This wasn't merely a man, it was the sultan Al-Malik, Al-Zâhir Rukn al-Dunia wal- Dîn Abü l-Fath Baybars whose swords were the keys to kingdoms, whose standards were like hills and the spears that rose above them were like fires whose duty it was to command men.Between 1260 and 1277, the second half of the seventh century Hegira (the thirteenth century by the Christian calendar), the Bahri Mamluk empire, founded in 1256, was governed by the sultan Baybars, the fourth (...) sovereign of his dynasty The Bahri's were former slaves from the borders of the Black Sea. They were succeeded in 1382 by the Circassian Mamluks, who were in turn supplanted in 1517 by the Ottomans. The empire comprised a vast territory including Egypt and the eastern part of present day Libya; the Near-East up to the Euphrates; rule over Nubia, Sudan and the north of Ethiopia; and sovereignty over the holy places of orthodox Islam: Mecca and Medina. The empire was threatened, from the east by the Mongols, who made inroads into Iraq and Syria on several occasions (although Egypt remained beyond their reach), and from the north by the Seljoukids of Asia Minor (Rûm). The interior, where the Crusaders held several strongholds was plagued by dissidents, notably the Isma'ilis, a movement derived from shi'ism. (shrink)

Muhyiddîn el-Kâfiyecî (öl. 879/1474), on beşinci yüzyıl Saruhanoğulları, Osmanlı ve Memlüklü alimlerindendir. Yüzden çok eser yazmıştır. Makale Kâfiyeci’nin hayatı ve eserlerini araştırır. Yazdığı eserler, onun, Arap dili, Arap grameri, belagat, tarih metodolojisi, hadis ve usulü, tefsir ve usulü, fıkıh ve usulü, kelâm, tasavvuf, dil felsefesi, semantik, metafizik meseleler, geometri, optik ve astronomi gibi konularda uzmanlaştığını göstermektedir. Kâfiyeci en önemli eserlerini Arap dili ve mantık sahalarında yazmıştır. Eserleri içerisinde yaptığı linguistik çözümlemeler, onun yetkin bir dil alimi olduğunu göstermektedir. Kâfiyeci eserlerini yazarken (...) linguistik, mantıki, ilmi ve felsefi bir yöntem kullanmıştır. Araştırmada, Kâfiyeci’nin, hayatı boyunca en az yüz on iki eser yazdığı tespit edilmiştir. Bu eserlerden, doksan altısının adı belirlenmiştir. Kâfiyeci’nin eserleri konularına göre şöylece tasnif edilebilir: Arap Dili ve Dil Felsefesi: Şerḥu’1-i‘râb ‘an Ḳavâ‘idi’l-i‘râb, el-Unmûzec fî baḥsi’l-isti‘âre, Şerḥu’l-isti‘âre, Risâle fî Kâne Zeydun Ḳâimen, Risâle fî Zeydun Ḳâimun, Risâle fi’l-mebâḥisi’l-mute‘alliḳa bi Emmâ, Nuzhetu’l-mu‘rib fi’l-Meşrıḳ ve’l-Maġrib, Nuzhetu’l-aṣhâb fî mes’eleti’l-kuhl, Remzu’l-esrâr, en-Niseb li ehli’l-edeb, el-İşrâḳ fî meratibi’ṭ-ṭıbâk, Ḥâşiye ‘ale’l-Muṭavvel, Risâle fî “men” eş-şartiyye. Mantık: et-Terġîb fî keşfi rumûzi’t-Tehẕîb. Tarih Metodolojisi: el-Muḫtaṣaru’l-mufîd fî ‘ilmi’t-târîḫ, en-Naṣru’l-ḳâhir ve’l-fetḥu’ẓ-ẓâhir. Akâid ve Kelâm: Envâru’ṣ-Ṣa ‘âde, Şerḥu’l-‘Aḳâidi’l-‘Aḍuḍiyye, Hâşiye ‘alâ Şerḥi’l-‘Aḳâidi’l-‘Aḍuḍiyye, Şerḥu’l-Mevâḳıf, Telḫîsu Şerḥi’l-Mevâḳıf, el-Hidâye li beyâni’l-ḫalḳ ve’t-tekvîn, Risâle fî beyâni’l-mu‘cizât, Nehru’l-hayât fî ma‘rifeti’ṣ-ṣıfât, ‘İlmu’l-kumûn ve’l-burûz, Risâle fî Kavlihi Teâlâ “Lâ ye’menu mekr Allâhi ille’l-kavmu’l-hâsirûn” [A‘râf, 7/99]. Kur’ân, Kırâat ve Tefsir Bilimleri: Şerḥu’l-İsti‘âẕe ve’l-Besmele, Ḥâşiye ‘ale’l-Keşşâf, Şerḥ fî muḥâkemât beyne’l-mutekellimîn ‘ale’l-Keşşâf, Ḥâşiye ‘alâ Tefsîri’l-Beyḍâvî, eẓ-Ẓafer ve’l-ḫalâṣ, et-Teysîr fî ḳavâ‘idi ‘ilmi’t-tefsîr, Risâle fî ‘ilmi’t-tefsîr ve vucûhi’l-ḳırâat, Keşfu’n-niḳâb li’l-aṣḥâb ve’l-aḥıbbe fî ‘icâzi’l-Ḳur’ân, et-Temhîd fî şerḥi’t-taḥmîd, Ḳarâru’l-vecd fi şerḥi’l-ḥamd, el-İlmâ‘ bi ifâdeti Lev li’l-imtinâ‘ fî ḳavlihi Te‘âlâ “Lev kâne fîhimâ âlihetun illallâh le fesedetâ” [Enbiyâ, 21/22], Cevâb ‘an suâl fî ḳavlihi Te‘âlâ “Ve’n-Necmi iẕâ hevâ” [Necm, 62/1], Nuzhetu’l-iḫvân fî tefsi¬ri ḳavlihi Te‘âlâ “Yâ Lûṭu İnnâ Rusülü Rabbike” [Hûd, 11/81], Neylu’l-merâm fi tefsîri ḳavlihi Te‘âlâ “Ve Mâ Rabbuke bi Ẓallâm” [Fussilet, 41/46], el-Bişâra fî ḳavlihi Te‘âlâ “Fe’tû bi sûratin min mislih” [Bakara, 2/23], Nuzhetu’l-aṣḥâb, el-Ġurratu’l-vâḍıḥa fî tefsîri’l-Fâtiḥa, Zeḫîratu’l-ḳaṣr fî tefsiri Sûrati’l-‘Aṣr. Hadis Bilimleri: Muḫtaṣar fî ‘ulûmi’l-ḥadîs, Menbe‘u’d-durer fî ‘ilmi’l-eser, Ḫulâṣatu’l-‘aḳvâl fî ḥadîsi “İnneme’l-a‘mâlu bi’n-niyyât”. Fıkıh, Usûl ve Fetva: Risale fî mesʹeleti’l-istisnâʹ, Ḥâşiye ‘ala şerḥi’l-Hidâye, Vecîzu’n-niẓâm fî ıẓhâri mevâridi’l-aḥkâm, el-Feraḥ ve’s-surûr fî beyâni’l-meẕâhîbi’l-erba‘ati fi’l-‘uṣûr, Neşâtu’ṣ-ṣudûr fî şerḥi Kitâbi’l-Feraḥ ve’s-surûr, et-Taḥrîr lima zukira fi’d-Dureri’l-manẓûm, Muhâveratu’l-fıḳhiyye, Risâle fi’stiḳbâli’l-Ḳıble, Telḫîṣu’l-Câmi‘i’l-kebîr ve’l-Mecma‘, Kitâbu’t-Teẕkira/Risâle fi’l-vaḳf, Ravḍatu’ẓ-ẓahira en-nâfi‘a fî’d-Dünya ve’l-Âḫira, Kitâbu’l-muḫtasar fî ‘ilmi’l-istibdâl, er-Remz fî ‘ilmi'l-istibdâl, el-Kâfî fî beyâni’ṣ-ṣaffi’ṭ-ṭavîli’l-mustaḳîm, Risâle fî ṭabaḳâti’l-butûn li beyâni’l-vaḳf ‘alâ evlâdi’l-evlâd, el-İḥkâm fî ma‘rifeti’l-Eymân ve’l-aḥkâm, Ferâid baḥri’l-fevâiḍ. Siyasetname, Adap ve Ahlak: Niẓâmu ḳalâidi’l-‘ıḳyân, Seyfu’l-kuḍât ‘ale’l-buġât, Seyfu’l-mulûk ve’l-ḥukkâm el-murşid lehum ilâ sebîli’1-Haḳḳ ve’1-aḥkâm, Seyfu’l-ḥaḳḳ ve’n-nuṣra ‘alâ riḳâbı ehli’l-baġy ve’l-fitne, ed-Durratu’l-‘âliyetu’l-ġâliye. Metafizik, Tasavvuf ve Felsefe: el-Kâfî eş-şâfî, Kitâbu’r-ravḥ fî ‘ilmi’r-rûḥ, Kitabu’r-raḥme fî beyânı aḥvâli ‘alemi’l-berzâḫ, en-Nuzhe fî ravḍati’r-rûḥ ve’n-nefs, Neşâtu’l-bişâra bi’l-işâra fî kıbleti’l-ervâh, Ḳıbletu’l-ervâḥ fi’t-taṣavvuf, Nuzhetu’l-ervâḥ ve ġıbṭatu’l-eşbâḥ fi’t-taṣavvuf, Menâzilu’l-ervâḥ fi’t-taṣavvuf, ‘Ikdu’l-ferâid min baḥri’l-fevâiḍ fî şerḥi Esmâillâhi’l-husnâ, el-Unsu’1-enîs fî ma‘rifeti şeʹni’n-nefsi’n-nefîs. Siyer, İrşat ve Fazâil: Zeynu’l-feraḥ bi mîlâdi’n-Nebî (s.a.v.), Muḫtasar fî ‘ilmi’l-irşâd, Risâle fi’l-maḥabbe, Ḳalâidu’l-‘ıḳyân fî baḥri faḍâili Raceb ve Şa‘bân: Fen Bilimleri: Ḥallu’l-işkâl fî mebâhisi’l-eşkâl fi’l-hendese, Şerḥu’l-caġmînî fi’l-heyʹe, er-Remz fî ‘ilmi’l-uṣturlâb. Diğer Eserleri: Remzu’l-ḫıṭâb bi raşḥi’l-‘ıyâb, Benâtu’l-efkâr fî şeʹni’l-‘i‘tibâr, Keşfu’l-vucûhi’l-ḥasene’l-mestûra bi’n-niḳâb li faḍlillâhi’l-Cevâdi’l-Vehhâb, el-Keşf ‘an şerafi Ehli’l-Beyti’l-kirâm li efḍali’r-rusuli ve’l-enâm, ‘Iḳdu’l-ferâid min taḥrîri’l-fevâid, Risâle mustaḳılle bi ‘ilmi’n-nefs ve vucûhi’l-ḳırâa, Cevâbu’l-enẓâr, Ḥusnu’l-ḫıtâm li’l-merâmi min haẕa’l-kelâm, Ḫıtâmu’l-misk. (shrink)

The main purpose of this study is to become acquainted with the educational institutions in Ottoman Empire during and after the 18th century. In this respect, special attention is given to which initiatives were taken in terms of education and which educational institutions were established during the aforementioned period. The need to comply with the West in terms of science, culture, reasoning, and technological advancements has led to the questioning of the current madrasah system. Upon revising the educational system of (...) the madrasah, which had difficulties in being productive and attaining to the necessities of the time, there have been initiatives primarily to establish and structure military schools. These attempts to reform education was intensively seen as from the early 18th century. The above-mentioned changes and progress have gained momentum with the Tanzimat era. It was observed that during this period, many schools were established beyond military; education levels were clarified and; females were given right to study. Similar to Tanzimat era during the first Constitutional Monarchy and Autocracy eras, positive contributions toward educational reforms were made. However, beginning from the middle of the second Constitutional Monarchy era, the economic and social complications that the state was going through had a negative impact on the educational system and the practicality of the educational institutions.Summary: Education has been the most important factor in determining the social, economic, and cultural level of a society. The level of development, which is the determinant of the superiority of the nations to each other over the world, varies according to the importance given to education. To be a pioneer in the scientific sense, to be able to have technological opportunities, to make people live more comfortable and peaceful, to have more power in the economic field and to ensure the continuity of the nation that depending on all these, it will be possible with the understanding of education that can read the time and future well. The fact that world states are superior to each other in different periods of history is directly related to their understanding of education. It can be said that in the centuries following the beginning of the new age, especially the Western nations have taken a more positive step at this subject. The changes in both mental and action spheres such as XVI. century Renaissance movements, XVIII. century enlightenment movement and finally the industrial revolution triggered the development in the scientific and technological field. In these periods the importance given to thinking and the freedom of thought has been the main factor of the progress in the scientific field. The European nations, which went beyond their religion-based bigotry and prioritized the free and secular understanding, have become superior to other nations of the world. However, it is not quite possible to say that in the same periods the Ottoman Empire was able to adapt with the same speed to such accelerations of change and development that placed in Europe. One of the main reasons for this situation and perhaps most importantly is that the educational concept in the Ottoman Empire remained within a static structure in the last centuries. In particular, the matters such as the madrasa being away from productivity, the limitation of the understanding of the science only with religious sciences, has led to the problem of inability to adapt to the rapid transformation that in Europe. The first steps towards eliminating this weakness noticed by the state executives over time has been taken through the improvement and transformation of the Ottoman educational institutions. It is possible to say that the first attempts as to these restructures of education, which is also called as Westernization or modernization by the educational historians, has begun in the period of Sultan III. Selim. In the context of the Nizam-ı Cedid movement, a number of positive initiatives in education, such as the improvement of madrasas, the opening of military schools and translation activities, constitute the core of the changes that will take place in later periods. Immediately afterwards, in the period of II. Mahmut, making the reading and writing education compulsory, opening of Western-style junior high school, establishing medical and vocational schools that provide education at higher education level are considered as positive innovations of the period. The time interval from the proclamation of the Tanzimat edict until the First Constitutional monarchy is the period in which the institutionalization and structuring towards education in the Ottoman Empire is at the highest level. Besides many educational institutions in this process where the ministry responsible for education and training is established and the regulation containing the arrangements regarding this field is put into force, one of the most important initiatives made is laying the foundations of the Dâr al-Fünûn (Ottoman University) which is considered as the first university in this land. The fact that many educational institutions established in this period that are the roots of today's educational institutions is important in terms of demonstrating the accuracy of the initiatives within the mentioned period. In Meşrutiyet (the First Constitutional Monarchy) and the subsequent period of Mutlakiyet (Autocracy), contributions were provided on previous positive structuring. However, the social and economic problems experienced in the country since the second half of II. Meşrutiyet (the 2nd Constitutional Monarchy) have been effective in the inability of continuing innovations towards education. In this study, the educational institutions established in the Ottoman Empire before and after the Tanzimat period were discussed. The aim is not just to reveal what these schools are. It was also aimed to emphasize which areas in which schools are required to be based on which needs, which obstacles are encountered during the change of mentality in education, regulatory activities foreseen to overcome obstacles and to what extent they have been successful. In this regard, the signals of change as to the structure of educational institutions, which could be the source of most of the republic period, started from the beginning of 1700s and continued until World War II period. During this period of more than a hundred years, the political periods related to the structure and functioning of the state have also been influential in the structuring of educational institutions. In fact, the Reorganization (Tanzimat) period, which is known as ‘reform’ in the mentioned process, is considered as the stage where the change and transformation concerning education is the most. It is seen that the process of westernization still continues even though it is not with the same acceleration in the Constitutional Monarchy and Autocracy periods after the Reorganization period. When looking at the facility of educational institutions in chronological order, it is determined that there is a dominated understanding that prioritizes to train military staff in the military field and to have a competent army with the technological possibilities of the time, in other words, to create a strong defence system against the foreign powers of the country. Indeed, for the first time in order to give technical information about modern military, Hendesehane opened and started to operate in İstanbul in 1734 by Mahmut I; Mühendishâne-i Bahrî-i Hümâyûn, the school of the first military maritime was opened in 1775 in order to provide modern education; Mühendishâne-i Berrî-i Hümâyun was founded in 1795 in Istanbul, in order to train artillery and military officer (military engineer); Mekteb-i Harbiye, which was opened in 1835 to train officers, and Menşe-i Küttab-ı Askeri, which was established to train military scribes, contributed to the contemporary construction of the army. In the mentioned period, the most important change outside the military area was in the health area. In this sense, in order to meet the medical doctor needs of the army, Tıbhâne-i Amire was established in 1827. In 1867, the first civilian medical school, Mekteb-i Tıbbiye-i Mülkiye, started education and training. Another important innovation movement for education was in the field of law. In this context, the School Law was established in 1880. In order to train competent staff in administrative staff, the schools of the Mekteb-i Mülkiye, the schools of teacher, the schools that enable women to do education, the improvement of schools that train the clergy and the regulations based on this take attention as educational activities carried out in the mentioned period. (shrink)

We review scholarship that examines relationships - and distinctions - between religion and delusion. We begin by outlining and endorsing the position that both involve belief. Next, we present the prevailing psychiatric view that religious beliefs are not delusional if they are culturally accepted. While this cultural exemption has controversial implications, we argue it is clinically valuable and consistent with a growing awareness of the social - as opposed to purely epistemic - function of belief formation. Finally, we review research (...) on continuities between religious and delusional cognition, which reveals that religious content is quite common in delusions and which provides tentative evidence for a positive relationship between religious belief and delusion-like belief in the general population. (shrink)

There is debate as to whether quantum field theory is, at bottom, a quantum theory of fields or particles. One can take a field approach to the theory, using wave functionals over field configurations, or a particle approach, using wave functions over particle configurations. This article argues for a field approach, presenting three advantages over a particle approach: particle wave functions are not available for photons, a classical field model of the electron gives a superior account of both spin and (...) self-interaction as compared to a classical particle model, and the space of field wave functionals appears to be larger than the space of particle wave functions. The article also describes two important tasks facing proponents of a field approach: legitimize or excise the use of Grassmann numbers for fermionic field values and in wave functional amplitudes, and describe how quantum fields give rise to particle-like behavior. (shrink)

The research is devoted to the morphology that V.N. Ilyin developed in the work Static and Dynamics of Pure Form and other archival texts. Morphology is central to the philosophy of V.N. Ilyin, but it remains an unexplored subject. The article’s author explores the morphology of the philosopher from a historical and philosophical point of view. In addition to apparent influences (G.W. Leibniz, E. Husserl, N. Lossky), the article’s author revealed the connection of V.N. Ilyin’s ideas with the history of (...) Western European philosophy and his attitude to medieval thinkers. The author considered how V.N. Ilyin understood and assessed his modern philosophy and its results by the middle of the twentieth century. V.N. Ilyin especially paid attention to phenomenology and its connection with morphology, analyzing phenomenology's influence on existential philosophy. In addition to phenomenology, V.N. Ilyin highly appreciated the intuitism of H. Bergson and N. Lossky. The third main philosophical direction in the twentieth century for V.N. Ilyin was religious philosophy (Neo-Thomists and followers of H. Bergson), which aimed at creating axiology, a new system of values. V.N. Ilyin sought to combine various philosophical ideas in the project of morphology based on logic and scientific methodology. He stated the need to reform formal logic and create “metalogic” that would be more consistent with the philosophical tasks of the twentieth century. The morphology of V.N. Ilyin is based on the idea of synthesis and focuses on creating universal science. The comparison of various philosophical ideas of the twentieth century with morphology makes it possible to understand better his philosophical worldview, the course of his reflections, and the meaning of the morphological project. (shrink)

Though assumptions about language underlie all bioethical work, the field has rarely partaken of theories of language. This article encourages a more linguistically engaged bioethics. We describe the tacit conception of language that is frequently upheld in bioethics—what we call the representational view, which sees language essentially as a means of description. We examine how this view has routed the field’s theories and interventions down certain paths. We present an alternative model of language—the pragmatic view—and explore how it expands and (...) clarifies traditional bioethical concerns. To lend concreteness, we apply the pragmatic view to a pervasive concept in bioethics and adjacent fields: decision making. We suggest that problems of the decision-making approach to bioethical issues are grounded in adherence to the representational view. Drawing on empirical work in surgery and critical care, we show how the pragmatic view productively reframes bioethical questions about how medical treatments are pursued. (shrink)

In this paper, I attempt to explain one of the most controversial views attributed to the Stoic Chrysippus: that the impossible can follow from the possible. My solution finds in Chrysippus a distinction later made by the medieval logician John Buridan: that between being possible (there being a state of affairs that may occur) and being possibly-true (there being some proposition whose truth-conditions are that state of affairs). Buridan and Chrysippus have radically opposing views on the nature of propositions. What (...) their conceptions share is the conclusion that at least some propositions must be contingent beings. They argue for this while maintaining a rigorous commitment to the view that propositions are strictly bivalent. In 2. I explain the Chrysippean passage in terms of a distinction Buridan makes explicitly. In 3. I show how the distinction follows implicitly from the Stoic theory of quantification. In 4. I compare the modality with other aspects of Stoic logic. In 5. I discuss how the distinction behaves in the future tense. (shrink)

The reimagined Battlestar Galactica series (2003–2009) and its prequel series Caprica (2009–2010) provoked viewers to consider anew perennial philosophical questions regarding, among others, the nature of personhood and the role of religion in culture and politics. While no single philosophical viewpoint encapsulates the creators’ vision as a whole, the theory of biopolitics, as formulated by Michel Foucault, Giorgio Agamben, and others, is a fruitful lens through which various points of story and character development may be analyzed. Two noteworthy areas of (...) attention are, first, whether a race of intelligent, self-aware beings, who have been artificially created, should be considered “persons” with attendant moral and legal status, and second, whether the purported ontological division between the “biological” and the “artificial” has moral import concerning the degree of control one class of beings may legitimately exercise over another. (shrink)

The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) organelle is the key intracellular site of both protein and lipid biosynthesis. ER dysfunction, termed ER stress, can result in protein accretion within the ER and cell death; a pathophysiological process contributing to a range of metabolic diseases and cancers. ER stress leads to the activation of a protective signalling cascade termed the Unfolded Protein Response (UPR). However, chronic UPR activation can ultimately result in cellular apoptosis. Emerging evidence suggests that cells undergoing ER stress and UPR (...) activation can release extracellular signals that can propagate UPR activation to target tissues in a cell non‐autonomous signalling mechanism. Separately, studies have determined that the UPR plays a key regulatory role in the biosynthesis of bioactive signalling lipids including sphingolipids and ceramides. Here we weigh the evidence to combine these concepts and propose that during ER stress, UPR activation drives the biosynthesis of ceramide lipids, which are exported and function as cell non‐autonomous signals to propagate UPR activation in target cells and tissues. (shrink)

Background Research is crucial to improve treatment, survival and quality of life for children with cancer. However, recruitment of children for research raises ethical challenges. The aim of this study was to explore and describe ethical values and challenges related to the recruitment of children with cancer for research, from the perspectives and experiences of healthcare professionals in the Swedish context. Another aim was to explore their perceptions of research ethics competence in recruiting children for research. Methods An explorative qualitative (...) study using semi-structured interviews with key informants. Seven physicians and ten nurses were interviewed. Interviews were analysed using inductive qualitative content analysis. Results The respondents’ ethical challenges and values in recruitment mainly concerned establishing relationships and trust, meeting informational needs, acknowledging vulnerability, and balancing roles and interests. Ensuring ethical competence was raised as important, and interpersonal and communicative skills were highlighted. Conclusion This study provides empirical insight into recruitment of children with cancer, from the perspectives of healthcare professionals. It also contributes to the understanding of recruitment as a relational process, where aspects of vulnerability, trust and relationship building are important, alongside meeting informational needs. The results provide knowledge on the complexities raised by paediatric research and underpin the importance of building research ethics competence to ensure that the rights and interests of children with cancer are protected in research. (shrink)

We are material things of a specific sort: animals of the primate species Homo sapiens. This is the view known as animalism. The most common reason for rejecting animalism is that it is has unattractive consequences about what it takes for philosophers to persist through time. If human animals are animals essentially, then our being animals implies that we are animals essentially. If they are animals accidentally, then animalism implies that we are animals only accidentally. Aristotelians say that an animal (...) is a compound of matter and form. Animalists accept the indisputable fact that we have important features not shared by any nonhuman organisms that we know of: the capacity for sophisticated rational thought, for instance, and to speak a language with a complex grammatical structure. Since animals are bodies, it follows that people are not animals. Animals, even human animals, cannot have life after death. (shrink)

This essay provides evidence to support a promising conceptual and potentially practical set of ideas at once both principled and effective found in the work of Max Weber and Alfred Schutz addressed to the issue of ‘adequacy’ as a goal in social research. Efforts to achieve adequacy beyond the epistemological conditions required by Weber’s demand that evidence meet both causal adequacy and adequacy on the level of meaning were significantly refocused by Schutz’s later concern, responding specifically to Weber, that the (...) social sciences also address themselves to his postulate of adequacy. It states that “Each term used in a scientific system referring to human action must be so constructed that a human act performed within the life-world by an individual actor in the way indicated by the typical construction would be reasonable and understandable for the actor himself, as well as for his fellow men”. A serious attempt to implement a more expansive notion of adequacy by practically activating this postulate in the ways suggested can be beneficial not only for the social research situation but in everyday life as well. (shrink)

Both the concept of a Darwinian tree of life (TOL) and the possibility of its accurate reconstruction have been much criticized. Criticisms mostly revolve around the extensive occurrence of lateral gene transfer (LGT), instances of uptake of complete organisms to become organelles (with the associated subsequent gene transfer to the nucleus), as well as the implications of more subtle aspects of the biological species concept. Here we argue that none of these criticisms are sufficient to abandon the valuable TOL concept (...) and the biological realities it captures. Especially important is the need to conceptually distinguish between organismal trees and gene trees, which necessitates incorporating insights of widely occurring LGT into modern evolutionary theory. We demonstrate that all criticisms, while based on important new findings, do not invalidate the TOL. After considering the implications of these new insights, we find that the contours of evolution are best represented by a TOL. (shrink)

Nelson et al. (2023) make a unique contribution, raising key questions and considerations about the value of lived experiences as they pertain to normative debates in bioethics. The authors grapple...

James Stacey Taylor, in his book Markets With Limits, argues that Jason Brennan and Peter Jaworski, in their book Markets Without Limits, systematically mischaracterize the views of the anti-commodification theorists they are critiquing, attributing to them positions (e.g., semiotic essentialism and an asymmetry thesis) that they do not hold. Further, Taylor offers an anti-commodification hypothesis of his own to explain why talented academics like Brennan and Jaworski could fall into such systematic mistakes – namely, that the intrusion of market norms (...) into academia incentivizes scholars to prioritize original arguments in prominent venues over careful fact-checking. I argue that Taylor is correct in charging that Brennan and Jaworski have gotten their opponents’ views wrong; and I show how their subsequent replies to Taylor’s criticisms have been unconvincing. I also argue, however, that Taylor may be over-hasty in identifying the likely causes of their errors. (shrink)

Sometimes ordinary disagreements become deep as a result of epistemic injustice. The paper explores a hitherto unnoticed connection between two phenomena that have received ample attention in recent social epistemology: deep disagreement and epistemic injustice. When epistemic injustice comes into play in a regular disagreement, this can lead to higher-order disagreement about what counts as evidence concerning the original disagreement, which deepens the disagreement. After considering a common definition of deep disagreement, it is proposed that the depth of disagreements is (...) best understood as a matter of degree. Then, a case study of real-life disagreement is introduced: the disagreement about whether racism is a significant issue in the Netherlands, illustrated by the tradition of ‘Black Pete’. It is argued that there is disagreement about what counts as evidence in the case study because of two forms of epistemic injustice: testimonial and hermeneutical injustice. Specifically, there is disagreement about epistemic principles concerning whether private first-personal experience of racism is a weighty source of evidence in this domain, whether victims of racism count as important testifiers in this domain, and how to assess testimony that is not intelligible to you because it employs concepts and terminology you are unfamiliar with. By dismissing the relevant testimony and epistemic resources, the disagreement boils down to disagreement on the level of epistemic principles concerning,, and. Introducinginjustice-based deep disagreementhighlights moral and political aspects of disagreements that might seem factual. (shrink)

Kat Williams and Scott R. Stroud’s essay is about televised debates, but it is also about the value of television in a democracy. In Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman argues that television is devoid of serious content, that it is superficial. But while the debates contain superficialities, they also reveal substantive issues about the candidates, the electorate, and the state of our democracy.

This study examines the cross‐cultural generality of Hering's (1878/1964) color‐opponent theory of color appearance. English‐speaking and Somali‐speaking observers performed variants of two paradigms classically used to study color‐opponency. First, both groups identified similar red, green, blue, and yellow unique hues. Second, 25 English‐speaking and 34 Somali‐speaking observers decomposed the colors present in 135 Munsell color samples into their component Hering elemental sensations—red,green,blue, yellow, white, and black—or else responded “no term.” Both groups responded no term for many samples, notably purples. Somali (...) terms for yellow were often used to name colors all around the color circle, including colors that are bluish according to Hering's theory. Four Somali Grue speakers named both green and blue elicitation samples by their term for green. However, that term did not name the union of all samples called blue or green by English speakers. A similar pattern was found among three Somali Achromatic speakers, who called the blue elicitation sample black or white. Thus, color decomposition by these Somali‐speaking observers suggests a lexically influenced re‐dimensionalization of color appearance space, rather than a simple reduction of the one proposed by Hering. Even some Somali Green‐Blue speakers, whose data were otherwise similar to English, showed similar trends in yellow and blue usage. World Color Survey data mirror these results. These within‐ and cross‐cultural violations of Hering's theory do not challenge the long‐standing view that universal sensory processes mediate color appearance. However, they do demonstrate an important contribution of language in the human understanding of color. (shrink)

The author reviews Foundations of a Free Society: Reflections on Ayn Rand’s Political Philosophy, edited by Gregory Salmieri and Robert Mayhew, and finds it to be a rich and provocative anthology. However, the author is unpersuaded by the arguments, from a number of the contributors, for separating the prohibition on initiatory force as an ethical principle, from individual rights as a political principle—a separation that, on the ethical side, unduly discards the Aristotelean ethical approach with which Randian ethics claims affiliation, (...) and on the political side, is employed to ground an unconvincing case for the legitimacy of the state. (shrink)

Umwelt theory is an expression of von Uexküll’s subjective biology and as such usually applied in analysis of individual animals, yet it is fundamentally relational and therefore also suitable for analysis of more complex wholes. Since the birth of the modern environmental movement in the 1960s, there has been growing scientific and political acknowledgement of there being a global environmental crisis, which today manifests itself as a climate change and biodiversity crisis. This calls for a multi-scale ecosemiotic approach to analysis (...) of human ecology at various levels and scales. In this article I explore to what extent ecosemiotic methodology, drawing on Umwelt theory and its consistently subjective perspective, can be applied in analysis of human ecology at different geographical and ecological scales ranging from the global to the local. The article incorporates a case study of human–animal relations in Mamirauá Sustainable Development Reserve in the Central Amazon. This is a seasonal floodplain forest area surrounded by rivers. I investigate aspects of the living conditions and ecology of the reserve, with a main focus on indigenous communities and the circumstances of two primate species, namely the red howler monkey and the black-headed squirrel monkey. I outline matrixes of levels of study in ecosemiotics, and scales in human ecology, and apply two scales to the Mamirauá case. These take an individual animal’s and an individual human being’s subjective experience as their respectively starting points. This allows for multi-scale studies of human ecology from complementary angles. (shrink)

Recent attempts to develop and apply digital ethics principles to address the challenges of the digital transformation leave organisations with an operationalisation gap. To successfully implement such guidance, they must find ways to translate high-level ethics frameworks into practical methods and tools that match their specific workflows and needs. Here, we describe the development of a standardised risk assessment tool, the Principle-at-Risk Analysis (PaRA), as a means to close this operationalisation gap for a key level of the ethics infrastructure at (...) many organisations – the work of an interdisciplinary ethics panel. The PaRA tool serves to guide and harmonise the work of the Digital Ethics Advisory Panel at the multinational science and technology company Merck KGaA in alignment with the principles outlined in the company’s Code of Digital Ethics. We examine how such a tool can be used as part of a multifaceted approach to operationalise high-level principles at an organisational level and provide general requirements for its implementation. We showcase its application in an example case dealing with the comprehensibility of consent forms in a data-sharing context at Syntropy, a collaborative technology platform for clinical research. (shrink)

The article deals with the problem of the philosophy of interdisciplinarity, set forth in the work of the same name by J.K. Schmidt. The main goal the author sets for himself is to define the inner meaning of the concepts and goals of interdisciplinarity. In accordance with this, the tasks performed by the respective fields of work, divided into intrascientific and extrascientific. The first ones are related to fundamental research, rethinking the forms of scientific knowledge, methodologies, the relationship between man (...) and nature. The latter, embedded in social reality, are related to analysis of the problems of technoscience, knowledge production and science policy. Prof. Schmidt considers two approaches to interdisciplinarity: instrumental or strategic and critical-reflexive or communicative. The first of them is presented as a limited tool for solving actual problems of interdisciplinarity due to its proximity to soluchionism and its predominant focus on organizational and managerial problems of science. The critical-reflexive approach is, on the contrary, associated with a fundamental rethinking of the concept of knowledge. Interdisciplinarity is characteristic of the field of scientific research, while transdisciplinarity and its particular forms – object- and problem-oriented approaches – are associated with solving problems of the real world. The author conducts a comprehensive analysis of the problem of interdisciplinarity, analyzing the historical roots of technoscientific issues, assesses the current state of science, and proposes a paradigmatic ProTA program related to the realization of the predictive potential of the critical-reflexive approach to interdisciplinarity. (shrink)

A guide to the major and minor figures who shaped Transcendentalism in New England, particularly between 1830 and the Civil War. While most of the entries are for American thinkers, international figures who advanced Transcendentalism in New England and who were alive until at least 1830 are also covered.

This chapter offers a general outline of Schopenhauer’s peculiarly named concept of the 'acquired character’ and explains its basic function in his ethical thought. For Schopenhauer, a person of acquired character is someone who knows the ways of acting (Handlungsweise) that are most expressive of their individuality and who allows that self-knowledge to structure their practical and emotional life. In keeping with certain elements of his psychological determinism, acquired character is not the acquisition of a ‘new’ character; rather, it is (...) the acquisition of self-knowledge of one’s essentially fixed empirical character. It is part of the argument of this chapter that by introducing the acquired character into his reflections on human action and agency Schopenhauer weaves a certain view of individual flourishing (eudaimonia) into his ethics. There are two central ingredients of Schopenhauer’s conception of eudaimonia, and both are linked to the acquired character. The first is self-knowledge; the second is a sense of personal autonomy that follows in the wake of the first. The chapter ends with a brief attempt to connect Schopenhauer’s concept of acquired character to contemporary debates in ethics concerning autonomy, practical identity, and what some call the ‘normative significance of self’. (shrink)