The purpose of this paper is to develop an understanding about the internal fraud and corruption problem in the Turkish construction industry. The reasons behind the internal fraud and corruption problem as well as the types of prevention methods were investigated; and as a result various recommendations were made. To this end, a risk awareness questionnaire was used to understand the behavioral patterns of the construction industry, and to clarify possible proactive and reactive measures against internal fraud and corruption. The (...) type of fraud experienced by Turkish construction companies was also surveyed in the questionnaire. The questionnaire was sent to 89 firms; and depending on the collected data, certain recommendations for construction industry professionals were provided. (shrink)

Literary translation, especially poetic translation, is one of the rare domains where aesthetic, literary, and technical fields meet. This characteristic makes it the sort of work where a number of theoretical and practical problems converge. It is necessary to approach the issue on three essential planes. The first is theoretical: translation is an operation defined by rules; the second, functional: translation is a practical procedure, which is to say an a posteriori task; the third, specific: poetic translation is itself a (...) poetic activity.Let us begin with the last. From the point of view of literary creation, there is actually no specific difference between the original text and that of the translation. For poet and translator alike take part in a creative act, each laboring according to his means and tastes. For each of them linguistic competence and poetic competence are essential. Indeed, the act of translating is based on a “task of purification of words and ideas” which requires the application of mental effort on the one hand to the problems and the constraints of the poetic art as such, and on the other hand, to the descriptive and analytic nature of language, which is also music. Which is to say that one should not see translation as a simple operation of a lexical order. Nor should one forget that each language requires a specific lexical classification. (shrink)

Turkey; politics and government; foreign economic relations; globalization.

There is a consensus in the contemporary literature that mindfulness is a kind of attention. From here the literature divides into two opposing camps:the ‘Quietists’ and the ‘Cognitivists’. For the...

The modern era has witnessed an extraordinary and unprecedented growth in our empirical knowledge regarding the human body. This raises the question: what, if anything, can phenomenology teach us about the body that the empirical sciences cannot? Whereas common sense and empirical sciences begin from the body as straightforwardly and obviously given and go on from there to think about what this thing is, what it is made up of, and how it originated, phenomenology steps back from the straightforward fact (...) in order to ask: what is the structure of the body as an appearance? This chapter considers how some of the main figures in phenomenology have tried to answer this question. The body is not explicitly discussed in what might be thought of as the two foundational works of phenomenology: Husserl’s Logical Investigations and Heidegger’s Being and Time. Nevertheless, these works set the stage for the subsequent phenomenology of the body by describing the phenomena of multidimensionality and horizontality. Our first task will be to sketch out how these phenomena were described in the foundational works. This sets up our exposition of the body as a multidimensional phenomenon. We consider Husserl’s treatment of the body in Ideas II. We also examine how the Husserlian insights were taken up and developed by Jean-Paul Sartre and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. In conclusion we raise some critical questions regarding a phenomenological focus on the body and its multidimensionality. (shrink)

Abstract:This is a phenomenological study of mindfulness, a term commonly used to translate the Pāli term sati, and the practice that can lead to its establishment. It first attempts to account for mindfulness as a way of being-in-the-world. It then uses this description as a contrast to present an alternative and more satisfactory account. According to the alternative account, the practice of cultivating mindfulness is the practice of switching one's mode of being from being-in-the-world to 'nature-naturing'. From a different perspective, (...) this is the practice of tuning-out of our projects (the kind of possibility that is constitutive of being-in-the-world) and tuning-in to 'thingly possibilities' (the kind of possibility that is constitutive of nature-naturing). Mindfulness, the potential fruit of this practice, is the feeling of being tuned-in to naturenaturing and thingly possibilities. The study concludes with a description of how mindfulness gives rise to wisdom, the understanding of things as they are. (shrink)

This work develops a phenomenological account of mindfulness, and related phenomena. It is divided into two main parts. The aim of part one is to articulate a pre-phenomenological sketch of mindfulness by drawing on passages from some of the classic works of Western literature and everyday life, through an interpretation of the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta and by the means of a critical analysis of the contemporary attempts to account for these phenomena. Part two adds further detail to the sketch by entering (...) a dialogue with the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl. A key distinctions made here is between the transcendental horizon and the open horizon. This difference allows cultivating mindfulness to be defined as the practice of tuning-out of the transcendental horizon and tuning-in to the open horizon. Mindfulness—the potential fruit of tuning-in-tuning-out—is defined as the feeling of being tuned-in to the open horizon.A key findings of this research is that tuning-in-tuning-out is a difference practice than the phenomenological epoché; whereas the latter discloses the transcendental horizon, the former discloses the open horizon—on which the transcendental horizon is dependent. These findings open up the possibility of a phenomenological description of certain phenomena that are closely related to mindfulness. Some of these phenomena are: Mindful attention, which is defined as the function of foregrounding a sub-horizon within the open horizon and the pushing of the other sub-horizons into the background. Concentration : the narrowing down of the open horizon to one of its sub-horizons. Insight : the activity of isolating a sub-horizon, discerning its thingly possibilities, zooming out, isolating a second sub-horizon and discerning its thingly possibilities, and then contrasting the two in such a way that their difference becomes vividly present. (shrink)

Sweeping changes in technology followed by political, social and economic transformation are modifying the expectations from education. There is urgent need for reforms in the aim, content and method of education systems. Evidence is gathered to justify this need and suggest a process that will lead to the desired reform. We argue that character education is a requirement in order to ensure that changes move in the direction envisaged. Empowerment of the parties involved will change the mood of silence and (...) transform the agents into active participants in change. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the nature of cultural group rights in relation to individual rights. The recent liberal acceptance that minority cultures should have a collective power over their cultural matters has been challenged by other liberals on the grounds that cultural rights as group rights cannot be reconciled with the basic moral and political principles of liberalism which are derived from individual liberties and rights. Through tackling some liberal arguments against group rights, we reject the view that regards group (...) rights as normatively and practically incompatible with individual rights, and argue that group rights can be defended and justified on the ground that the interests and values protected through them are the shared interests and values of individuals. Thus, whether they are exercised individually or collectively, justifications of all group rights are derived from the interests and values that individuals have as members of the group. Like any other rights, cultural group rights also have some limitations. That is, the rights of a group to preserve its culture are limited by individual human rights, the rights of other relevant groups and the state. (shrink)

This work is best described as an endeavour to contribute to the phenomenology of intentions, the experiences of intending to do something. It finds its point of departure in the discussion of two ‘analytic philosophers’, John Searle and John McDowell, where two contrasting accounts of intentions are offered. The first task is to derive a hybrid account, according to which there are different kinds of intentions, each having the property of being a potential continuant with prior- and in-action phases. The (...) remainder of the discussion is a phenomenological justification of the hybrid account. Through a critical engagement with work of the classical phenomenologists, descriptions are advanced towards the end of demonstrating that the genus intention splits into the species projecting and willing and that each instantiates the property of being a potential continuant with prior- and in-action phases. This work does not offer a complete justification of the hybrid account; rather, the discussion culminates with the articulation of a concrete phenomenological problem, the answer to which is a condition for the evaluation of the phenomenological merit of the hybrid account. This problem functions as an invitation for other phenomenologists to return to thing themselves and engage in concrete phenomenological work. (shrink)

This is a partial phenomenological study of a phenomenon that I call “displaced feeling”, which is best illustrated through a concrete example. I am overcome by a strong desire to stop writing. For one reason or another, I reject the possibility of pursuing this desire. Instead of giving up the desire altogether, however, I may “speak to myself” as follows: “I feel like having a coffee” and, the chatter goes on in the background “of course to make coffee means to (...) stop writing”. I endorse the desire to get a cup of coffee. But the action through which I pursue this desire is coloured not by the feeling that anticipates the value associated with drinking coffee but by a feeling that anticipates the value associated with stopping writing. The latter feeling has displaced the former: I am in a state of displaced feeling. Here, I will elucidate two invariant structures of displaced feeling. First, I will show that displaced feeling involves the realisation of an endorsed state of affairs, the bringing about of a rejected state of affairs, and the belief that the former will determine the latter. Next, I will show that the endorsed state of affairs appears prominently as the end of an intention, that the rejected state of affairs appears inconspicuously in the horizon of the same intention, and that the belief appears twice: as a motive for this intention and as the “glue” that keeps its prominent and inconspicuous zones together. (shrink)

In this study, the classification of Zaydī fuqahā’ that emerged in the mutaaḫḫirūn period of Zaydī fiqh and related terms are examined. The book named Bulūgh al-arab wa-kunūz al-dhahab fī-maʿrifat al-madhhab, which has great importance among the studies aiming to present the Zaydī fiqh accumulation as a uniform doctrinal structure was taken as a basis in the processing of the subject. After an introduction in which Zaydī fiqh studies are evaluated in their relationship with the subject, the issue is handled (...) under three main headings. In the first title, the author and his work are introduced, and in the second and third titles, the methods and terms used in the classification of the Zaydī fukahâ are examined. The author of the work is ʿAlī b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Shaharī (d. 1190/1776) who lived during the period of the Qāsimī dynasty (al-dawla al-Qāsimiyya) in Yemen. The most important feature of the work, which was prepared using many sources that were attributed importance among the Zaydī literature, is that it was the most comprehensive of all that had written on madhhab doctrine until then. The first part of the work explains that the right madhhab to be followed is Zaydiyya. In the second part, the classes of the Zaydī fuqahā’, which is the subject of our study, are explained. The fuqahā’ classes are primarily divided into two parts: al-salaf al-ṣāliḥīn and al-ḫalaf al-ṣāliḥīn. The first dates back to the beginning of the 3rd/10th century. This class is divided into two parts, as al-sābiqūn and al-mutaaḫḫirūn. The sābiqūn starts with ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib, his two sons al-Ḥasan and Ḥusayn and ends with the sons of twelve imams who are their descendants. Zayd b. ʿAlī (d. 122/740) is one of the twelve imams. The most important of the faqīhs in the part of mutaaḫḫirūn, which started with al-Qāsim b. Ibrāhīm al-Rassī (d. 246/860), are the six imams called ahl-al-nuṣūṣ or aʾimma al-nuṣūṣ. The reason why they are named as such is that their words were taken as a basis in determining the views of the sect on the field of uṣūl and furūʿ l-fiqh. al-Qāsim al-Rassī is at a point where all the knowledge of the Prophet's family and the principles agreed upon by sābiqūn, reach him through many channels. al-Hādī Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn (d. 298/911), grandson of al-Qāsim, is the most important imam in terms of his position in the madhhab. The ḫalaf al-ṣāliḥīn is also divided into two parts as ahl l-taḥṣīl and ahl l-naẓar. The first part also referred to as muḥaṣṣilūn or aʾimma al-taḥṣīl, has no subcategories. The second part is divided into two sub-sections as ahl l-taqrīr and mudhākirūn. The muḥaṣṣilūn class starts with those who catch up with the last class of ahl al-nuṣūṣ and ends with ʿAbd Allāh b. Ḥamza (d. 614/1217), one of the three important imams. Two other important imams of muḥaṣṣilūn are Aḥmad b. al-Huṣayn (d. 411/1020) and his brother Yahyā b. al-Husayn (d. 424/1032). It is the fiqh activity of the jurists of this class, called taḥṣīl l-madhhab, that brought Zaydī fiqh, which was fiqh of imams (madhāhib l-aʾimma) in its first period, into a single madhhab and to its classical form in the last period. Mudhākirūn jurists lived at the same time as the ahl-t-taqrīr. This period is about 700 years from the beginning of the 6th/12th century, which is the last century of the muḥaṣṣilūn class, to the end of the 12th/18th century, when Shaharī lived. The roles of the ahl al-taqrīr in the madhhab mostly consist of reviewing the works of the ahl-l tahṣīl, approving the correct ones, and correcting the wrong ones. That's why they are so named. The author of Kitāb l-Azhār, Aḥmad b. Yaḥyā l-Murtaḍā (d. 840/1437), is one of the prominent jurists among the ahl l-taqrīr. The majority of Zaydi fuqahā’ belong to the muẕākirūn class. These are the lowest class of the ahl-al-naẓar. As an important result reached in the study, it is possible to express the following: There is a difference between some of the knowledge and opinions in modern Zaydī studies, which include the same subject as Shaharī's work, in terms of the classification of Zaydī fuqahā’ and the terms used. Therefore, the findings and conclusions based on this work should be confirmed by new studies on other Zaydī classics, and existing opinions on Zaydī jurisprudence should be reviewed. (shrink)

Nowadays, genetically modified foods find application in many sectors from livestock to health and especially in agriculture. From Islamic law perspective, the critical point is to know whether the modern biotechnology is properly used in genetically modified food production and whether these products are suitable for human health and whether all production stages are halal. Another important point is the uncertainty that may arise during the production and whether the precaution can be taken. The Islamic law methodology is of great (...) importance in understanding and resolving the above issues in line with religious values and scientific data together. This paper outlines how the Islamic law methodology can be applied to the issues of genetically modified goods in an interdisciplinary framework, by combining the pillars of Islam and scientific knowledge, and thus promoting what is morally, legally and economically beneficial for halal nutrition and life, for all humanity, Muslims and non-Muslims. We reach the conclusion that there are no definitive provisions set by Islamic law about these issues but they can be resolved within the scope of maslahah and maqasid, which is to achieve the righteous and eliminate the harmful. (shrink)

Several protective cellular mechanisms protect against the accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and the concomitant oxidative stress. Therefore, any reduction in glucose or fatty acid flux into cells leading to a decrease in the production of reducing equivalents would also lead to a decreased ROS production and protect cells against oxidative stress. In the presence of insulin, FOXO proteins are localized from the nucleus to the cytoplasm and degraded. An increase in cellular glucose uptake will lead to increased production (...) of ROS. This in turn activates the stress‐responsive Jun‐N‐terminal kinase (JNK), which promotes nuclear translocation of FOXO proteins, upregulating some important target genes including stress resistance. Consequently, insulin resistance should result in decreased cellular ROS production. For this reason, insulin resistance could be a physiological mechanism activated at the cellular level in response to conditions stimulating ROS production and leading to the prevention of oxidative stress, and extension of life. Concerning the whole organism, however, IR is a maladaptive process in the long term causing a diabetic state. BioEssays 29:811–818, 2007. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

For several decades, the international community has criticized Turkey for failing to uphold the human rights and freedoms of its citizens and for not realizing the principles of non-discrimination and equality within its borders. As Turkey’s European Union candidacy proceeds, religious groups such as the Alevis claim to face discrimination and violations of their human rights and freedoms by the Turkish state. The Justice and Development Party debated the Alevis’ problems and structured the Alevi Initiative, which conducted relevant workshops and (...) discussions. Alevi arguments regarding their places of worship and the state’s religious education policy were identified as their main challenges. Alevis argued that the state’s policies on religious education and places of worship discriminated against them and violated their human rights. Through several human rights law cases before domestic and international tribunals, Alevis requested fulfillment, protection, and assurance of their human rights and freedoms. Several court decisions agreed that Alevis’ human rights and freedoms were being violated. However, the challenges and demands of Alevis still persist, as they contend that they have not succeeded in gaining the human rights and freedoms as required in contemporary Turkey under the JDP government. (shrink)

Many conceive information and communications technologies (ICT) as providing a free space which bolsters the freedom of individuals. This is because the technologies, and the ways we use them, are thought to be grounded in consent given by individuals. However, it will be argued that individuals, by their own self-regulated consent-based actions when using ICT, are actually alleviating their own individual freedoms. This novel phenomenon, which Deleuze and Guattari have drawn our attention to, is a consequence of the de-territorialization and (...) re-territorialization of desires, shaped by power processes, and practiced within Control Societies. This process is disguised as ‘choices’ made by free and self-aware individuals who give their ‘consent’. (shrink)

Bu makalede Spinoza’nın dil eleştirisinin ve çözümlemesinin tartışılması amaçlanmaktadır. Bilindiği gibi, Spinoza, İbranice hakkında yarım kalmış bir dilbilgisi kitabı kaleme almış olsa da, bugün dil felsefesi diye adlandırılan alanda bir yapıt vermiş değildir. Bununla birlikte, dil konusunun, anlama yetisinin düzeltilmesinin önemli ayaklarından biri olması ölçüsünde, Spinoza açısından, felsefi uslamlama için bir propedötik işlevi gördüğü söylenebilir. Hatta Spinoza’ya göre, kendisinden önce gelen bazı filozofların doğanın ortak düzenini ve zorunlu nedenselliğini kavrayamamış olmasının nedeni, tam da fikirlerin ve şeylerin bağlantı ve düzenlerini izlemek (...) yerine, doğayı açıklamak için dilsel kategorilere başvurmalarıdır. İşte bu yüzden, felsefenin ilk adımlarından biri dilin bedensel-imgelemsel doğasının aydınlatılması olmalıdır. Böylelikle dilin felsefi amaçlar doğrultusunda, yani upuygun fikirlerin iletilmesi için kullanmasına zemin hazırlanacaktır. Bu yazıda, Spinoza’nın geliştirdiği dil kuramının, dil olgusunun psikolojik-bilişsel açıdan çözümlemesi kadar, kendine-gönderimli kavramsal bir dilin geometrik düzende kurulmasını da içerdiği ileri sürülecektir. (shrink)