With the growing call for private sector actors to address global challenges, it is necessary to first assess whether regions with the greatest needs are accessing corporate philanthropy. In this paper, we ask whether corporate philanthropy is reaching those with the greatest health-care needs. Drawing on economic geography and corporate homophily, we argue that corporate philanthropy tends to exacerbate health inequality as grants are destined for counties with fewer health problems. We test and find support for this hypothesis using data (...) on health grants made by US corporate foundations and county-level health data. Our results that corporate health grants are less likely to go to counties which have a lower proportion of medical service providers and insured citizens suggest that corporate foundations are unwittingly complicit in worsening the resource gap between small, poor, rural counties and large, wealthy, urban counties. From an ethical perspective, we provide some guidance as to how this may be corrected. (shrink)

The ongoing coronavirus 2019 pandemic caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 has resulted in a severe ramification on the global healthcare system, principally because of its easy transmission and the extended period of the virus survival on contaminated surfaces. With the advances in computer-aided diagnosis and artificial intelligence, this paper presents the application of deep learning and adversarial network for the automatic identification of COVID-19 pneumonia in computed tomography scans of the lungs. The complexity and time limitation (...) of the reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction swab test makes it disadvantageous to depend solely on as COVID-19’s central diagnostic mechanism. Since CT imaging systems are of low cost and widely available, we demonstrate that the drawback of the RT-PCR can be alleviated with a faster, automated, and reduced contact diagnostic process via the use of a neural network model for the classification of infected and noninfected CT scans. In our proposed model, we explore the benefit of transfer learning as a means of resolving the problem of inadequate dataset and the importance of semisupervised generative adversarial network for the extraction of well-mapped features and generation of image data. Our experimental evaluation indicates that the proposed semisupervised model achieves reliable classification, taking advantage of the reflective loss distance between the real data sample space and the generated data. (shrink)

Sculpting the Self addresses “what it means to be human” in a secular, post-Enlightenment world by exploring notions of self and subjectivity in Islamic and non-Islamic philosophical and mystical thought. Alongside detailed analyses of three major Islamic thinkers (Mullā Ṣadrā, Shāh Walī Allāh, and Muhammad Iqbal), this study also situates their writings on selfhood within the wider constellation of related discussions in late modern and contemporary thought, engaging the seminal theoretical insights on the self by William James, Jean-Paul Sartre, (...) and Michel Foucault. This allows the book to develop its inquiry within a spectrum theory of selfhood, incorporating bio-physiological, socio-cultural, and ethico-spiritual modes of discourse and meaning-construction. Weaving together insights from several disciplines such as religious studies, philosophy, anthropology, critical theory, and neuroscience, and arguing against views that narrowly restrict the self to a set of cognitive functions and abilities, this study proposes a multidimensional account of the self that offers new options for addressing central issues in the contemporary world, including spirituality, human flourishing, and meaning in life. This is the first book-length treatment of selfhood in Islamic thought that draws on a wealth of primary source texts in Arabic, Persian, Urdu, Greek, and other languages. Muhammad U. Faruque’s interdisciplinary approach makes a significant contribution to the growing field of cross-cultural dialogue, as it opens up the way for engaging premodern and modern Islamic sources from a contemporary perspective by going beyond the exegesis of historical materials. He initiates a critical conversation between new insights into human nature as developed in neuroscience and modern philosophical literature and millennia-old Islamic perspectives on the self, consciousness, and human flourishing as developed in Islamic philosophical, mystical, and literary traditions. (shrink)

This research article aims to evaluate the characteristics of ecotourism destination loyalty in light of destination attachment, destination equity framed by perceived value, and tourist experience. Thus, the attributes of ecotourism destination branding in formulating tourist loyalty are examined. The study is of significant importance for developing economies having natural tourist destinations. A total of 358 questionnaires were filled through wjx, and a SmartPLS-based structural equation modeling tool was used to analyze the data obtained from eco-tourists. The software is essential (...) for complex structural models, including multiple indicators, and relationships. The empirical results exhibit that perceived value and tourist experience significantly contribute to destination loyalty and equity, eventually influencing tourist destination loyalty. Moreover, destination memory moderates the relationship between destination attachment, destination equity, and destination loyalty. Further, destination attachment and destination equity mediate the relationship between the perceived value, experience, and destination loyalty. Additionally, the study extends the tourist consumption theory to the ecotourism literature. Besides the theoretical contribution, the study makes a practical contribution to practitioners. For instance, perceived value is a prime contributor to tourist destination loyalty. In perceived value, the most important factor is good value for money. Such practical contribution will provide a pathway to the strategic formation of business. (shrink)

The primary aim was to assess the role of mental and physical health of COVID-19 and its psychological impact in the general population of Pakistan during the first wave of COVID-19. It was hypothesized that there would be a significant predictive association among socio-demographic variables, psychological impact and mental health status resulting from COVID-19, and poor self-reported physical health would be significantly associated with adverse psychological impact and poor mental health status because of COVID-19. A cross-sectional survey research design was (...) used in which 1,361 respondents were sampled online during lockdown imposed in the country. The Impact of Events Scale-Revised was used to assess the psychological impact of COVID-19, and the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales was used to assess participants’ mental health status. 18% of the respondents reported moderate to severe event-specific distress, 22.6% reported moderate to severely extreme depression, 29% reported moderate to extreme anxiety, and 12.1% reported moderate to extreme stress. Female gender, having graduate-level education, currently studying, and self-reported physical symptoms were significantly associated with higher levels of psychological impact exhibited through higher scores on the IES-R and poorer mental health status exhibited through higher scores on the DASS-21. (shrink)

In this article, complete synchronization and antisynchronization in the identical financial chaotic system are presented. The proposed control strategies depend on first-order sliding mode and adaptive integral sliding mode for complete synchronization and antisynchronization of the identical financial chaotic system. In the primary case, the system parameters should be known, and first-order sliding mode control is utilized for synchronization and antisynchronization while in the second case, the system parameters are considered unknown. An adaptive integral sliding mode control strategy is utilized (...) for synchronization and antisynchronization of the system considering the parameters unknown. The error system is changed into a particular structure containing a nominal part and several unknown terms to utilize the adaptive integral sliding mode control. Then, this error system is stabilized using integral sliding mode control. The stabilizing controller is usually developed based on the nominal part plus the compensator control part. To suppress the high-frequency oscillation phenomenon, smooth continuous compensator control can be used rather than conventional discontinuous control. The compensator controller along with the adapted law is derived such that the time derivative of the Lyapunov function becomes strictly negative. The effectiveness of the proposed method was tested through computer simulations. The proposed control strategies are verified for that Identical 4D hyperchaotic financial system to attain complete synchronization and antisynchronization along with the improved performance. (shrink)

This article examines the stance held by a Meccan-Indonesian exegete in the 13 AH or 19 AD century, Muḥammad Nawawī al-Bantānī (d. 1230–1314 H/1813–1897 AD), in dealing with Ṣifāt verses in his exegetical work, Marāḥ Labīd li Kashf Ma’nā al-Qur’ān al-Majīd. As an established term, Ṣifāt verses refer to Quranic expressions that ostensibly ascribe anthropomorphic dimensions to God. Interpretation of such ambiguous verses has been bitterly contended since the 2/8th century and remains one of the most debated topics in the (...) pre- and postmodern era. This study applies literature and document analysis focused on many of al-Bantānī’s works. The results show that al-Bantānī actively applied ta’wīl [figurative interpretation] in dealing with Ṣifāt verses without totally discarding amodality position [tafwīḍ].Contribution: Although al-Bantānī never mentioned Wahhabism in any of his works, his interpretation of Ṣifat verses alludes to his indirect response to the Wahhabi’s literalism and anti-ta’wīl approach. In addition, by accepting both of ta’wīl and tafwīḍ solutions, al-Bantānī underpinned the wasaṭī [moderate] stand, which later became the most distinctive tradition in Malay–Islamic discourse. (shrink)

Publication date: 11 June 2018 Source: Author: Jude Nwafor Eze, Umar Aliyu, Abdulmalik Alhaji-Baba, Muhammad Alfa This research evaluates the farmers’ vulnerability to climate change in Niger State. Strategies for reducing the effect of climate change have regularly been made without experimental foundations and adequate information on farmers’ vulnerability to climate change in the study area. Thus, integrated farmers’ vulnerability assessment approach was employed by classifying socioeconomic and biophysical indicators of vulnerability into adaptive capacity, sensitivity and exposure to (...) determine the farmers’ vulnerability to climate change. This is based on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s definition of vulnerability. The study adopted a survey design and the method utilized for the study was questionnaire administered to 400 households in the study area. The results indicate that the farmers’ vulnerability was low in zone A with a mean index of 2.86, very low in zone B with a mean index of 3.74, and high in zone C with a mean index of 1.95. It is recommended that measures should be taken to integrate climate change adaptation into Niger State development process. These measures should include improvement in adoption of good agricultural practices. (shrink)

We examined the direct and indirect (via relational social capital) relationship between ethical leadership and knowledge hiding. We also tested the moderating role of instrumental thinking in the relationship between ethical leadership and knowledge hiding and the relationship between ethical leadership and relational social capital. Data were collected from 245 employees in different firms spanning different manufacturing and service sectors. The results showed that ethical leadership was negatively related to knowledge hiding, both directly and via relational social capital. The results (...) revealed that instrumental thinking moderated the positive relationship between ethical leadership and relational social capital, such that the relationship was weak when instrumental thinking was high. The results also showed that instrumental thinking moderated both direct and indirect relationships between ethical leadership and knowledge hiding, such that the relationships were weak when instrumental thinking was high. The study carries important practical implications for managers concerned about the destructive consequences of knowledge hiding. (shrink)

Mankind is faced with a number of serious problems that demand an effective solution. The prevalence of injustice and the frequency of financial crises are two of the most serious of these problems. Consisting of an in-depth introduction along with a selection of eight of Muhammad Umer Chapra's essays--four on Islamic economics and four on Islamic finance--this timely book raises the question of what can be done to not only minimize the frequency and severity of the financial crises, but (...) also make the financial system more equitable. The author considers the origins of Islamic economics and outlines its development and underlying principles. He compares the approach taken to ethics and economics in Islam with that taken in the West, considering whether lessons can be applied to the global financial architecture in order to mitigate against financial crises. The book also examines the case against interest and looks at both innovation in Islamic finance, as well as challenges facing the industry. Written by a leading authority in the field, this book will be a stimulating resource for students and researchers in Islamic economics and finance, as well as providing valuable insight to all of those with an interest in financial systems and their interaction with society. (shrink)

Data analytics, machine intelligence, and other cognitive algorithms have been employed in predicting various types of diseases in health care. The revolution of artificial neural networks in the medical discipline emerged for data-driven applications, particularly in the healthcare domain. It ranges from diagnosis of various diseases, medical image processing, decision support system, and disease prediction. The intention of conducting the research is to ascertain the impact of parameters on diabetes data to predict whether a particular patient has a disease or (...) not. This paper develops an improved ANN model trained using an artificial backpropagation scaled conjugate gradient neural network algorithm to predict diabetes effectively. For validating the performance of the proposed model, we conduct a large set of experiments on a Pima Indian Diabetes dataset using accuracy and mean squared error as evaluation metrics. We use different number of neurons in the hidden layer, ranging from 5 to 50, to train the ANN models. The experimental results show that the ABP-SCGNN model, containing 20 neurons, attains 93% accuracy on the validation set, which is higher than using the other ANNs models. This result confirms the model’s effectiveness and efficiency in predicting diabetes disease from the required data attributes. (shrink)

This study investigates the significance of understanding police perspectives on community policing as a means of addressing insecurity, particularly within the context of localised and asymmetrical conflicts. It highlights the pivotal role of the police in shaping community security and the substantial impact they can have (positive or negative) in fragile environments. The study contends that the localised nature of the community policing effectively addresses security and development issues and empowering citizens. Qualitative interviews were conducted with senior police in Islamabad, (...) to assess the implementation and potential impacts of community policing in Pakistan’s Federal Capital Territory. The findings reveal how the historical foundations of police structures and operations – which date back to the colonial period – have led to the promotion of fear, mistrust and manipulation under successive regimes. Despite these challenges, the findings are promising highlighting enhanced human security through context-specific community policing. Finally, the paper argues that the movement towards community-oriented policing marks a departure from the control of elites within state systems, and encourages values such as local ownership, social cohesion, mutual engagement, accountability and agency. These developments have profound implications for global security and justice. (shrink)

Muslim communities in the village facing the COVID-19 Pandemic attempts to find refuge from the plague and hope for survival. However, this led to more caution, which may lead to xenophobia. Via ethnography, this study unmasks the xenophobic attitude. This research discusses the root causes of panic in the community so that remedies can be implemented. The research attempts to explain, from a socio-anthropological viewpoint, how people and religious groups in the village perceive the pandemic of COVID-19 based on their (...) belief in their faith and in the science. The research takes place in Cigagak village, an area of approximately 7000 m2 on the outskirts of Bandung of West Java of Indonesia. This study examines the selected respondents from about 190 inhabitants who had close ties to managing places of worship and public places. This study utilises a collaborative self-ethnographic method and qualitative analysis. The influence of COVID-19 has moved to new exclusive and disintegrating practices from the inclusion-cohesive religious tradition. Therefore, this study tries to find out ways on how to reduce exclusive perception and religious practices to a minimum level and how to disappear xenophobia. Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic, inclusive awareness and actions were re-established, and even social cohesiveness was fostered. This study concludes that in its deep conviction nature, theology can change exclusive behaviour to be inclusive if it is based on the religious principles that are raised in response to human events. In this case, the Muslim community in a village can change the fear of COVID-19 pandemic to be a reducer of the panic based on the support of the religious doctrines.Contribution: This article used a collaborative self-ethnography with a religious socio-anthropological viewpoint. This study could help to solve social problems through theological convergence in Islamic milieu, especially that of the government’s formal Islamic organisation and organic Islamic leaders of the society. (shrink)

Saba Mahmood’s anthropological work studies the gain in skills, agency and capacity building by the women’s dawa movement in Egypt. These women increase their virtue toward the goal of piety by following dominant, often patriarchal norms. Mahmood argues that “teleological feminism” ignores this gain in agency because this kind of feminism only focuses on opposition or resistance to these norms. In this paper I defend Mahmood’s “anti-teleological” feminist work from criticisms that her project valorizes oppression and has no vision for (...) a nonoppressive feminist future. I argue the future envisioned by teleological feminists gets caught in “the Hegelian” trap of replicating past oppression in their feminist future. I find in Mahmood’s work the tools to escape this trap. I argue, rather than a movement of overcoming oppression, Mahmood’s work suggests an immanent and creative movement that emphasizes difference for a truly new future. I turn to a Bergsonian metaphor and argue that this movement can be seen as akin to the movement of biological evolution. I conclude using the work of Eve Sedgwick that the Egyptian women that Mahmood studies are being read in a “paranoid” fashion and demonstrate using Leila Ahmed a better “reparative” reading of these women. (shrink)

Ethics plays an essential role in the philosophical framework of Abū Bakr al-Rāzī. Although most of his philosophical works have become extinct, two surviving works serve as primary sources for understanding his ethical theory. Although sharing certain foundational principles, these two works diverge in terms of ethical standards and exhibit distinct logical approaches to ethics, a facet that has largely remained unexplored within contemporary scholarly discourse. I aim to extract and reconstruct both of his ethical decision-making systems by shedding light (...) on the place of ethics in his philosophy, explaining the interconnection of the two ethical frameworks, reconstructing both of these ethical systems, and finally presenting them in patterns. (shrink)

I begin the first part by showing how situationism should make us question traditional understandings of virtues as intrinsic dispositions. I concentrate specifically on situationist experiments related to mood. I then introduce Islamic virtue ethics and the dawa movement. In parts two and three I examine ethnography of the dawa movement to explore how they deal with worries about the influence of mood on their virtue. In part two I show how they train their habits in very traditional virtue ethics (...) ways in order to be more resilient when faced with virtue-diminishing affective situations. In part three I show how the situation, rather than hindering practitioners, is recruited into helping these women achieve piety. I conclude, in part four, by showing the dawa movement's creative use of the Islamic veil as a way to help these women deal with the objection that one cannot avoid all bad situations. Going beyond social psychological experiments, I examine two methodological sources not found in situationist debates. First, I argue for ethnography as an empirical method through which to study virtue. I draw on ethnography of the Islamic women's dawa movement. Secondly, the work in the philosophy of mind on ‘affective scaffolding’. (shrink)

In step with rapid advancements in computer vision, vehicle classification demonstrates a considerable potential to reshape intelligent transportation systems. In the last couple of decades, image processing and pattern recognition-based vehicle classification systems have been used to improve the effectiveness of automated highway toll collection and traffic monitoring systems. However, these methods are trained on limited handcrafted features extracted from small datasets, which do not cater the real-time road traffic conditions. Deep learning-based classification systems have been proposed to incorporate the (...) above-mentioned issues in traditional methods. However, convolutional neural networks require piles of data including noise, weather, and illumination factors to ensure robustness in real-time applications. Moreover, there is no generalized dataset available to validate the efficacy of vehicle classification systems. To overcome these issues, we propose a convolutional neural network-based vehicle classification system to improve robustness of vehicle classification in real-time applications. We present a vehicle dataset comprising of 10,000 images categorized into six-common vehicle classes considering adverse illuminous conditions to achieve robustness in real-time vehicle classification systems. Initially, pretrained AlexNet, GoogleNet, Inception-v3, VGG, and ResNet are fine-tuned on self-constructed vehicle dataset to evaluate their performance in terms of accuracy and convergence. Based on better performance, ResNet architecture is further improved by adding a new classification block in the network. To ensure generalization, we fine-tuned the network on the public VeRi dataset containing 50,000 images, which have been categorized into six vehicle classes. Finally, a comparison study has been carried out between the proposed and existing vehicle classification methods to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed vehicle classification system. Consequently, our proposed system achieved 99.68%, 99.65%, and 99.56% accuracy, precision, and F1-score on our self-constructed dataset. (shrink)

This article examined the recent emergence of the national and international issue of religious polarisation and identity, which affects some groups’ populism and fanaticism. Regarding social phenomena, religion and identity are intertwined like the two sides of a coin. This discourse has an impact how to interpret diversity on religious issues that are caused by political influences. Given the polarisation of identity politics and religion, the national and state campaign slogan ‘unity in diversity’ is merely wishful thinking. The polarisation of (...) identity and religion is heavily implicated in the Indonesia–Philippines border case; consequently, in some instances, the ‘seeds’ of these cases are discovered, eventually resulting in group fanaticism. This article employed the historical way of writing while also taking a social science angle that interacts with the research being done. For some communities, religion and identity may take on symbolic meaning, affecting how well they adapt and are accepted. However, the qualities of a community group or region are also shaped by historical events. According to the study’s findings, religion and ethnic identity have played important roles in long-standing historical processes and impacted them. This study is anticipated to ‘suppress’ the problem of political division involving religion and identity because the identification of ‘border’ communities depends not only on entity and identity issues but also on the community’s culture.Contribution: The contribution in this study is that it has an impact on religious issues and cultural identity relations perspectives. (shrink)

The research addresses the effect of sense of control on perceived stress by controlling for the intervening effects of Religiosity and Materialism. A total of 609 emerging adults living in Dhaka city participated in the survey; surveyors used a 48-item structural closed-ended questionnaire to collect the responses. The elicited responses were quantified, and structural equation models were formulated to identify any associations among the variables of interest. The findings suggest that sense of control is a strong determinant of perceived stress; (...) neither religiosity nor materialism mediate the association. The study advances the transactional model of stress and coping. (shrink)

The notion of 'natural kinds' has been central to contemporary discussions of metaphysics and philosophy of science. Although explicitly articulated by nineteenth-century philosophers like Mill, Whewell and Venn, it has a much older history dating back to Plato and Aristotle. In recent years, essentialism has been the dominant account of natural kinds among philosophers, but the essentialist view has encountered resistance, especially among naturalist metaphysicians and philosophers of science. Informed by detailed examination of classification in the natural and social sciences, (...) this book argues against essentialism and for a naturalist account of natural kinds. By looking at case studies drawn from diverse scientific disciplines, from fluid mechanics to virology and polymer science to psychiatry, the author argues that natural kinds are nodes in causal networks. On the basis of this account, he maintains that there can be natural kinds in the social sciences as well as the natural sciences. (shrink)

Building on conservation of resource (COR) theory, this study adds to the business ethics literature by examining how employees' religiousness might help them cope with a stressful work environment. In doing so, this study examines the differential effects of challenge and hindrance stressors on employees’ job performance and their helping behaviors; and the moderating role of religiousness in this process. Findings from a multisource and three-wave survey data, collected from dyads of employees and their supervisors in Pakistan-based organizations, indicate that (...) challenge stressors positively predict employees' job performance; however, the link between challenge stressors and helping behavior was not significant. Religiousness invigorates both these relationships such that the employees with high religiousness exhibit higher job performance and helping behavior when confronted with challenging stressors. In contrast, hindrance stressors had a negative effect on employees' job performance and their propensity to engage in helping behaviors. Religiousness mitigates this negative effect of hindrance stressors such that the effect is weaker for employees who can draw strength from their religiousness. Finally, this paper discusses the theoretical and practical implications of the study’s findings and offers directions for future research. (shrink)

The aim of this work focuses on the relationship among the Dark Triad, perceptions of organizational politics, political skills, and counterproductive work behavior. This study empirically tests the mediating role of perceptions of organizational politics in the relationship between the Dark Triad and counterproductive work behavior. Furthermore, the study investigates the moderating role of political skills in strengthening the link between the Dark Triad and the perceptions of organizational politics. A sample of 149 participants was randomly selected. To analyze the (...) data of the present work, we employed a structural equation model using partial least square and PROCESS. From empirical findings, we imply an inference that perception of organizational politics partially mediates the Dark Triad's influence on the counterproductive work behavior. Moreover, the results identify the moderating role of political skills in strengthening the link between the Dark Triad and the perceptions of organizational politics. Empirical findings suggest important policy implications for the hospitality industry. (shrink)

My intention in this paper is to reframe the practice of veiling as an embodied practice of self-development and self- transformation. I argue that practices like these cannot be handled by the choice/chance distinction relied on by those who would restrict religious minority accommodations. Embodied self- transformation necessarily means a change in personal identity and this means the religious believer cannot know if they will need religious accommodation when they begin their journey of piety. Even some luck egalitarians would find (...) leaning exclusively on preference and choice to find who should be burdened with paying the full costs of certain choices in one’s life too morally harsh to be justifiable. I end by briefly illustrating an alternative way to think about religious accommodation that does not rely on the choice/chance distinction. (shrink)

This study is aimed to identify the relative effect of online review ratings and perceived crowding on purchase intentions of a consumer. Our study also investigated the contingent effect of gender and perceived crowding between the relationship of exogenous and endogenous variables. This study was conducted in the Malaysian restaurant industry. We applied the purposive sampling technique to identify respondents, the mall intercept survey method was used for data collection. Smart PLS software was applied for data analysis. This study demonstrates (...) through its results that online review ratings and perceived crowding have a positive effect on purchase intentions of a consumer. Moreover, if a consumer perceives crowding at a restaurant, this has a positive contingent effect on the relationship between review ratings and purchase intentions. This demonstrates that the consumer is more inclined to choose a restaurant with a high online review rating and has high perceived crowding at some unfamiliar place. Lastly, no evidence is found for the gender difference between review rating and purchase intentions; however, gender shows contingent effect and results confirmed that males preferred more crowded restaurants as compared to females. There are theoretical and practical implications for managers in the findings of this study. (shrink)

In this paper I offer a unified causal account of natural kinds. Using as a starting point the widely held view that natural kind terms or predicates are projectible, I argue that the ontological bases of their projectibility are the causal properties and relations associated with the natural kinds themselves. Natural kinds are not just concatenations of properties but ordered hierarchies of properties, whose instances are related to one another as causes and effects in recurrent causal processes. The resulting account (...) of natural kinds as clusters of core causal properties that give rise to clusters of derivative properties enables us to distinguish genuine natural kinds from non-natural kinds. For instance, it enables us to say why some of the purely conventional categories derived from the social domain do not correspond to natural kinds, though other social categories may. (shrink)

Could some social kinds be natural kinds? In this paper, I argue that there are three kinds of social kinds: 1) social kinds whose existence does not depend on human beings having any beliefs or other propositional attitudes towards them ; 2) social kinds whose existence depends in part on specific attitudes that human beings have towards them, though attitudes need not be manifested towards their particular instances ; 3) social kinds whose existence and that of their instances depend in (...) part on specific attitudes that human beings have towards them . Although all three kinds of social kinds are mind-dependent, this does not make them ontologically subjective or preclude them from being natural kinds. Rather, what prevents the third kind of social kinds from being natural kinds is that their properties are conventionally rather than causally linked. (shrink)

A contemporary to Thomas Aquinas in Latin Catholic Italy, and with a parallel motivation to stabilize each his own civilization in its flux and storm, 'Abd Allah Baydawi of Ilkhan Persia wrote a compact and memorable Arabic Summation of Islamic Natural and Traditional Theology. With the same strokes of his pen he presented the Islamic version of the Science of Theological Statement, bafflingly called "Kalam" while familiarly embracing "Theology". Baydawi's Tawali'al-Anwar min Matal'al-Anzar (Rays of Dawnlight Outstreaming from Far Horizons of (...) Logical Reasoning), with Mahmud Isfahani's commentary, is a formidably clear logical and mental vision of mankind's final completion as a spiritual structure in Islam. Reality - in nature's Possible mode, in an apodictic Divine mode, and in humanity's heroic Prophetic mode - comprises man's Worldview and is the Theme of the Baydawi/Isfahani discourse. The Edifice of Man and Humanity's evanescent Evidence within it are both hugely arresting and moving. The print edition is available as a set of two volumes (9789004121027). (shrink)