Objectives To investigate high school cheating experiences and attitudes towards academic misconduct of freshmen at all four medical schools in Croatia, as a post-communist country in transition, with intention of raising awareness of academic (dis)honesty. Design and method Students were given an anonymous questionnaire containing 22 questions on the atmosphere of integrity at their high school, self-reported educational dishonesty, their evaluation of cheating behaviour, and on their expectations about the atmosphere of integrity at their university. Setting All schools of medicine (...) of Croatian universities (Zagreb, Rijeka, Split and Osijek). Main measures Descriptive statistics and differences in students' self-reported educational dishonesty, perception of cheating behaviour, and perception of the high school integrity atmosphere. Results Of the 761 freshmen attending the four medical schools, 508 (67%) completed the questionnaire: 481 Croatian and 27 international students. Of the Croatian respondents, almost all (>99%) self-reported engaging in at least one behaviour of educational dishonesty, and 78% of respondents admitted to having frequently cheated in at least one form of assessed academic misconduct. Only three students admitted to having reported another student for cheating. For most of the questions, there was no significant difference in the responses among Croatian students. However, significant differences were found in most responses between Croatian students and their international counterparts, who were significantly less likely to engage in dishonest behaviours. No individual factor was found to correlate with the incidence of self-admitted dishonest behaviour. Frequent cheaters evaluated academic dishonesty significantly more leniently than those who did not cheat. Conclusion Academic dishonesty of university students does not begin in higher education; students come to medical schools ready to cheat. (shrink)

Bu makalede, Abbâsî dönemi şairlerinden İbnu’r-Rûmî’nin Abbâsî hanedanlığının bir üyesi olan Abdülmelik b. Sâlih için nazmettiği methiyesinin tematik bir incelemesinin yapılması planlanmaktadır. Bu analiz, İbnu’r-Rûmî’nin methiyesinin karmaşık katmanlarına derinlemesine bir bakış sağlamaktadır. Methiye, bilhassa Abbâsî döneminin Arap edebî geleneğinde önemli bir yeri bulunan şiirsel bir ifade biçimidir. Yapılan çalışmanın konusu, methiyedeki tematik unsurların araştırılmasına ve İbnu’r-Rûmî’nin hem övgüsel hem de eleştirel anlayışa sahip bir anlatı oluşturmak için dili ve imgeleri nasıl kullandığının ortaya çıkartılmasına dayanmaktadır. Araştırmanın kapsamı, bahis mevzu methiyenin tarihî (...) ve kültürel arka planı bağlamında anlaşılmasının sağlanmasına kadar uzanmaktadır ve Abbâsî döneminin toplumsal normlarının, değerlerinin ve beklentilerinin anlaşılmasına da ehemmiyet vermektedir. Bu yaklaşım, metnin öneminin daha derinlemesine anlaşılmasını sağlamaktadır ve salt övgünün ötesine geçerek dönemin sosyopolitik dinamikleri hakkında bir yorum sunmaktadır. Öte yandan mevcut tarihî kayıtların İbnu’r-Rûmî ile Abdülmelik b. Ṣāliḥ arasındaki ilişki hakkında çok az ayrıntı sunduğunu ve mevcut belgelerde bu konuda kapsamlı bilgi bulunmadığını vurgulamak gerekir. Bu çalışmanın önemi, klasik Arap edebiyatı alanına yaptığı katkısından, özellikle de methiyelerin bu literatür geleneğindeki rolünün ve gelişiminin anlaşılması hususundaki önceliğinden kaynaklanmaktadır. İbnu’r-Rûmî’nin eserinin analizi vasıtasıyla bu araştırma, methiye nazmının karmaşık doğasına dikkat çekmesinin yanı sıra; şair, şiirde övülen kişi ve şaire verilen maddi ödül arasındaki ilişkinin ayrıntılı şekilde anlaşılmasını da sağlamaktadır. Araştırmada benimsenen yöntem, daha derinlemesine bir anlayış kazanmak maksadıyla, manzumenin temalarını parçalara ayırmaya odaklanan yakın bir metinsel analizi içermektedir. (shrink)

Phaidon diyaloğunda Sokrates, dostlarıyla birlikte ruhun ölümsüzlüğü üzerine konuştuktan sonra, Kebes’in itirazı üzerine ona doğru dönerek hakikati arayış yolculuğunda kendi hayat hikayesi ve tecrübesini paylaşır. Kebes’e göre ruhun bu dünyadan önce var olması, sonrasında da varlığını sürdüreceği anlamına gelmez. Ayrıca ona göre bedenden bedene dolaşan ruh, bu dolaşımla yok olup gider ve bu nedenle ölümsüzlük diye bir şeyden bahsedilemez. Bu bağlamda Sokrates, ruhun ölümsüzlüğüne ilişkin Kebes’in itirazını ele almanın zorluğuna işaret eder ve bu meselede oluş ve bozuluşun nedeninin araştırılması gerektiğini (...) ifade eder. Bu noktada Sokrates gençlik yıllarında kendisinin de “neden” arayışı içerisinde olduğundan ve Anaksagoras başta olmak üzere doğa araştırmacılarından etkilendiğinden bahseder. Öte yandan Sokrates doğal neden arayışındaki umutlarının da boşa çıktığını belirtir. Bu umut yitiminden sonra Sokrates ‘logoi’a sığınma’ olarak belirttiği “ikinci yolculuğa” (deuteros plous) çıkar. Oluş dünyasına tabi her şeyin kendisine göre gerçekleştiği ilkesel nedeni doğanın içinde arayan düşünürlerin çelişkilerini fark eden genç Sokrates’in, fiziki dünyadan metafiziğe doğru seyreden yolculuğu bu yazının konusunu oluşturmaktadır. Ayrıca bu yazının amacı, ruhun ölümsüzlüğü gibi bir meselede, Sokrates’in kendi hayat hikayesini paylaşmasının gerekçesini araştırmak ve buradan hareketle Kebes’in itirazına yönelik Sokratik arayışın izlerini sürmektir. (shrink)

Bu yazıda Titius-Bode Yasası örneğinde bir doğa yasası ile sıradan bir doğru genelleme arasındaki ayrım tartışılacak. Doğa yasalarının deney verilerini derli toplu aktaran formüller olmanın dışında nitelikleri olduğu gösterilecek. Rastlantısal genelleme ve doğa yasaları arasında yaptığımız –genellikle sezgisel olan—ayrımın, söz konusu önerilerin diğer bilimsel kuramlarımızla ilişkisinde yattığı savunulacak.

Fen eğitimi ve öğretiminin anahtar unsurlarından bir tanesi bilimin doğasının ve özelliklerinin doğru bir şekilde tespit edilmesidir. Bilimin doğasına yönelik tespitler fen eğitimi yöntemlerini birçok açıdan etkilemektedir. Fen eğitimi ve fen öğretimi ile ilgili olan kişiler bilimin doğasının açık bir şekilde öğretilmesi gerektiğini kabul etmektedir. Thomas Kuhn’un bilim tarihi, bilim felsefesi ve bilim sosyolojisi alanlarını içeren incelemeleri neticesinde ileri sürdüğü bilimin yapısına, işleyişine ve doğasına yönelik tezleri (paradigma, olağan bilim, bilimsel devrimler, eşölçülemezlik, bulmaca çözme, kuram seçimi, keşif ve gerekçelendirme ayrımı) (...) fen eğitimi ve öğretimi alanında sıklıkla başvurulan kaynaklar olmuştur. Bu doğrultuda makalede mantıkçı pozitivist bilim anlayışının bilimin nesnel, evrensel, kesin gerçekleri ortaya çıkaran, sosyal-kültürel değerlerden ve ön yargılardan bağımsız, bilimsel bilginin birikimsel bir şekilde ilerlediği yönündeki iddiası bilimin gerçek doğasını yansıtamadığı düşüncesiyle Kuhn’un görüşleri çerçevesinde tartışılmaktadır. Makalenin temel savı Kuhn’un bilime ve bilimin doğasına yönelik tespitlerinin bilimin gelişen, dönüşen ve değişen yapıdaki gerçek doğasına vurgu yaptığı ve böylece fen eğitiminde sıklıkla başvurulan bilimin doğasına yönelik kavrayışı dönüştürdüğüdür. (shrink)

Şüpheye dayalı metodoloji çeşitli yönleriyle felsefenin en öne çıkan konularından biridir. Bu yöntem, Sofistlerin uyguladığına benzeyen gelişigüzel bir süreç olabileceği gibi, gizem ve belirsizlikten uzak, doğru bilgiye ulaşma çabası içinde bireyin yürüttüğü sağlam bir mekanizma da olabilmektedir. Ayrıca sadedinde olduğumuz metodik şüphe, (Sofistçe yapılan) mutlak şüphe ile çelişmekte ve hiçbir düşünürün hakikate ve kesinlik ifade eden görüşlere ulaşmak için kendisinden müstağni kalamayacağı bir olgudur. Her ne kadar mutlak şüphe, felsefe ve düşüncede kınanacak, faydasız bir olgu olup gerçek anlamda faydalı bilgiye (...) götürmese de, metodik şüphe yöntemi, bilgiye ulaşmanın ve gerçeği anlamanın yolu olarak öne çıkan bir araç olmaktadır. Bu metodoloji, filozofların ve bilgelerin ulaştığı birçok bilginin içeriğinde açıkça görülmektedir. Bu çalışmamızda şüphe kavramı ve onun felsefedeki yönleri kısaca ele alınmakla birlikte, mutlak şüphe gibi diğer şüphe türlerinin reddedilmesi anlamına gelen metodik şüphe üzerinde de durulmuştur. Bu yaklaşımı anlamak amacıyla 10. yüzyılda İslam medeniyetinin en önemli âlim ve filozoflarından biri olarak kabul edilen İmam Ebû Hâmid el-Gazzâlî hakkında da bilgiye yer verilmiştir. Nitekim Gazzâlî, felsefe, mantık, tasavvuf, İslam fıkhı ve diğer ilimler dâhil olmak üzere çeşitli alanlarda sunduğu zengin miras nedeniyle çeşitli alan ve çevrede büyük bir konuma sahiptir. Gazzâlî, şüpheci yaklaşımı benimseyen ve takip edenlerin en önde gelenlerinden biri olarak kabul edilir ve bunun tezahürleri de “el-Münkız Mine’d-Dalâl” isimli eserinde görülmektedir. Gazzâlî'nin ölümünden yaklaşık beş yüzyıl sonra bu yaklaşım, Fransız aydınlanma felsefesinin en önemli isimlerinden ve öncülerinden biri olan, aynı zamanda matematik, doğa bilimleri ve tıp ile de ilgilenen Fransız filozof René Descartes tarafından yeniden ortaya çıkmıştır. Descartes, “Metot Üzerine Konuşma” adlı eserinde görüldüğü gibi bu yaklaşımı, Avrupa'daki entelektüel rönesansın ışığında, mutlak şüphenin yayıldığı bir dönemde benimsemiştir. Bu araştırma, hem Gazzâlî'de hem de Descartes'ta metodik şüphenin özelliklerini tanımlamayı amaçlamakta ve onların hakikate ulaşmak için bilgiyi ele alma yöntemini incelemektedir. Ayrıca bu iki filozofun gerçeğe ulaşmanın en iyi yolunu oluşturdukları bilişsel temellerin yanı sıra, geleneksel, aklî ve duyusal bilgilere ilişkin görüşlerine de değinilmektedir. Bu bağlamda araştırmamız, metodik şüphenin özelliklerini tanımlamada, iki filozofun deneyiminden ve bilişsel yolculuğundan faydalanarak, yazdıkları iki kitabın incelenmesine ve analiz edilmesine dayanmaktadır. Makalenin sonunda Descartes'ın bu bağlamda Gazzâlî'den etkilenmiş olabileceğine ve metodik şüphe konusunda sahip olduğu görüşlerindeki benzerliklere de kısaca işaret edilmiştir. (shrink)

The TikTok experience refers to a user’s interaction with the platform while scrolling through various videos. The user can change what they are viewing instantly on one screen much like a TV viewer, the only difference being that whatever is being watched is in the form of short videos made specifically for the platform. These videos vary in style and form and are made to be viewed within the platform itself. All the content that a user watches within the mobile (...) application, in the end, forms a longer, theoretically never-ending, video that is sometimes completely unrelated but more often similar through shared jokes, memes, and visual filters. This way of producing and viewing short-form videos as a whole is reminiscent of the way Everything Everywhere All At Once feels to the audience which is no surprise as many other forms of media and artworks are inspired by internet short-form video platforms such as TikTok. (shrink)

Simone Weil (1909-1943) is a French philosopher who is also a prominent figure in the tradition of Christian mysticism. In her early philosophical writings and lectures, she describes her understanding of the aim of philosophy as “the Search for the Good”. Very much influenced by Plato, Descartes and Kant, Weil states that God as the absolute Good is beyond known truths and can only be reached through Love. This treatment of love as a destructive power whereby the Self effaces itself (...) in order to get closer to God, echoes a somewhat mystical scheme. Weil believes that the only way to reach such knowledge and therefore God, which in her view is the sole purpose of life and should also be the purpose of philosophy. This dissertation focuses on the grounds that bring her to such conclusions as well as providing an analysis of whether Weil’s philosophical approach as an alternative to metaphysical and ethical problems in philosophy is able to stand firm on its own. (shrink)

When we think of diegesis and diegetic in film studies, we know what the words refer to within the confines of the traditional scholarly definition of film in the 20th and 21st centuries. This understanding comes from a certain ontological common sense that narratologically film has a dual nature that consists of mimesis and diegesis. Thinking about narration through images and sound, as opposed to the live-acted or read drama or epos in the times of Plato and Aristotle, has given (...) birth to a synthetic view of the poet’s voice and the characters. In fiction films, mimesis and diegesis are so symbiotic that it is often difficult to distinguish between them. However, is it possible to think of films that are non-mimetic? In other words: is it possible for a film to be completely diegetic in the sense of Plato’s understanding of the word diegesis? Plato was against mimetic arts because they were so far removed from the eidos of what they were that there was no explicable use in presenting them. On the other hand, he very much approved or at least perhaps tolerated and recognized the importance of non-mimetic art forms such as music with specific modes of harmony or poetry that only contained the poet’s words where no characters were represented. With this view in mind, two steps will be taken in this paper: the first is questioning the possibility of a purely diegetic film, and the second is the significance of inquiring about such a work. (shrink)

A phenomenological look on film editing through Merleau-Ponty’s ideas opens up a new way of seeing what editing is and how it affects the spectator. In the classical sense, editing is looked at technically where certain aspects of its use in the film’s language are interpreted and analyzed to understand why and how something is done. In this thesis, the aim is to not dwell on understanding the why and the how. The aim is to view film editing from a (...) different perspective that might lead to another type of thinking outside the limitations of empirical and intellectualist approaches. While the classical approach is able to satisfy most of what a spectator would need to understand, it falls short on what the spectator feels and experiences. In order to try to grasp how Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological approach could be adapted to film editing. First we have to start from the beginning to see how editing came to be and what ideas, approaches and techniques it brought with it. As all the approaches have their own uses; we have to consider them as such and lay out what could be with Merleau-Ponty’s way and see how all the approaches compare in the end. Of course, this does not mean erasing all of film history and disregarding the classical way; it means that we can look at films from a perspective that the classical approach may not be able to see. (shrink)

With his characteristic wit, Zizek addresses the burning question of how to reformulate a leftist project in an era of global capitalism and liberal-democratic ...

In Less Than Nothing, the pinnacle publication of a distinguished career, Slavoj i ek argues that it is imperative that we not simply return to Hegel but that we repeat and exceed his triumphs, overcoming his limitations by being even more ...

The latest book by the Slovenian critic Slavoj Zizek takes the work of French philosopher Gilles Deleuze as the beginning of a dazzling inquiry into the realms of radical politics, philosophy, film (Hitchcock, Fight Club ), and psychoanalysis. Of Organs without Bodies Joan Copjec ( Imagine There's No Woman ) has written: "With all his ususal humor and invention, Zizek -- the acknowledged master of the 180 degree turn -- here takes a trip into "enemy" territory to deliver Deleuze of (...) a marvelously rebellious child, one that seriously challenges Deleuze's other progeny with a surprising but convincing bid for succession. Those who thought Deleuze's forward march into the future would follow a straight path are forced to rethink their stance. From now on all readings of Deleuze will have to take a detour through this important -- even necessary -- book." Eric Santner ( On the Psychopathology of Everyday Life ) describes Organs without Bodies as offering "an entirely new degree of conceptual clarity and political urgency. Through his deep engagement with the logic of Deleuze's project, Zizek opens up new possibilities of thought beyond the terms of the current political debates on globalization, democratization, war on terror. Once again, Zizek has produced an utterly timely and radically untimely meditation." Recently profiled in The New Yorker , and hailed by the Village Voice as "the giant of Ljubljana," Zizek is one of the most provocative and entertaining thinkers at work today. (shrink)

Book synopsis: In this combative major new work, philosophical sharpshooter Slavoj Zizek looks for the kernel of truth in the totalitarian politics of the past. Examining Heidegger's seduction by fascism and Foucault's flirtation with the Iranian Revolution, he suggests that these were the 'right steps in the wrong direction.' On the revolutionary terror of Robespierre, Mao and the bolsheviks, Zizek argues that while these struggles ended in historic failure and horror, there was a valuable core of idealism lost beneath the (...) bloodshed. A redemptive vision has been obscured by the soft, decentralized politics of the liberal-democratic consensus. Faced with the coming ecological crisis, Zizekk argues the case for revolutionary terror and the dictatorship of the proletariat. A return to past ideals is needed despite the risks. In the words of Samuel Beckett: 'Try again. Fail again. Fail better.'. (shrink)

With a new introduction by the author In this deliciously polemical work, a giant of cultural theory immerses himself in the ideas of a giant of French thought.

Whenever the membranes of the egg in which the foetus emerges on its way to becoming a new-born are broken, imagine for a moment that something flies off, and that one can do it with an egg as easily as with a man, namely the hommelette, or the lamella. The lamella is something extra-flat, which moves like the amoeba. It is just a little more complicated. But it goes everywhere. And as it is something - I will tell you shortly (...) why - that is related to what the sexed being loses in sexuality, it is, like the amoeba in relation to sexed beings, immortal - because it survives any division, and scissiparous intervention. And it can turn around. Well! This is not very reassuring. But suppose it comes and envelopes your face while you are quietly asleep... I can't see how we would not join battle with a being capable of these properties. But it would not be a very convenient battle. This lamella, this organ, whose characteristic is not to exist, but which is nevertheless an organ - I can give you more details as to its zoological place - is the libido. It is the libido, qua pure life instinct, that is to say, immortal life, irrepressible life, life that has need of no organ, simplified, indestructible life. It is precisely what is subtracted from the living being by virtue of the fact that it is subject to the cycle of sexed reproduction. And it is of this that all the forms of the objet a that can be enumerated are the representatives, the equivalents. Every word has a weight here, in this deceivingly poetic description of the mythic creature called by Lacan "lamella". Lacan imagines lamella as a version of what Freud called "partial object": a weird organ which is magically autonomized, surviving without a body whose organ it should have been, like a hand that wonders around alone in early Surrealist films, or like the smile in Alice in Wonderland that persists alone, even when the Cheshire cat's body is no longer present: "'All right', said the Cat; and this time it vanished quite slowly, beginning with the end of the tail, and ending with the grin, which remained some time after the rest of it had gone. 'Well! I've often seen a cat without a grin', thought Alice; 'but a grin without a cat! It's the most curious thing I ever saw in my life!'" The lamella is an entity of pure surface, without the density of a substance, an infinitely plastic object that can not only incessantly change its form, but can even transpose itself from one to another medium: imagine a "something" that is first heard as a shrilling sound, and then pops up as a monstrously distorted body. A lamella is indivisible, indestructible, and immortal - more precisely, undead in the sense this term has in horror fiction: not the sublime spiritual immortality, but the obscene immortality of the "living dead" which, after every annihilation, re-composes themselves and clumsily goes on. As Lacan puts it in his terms, lamella does not exist, it insists: it is unreal, an entity of pure semblance, a multiplicity of appearances which seem to envelop a central void - its status is purely fantasmatic. This blind indestructible insistence of the libido is what Freud called "death drive," and one should bear in mind that "death drive" is, paradoxically, the Freudian name for its very opposite, for the way immortality appears within psychoanalysis: for an uncanny excess of life, for an "undead" urge which persist beyond the cycle of life and death, of generation and corruption. This is why Freud equates death drive with the so-called "compulsion-to-repeat," an uncanny urge to repeat painful past experiences which seems to outgrow the natural limitations of the organism affected by it and to insist even beyond the organism's death - again, like the living dead in a horror film who just go on. This excess inscribes itself into the human body in the guise of a wound which makes the subject "undead," depriving him of the capacity to die : when this wound is healed, the hero can die in peace. (shrink)

As a slew of recent work in epistemology has brought out, there is a range of cases where there's a strong temptation to say that prudential and (especially) moral considerations affect what we ought to believe. There are two distinct models of how this can happen. On the first, “reasons pragmatist” model, the relevant prudential and moral considerations constitute distinctively practical reasons for (or against) belief. On the second, “pragmatic encroachment” model, the relevant prudential and moral considerations affect what one (...) is epistemically justified in believing. The pragmatic encroachment model appears to have several advantages over reasons pragmatism, and this has led many recent philosophers to endorse the former. However, in this paper we argue that a version of reasons pragmatism can be (at least largely) saved from these purported disadvantages once paired with an independently plausible permissivism about epistemically justified outright belief. This hybrid view—“permissivist pragmatism”—holds that when there is more than one epistemically permitted doxastic attitude, practical (including moral) considerations can determine which epistemically permitted doxastic attitude one all-things-considered ought to have. This view avoids both the problems faced by simple versions of reasons pragmatism, and those that distinctively attend pragmatic encroachment, while preserving the advantages of each view. (shrink)

Changes and transformations in living conditions have brought about new risks. The risks associated with the unique economic, social and politic structure of each period also lead to changes in the understanding of social protection. International discourses and practices that outline the framework of international social protection take shape under the influence of thoughts considering the conditions of the period. In this sense, it is possible to assert that social protection approach of United Nations, as a strong and effective social (...) protection actor in the international platform, has changed. It is not possible to consider the creation and development of United Nations’ social protection policies without regarding a theoretical and philosophical ground. To this end, after making a general evaluation of the United Nations’ social protection ideology, this study discusses the social protection emphasis in United Nations documents as well as their development paths and changes happened in time. As a result of these considerations, this study reaches the conclusion that United Nations’ social protection ideology shows the necessary flexibility to adapt to changing socioeconomic conditions and takes into account individual and social needs without compromising the understanding of protecting basic human rights. (shrink)

Donald Davidson has made enormous contributions to the philosophy of action, epistemology, semantics and philosophy of mind and today is recognized as one of the most important analytical philosophers of the late twentieth century. _Donald Davidson: Truth, Meaning and Knowledge_ addresses * Davidson's writings on epistemology and theory of language with their implications of ontology and philosophy of mind * the central issue of whether truth is the ultimate goal of enquiry, challenged by contributions from Richard Rorty and Paul Horwich (...) * Davidson's approach to semantics and applied linguistics as addressed by Kirk Ludwig, Gabriel Segal, Peter Pagin, Stephen Neale, Herman Cappelen and Ernie Lepore and Reinaldo Elugardo * Davidson's advances in the philosophy of mind in relation to the views of Williard V. Quine, John McDowell and Peter F. Strawson, in essays by Roger Gibson and Anita Avramides. (shrink)

We study structures equipped with generic predicates and/or automorphisms, and show that in many cases we obtain simple theories. We also show that a bounded PAC field is simple. 1998 Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

On the dominant contemporary accounts of how practical considerations affect what we ought to believe, practical considerations either encroach on epistemic rationality by affecting whether a belief is epistemically justified, or constitute distinctively practical reasons for belief which can only affect what we ought to believe by conflicting with epistemic rationality. This paper shows that a promising alternative view can be found in a surprising source: the writings of Søren Kierkegaard. I argue that in light of two of his central (...) epistemological commitments—belief-credence dualism and epistemic permissivism about outright belief—Kierkegaard holds that practical considerations can affect what we ought to believe without either encroaching on or (necessarily) conflicting with epistemic rationality. The central idea is that practical considerations can determine which among the epistemically permitted outright doxastic attitudes one should all-things-considered adopt. In addition to constituting a novel, systematic interpretation of Kierkegaard’s account of how practical considerations affect what we ought to believe, this suggests that Kierkegaard holds a distinctive and underexplored view that constitutes a serious philosophical rival to dominant contemporary views. (shrink)

On Islamic teachings, written by an army officer and educationist from Pakistan.

Kierkegaard’s pseudonym Johannes Climacus famously defines faith as a risky “venture” that requires “holding fast” to “objective uncertainty.” Yet puzzlingly, he emphasizes that faith requires resolute conviction and certainty. Moreover, Climacus claims that all beliefs about contingent propositions about the external world “exclude doubt” and “nullify uncertainty,” but also that uncertainty is “continually present” in these very same beliefs. This paper argues that these apparent contradictions can be resolved by interpreting Climacus as a belief-credence dualist. That is, Climacus holds that (...) beliefs and credences (i.e., degrees of belief) are two irreducibly distinct types of mental states. Beliefs are resolutions that close inquiry, thereby excluding doubt and reflecting subjective certainty by disregarding the possibility of error. Credences, by contrast, reflect assessments of evidential probabilities, thereby encoding a recognition of “objective uncertainty” by acknowledging the possibility of error. In addition to solving a vexing interpretive puzzle and showing how Kierkegaard anticipates contemporary views about the nature of belief and credence, this paper demonstrates that Kierkegaard developed a sophisticated account of the nature of belief, doubt, and certainty that merits serious philosophical consideration. (shrink)

In this provocative and original work, Slavoj Zizek takes a look at the question of human agency in a postmodern world. From the sinking of the Titanic to Hitchcock's Rear Window, from the operas of Wagner to science fiction, from Alien to the Jewish Joke, the author's acute analyses explore the ideological fantasies of wholeness and exclusion which make up human society. Linking key psychoanalytical and philosophical concepts to social phenomena such as totalitarianism and racism, the book explores the political (...) significance of these fantasies of control. In so doing, The Sublime Object of Ideology represents a powerful contribution to a psychoanalytical theory of ideology, as well as offering persuasive interpretations of a number of contemporary cultural formations. -- Back cover. (shrink)

Ghazzālī, 1058-1111; Kīmiyā-yi saʻādat -Criticism and interpretation ; Ghazzālī, Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad, -1126; Savāniḥ -Criticism and interpretation ; Ghazzālī, Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad, -1126; Baḥr al-muḥabbat fī asrār al-muvaddat fītafsīr Sūrah-i Yūsuf -Criticism.