This paper explores the relationship between thinking and decision-making. In the first part, the paper analyzes the process of thinking from three aspects – language, psychology, and behavior. It then proceeds to investigate the implications of different kinds of thinking ondecision-making. The final section of the paper raises some questions and concerns about the role of the scientific method in making decisions under conditions of uncertainty. The author offers specific examples from the book publishing business and the movie industry.

Numerous authors indicate that the influence of academic education extends beyond the growth of specialized knowledge gained by the graduates. Scholars are trying to identify and examine the potential impact of higher learning on students’ attitudes and choices. One of the dimensions considered by the researchers is the effect of university training on students’ moral choices. Our paper attempts to identify differences between the students’ declared moral choices and their majors (fields of studies). Working with a sample of university students (...) of Economics and Sociology (N = 181), and using three variants of the Trolley Problem, the subjects’ responses are used to identify the similarities and differences between their choices. The participants were asked to respond to three hypothetical situations regarding a runaway trolley. Their decision in the first scenario could save a person’s life or let her be run over by the trolley. In the second scenario, their decision could either let one person die and save five lives or save one life and let five people be killed. These two scenarios required pulling a lever to switch the trolley from one track to another. The third scenario requires pushing an obese person in front of the runaway trolley to stop it from killing five persons. As expected, we found a significant difference between the two groups (the economists and the sociologists) in the case of our third scenario, however, we found no evidence supporting the indoctrination hypothesis. We conclude that the existing differences between the choices made by the future economists and sociologists may support the preselection hypothesis. (shrink)

Islamic ethics; Muslims; religious life; biography.

By focusing on the works and intellectual network of the Timurid historian Sharaf al Dīn ʻAlī Yazdī (d.1454), this book presents a holistic view of intellectual life in fifteenth century Iran. İlker Evrim Binbaş argues that the intellectuals in this period formed informal networks which transcended political and linguistic boundaries, and spanned an area from the western fringes of the Ottoman State to bustling late medieval metropolises such as Cairo, Shiraz, and Samarkand. The network included an Ottoman revolutionary, a (...) Mamluk prophet, and a Timurid occultist, as well as physicians, astronomers, devotees of the secret sciences, and those political figures who believed that the network was a force to be taken seriously. Also discussing the formation of an early modern Islamicate republic of letters, this book offers fresh insights on the study of intellectual history beyond the limitations imposed by nationalist methodologies, established genres, and recognized literary traditions. (shrink)

Doubts on Avicenna: A Study and Edition of Sharaf al-Dīn al-Masʿūdī’s Commentary on the Ishārāt. By Ayman Shihadeh. Islamic Philosophy, Theology and Science, Texts and Studies, vol. 95. Leiden: Brill, 2016. Pp. viii + 289. $126, €97.

In Doubts on Avicenna, Ayman Shihadeh offers an extended study and critical edition of Sharaf al-Dīn al-Masʿūdī’s al-Mabāḥith wa-l-Shukūk, a key and hitherto unstudied source for twelfth-century Arabic philosophy. This text inaugurates the long commentarial tradition on Avicenna’s Ishārāt.

The importance of the Treatise on equations by Sharaf al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī has been brought to our attention by R. Rashed, who underlined the analytical aspects of this essentially algebraic work. Following Rashed, this article concentrates on one of these analytical concepts, namely the maximum of a polynomial expression f of degree 3. The purpose is to clarify the techniques that led al-Ṭūsī, when computing the maximum of f, to systematically display algebraic equations equivalent to f = 0. By demonstrating (...) that al-Ṭūsī's essentially algebraic proofs were also based on analytical procedures, we show that the presence of these equations was not fortuitous, but resulted from a correct understanding of the maximum of f. The accompanying geometrical representations were primarily for illustration. L'importance du Traité des équations de Sharaf al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī, a été mise en évidence par les travaux de R. Rashed, qui ont souligné les aspects analytiques de cette œuvre essentiellement algébrique. Parmi les notions analytiques qui figurent dans le Traité d'al-Ṭūsī, nous évoquerons uniquement celle du maximum d'une expression polynomiale du 3 e degré, f. La présente étude pourrait apporter une contribution à une problématique posée par R. Rashed: élucider les moyens et les techniques qui, lors du calcul du maximum, auraient conduit al-Ṭūsī à mettre systématiquement en valeur des équations équivalentes à fʹ = 0. Notre étude confirme que la présence de telles expressions n'est pas fortuite; elle découle d'une conception correcte du maximum de f. À cet effet, nous montrons que si les démonstrations utilisées par al-Ṭūsī sont essentiellement algébriques, elles s'appuient sur des procédés analytiques; les représentations géométriques qui les accompagnent constituent surtout des moyens de visualisation. (shrink)

Standard accounts of civil disobedience include nonviolence as a necessary condition. Here I argue that such accounts are mistaken and that civil disobedience can include violence in many aspects, primarily excepting violence directed at other persons. I base this argument on a novel understanding of civil disobedience: the special character of the practice comes from its combination of condemnation of a political practice with an expressed commitment to the political. The commitment to the political is a commitment to engaging with (...) others as co-members in the on-going political project of living together. I show how such an understanding of civil disobedience is superior to the Rawlsian strain of thought, which focuses on fidelity to law. Rawls was concerned with civil disobedience solely in the context of overriding political obligation. The project of characterizing a contestatory political practice that can be distinguished and used in a wider variety of contexts than Rawls is concerned with, including under illegitimate regimes, beyond the nation-state, or on behalf of anarchism, requires a different understanding of civil disobedience. (shrink)

This is a new edition, revised and expanded, of a seminal work in the logic and philosophy of time, originally published in 1968. Arthur N. Prior was the founding father of temporal logic. His work has attracted increased attention in the decades since his death: its influence stretches beyond philosophy and logic to computer science and formal linguistics. Prior's fundamental ideas about the logic of time are presented here along with his investigations into the formal properties of time and tense. (...) Already in 1969 Prior had been planning a new edition of Papers on Time and Tense, to incorporate his more recent work. Because of his untimely death this plan was never followed through--till now. Seven important papers have been added to the original selection, as well as a comprehensive bibliography of his work and an illuminating interview with his widow, Mary Prior, about his life and work. In addition, the Polish logic which made the original book difficult for many readers has been replaced by standard logical notation. This new edition will secure the classic status of the book. (shrink)

This is the compelling story of one of the most fascinating thinkers of the twentieth century- a richly toned portrait of a modern-day Thoreau.

Comprehensive work on history and philosophy of Nātha sect in India.

On Yoga; based on various texts on yoga philosophy.

Censurado durante la última década, sale finalmente a la luz Biografía de las ideas, de Isaiah Berlin. El libro pone de relieve el modo en que el sector liberal-conservador más poderoso, con sede en Oxford, ha construido la ficción en torno a la figura de Isaiah Berlin. Sir Isaiah Berlin es conocido como una lumbrera del pensamiento político del siglo XX, uno de los máximos exponentes intelectuales del liberalismo democrático, un pensador moralmente comprometido con la causa de la libertad y (...) la lucha contra el totalitarismo. El lector podrá comprobar que la imagen que se atribuye a Isaiah Berlin es una mitificación, una ficción forjada con el propósito de defender una serie de intereses académicos (y reforzar así la marca Oxford), políticos (en torno al sector liberal-conservador anglosajón) y nacionales (al objeto de cantar la leyenda de una Corona británica comprometida –así dicen– por la defensa de la democracia Occidental). Como Research Fellow en la Universidad de Oxford, el autor ha tenido oportunidad de examinar esta realidad y ver con sus propios ojos cómo los liberal-conservadores fabrican sus mitos. Las conclusiones de este estudio no dejarán indiferentes ni a académicos –principalmente, del área de Historia de las Ideas, y Teoría Política y Moral–, ni a escritores y políticos como el Premio Nobel Mario Vargas Llosa o la marquesa Cayetana Álvarez de Toledo, auto-denominados liberal-conservadores, porque derrumba un pilar de su religión. (shrink)

This article discusses the 2005 OUP biography of Michael Polanyi by William T. Scott and Martin X. Moleski S.J., Michael Polanyi, Scientist and Philosopher . The discussants are N. E. Wetherick, Brian G Gowenlock, and John Puddefoot; Martin X. Moleski, S. J. briefly responds, providing a previously unpulished letter from Polanyi to Reverend Dr. Knox, a Presbyterian mininster.