Contemporary research has showcased many benefits of nostalgia, but its bittersweet character and historical reputation as unhealthy raise the possibility of less favorable impacts. In recent studies, daily diary data highlighted nostalgia’s mixed valence and suggested that nostalgia is more strongly associated with negative feelings. Variables that influence the adaptive or maladaptive dimensions of nostalgia have not yet been fully explored. Recently, a focus on when nostalgia is experienced relative to past and future was introduced in the construct of anticipatory (...) nostalgia, missing the present prematurely before it has become past. Distinct from personal nostalgia, anticipatory nostalgia was found to be characterized by difficulty enjoying the present and a tendency toward sadness and worry. The present study examines the distinctive dynamics at play in anticipatory and personal nostalgia by exploring the relationship between each type of dispositional nostalgia and reported experience with happy and sad stories. The Nostalgia Inventory, the Survey of Anticipatory Nostalgia, and a brief form of the PANAS were completed by 144 undergraduates (110 women), who rated their exposure and reactions to happy and sad stories. Reported frequency of exposure to happy and sad stories was related to dispositional happiness and sadness. Personal and anticipatory nostalgia did not differ in frequency of exposure to happy and sad stories, but they did differ in reactivity to and learning from sad stories. Findings highlight the importance of the timing of nostalgia, consistent with the distinction between nostalgia for the past and nostalgia for what is still present. (shrink)

This chapter introduces the subject of personhood and its significance to Indic traditions and academic discourses. The category of 'person' is distinguished from the categories of 'self' and 'body' by virtue of its relational, permeable, and "extensional" or "expansive" character. The scholarly tendency to frame persons as "microcosms"-bodies that contain within the replication of the cosmos-at-large-is problematized. Indic persons are most often conceived as outward-facing, phenomenalistic, world-wide entities. Chapters of the work are summarized. Significance of Indic theories of personhood to (...) modern debates on environmental personhood and legal personhood is discussed. (shrink)

People are minded creatures; we have thoughts, feelings and emotions. More intriguingly, we grasp our own mental states, and conduct the business of ascribing them to ourselves and others without instruction in formal psychology. How do we do this? And what are the dimensions of our grasp of the mental realm? In this book, Alvin I. Goldman explores these questions with the tools of philosophy, developmental psychology, social psychology and cognitive neuroscience. He refines an approach called simulation theory, which starts (...) from the familiar idea that we understand others by putting ourselves in their mental shoes. Can this intuitive idea be rendered precise in a philosophically respectable manner, without allowing simulation to collapse into theorizing? Given a suitable definition, do empirical results support the notion that minds literally create surrogates of other peoples mental states in the process of mindreading? Goldman amasses a surprising array of evidence from psychology and neuroscience that supports this hypothesis. (shrink)

A straight solution to S. Kripke’s skeptical problem, proposed by E.V. Borisov, is considered. The main assumption of the argumentation of a straight solution is the thesis about the possibility of knowing meanings. The article shows the need to further define the terms used in the argumentation, in particular the concept of introspection.

--Filosofīi︠a︡, kak dukhovnoe di︠e︡lanīe.--Filisofīi︠a︡ i zhiznʹ.--O vozrozhdenīi filisofskago opyta.

The globalization in business and tourism becomes crucial more and more for the economical sustainability of local communities. In the presence of an epidemic outbreak, there must be such a decision on the policy by the host community as whether to accept visitors or not, the number of acceptable visitors, or the condition for acceptable visitors. Making use of an SIRI type of mathematical model, we consider the influence of visitors on the spread of a reinfectious disease in a community, (...) especially assuming that a certain proportion of accepted visitors are immune. The reinfectivity of disease here means that the immunity gained by either vaccination or recovery is imperfect. With the mathematical results obtained by our analysis on the model for such an epidemic dynamics of resident and visitor populations, we find that the acceptance of visitors could have a significant influence on the disease’s endemicity in the community, either suppressive or supportive. (shrink)

Articles on the understanding of philosophy with special reference to Islamic teachings; includes theories of noted philosophers.

Self-discovery leads to the development of the ethics of self-mastery. Many ethical systems prescribe how the individual could attain self-mastery by means of critical self-examination or self-analysis. Once such critical self-examination or self-analysis is successfully carried out, the individual begins to use himself, his personal preferences, as the standard of what is right or wrong. This is the background to the Confucian, Kantian and Existentialist ethics of categorical imperatives. Even in religious ethical systems that attribute the source of the moral (...) law to divine authority, the individual still has to take a leap of faith to discover God's purpose for his existence, which he then internalizes. In the final analysis, any ethics that truly works must issue forth from the self. Hence self-mastery is the absolutely fundamental premise upon which to erect a sound moral character. (shrink)

Recent trends towards an e-Science offer us the opportunity to think about the specific epistemological changes created by computational empowerment in scientific practices. In fact, we can say that a computational epistemology exists that requires our attention. By ‘computational epistemology’ I mean the computational processes implied or required to achieve human knowledge. In that category we can include AI, supercomputers, expert systems, distributed computation, imaging technologies, virtual instruments, middleware, robotics, grids or databases. Although several authors talk about the extended mind (...) and computational extensions of the human body, most of these proposals don’t analyze the deep epistemological implications of computer empowerment in scientific practices. At the same time, we must identify the principal concept for e-Science: Information. Why should we think about a new epistemology for e-Science? Because several processes exist around scientific information that require a good epistemological model to be understood. (shrink)

Balāgha, which consists of three main branches today, has benefited from various channels in the process of completing its formation. Before the formation of systematic balāgha, it is assumed that there were two main currents, one represented by poets and lite-rati, and the other represented by scholars. This article aims to determine the place of Abū ʿUthmān al-Jāḥiẓ (255/869), one of the main names who wrote in the field of balāgha, in the pre-formation period of balāgha science. The documentary analysis (...) method will be used mainly in the research. The determinations of al-Jāḥiẓ on balāgha will be analysed in accord-ance with the parameters, categories and concepts of systematic balāgha. By examining al-Jāḥiẓ’s rhetorical understanding through the filter of systematic balāgha, the share of pre-for-mation period balāgha within systematic balāgha will be revealed. Another contribution of the study would be to reveal the balāgha understanding of al-Jāḥiẓ with its main frames. Ex-amining al-Jāḥiẓ’s concept of balāgha, on the other hand, will facilitate understanding of his unique concepts of balāgha and bayān. Because al-Jāḥiẓ designed a broad communication framework, which he calls bayān, and considered balāgha as a sub-category within this de-sign. Balāgha is the subject of verbal communication in this design.Summary: The formation of a discipline called balāgha passed through several stages. Balāgha as a term, which was in circulation as a qualification of beautiful and convincing words, has attracted the attention of some circles, had been dealt with it in various occasions and some thoughts had been recorded on the subject. These accumulations and records contained a number of basics and principles that formed the core of balāgha science which would later be systematized. Since these recorded cumulative basics and principles cannot be called balāgha science, it is possible to name them as the idea of balāgha. The independent works that emerged during this period were written by poets and literary writers. Religious scholars and linguists also had mentioned rhetorical issues in their works even though they did not write specific books on the topic. It is possible to say that there are two channels from which balāgha science is nourished: The literary criticism channel represented by poets and writers and the other channel which is held by various branches of science, the majority of which are religious sciences.The literary criticism channel is the product of some social and scientific developments in Arab history. When Jāhiliyya (pre-Islamic) poetry became a data source to serve the emerging grammar, an intensive movement of collecting Jāhiliyya poetry has begun. Compiled Jāhiliyya poetry was not only a source for linguists, but also a literary legacy that poets sang and used as a model for their new styles in poetry. Innovations in poetry led to a comparison between the old and the new, and these developments have also brought about the need for certain criteria to be used in literary criticism. Eventually, these critical activities circulated many terms, including the word balāgha.When it comes to religious sciences, balāgha has been a concept used mostly in iʿjāzu’l-Qurʿān issue. The discussions of the miraculous feature of the Qurʿān, which continued on theological grounds, must have aroused the desire to explain the eloquence of verses in concrete exam-ples. Because the scholars of these fields shifted their interest towards the use of linguistic tools. The balāgha channel shaped by the pressures of religious sciences such as kalām, fiqh and tafsīr could be called the balāgha developed by grammar; and the channel that began to take shape with the work of poets and writers can be called the balāgha developed by litera-ture.In the period after the formation of grammar and before the formation of balāgha, although there was not a balāgha science in the present-day sense, it is clear that there was a thought of balāgha. One of the scholars who reflects the idea of balāgha of the pre-establishment pe-riod is Abū ʿUthmān al-Jāḥiẓ. Al-Jāḥiẓ did not address the issue of persuasive and beautiful speech only in his book al-Bayān wa al-tabyīn. In various articles, he talks about the qualities of beautiful and impressive speeches, sometimes under different topics and sometimes under a special title. In his al-Bayān wa al-tabyīn, al-Jāḥiẓ establishes a communication theory called bayān that takes into account all the means of conveying meaning. He divides the means of communication into five, which are word, sign, number, text and posture. The book puts spe-cial emphasis on balāgha, which is one of the means of bayān, and its conditions of conveying meanings. Although the issues discussed in the work do not conform to the norms of the later systematic balāgha, it continues to be an important source in theoretical balāgha studies. Sys-tematic balāgha and al-Jāḥiẓ’s bayān project are different in terms of frame, but they have overlapping points and a piece-whole relationship between them. Bayān, developed by al-Jāḥiẓ’s, addresses the wide range of communication that takes into account including the ges-tures and signs; while balāgha is used to refer to the verbal communications only, which is part of the broader field of communication.In systematic balāgha, it is important to distinguish between balāgha and faṣāḥa terms; the former used to signify the word, the speech and the speaker, and the latter to signify only the word and the speaker. We have noticed that al-Jāḥiẓ uses them interchangeably. Nonetheless, the emphasis on the factor of transmitting messages, when he talks about the clarity of mean-ing on several occasions, shows that he considers the combined words rather than the indi-vidual words, which is the same assertion of systematic balāgha. According to him, the fact that a misarranged sentence is understood by the interlocutor should not mean that the sen-tence itself is capable of transmitting the meaning.The context factor, which is the determinant of systematic balāgha, is also taken into consid-eration in al-Jāḥiẓ’s understanding of balāgha. However, al-Jāḥiẓ generally considered the context together with the length and shortness of the speeches and did not mention the as-pects reflected in the sentence sequence. Although the major concern of al-Jāḥiẓ was the transmission ability of the speech, he also dealt with the expression forms. There are some other terms that he used less frequently like ījāz, iṭnāb, ishāb and kināya. Although some of these words are used in contexts similar to the meanings of today's term, most of them are used in such a context to meet more than one meaning. Ījāz, which is one of these concepts, is the name of expressing the meanings with little word in al-Jāḥiẓ’s usage. The use of terms reflects the types of narrative and figurative usages could not reach a stable point in al-Bayān wa al-tabyīn, because it was not written for the purpose of systematically analysing them. The author, who aims to examine the persuasive and beautiful words in many dimensions, under-took the issue with a view that takes into consideration the orator, and this caused his work to be designed in a way that serves speech making rather than analysing. This consideration prevented the emergence of an analysis system. Al-Jāḥiẓ mostly used balāgha in the context of oral performance. According to him, the written texts and performed sermons are different in style and therefore the balāgha criteria of these two species should be different as well. (shrink)

This unique study opens up a new dimension of Terrence Malick’s cinema – its expressions of unseeing and hearing. ‘Unseeing’ is Malick’s means of transcending the moment in order to enter the life that unfolds; to treat cinema as a real experience for those who live its reality. In this way, Terrence Malick’s Unseeing Cinema moves beyond film theory to advance a work of original philosophy, bringing together two thinkers not normally associated with one another: Gilles Deleuze and Søren Kierkegaard. (...) It investigates how Malick’s gatherings of time allow one to explore new philosophical questions about immanence and transcendence, ethics and faith, time and infinity, and the foldings of subjectivity that are central to both philosophers. Beyond cinema, it offers a way to think about our everyday repetitions and recollections and our ephemeral points of connection with those we love. (shrink)

I discuss the behavior of the Akaike Information Criterion in the limit when the sample size grows. I show the falsity of the claim made recently by Stanley Mulaik in Philosophy of Science that AIC would not distinguish between saturated and other correct factor analytic models in this limit. I explain the meaning and demonstrate the validity of the familiar, more moderate criticism that AIC is not a consistent estimator of the number of parameters of the smallest correct model. I (...) also give a short explanation why this feature of AIC is compatible with the motives of using it. (shrink)

Slavoj Žižek and Srecko Horvat combine their critical clout to emphasize the dangers of ignoring Europe's growing wealth gap and the parallel rise in right-wing nationalism, which is directly tied to the fallout from the ongoing financial crisis and its prescription of imposed austerity. To general observers, the European Union's economic woes appear to be its greatest problem, but the real peril is an ongoing ideological-political crisis that threatens an era of instability and reactionary brutality. The fall of communism in (...) 1989 seemed to end the leftist program of universal emancipation. However, nearly a quarter of a century later, the European Union has failed to produce any coherent vision that can mobilize people to action. Until recently, the only ideology receptive to European workers has been the nationalist call to "defend" against immigrant integration. Today, Europe is focused on regulating the development of capitalism and promoting a reactionary conception of its cultural heritage. Yet staying these courses, Žižek and Horvat show, only strips Europe of its power and stifles its political ingenuity. The best hope is for Europe to revive and defend its legacy of universal egalitarianism, which benefits all parties by preserving the promise of equal representation. (shrink)

al-Ījī's epitome of his Mawāqif fī ʻilm al-kalām on Islamic theology.

Contributed research papers on Vedic literature and Hindu philosophy.

al-Qāḍī Abū Yūsuf -- Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ashʻarī -- al-Qāḍī Abū Bakr al-Bāqillānī -- ʻAbd al-Qāhir al-Baghdādī -- Abū al-Ḥasan al-Māwardī -- Abū Yaʻlá -- Imām al-Ḥaramayn -- al-Ghazzālī -- Ibn Khaldūn -- al-Qalqashandī.

صدر عن المركز العربي للأبحاث ودراسة السياسات كتاب المنطق الإسلامي: حضور المنطق الأرسطي لدى مفكري المشرق الإسلامي، وهو من تأليف محمد بن يعيش. يقع الكتاب في 272 صفحة، شاملةً ببليوغرافيا وفهرسًا عامًّا. أمام ما يعرِّفه مؤلفُ الكتاب بـ "حقيقتين تاريخيتين"؛ هما أوّلًا: كثرة من اشتغلوا بعلم المنطق في الحضارة العربية الإسلامية من أفذاذ العلماء، وانتشارهم في أصقاع البلاد الإسلامية، وتنوّع أديانهم، وأصناف تخصصاتهم العلمية ونتاجاتهم، تأليفًا وحواشيَ مسهبةً وترجماتٍ ومختصراتٍ وشروحًا وأرجوزات، وثانيًا: إقراره بما لقيه هؤلاء العلماء من مضايقات وتجريح (...) واتهامات وملاحقات. يطرح الكتاب إشكاليةَ البحث، المتمثلةَ بالحيثيات التي رافقت استقبال المسلمين علمًا دخيلًا على العلوم الإسلامية كالمنطق وتعاملهم معه، ومراحل تردده بين الرفض والقبول في البيئة الجديدة، وأوجه الجِدّة لدى العلماء الذي ساهموا في تكريسه لغويًّا (الفارابي وابن سينا) ودينيًّا (الغزالي). وقد دفع "الحضور" الأرسطي لدى مناطقة الشرق الإسلامي الكاتبَ إلى تبيان مساهمة أرسطو - ضمن عناصرَ مساهِمة كثيرة - في تكريس خطاب إسلامي عقلاني جديد، وتشكيل المعالم الكبرى والجزئية لفلسفة هؤلاء المناطقة، التي تعبّر برأيه عن "تواصل" بين الفكرين اليوناني والإسلامي بدلًا مما يُحكى عن الانفصال والقطيعة والطلاق البائن، متجنِّبًا الانحياز إلى أحد طرفي الأزمة، المشنِّعين الذين يقذفون المنطق بشتى التهم، كإثارة الشبهات والباطل والرجم بالغيب من جهة، والقائلين بمادية فيلسوف اليونان وعقلانيته في مقابل لاعقلانية المسلمين وظلامية فكرهم، مع تشديده على تميز خطاب مفكري المشرق ضمن تاريخ الفلسفة المرافِق لهذا التواصل. وقد أتاح الجهد البحثي المبذول الانفتاحَ على أفق منطقي غير مدرسي اتبعته مجموعة من مفكري العالم الإسلامي، في محاولة لتكريس نظرة جديدة إلى التراثين اليوناني والإسلامي، متوسِّلًا لبلوغها كثرة الاستشهاد بنصوص المناطقة المشرقيين التي يُستدعى فيها أرسطو وسيلةً لإثبات حقيقة العلاقة بين الخطابين بطريقة علمية أمينة. (shrink)

The other night I had a very strange, and strangely coherent, dream. Socrates and Meno appeared to be arguing with each other in my presence. They talked English, I suppose, since I clearly thought I followed them; but I seem to remember that Greek words occurred from time to time. When I woke it seemed to me that the dream had some bearing on disputed matters of Platonic interpretation, so I shall try to reconstruct it here. Meno speaks first:Tell me, (...) Socrates, do you think that the just and the admirable are the same thing?I should hardly think so; for we call many things admirable—for example a young lad's cheek—which we would hardly call just; and perhaps vice versa. But I am only guessing, of course, because I cannot know whether A is the same as B unless I know what A is and what B is. (shrink)

On Islamic philosophy in the light of Koran.

Ėtika i metodologii︠a︡ nauki -- Filosofii︠a︡ tekhnonauki -- Gumanitarnai︠a︡ ėkspertiza -- Bioėtika kak prakticheskiĭ filosofskiĭ proekt -- Problemy "uluchshenii︠a︡" cheloveka.