Islamic religious educations; Islamic ethics; conduct of life.

Philosophy; criticism and interpretation.

Wathāʾiq madīnat al-Qaṣr bi-l-wāḥāt al-Dakhla: Maṣdarān li-taʾrīkh Miṣr fī l-ʿaṣr al-ʿuthmānī. Silsilat Dirāsāt Wathāʾiqiyya. By Rudolph Peters. Cairo: Maṭbaʿat al-ʿĀmma li-Dār al-Kutub wa-l-Wathāʾiq al-Qawmiyya, 2011. Pp. 610.

jild-i 1. [Without special title] -- jild-i 2. Maʻrifatʹshināsī va khudāshināsī -- jild-i 3. Insānʹshināsī.

On conduct of life and ethics of Islamic seminarians.

Ṭabāṭabāʼī, Muḥammad Ḥusayn -- Criticism and interpretation. ; Islamic philosophy -- Iran -- 20th century. ; Political science -- Philosophy.

The controversy over the equivalence of continuous sedation until death (CSD) and physician-assisted suicide/euthanasia (PAS/E) provides an opportunity to focus on a significant extended use of CSD. This extension, suggested by the equivalence of PAS/E and CSD, is designed to promote additional patient autonomy at the end-of-life. Samuel LiPuma, in his article, “Continuous Sedation Until Death as Physician-Assisted Suicide/Euthanasia: A Conceptual Analysis” claims equivalence between CSD and death; his paper is seminal in the equivalency debate. Critics contend that sedation follows (...) proportionality protocols for which LiPuma’s thesis does not adequately account. Furthermore, sedation may not eliminate consciousness, and as such LiPuma’s contention that CSD is equivalent to neocortical death is suspect. We not only defend the equivalence thesis, but also expand it to include additional moral considerations. First, we explain the equivalence thesis. This is followed by a defense of the thesis against five criticisms. The third section critiques the current use of CSD. Finally, we offer two proposals that, if adopted, would broaden the use of PAS/E and CSD and thereby expand options at the end-of-life. (shrink)

Conventionality and aptness are two dimensions of metaphorical sentences thought to play an important role in determining how quick and easy it is to process a metaphor. Conventionality reflects the familiarity of a metaphor whereas aptness reflects the degree to which a metaphor vehicle captures important features of a metaphor topic. In recent years it has become clear that operationalizing these two constructs is not as simple as asking naïve raters for subjective judgments. It has been found that ratings of (...) aptness and conventionality are highly correlated, which has led some researchers to pursue alternative methods for measuring the constructs. Here, in four experiments, we explore the underlying reasons for the high correlation in ratings of aptness and conventionality, and question the construct validity of various methods for measuring the two dimensions. We find that manipulating the processing fluency of a metaphorical sentence by means of familiarization to similar senses of the metaphor (“in vivo conventionalization”) influences ratings of the sentence's aptness. This misattribution may help explain why subjective ratings of aptness and conventionality are highly correlated. In addition, we find other reasons to question the construct validity of conventionality and aptness measures: for instance, we find that conventionality is context dependent and thus not attributable to a metaphor vehicle alone, and we find that ratings of aptness take more into account than they should. (shrink)

The impact of digital media and technology on performance arts is evident when digital visual effects (VFX) filming techniques are introduced on a film set. Digital technologies influence the film actor’s approach to be congruent to and authentic within the circumstances of the scene. Actors require an effective skillset and strategies to successfully deliver an embodied performance aligning with the various digital VFX techniques. Focusing on imagination, action and emotion that would facilitate such an embodied performance, we drew on relevant (...) neuroscientific notions such as neuron reactivation, conceptual blending, as-if body states and affordances. Additionally, we incorporated relevant embodied performance concepts from Stanislavski, Laban/Bartenieff Movement Studies, Effector Patterns including the Emotional Body Approach and Lessac Kinesensics to the development of a digital acting programme, advancing the actor’s required skills and providing on-set digital acting strategies to support congruency with digital VFX and authenticity within the diegetic reality. The efficacy of this programme was determined by assessing pre- and post-intervention recordings of both a control and an experimental group of trained actors. Reflection-on-action journals from participants supplemented the assessment. The assessments and journals indicate that the acquired skillset and on-set digital acting strategies effectively improve the actor’s performance with digital VFX filming technology. (shrink)

This study sheds new insight on how historically oppressed and marginalized actors are able to pursue environmental sustainability based on alternative worldviews (e.g., Indigenous worldviews) rather than succumbing to those dominant in the Western society, based on a study of the Syilx (“Okanagan”) people in British Columbia, Canada. We found that the Syilx people enacted the ethical practice of _nʕawqnwixʷ_ (“the reciprocal gentle dropping of thoughts, like water, into everyone’s minds to address the issue at the centre of discussion and (...) to reach collective consensus for action”), anchored in the Syilx worldview, to reconstruct the relationships between humans and nature. Two overlapping processes are involved: developing foundational principles for human–nature relations and carrying out reconstruction work. Ongoing enactment of _nʕawqnwixʷ_ practice provided community-based agency, enabling the Syilx people to shift the conversation around environmental sustainability. From this, we discuss the theoretical potential of community-based agency for the study of environmental sustainability, and the role of Indigenous worldviews for (re)imagining human-nature ethics (and reorienting the theoretical lens of human-animal or human-plant ethics form a firm-centric focus to a community-oriented lens), and important implications for practitioners and policymakers in the field of environmental sustainability. (shrink)

Background Whether patients' life-style should involve lower priority for treatment is a controversial question in bioethics. Less is known about clinicians' views. Aim To study how clinical doctors' attitudes to questions of patient responsibility and priority vary over time. Method Surveys of doctors in Norway in 2008, 2014, 2021. Questionnaires included statements about patients' lifestyle's significance for priority to care, and vignettes of priority cases (only in 2014). Results Attitudes were fairly stable between 2008 and 2021. 17%/14% agreed that patients' (...) lifestyle should count, while 19%/22% agreed that it should involve lower priority to scarce organs. 42/44% agreed that smokers should have lower priority. Substantially more agreed in 2014. Regression analyses showed that being male, working in hospital, and younger age increased the likelihood of agreeing. Conclusion A substantial minority of doctors agreed that lifestyle should be a priority criterion, possibly contrary to Norwegian legislation and professional ethics. The finding might be explained by the unspecified meaning of priority, increased scarcity-awareness, or socio-cultural trends towards individualism. The 2014 results indicate a framing effect; the vignettes may have primed the respondents towards accepting lifestyle as a criterion. We conclude that attitudes to normative questions are unstable and depend on context. A substantial minority of doctors seems to be positive to deprioritizing patients allegedly responsible for their illness. However, what deprioritization implies in practice is not clear. (shrink)

Originally published in 1936, this book presents the ancient Greek text of the paraphrases and quotations of Zeno's philosophical arguments, together with a facing-page English translation and editorial commentary. Detailed notes are incorporated throughout and a bibliography is also included. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in Zeno and ancient philosophy.

At On Generation and Corruption I.7.323b1–324a5, Aristotle claims that his new method of analysis for fundamental bodies and properties resolves a traditional apparent incompatibility between opposed principles applied by different philosophical authorities to the problem of affecting and being affected (poiein and paschein): that the like interacts with the unlike, and that the like interacts with the like. Twice in this passage, Aristotle uses a form of the term hupenantion (etymologically, ‘sub-oppositional’) in an extended discussion that includes his declaration of (...) the critical insight for solving the problem and illuminates the partial truth of each of the apparently antithetical universal principles. Because Aristotle uses the uncommon term twice in close context, and because he also explains in the context how he understands the apparent incompatibility—characterized both as a verbal opposition or enantiologia and also as a partial articulation of what should be theorized as a whole—it seems (and has seemed) plausible that this augmented form of the frequently used term enantion (‘opposite’ or ‘contrary’) carries methodological weight for indicating a kind of apparent incompatibility that can be resolved through supplementation to both of the opposed statements rather than elimination of or even favor for one or the other. Although the sense of hupenantion in On Generation and Corruption 1.7 is not continuous with the concept of the ‘subcontrary’ developed by ancient commentators on Aristotle’s Interpretations and early modern logicians, a full survey of the use of this term in Aristotle’s writings shows that Aristotle did recognize and lexically mark a special kind of opposition, one productive of intellectual progress rather than indicative of total error on one side of the debate. (shrink)

My primary aim in this paper is to show that the structure of experience must include a subject (or self). I argue that the subjectless (No-Self) views of our experience must be rejected, primarily because without the consciousness-unifying function of a subject they are unable to account for the unities of consciousness present in our experience. In addition, I contend that such views fail in another respect. They emphasize the streaming of experience, the ever-changing flow of conscious events, but have (...) difficulty identifying what must stand unmoving to provide the contrast needed for the experience of motion. (shrink)

While Merleau-Ponty’s political positions evolved over the course of his career, they are grounded in and guided by a remarkably consistent account of historicity. Praxis requires authentic historical engagement; and Merleau-Ponty was critical of inauthentic a-historical approaches throughout his career. I chart a trajectory of Merleau-Ponty’s position from The War Has Taken Place (1945), through some of the newly published material from the mid to late 1940’s Michel Dalissier’s monumental two volume collection of inédits, and the Introduction to Signs (1960). (...) This results in two surprising and admittedly controversial observations that contradict dominant narratives. I argue that: (1) Merleau-Ponty’s account of historicity precludes the claim that he abandoned Marxism altogether with the writing of Adventures of the Dialectic (1955); and (2) Merleau-Ponty’s account of historicity reveals the dominant Western narrative about the war in Ukraine to be inauthentic. (shrink)

On sait qu’Hölderlin s’est délibérément opposé à la « conception régnante par rapport au monde Grec » (herrschende Griechenauffassung) et au classicisme de Weimar qui voit Sophocle comme le modèle de la mesure rationnelle. Déjà Hellingrath et Beissner ont signalé qu’il accentue « l’enthousiasme excentrique », c’est-à-dire, les tendances déstabilisantes arrachant le héros au centre de la vie proprement humaine. Ceci exige qu’on développe des remarques comme celle de Beissner qui défend l’idée...

This manuscript explores the argument for lower student-to-school counselor ratios in U.S. public education. Drawing upon a comprehensive historical review and existing research, we establish the integral role of school counselors and the notable benefits of reduced student-to-counselor ratios. Our analysis of national data exposes marked disparities across states and districts, with the most underfunded often serving higher percentages of low-income students and students of color. This situation raises significant ethical concerns, prompting a call for conscientious policy reform and targeted (...) investment. Informed by emerging best practices, we propose recommendations for enhancing counselor staffing and ultimately student outcomes. This ethical argument underscores the need for proactive actions and provides a basis for future research to further delineate the impact of school counselor ratios on educational equity and student success. (shrink)

Offers a vision of wholeness for approaching human ethical responses to what science is telling us about the crises facing our environment and climate.

In this book, Phillip Wiebe examines religious, spiritual, and mystical experiences, assessing how these experiences appear to implicate a spiritual order. Despite the current prevalence of naturalism and atheism, he argues that experiences purporting to have a religious or spiritual significance deserve close empirical investigation. Wiebe surveys the broad scope of religious experience and considers different types of evidence that might give rise to a belief in phenomena such as spirits, paranormal events, God, and an afterlife. He demonstrates that there (...) are different explanations and interpretations of religious experiences, both because they are typically personal accounts, and they suggest a reality that is often unobservable. Wiebe also addresses how to evaluate evidence for theories that postulate unobservables in general, and a Theory of Spirits in particular. Calling for more rigorous investigation of these phenomena, Wiebe frames the study of religious experience among other accepted social sciences that seek to understand religion. (shrink)

This work is an exposition of Salighed, a concept at the heart of Kierkegaard's thought, and the dialectical starting point for his reflections on what it means to live a genuinely human life. Kierkegaard studies to date appear to have underestimated the importance of the word and the concepts that lie behind it—perhaps because the word appears easily translated into the English forms of "eternal happiness" or "blessedness." This, suggests Khan, does little justice to the concepts behind the word, and (...) does even less justice to the relationships of the concept of Salighed to other concepts crucial to Kierkegaard's thought. Khan's approach to this word/concept study has been greatly augmented by his use of the computer in analyzing word-relatedness, context, and frequency of occurrence, both within individual works and in comparing one work with a context of the Kierkegaard corpus. The volume will, of course, be of interest to students of Kierkegaard. It will also be of interest to those scholars intrigued by the possibilities of using computers in linguistic research and in literary studies. (shrink)

Abstract“Suffering” is a central concept within bioethics and often a crucial consideration in medical decision making. As used in practice, however, the concept risks being uninformative, ambiguous, or even misleading. In this paper, we consider a series of cases in which “suffering” is invoked and analyze them in light of prominent theories of suffering. We then outline ethical hazards that arise as a result of imprecise usage of the concept and offer practical recommendations for avoiding them. Appeals to suffering are (...) often getting at something ethically important. But this is where the work of ethics begins, not where it ends. (shrink)

El artículo examina el conflicto formal que se produce en la descripción de Odradek al interior de “La preocupación del padre de familia” de Franz Kafka. En la voz de su narrador, Kafka se vale de un lenguaje de extraordinaria precisión para describir a su criatura (Odradek), produciendo una serie de paradojas. Prestamos atención seria a estas paradojas, mostrando las consecuencias que ellas plantean para los conceptos de “historia” en Kant y Benjamin, en sus respectivas relaciones con el concepto de (...) “naturaleza” en estos autores. (shrink)