dead do wake up, the study argues that any existing method of ascertaining death state is epistemologically inefficient and suspicious. It then raises issues that appertain to the ignorance and incompetence of doctors and others who confirm death cases and their methods or instruments of confirming death. The study argues analogically that since some of those whom doctors discharge against medical advice get well and since other conclusions they reach about patients and health cases do sometimes prove otherwise or deviate from reality, possibly, some of those they declared dead may actually be alive. The study extends this wrong confirmation of death cases to occurrences outside hospital environments and from non-medical practitioners from different cultures and argues that all such death declaration just like those declared by doctors could be in error of judgement. It then argues that since what it exactly means to be dead is incontrovertibly controversial among people and in time, caution should be exercised in order not to be stocking people alive in mortuary, harvesting the organs of living people mistaken to be dead and burying people alive who are thought dead since they might probably be alive. (shrink)

The paper focuses on al-Kindī’s Treatise on definitions - the oldest surviving Arabic glossary of philosophical and scientific terms. Its author presents more than one definition of the term falsafa. Does this mean that he was not sure how to explain to his coreligionists what philosophy really is? In this article I aim to focus on the content of all six definitions of philosophy presented in the treatise. I also compare some of al-Kindī’s definitions of philosophy with the way in (...) which some Greek philosophers, known to him, understood it, as well as with certain ideas derived from the source texts of Islam. The results of the study led to the belief that al-Kindī sought to induce his readers to agree that philosophy was not a threat to the Muslim faith, but rather a science which aims to improve man in the moral sense, and also to significantly increase the human knowledge of the world created by God. (shrink)

This paper reflected on the need to address the problem of human co-existence and the need for ensuring that political instability is simply addressed. The normative foundation of human democratic society has never been on a solid bedrock due to human frailties. This paper seeks the need to address this human impasse from a more phenomenological and hermeneutical approach by using Habermas’s communicative theory as a normative foundation for addressing this global challenges. This paper therefore adopts a method of analysis, (...) phenomenology and hermeneutics to address the democratic vision of human normative foundation of social order. This paper therefore concluded that communicative action serves as a prelude for the normative foundation of human democratic institution. Habermas’s contemporary political philosophy vis-à-vis his communicative theory could serve as an antidote for global order or social order. (shrink)

The process of cognition usually ends with an attempt to name and understand the searched/encountered phenomenon. The essence of sacrum is not observable simply because as „we do not have direct access to the quantum world via our senses”, but it does exist. Remembering the words of L. Wittgenstein which state that „the borders of the language constitute the borders of my world”, one ought to take one of the ways leading to our subject of cognition. A direct arising in (...) the sphere of sacrum can be both a mental and emotional anticipation of the essence of subject we are heading to, and whose spatial frame is determined by architectonic objects. In its sensory meaning sacrum materializes itself often in a form of sacred chapels, paintings, sculptures, fragments of buildings, landscape etc. In the following article an attempt to select one of the ways that can lead to more complete contact and understanding of a sacred, materialized phenomenon which is referred to as sacrum. One, however, ought to bear in mind that the attempt at reaching the essence of such a place is a difficult task because just like „watching a wild brook does not concern the flow, the sound or reflexes of this particular brook but the general concept of a brook: unbridled push of unformed matter”, the understanding and sensing of sacrum escapes a clear codification. (shrink)

In theory and philosophy of law, or as one can say, in jurisprudence, the dispute about the nature of the law has existed for ages. Traditionally, the axis of the dispute was denoted by advocates of natural law and legal positivism. One of the challenges to traditional conceptions of law is the Feminist Legal Theory. Probably, gender will be an important axis of social division. However, we must agree that it w i l l be not only, or even necessarily, (...) the most substantial factor. There are many elements of structural social differentiation. Although the direction of feminist legal theories development is not determined and most non-feminist legal theories adopteither an internal or an extemal critique, feminist legal theories try to occupy a third perspective: the interpretative one. It means that feminism does not engage in entirely extemal critiques and prescriptions; it typically does not seek to rationalize legal practices. Feminist jurisprudence aspire to produce an account of legal practices which have a particularly intimate relevance to theory. Any clear-cut separation between theory and practices is rejected. (shrink)

In 1751, Grigorii Teplov published his book that he considered to be an introduction to philosophy for the uninitiated. In the first part, Teplov introduced the reader to the subject of philosophy; however, Teplov concentrated on philosophy and methodology of science, thereby presenting a rather limited view of philosophy. In the second part, he presented the history of philosophy showing how inadequate his knowledge of the subject was. In the third part, he discussed some ontological and epistemological problems when in (...) his presentation of several philosophical concepts basing his presentation largely on Wolff. (shrink)

dr Michael Chukwuemeka Ozumba, Department of Philosophy, Anambra State University, Igbariam, Nigeria.

prof. Tahir Uluç, Selçuk Üniversitesi, Konya; Divinity School of Konya University, Turkey.

The paper briefly presents the main assumptions of the Conduit Metaphor, described by Reddy as the basic model of human communication, which is present in both our thinking about language and in the language we speak itself. Unfortunately, most often we are unaware of this fact. According to Reddy, expressions structured by this metaphor make up, roughly speaking, about 70 per cent of all language expressions we use day-to-day while talking or writing. At the same time both Reddy and other (...) linguists blame this metaphor for most cases of unsuccessful communication, among other things, due to the fact that it allegedly implies that words and other linguistic expressions contain only fixed meaning independent of context or due to the fact that it allegedly does not demand that the receiver of a message should expend any effort to understand the sender correctly. The author of the paper tries to defend the Conduit Metaphor, refuting the charges against it by recalling, among other things, the fact that this metaphor may have a lot of particular instantiations that allow us at least to bring into question Reddy’s and other linguists’ accusations against it. (shrink)