Before 1972 Somalia had no official writing system for its language. In spite of this, those who bred animals (camels, cattle, sheep, and goats) and who, owing to a lack of water in the country were forced to become nomads, had an authentic oral tradition that found its voice in a rich oral literature. This was well and truly oral in that it was composed, memorized, and passed on without having to resort to any type of writing or other means (...) of communication or recording. Many of these genres are typical of any oral tradition: various dance or work songs, fairy stories and other tales, riddles, sayings, proverbs, and so on. (shrink)

Hard incompatibilism is a view which asserts that determinism and free will are inconsistent and given the facts of our best sciences determinism is true; and hence, free will does not exist. Not only that, it also claims that if the world were indeterministic and our actions were caused by states or events, still we would lack free will. In this way, it denies the truth of any libertarian account of free will based on event causation. In that sense, this (...) is a hard position. Regarding moral responsibility, this hard incompatibilism claims that human agents are not morally responsible for their actions, unless they are the ultimate originators (agent-causes) of the actions in question. Derk Pereboom has offered an argument in favor of his hard incompatibilism, aka hard determinism, in which he shows four different hypothetical situations (thought experiments, indeed) each of which is aimed to prove that we are not morally responsible for what we do. The argument is, thus, known as four-case argument. In the present paper, Pereboom’s four-case argument is examined and defended. It has been shown here that Pereboom is quite correct, if we consider the true sense of the term ‘moral responsibility.’ This ‘true sense’ of the term “moral responsibility” is considered as the strong sense of moral responsibility in this paper. However, a weak sense of the term “moral responsibility” has also been proposed in this paper. This proposed weak sense of “moral responsibility” can accommodate most of the socially-approved ways of ascriptions of responsibility. And finally, it has been claimed that our general intuition that every event has a cause and we are not the ultimate sources of our actions is true from the strong sense of moral responsibility; and our commonsense intuition that as human beings we are inherently free and responsible for our actions is true from the weak sense of moral responsibility. (shrink)

Despite its enormous popularity, Russell’s theory of definite descriptions has received various criticisms. Two of the most important objections against this theory are those arising from the Argument from Incompleteness and the Argument from Donnellan’s Distinction. According to the former although a speaker may say something true by assertively uttering a sentence containing an incomplete description , on the Russellian analysis such a sentence expresses a false proposition; so, Russell’s theory cannot adequately deal with such sentences. According to the latter (...) objection a descriptive sentence is actually ambiguous—it expresses a general proposition when the description contained in it is used attributively, and a singular proposition when the description in question is used referentially; Russell’s theory is inadequate as it fails to capture this ambiguity and offers an analysis according to which a descriptive sentence expresses only a general proposition. These objections are examined in the present dissertation. It is shown here that these objections arise from: (i) ignoring the distinction between the meaning of a sentence and the assertions made by using it, (ii) the failure to distinguish between the semantic meaning of a sentence and the pragmatic meaning with which it is used on a particular occasion. To make the distinction mentioned in (i), a significant part of Scott Soames’ theory concerning meaning and assertions has been adopted in this dissertation; and, to make the distinction mentioned in (ii), a test, namely the cancellability test, and two Distinguishing Criteria, namely DC-1 and DC-2, have been developed here. It has been argued here that if we properly make the relevant distinctions, then we will find that: (a) the phenomenon cited by the Argument from Incompleteness can be well explained keeping the Russellian analysis of descriptive sentences intact, (b) the phenomenon arising from the Argument from Donnellan’s Distinction raises an issue of pragmatics and is irrelevant to Russell’s semantic analysis of descriptive sentences. So, none of the above criticisms poses a genuine threat to Russell’s theory of definite descriptions; his theory actually provides, to a large extent, a correct semantic analysis of descriptive sentences. (shrink)

One of the processes that Zaydism, as a sect that has survived to the present day, went through in the Yemen region is the period that began with Mansûr-Billâh Qasim b. Muhammad, who declared his imamate in the 16th century and continued by the descendants of the ruling class until the declaration of the Republic. However, there is not enough information in the literature about this period, which is known as the Kasimi’s era. Mansûr-Billâh Qasim b. Muhammad has many works (...) on akaid, tafsir, method, islamic law, and in addition, there is a small pamphlet (risalah) written by him. This study aims to introduce the translation of the will written by Mansûr-Billâh Qasim b. Muhammad, who is known as the founder of the Kasimi dynasty, for his son Muayyad-Billâh Muhammad b. Kasım into the literature. (shrink)

It is known that the relationship between word and meaning is one of the most controversial topics of ancient Greek philosophers such as Aristotle, Plato and Indian linguists. In fact, this issue has continued to be discussed with its definition and scope, and opinions about it have been expressed until today. When we review the subject in the Arabic language, we see that Arabic is a rich language with its words and meanings. Also, changes and developments in Arabic, which is (...) a deep-rooted language, has undergone in the historical process have brought changes of meaning in its words. Thus, it can be said that the Arabic language, that includes many branches of linguistics such as morphology, syntax and rhetoric, is also interrelated with semantics, what focuses on the relationship between word and meaning. Although semantics has emerged as a new branch of linguistics, many of today's semantic issues have been discussed in many classical sources and different disciplines, especially in the Arab world. In this study, semantics in general and the emergence of Arabic semantics as a science, its scope, description and its relations with other languages have been investigated. In addition, the works of Ahmed Muhtar Omar (1933-2003) who made great effort especially in the field of Arabic language and the modern Arab world, in the domain of Arabic and his contributions to this field, those include the main issue of this study, have been addressed. The general content of his book "Ilmu'd-dalâla", which includes almost all the topics related to semantics, and the important issues and views those it contains are also mentioned. Besides, presenting important issues in the work, especially Ahmed Muhtar Omar's prominent views and explanations are also mentioned. In the study, prominent works about semantics and Arabic semantics, written from the past to the present, were used. In particular, the life and scientific personality of Ahmed Muhtar has been tried to be presented on the basis of a few works written in the contemporary period. (shrink)

Business Ethics: A European Review, EarlyView.

Physicians try hard to alleviate mental and physical ailments of their patients. Thus, they are heavily burdened by observing ethics and staying well-informed while improving health of their patients. A major ethical concern or dilemma in medication is that some physicians know their behavior is unethical, yet act against their moral compass. This study develops models of theory–practice gap, offering optimal solutions for the gap. These solutions would enhance self-motivation or remove external obstacles to stimulate ethical practices in medicine. The (...) Constructivist Grounded Theory Methodology is applied here where the participants and the main researcher mutually interacted with each other. Data collection was performed through qualitative methods including observation and semi-structured interviews with 21 physicians and medical students. Initial and focused coding was done, from which principal concepts were later extracted. MAXQDA software was used for analyzing data. Analysis of twelve major concepts in the study resulted in two factors and solution groups, from which four general notions influencing the ethical theory and practice gap in medicine were extracted: providing effective education to change attitude and behavior; considering motivational and emotional factors; reconstructing regulations and processes to facilitate ethical practice; conducting comprehensive and systematic studies. The existing medical educational system needs to be reconsidered to add to individual internal motivation, including optimizing persuasion strategies, maximizing participation of students, adhering to virtuous ethical theories, and fostering emotions. Additionally, regulations and processes can be reconstructed to remove practical obstacles and promote ethical practice with insignificant damages to individual self-motivation. (shrink)

Defenders of the Kantian maxim, i.e. ‘ought’ implies ‘can’, defend the maxim taking the term “implication” in the sense of ‘entailment’. But if it is granted that “implication” means entailment, then it can be shown that the Kantian maxim that ‘ought’ implies ‘can’ is false. Sinnott-Armstrong attempts to prove the falsity of the maxim by his argument from Self-Imposed Impossibility in which he offers his famous example of Adams. But Sinnott-Armstrong’s example of Adams appears to be not strong enough to (...) prove the falsity of the maxim; it is a subject to be captured by a version of the maxim, namely the Maxim-KT. That is why two new examples of the argument from Self-Imposed Impossibility are presented in this paper which are stronger and are able to prove the falsity of the Kantian maxim. (shrink)

Physicians try hard to alleviate mental and physical ailments of their patients. Thus, they are heavily burdened by observing ethics and staying well-informed while improving health of their patients. A major ethical concern or dilemma in medication is that some physicians know their behavior is unethical, yet act against their moral compass. This study develops models of theory–practice gap, offering optimal solutions for the gap. These solutions would enhance self-motivation or remove external obstacles to stimulate ethical practices in medicine. The (...) Constructivist Grounded Theory Methodology is applied here where the participants and the main researcher mutually interacted with each other. Data collection was performed through qualitative methods including observation and semi-structured interviews with 21 physicians and medical students. Initial and focused coding was done, from which principal concepts were later extracted. MAXQDA software was used for analyzing data. Analysis of twelve major concepts in the study resulted in two factors and solution groups, from which four general notions influencing the ethical theory and practice gap in medicine were extracted: providing effective education to change attitude and behavior; considering motivational and emotional factors; reconstructing regulations and processes to facilitate ethical practice; conducting comprehensive and systematic studies. The existing medical educational system needs to be reconsidered to add to individual internal motivation, including optimizing persuasion strategies, maximizing participation of students, adhering to virtuous ethical theories, and fostering emotions. Additionally, regulations and processes can be reconstructed to remove practical obstacles and promote ethical practice with insignificant damages to individual self-motivation. (shrink)

Este artigo analisa o pensamento estético de Platão e sua relação com a formação do homem, mostrando que sua concepção estética vai muito além da esfera da arte. Trata-se de mostrar que, em Platão, enquanto é amante da beleza, a reflexão estética transita na esfera da moral, da ciência e da metafísica, não sendo, por conseguinte, o atributo estético da beleza campo exclusivo da arte. Ou seja, a beleza permeia toda a filosofia de Platão desde sua metafísica e cosmologia, passando (...) por sua filosofia da natureza, até chegar a todas as atividades humanas, tais como: a ciência, a política, a ética. Então, num primeiro momento, busca-se compreender o lugar tanto da estética quanto da ética na metafísica, mostrando que o belo e o bom não supõem uma igualdade com o bem moral, senão com o bem metafísico, esse entendido como perfeição da natureza. Num segundo momento, em sintonia com o passo anterior, trata-se de pensar a ética de Platão à luz da metafísica da beleza, mostrando que Eros é o mediador entre o plano sensível e o plano inteligível, entre o moral e o imoral e, enquanto tal, é quem faz aspirar e conduzir ao Bem e à Beleza. Num terceiro momento, evidencia-se a tese de que a estética de Platão assume uma postura não apenas metafísica, mas também existencial, reportando, por conseguinte, à relevância da Paidéia grega no sentido de que a beleza forma parte do ideal de formação do homem na Grécia clássica. (shrink)

Este artículo propone valorar la contemplación de la belleza como una guía existencial en la vida del hombre. La belleza como horizonte de sentido aparece de forma muy especial en las obras de arte, pero también nos acompaña en la vida ética así como en nuestra actividad científica, pues la capacidad de contemplar la belleza debe estar en todas nuestras actividades y es muestra de una psique sana. De la misma manera, aborda este artículo aborda el “narcisismo” como una vía (...) no auténtica de acercarse a la belleza, y propone el correcto ejercicio del gusto como una forma para encontrar belleza, aún cuando en ocasiones no sea fácil encontrarla en el mundo. (shrink)

This article shows the precritical principles of beauty in Kant’s thought, in order to understand his main contribution to the theory of beauty. This critical principles are not found in the Observations on the feeling of the beauty and sublime, but in the first and second critique which locate the feeling of pleasure and pain in the sensation faculty, instead of the Judgment, and in the Universal Nature History and the Theory of the Heavens, that considers beauty as the perfection (...) of the object given from a supreme intelligence, instead of an ideal unity brought from the reflexive judgment. (shrink)

On basic principles of the Islamic worldview from the Indonesian viewpoint.

Esta reflexión plantea la necesidad e importancia de investigar de forma más profunda una pedagogía del gusto a través del desarrollo autónomo de la autonomía, con el interés de que, mediante la contemplación de las formas bellas, pueda acercarse el individuo al desarrollo de su persona y a la vivencia de la belleza como un retorno a casa, algo que es posible si el hombre tiene la disposición de ser acogido por la belleza, pues para poder habitar en ella es (...) necesario antes preparar en nosotros el lugar donde habite. Cuando el hombre desarrolla su libertad expresada como autonomía del gusto, puede dar verdadera acogida a la belleza, y ella a cambio, se manifestará como lo más íntimo a su ser y le entregará el mundo que contempla como su morada. Palabras clave: Belleza. Persona. Vida interior. Libertad. Morada. (shrink)

El presente artículo es una reflexión sobre los paisajes naturales y los jardines como paisajes construidos, a fin de hacer comprensible su importancia en las ciudades, así como la necesidad de reincorporarlos a la vida citadina y al diseño urbano. Para ello, me he centrado en las consideraciones filosóficas de Simmel y Watsuji sobre el tema, con el propósito de mostrar que el encuentro poéti- co entre la naturaleza y su contemplador no sólo permite reconoce el carácter particular o Stimmung (...) del paisaje natural con el cual nos vinculamos, sino que, al habitar poéticamente con la naturaleza, se manifiesta nuestro Kimochi, éste revela nuestro vínculo existencial e histórico con el clima y los eventos naturales, nos invita a desarrollar un lazo cultural existencial con los demás y con nosotros mismos. De ahí la necesidad de incorporar la naturaleza en las ciudades y apren- der a habitar poéticamente con ella. (shrink)

Este artículo explica cómo la movilización política aprovecha y transforma el espacio público y hace de él un espacio político con fines determinados. Para esto se explica qué son los espacios públicos dentro de las ciudades, los espacios públicos se conforman por los encuentros que posibilitan la memoria histórica y los usos y costumbres que propician su "apropiación simbólica", la constitución del genius loci. Las movilizaciones políticas se apropian de los espacios públicos, que se transforman momentáneamente en "espacios políticos", cuya (...) fuerza, carácter y carga simbólica se asimilan a proyectos de identidad, capacidad de movilización y acción política. Dos ejemplos de espacios politizados en Ciudad de México son el Ángel de la Independencia y el Estadio Azteca. (shrink)

Son yıllarda İslam hukukunun kökeni ve gelişimi üzerine önemli çalışmalar yapılmaktadır. Bununla birlikte, hicrî birinci yüzyıl ile ilgili temel kaynakların olmayışı veya eksikliği dolayısıyla, bu dönemde rivayet edilen bilgilerin doğruluğu hakkında bazı şüpheler dile getirilmiştir. Bu nedenle, Risâletü’l-Ferâ’iḍ olarak adlandırılan yeni ve güvenilir eseri incelemenin önemli bir boşluğu dolduracağı kanaatindeyiz. Bu eserin, ilk olarak Zeyd b. Sâbit tarafından kaleme alındığı ve daha sonra hem birinci hem de ikinci yüzyıllarda yaşayan Ebu’z-Zinâd tarafından tefsir edildiği kabul edilir. Bu çalışmada, Muvaṭṭa’ ile Risâletü’l-Ferâiḍ’ (...) arasındaki otuz beşe yakın paragraftaki benzerlikten hareketle Risâlatü’l-Ferâiḍ’in, Muvaṭṭa’ın yazımı sürecinde bir kaynak olarak hizmet ettiği ve ayrıca Medine ehlinin ameli hakkında önemli bilgiler içerdiği tespit edilecektir. Son olarak, bu risalenin analizi ile temel hadis koleksiyonlarının sadece şifâhî rivâyetlere değil, bununla beraber yazılı belgelere de dayandığına dair iddianın daha isabetli olduğu ortaya çıkacaktır. (shrink)

Aims To examine the understanding of the ethical dilemmas associated with Big Data and artificial intelligence (AI) among Jordanian medical students, physicians in training, and senior practitioners. Methods We implemented a literature-validated questionnaire to examine the knowledge, attitudes, and practices of the target population during the period between April and August 2023. Themes of ethical debate included privacy breaches, consent, ownership, augmented biases, epistemology, and accountability. Participants’ responses were showcased using descriptive statistics and compared between groups using t-test or ANOVA. (...) Results We included 466 participants. The greater majority of respondents were interns and residents (50.2%), followed by medical students (38.0%). Most participants were affiliated with university institutions (62.4%). In terms of privacy, participants acknowledged that Big Data and AI were susceptible to privacy breaches (39.3%); however, 59.0% found such breaches justifiable under certain conditions. For ethical debacles involving informed consent, 41.6% and 44.6% were aware that obtaining informed consent posed an ethical limitation in Big Data and AI applications and denounced the concept of “broad consent”, respectively. In terms of ownership, 49.6% acknowledged that data cannot be owned yet accepted that institutions could hold a quasi-control of such data (59.0%). Less than 50% of participants were aware of Big Data and AI’s abilities to augment or create new biases in healthcare. Furthermore, participants agreed that researchers, institutions, and legislative bodies were responsible for ensuring the ethical implementation of Big Data and AI. Finally, while demonstrating limited experience with using such technology, participants generally had positive views of the role of Big Data and AI in complementing healthcare. Conclusion Jordanian medical students, physicians in training and senior practitioners have limited awareness of the ethical risks associated with Big Data and AI. Institutions are responsible for raising awareness, especially with the upsurge of such technology. (shrink)

Wiredu’s call for democracy by consensus is illustrated by his description of traditional African consensual rationality. This description contains the attribution of immanence to African consensual rationality. This paper objects to this doctrine of immanence. More importantly, the doctrine of immanence has led to the attribution of pure rationality to traditional African consensual practices. With reference to Aristotle’s three components of persuasion, I object to deliberation as purely rational and impervious to extraneous factors. I further argue that it is because (...) deliberation is not always perfectly rational that the process of consensus can suffer three forms of social conformity: conformity to dominant players, to numerical opinion majority, and to group-centrism. These forms of conformity mean that a consensus task order could lead to decisions of more inclusive value, but not necessarily decisions of more epistemic value. The concept of agonistic inquiry is employed to tackle what I see as the dangers of conformity and complacency in the project of inclusivity, and this is to strike a crucial balance between too-consensual and purely adversarial forms of deliberation. (shrink)

Prior research has demonstrated that accountants differ from the general population on many personality traits. Understanding accountants’ personality traits is important when these characteristics may impact professional behavior or ability to work with members of the business community. Our study investigates the relationship between Machiavellianism, ethical orientation, anti-intellectualism, and social desirability response bias in Canadian accountants. We find that Canadian accountants score much higher on the Machiavellianism scale than U.S. accountants. Additionally, our results show a significant relationship between Machiavellianism and (...) relativism, idealism, anti-intellectualism, and social desirability response bias. Our results indicate that professional Canadian accountants may not share the same personality characteristics as U.S. accountants. We extend previous research investigating Canadian accountants, by explicitly recognizing the impact of social desirability response bias, and by including anti-intellectualism. (shrink)

In this interview with curator Cécile Bourne Farrell, artist Jananne Al-Ani discusses her aerial films Shadow Sites I (2010) and Shadow Sites II (2011) and the representation of landscape, from the Middle East to the American south-west, in relation to Kitty Hauser’s book Shadow Sites: Photography, Archaeology, & the British Landscape 1927–1955 (2007) a study on the emergence of aerial archaeology and the role of the sun’s movement in materializing latent histories embedded in the landscape. A French translation of the (...) interview first appeared in issue 59 of the journal Multitudes. (shrink)

According to Wiredu, the Akan profess secular esteem rather than religious worship to supra-natural beings, who they perceive in an empirical sense. He backs this up by re-reading what he sees as the Akan general ontology in a way that denies them of the concepts of the supernatural, the transcendental, the mental, the spiritual, and an ontologically distinct mind. At the end of denying the three criteria of worship as well as all of these other concepts which might otherwise be (...) available to the Akan, one might struggle to find any evidence that the Akan even had a religion. I dispute this secular reading, and I more generally demonstrate that the characterizations of the Akan attitude to divinity as non-worshipping, non-supernatural, non-transcendent, and non-spiritual, are either conceptually flawed, factually incorrect, or both. (shrink)

L’argument de base de cet article est que le débat consensuel n’a pas été une notion très significative jusqu’à présent parce que le consensus n’a pas été étudié de manière approfondie en tant que concept et que la délibération n’a pas été étudiée précisément en termes de sa propension à parvenir à un accord commun. En particulier, la délibération et les problèmes qui en découlent n’ont pas été classées en plusieurs niveaux afin d’exposer les différents défis qui se posent lorsque (...) l’on tente de parvenir à un accord et les types d’approches délibératives impliquées dans chaque catégorie. La présente recherche propose une telle catégorisation dans le but de clarifier davantage le débat. (shrink)

In his plea for consensual democracy in Africa, Kwasi Wiredu recommends unanimity about what is to be done, not what ought to be done, or unanimity on action rather than unanimity of values, beliefs and opinion. I caution the use of this procedural instrument by showing that some issues are so value-laden that a group decision cannot be value-neutral. It may sometimes be more productive to entertain value differences to keep them from going underground and becoming dangerous. However, the ability (...) to locate some common interest or ground seems to be crucial for such value confrontation. (shrink)

Bernard Matolino argues that the communal foundation of classical African communitarianism should be discarded if communitarian theories would be of any use to modern African political theory. He sets out to propose a theory of communitarianism that not only suits modern African realities but would also be useful to any people including non-Africans. I argue that what he ends up doing is proposing cosmopolitanism, calling into question the “Afro” designation of the title of his theory. I also argue that his (...) position on the relationship between the individual and the community is technically not communitarianism of any sort, calling into question the “communitarian” appellation in his theory. His attempt to divorce communitarianism from communalism is unsuccessful, making communitarianism as unsuitable as a theory of world relations as Matolino claims it is unsuitable for contemporary multiethnic African societies. (shrink)

Prevailing literature argues that arguing is the only appropriate mode of deliberation. The literature acknowledges bargaining, story telling, and other forms of communication, but is unwilling to describe these as deliberation, properly speaking. The claim is that describing them as such would amount to concept stretching. In this article I argue that arguing exhausts neither the legitimate modes of deliberation nor the modes for effective deliberation. To do this I delineate two basic categories of issues we normally deliberate upon, and (...) demonstrate that arguing is more appropriate for one category, not so appropriate for the other. (shrink)

Preoccupation with multiparty aggregative democracy in Africa has produced superficial forms of political/electoral choice-making by subjects that deepen pre-existing ethnic and primordial cleavages. This is because the principles of the multiparty system presuppose that decision-making through voting should be the result of a mere aggregation of pre-existing, fixed preferences. To this kind of decision-making, I propose deliberative democracy as a supplementary approach. My reason is that deliberation, beyond mere voting, should be central to decisionmaking and that, for a decision to (...) be legitimate, it must be preceded by deliberation, not merely the aggregation of pre-existing fixed preferences. I agree with arguments that when adequate justifications are made for claims/demands/conclusions, deliberation has the potential to have a salutary effect on people’s opinions, transform/evolve preferences, better inform judgments/voting, lead to increasingly ‘common good’ decisions, have moral educative power, place more burden of account-giving on public officers, and furnish subjects/losers/outvoted with justifications for collectively binding decisions. I argue that a deliberative turn in politics in Africa will have a mitigating effect on tribal and money politics. (shrink)