ha-Maʼamin le-ʻumat ha-mishtadel -- Koḥah shel tefilah.

The DAMA project is an observatory for rare processes and it is operative deep underground at the Gran Sasso National Laboratory of the I.N.F.N. In particular, the DAMA/LIBRA (Large sodium Iodide Bulk for RAre processes) set-up consists of highly radiopure NaI(Tl) detectors for a total sensitive exposed mass of ≃250 kg. Recent results, obtained by this set-up by exploiting the model independent annual modulation signature of Dark Matter (DM) particles, have confirmed and improved those obtained by the former DAMA/NaI experiment. (...) A model independent evidence for the presence of Dark Matter particles in the galactic halo is cumulatively obtained at 8.2 σ C.L. No systematics or side reactions able to account for the measured modulation amplitude and to contemporaneously satisfy all the many specific requirements of the signature have been found or suggested by anyone over more than a decade. An example of one of the many possible model dependent corollary quests for the candidate particles and for the related astrophysical, nuclear and particle physics scenarios is presented considering the whole cumulative exposure. Future perspectives are shortly addressed. (shrink)

Fasting of women on the days of her menstruation period is an issue that takes place in current fiqh discussions. Some contemporary researchers say that there is no religious obstacle for women to fast during these times. Moreover, they state that there is no reason to interrupt fasting, on the contrary, claim obliged to fasting. Meanwhile in traditional fiqh, it is stated that is religiously forbidden for women to fast during this period, rather it is claimed that fasting in this (...) period is ḥaram. The evidence brought to the views of all the mujtahids, who expressed their opinions on this matter was a narration from ʿĀʾisha Bint Abī Bakr (d. 58/678), a wife of Prophet (p.b.u.h). When a woman asked her if she should have fulfilled her ṣalāt (prayer) later, which she could not perform while she was in menstruation period, she responded to her as “are you Ḥarūrī?” then explained the answer. In some variants of this narration, matter of fasting is included in the question or answer. In this article, the issue of women's fasting during menstruation is discussed from a perspective based on isnād-matn analysis in the context of this narration which is called the “Ḥarūrī Ḥadīth”. In the matn of 71 riwāya identified on this article, it has been determined that the issue of fasting was added to the matns narrated by Ma'mer bin Rās̲h̲id and to some other narrations which in their corroborative (mutābī) matns not includes fasting. In later times, the version of the text with the mention of fasting was accepted as the original and became the proof that fasting of the menstruating woman was forbidden by religion. Considering the hadiths, which do not include issue of fasting, it is seen that the woman tābiʿī (Successor of the Companions) named Muâze asked ʿĀʾisha what the sunnah was about menstruating woman’s ṣalāt. Because in that era a sect called K̲h̲ārid̲j̲ites had claimed that women had to fulfill the ṣalāt that they could not perform during their menstruation, later. There are also other narrations mention the fasting of the menstruating woman. All these narrations indicated that the Prophet did not forbid fasting when menstruating, on the contrary, he just pointed out that fasting was interrupted due to menstruation. As fasting is not a worship like ṣalāt from which the woman is exempted from, a woman may interrupt fasting but must unconditionally fulfill this worship later. Thus, the situation of a woman in such a situation is equaled to the sufferer and the travelers who have a break from fasting. It is stated in traditional fiqh that a menstruating woman will not have to perform ṣalāts later that she couldn't fulfill in time. The necessity of performing a worship must be determined by a clear order of the prophet. However, a clear order regarding the prohibition of fasting during menstruation was not sought. Consequently, it is seen that the narrations are more clear evidence of the absence of any prohibition than they reveal the prohibition of fasting. It has been emphasized in the narratives that it is permissible for a woman to postpone her fast, but she is absolutely obliged to compensate the fasts that she did not fulfill, and she is not exempt from fasting as she is exempt from ṣalāt. (shrink)

[Ḥeleḳ rishon] Or Torah, ʻavodat ha-tefilah, darkhe ha-Ḥasidut, ḥinukh ha-banim, maśa u-matan be-emunah, midot ṭovot -- Ḥeleḳ sheni. Miḳṿeh meṭaher, ʻavodat ha-tefilah, hanhagat ha-shulḥan, or Torah.

The widespread application of QR code technology is best represented by the health codes used in China’s pandemic prevention and control. This technology has enhanced the country’s ability to manage the pandemic by achieving higher efficiency and accuracy. Unfortunately, a certain segment of the older population has encountered difficulties in adapting and maintaining their daily activities. This indicates the limitations of QR code technology in achieving social isolation. This article argues that for a more comprehensive pandemic prevention and control policy (...) system to be established, managing the implementation of this very technology should be done in a more humane fashion, i.e. under the guidance of three moral principles: benevolence, justice, and non-maleficence. By doing so, implementation of QR code technology is done in a way that is not only conducive to COVID-19 prevention and control but also mitigate marginalization of the older people. In the post-pandemic era, the socialization of digital technology will accelerate. Therefore, in the field of public health, we should direct attention not only to the fair distribution of resources but also to the issue of identity that arises due to digital divide. (shrink)

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

Islamic philosophy; Muslim philosophers.

The Lodz Film School has existed since 1948.... In the year of the school's jubilee, we decided to publish five selected MA theses written by Direction Department graduates. Three of th theses, written by Krzysztof Kieślowski, Marcel Łoziński and Wojciech Wiszniewski, concern documentary film, whereas the two remainingones written by Grzegorz Królikiewicz and Edward Żebrowski refer to fiction films.... Their authors, excellent Polish film-makers, presented their auteurs' concept they had at the beginning of their artistic careers which were carried out (...) and verified by them through their work on... subsequent film projects. We decided to combine those theses with five complementary essays in which film historians and theoreticians analyse these directors' films which followed in the course of their career in the context of the concepts described by the directors in their MA theses."--English section, page 6. (shrink)

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)

According to a traditional interpretation of Kierkegaard, he endorses a strong form of direct doxastic voluntarism on which we can, by brute force of will, make a “leap of faith” to believe propositions that we ourselves take to be improbable and absurd. Yet most leading Kierkegaard scholars now wholly reject this reading, instead interpreting Kierkegaard as holding that the will can affect what we believe only indirectly. This paper argues that Kierkegaard does in fact endorse a restricted, sophisticated, and plausible (...) version of direct doxastic voluntarism. On Kierkegaard’s view, when we take ourselves to be in an epistemically permissive situation, we have the ability to form outright beliefs (but not credences) at will in virtue of our ability to voluntarily 1) open or close inquiry and 2) determine our attitude towards epistemic risk. (shrink)

Offers the first focused study of the shifei debates of the Warring States period in ancient China and challenges the imposition of Western conceptual categories onto these debates. In recent decades, a growing concern in studies in Chinese intellectual history is that Chinese classics have been forced into systems of classification prevalent in Western philosophy and thus imperceptibly transformed into examples that echo Western philosophy. Lin Ma and Jaap van Brakel offer a methodology to counter this approach, and illustrate their (...) method by carrying out a transcultural inquiry into the complexities involved in understanding shi and fei and their cognate phrases in the Warring States texts, the Zhuangzi in particular. The authors discuss important features of Zhuangzi’s stance with regard to language-meaning, knowledge-doubt, questioning, equalizing, and his well-known deconstruction of the discourse in ancient China on shifei. Ma and van Brakel suggest that shi and fei apply to both descriptive and prescriptive languages and do not presuppose any fact/value dichotomy, and thus cannot be translated as either true/false or right/wrong. Instead, shi and feican be grasped in terms of a pre-philosophical notion of fitting. Ma and van Brakel also highlight Zhuangzi’s idea of “walking-two-roads” as the most significant component of his stance. In addition, they argue that all of Zhuangzi’s positive recommendations are presented in a language whose meaning is not fixed and that every stance he is committed to remains subject to fundamental questioning as a way of life. (shrink)

This study offers an experiential and practical way of understanding Plotinus' thought and philosophy through a focus on the act of contemplation. Mateusz Stróżyński argues that contemplation, or direct seeing of the principles of reality, is not merely a part of Plotinus' thought, but rather a significant dimension of it.

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)

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.

What do we know about Hegel? What do we know about Marx? What do we know about democracy and totalitarianism? Communism and psychoanalysis? What do we know that isn't a platitude that we've heard a thousand times - or a self-satisfied certainty? Through his brilliant reading of Hegel, Slavoj Zizek - one of the most provocative and widely-read thinkers of our time - upends our traditional understanding, dynamites every cliché and undermines every conviction in order to clear the ground for (...) new ways of answering these questions. When Lacan described Hegel as the ‘most sublime hysteric’, he was referring to the way that the hysteric asks questions because he experiences his own desire as if it were the Other's desire. In the dialectical process, the question asked of the Other is resolved through a reflexive turn in which the question begins to function as its own answer. We had made Hegel into the theorist of abstraction and reaction, but by reading Hegel with Lacan, Zizek unveils a Hegel of the concrete and of revolution - his own, and the one to come. This early and dazzlingly original work by Zizek offers a unique insight into the ideas which have since become hallmarks of his mature thought. It will be of great interest to anyone interested in critical theory, philosophy and contemporary social thought. (shrink)

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)

The main aim of this essay is to show that, for Stevens, the concept of reality is very fluctuating. The essay begins with addressing the relationship between poetry and philosophy. I argue, contra Critchley, that Stevens’ poetic work can elucidate, or at least help us to understand better, the ideas of philosophers that are usually considered obscure. The main “obscure” philosophical work introduced in and discussed throughout the essay is Schelling’s System of Transcendental Idealism. Both a (shellingian) philosopher and a (...) (stevensian) poet search for reality. In order to understand Stevens’ poetry better, I distingush several concepts of reality: initial reality (the external world of the common sense), imagined reality (a fiction, a product of one’s mind), final reality (the object of a philosopher’s and a poet’s search) and total reality (the sum of all realities, Being). These determinations are fixed by reason (in the present essay), whereas in Stevens’ poetic works, they are made fluid by the imagination. This fluidity leads the concept of reality from its initial stage through the imagined stage to its final stage. Throughout this process, imagined reality must be distinguished from both a mere fancy and its products. Final reality is, however, nothing transcendent. It is rather a general transpersonal order of reality created by poetry/the imagination. The main peculiarity of final reality is that it is a dynamic order. It is provisional at each moment. Stevens (and Schelling too) characterizes this order as that of a work of art which is a finite object, but has an infinite meaning. Stevens calls this order “the central poem” or the “endlessly elaborating poem”. If ultimate reality is a poem created by the imagination, one may ask who is the imagining subject. I argue that this agent is best to be thought as total reality, that is, as Being. Stevens, however, maintains that if there were such an agency, it would be an inhuman agency, “an inhuman meditation”. The essay concludes, in a Derridian manner, with the claim that this agency cannot have any name; it is the “unnamed creator of an unknown sphere, / Unknown as yet, unknowable, / Uncertain certainty” (OP: 127). It is best thought as an X, as an unknown variable. Being has no name. (shrink)

The concept of disparity has long been a topic of obsession and argument for philosophers but Slavoj Žižek would argue that what disparity and negativity could mean, might mean and should mean for us and our lives has never been more hotly debated. Disparities explores contemporary 'negative' philosophies from Catherine Malabou's plasticity, Julia Kristeva's abjection and Robert Pippin's self-consciousness to the God of negative theology, new realisms and post-humanism and draws a radical line under them. Instead of establishing a dialogue (...) with these other ideas of disparity, Slavoj Žižek wants to establish a definite departure, a totally different idea of disparity based on an imaginative dialectical materialism. This notion of rupturing what has gone before is based on a provocative reading of how philosophers can, if they're honest, engage with each other. Slavoj Žižek borrows Alain Badiou's notion that a true idea is the one that divides. Radically departing from previous formulations of negativity and disparity, Žižek employs a new kind of negativity: namely positing that when a philosopher deals with another philosopher, his or her stance is never one of dialogue, but one of division, of drawing a line that separates truth from falsity. (shrink)

This volume sets out to discuss the role of norms and normativity in both language and linguistics from a multiplicity of perspectives. These concepts are centrally important to the philosophy and methodology of linguistics, and their role and nature need to be investigated in detail. The chapters address a range of issues from general questions about ontology, epistemology and methodology to aspects of particular subfields (such as semantics and historical linguistics) or phenomena (such as construal and code-switching). The volume aims (...) to further our understanding of language and linguistics as well as to encourage further discussion on the metatheory of linguistics. Due to the fundamental nature of the issues under discussion, this volume will be of interest to all linguists regardless of their background or fields of expertise and to philosophers concerned with language or other normative domains. (shrink)

Finance ethics have drawn increasing attention from both government regulators and academic researchers. This paper addresses the issue of insider trading ethics. Previous studies on insider trading ethics have failed to provide convincing arguments and consistent results. In particular, the arguments against insider trading are based primarily on moral and philosophical grounds and lack empirical rigor. This study intends to establish and examine the relationship between the ethical issue and economic issue of insider trading. We argue that the ethics of (...) insider trading is in essence an economic rather than a moral issue. It is so far not clear to what extent insider trading may increase or decrease shareholders wealth. Until then, we must take care to avoid over-regulating insider trading. (shrink)

Muḥammad Mahdī ibn Abī Z̲arr Narāqī, -1794 or 1795. Jāmiʻ al-saʻādāt - Criticism and interpretation; Islamic ethics.

The essays in this volume explore the ways rights were available to those on the margins. By tracing pivotal judicial concepts such as 'right of necessity' and 'subjective rights' from their medieval versions, and by situating them in unexpected contexts such as the Franciscans' theory of poverty and colonization or today's immigration and border control, this volume invites its readers to consider whether individual rights were in fact or in theory available to the marginalized. By focusing not only on those (...) who are economically impoverished but also those who were disenfranchised because of disability, gender, race, religion or infidelity, the book also sheds light on the relationship between the early history of individual rights and social justice at the margins. (shrink)

According to the thesis of doxastic wronging, our beliefs can non-derivatively wrong others. A recent criticism of this view claims that proponents of the doxastic wronging thesis have no principled grounds for denying that credences can likewise non-derivatively wrong, so they must countenance pervasive conflicts between morality and epistemic rationality. This paper defends the thesis of doxastic wronging from this objection by arguing that belief bears distinctive relationships to inquiry and blame that can explain why beliefs, but not credences, can (...) non-derivatively wrong. First, forming a belief (but not updating one’s credence) closes inquiry, and suspending judgment (but not updating one’s credence) opens inquiry. Consequently, beliefs can distinctively wrong others by prematurely closing inquiry or inappropriately opening inquiry. Second, beliefs (but not credences) can constitute blame. Unfittingly blaming someone can wrong them, and hence beliefs which constitute unfitting blame can distinctively wrong. In addition to defending the claim that only beliefs can non-derivatively wrong, this paper gestures towards an ethics of belief which attends to the relationship between belief and attitudes such as inquiry, faith, trust, and blame. (shrink)

Searches for non-paulian nuclear processes, i.e. processes normally forbidden by the Pauli–Exclusion–Principle (PEP) with highly radiopure NaI(Tl) scintillators allow the test of this fundamental principle with high sensitivity. Status and perspectives are addressed.

In the Netherlands fertility doctors increasingly formulate protocols, which oblige patients to quit their unhealthy lifestyle before they are admitted to IVF procedures. We argue that moral arguments could justify parenting protocols that concern all future parents. In the first part we argue that want-to-be parents have moral responsibilities towards their future children to prevent them from harm by diminishing or eliminating risk factors before as well as during the pregnancy. This is because of the future children's potential to become (...) of a certain type, more specifically: a person that will be the want-to-be parents' child. Want-to-be parents intend to become pregnant and therefore have an additional moral reason to diminish the risks. Also, people who become pregnant unintentionally have the responsibility to prevent their children from harm, unless they become pregnant due to contraception failure. All people not wanting to become pregnant should use contraception methods carefully.In the second part of this paper we translate the want-to-be parents' responsibilities into practice. We distinguish four determinants of risk factors: modifiability, chance, severity and effort. We examine some evidence-based risk factors based on these variables and deduce levels of responsibility.In conclusion, formulating informal requirements for want-to-be parents is morally required and therefore also for want-to-be parents in need of medical assistance. The protocols developed by fertility doctors in the Netherlands could be seen as the precursor for a general, informal Parenting Protocol that could be developed on the basis of an extended and thoroughly debated risk-responsibility analysis. (shrink)