The literature analysing Muslim perspective towards other religions is now quite extensive. However, when it comes to Muslim’s perspective towards Buddhism, the scholarship lags far behind. This article aimed to identify the Muslim views on Buddhism from a theological and philosophical framework. The Muslim views have a different category, on categorising Buddhism, the status of Buddha as a Prophet, and Buddhist as the People of the Book. Each view provides a different framework of Muslim perspective towards Buddhism. From the theological (...) view, one of the outlook is tolerance. Due to the rejection of Buddhist doctrine by most Muslim theologians, Muslims apply tolerance, which is subject to religious freedom stand on, ‘firm in principle, tolerant in attitude’. Tolerance encourages Muslims to adhere to the principles of truth, but does not erode the respect for other religion. While from a philosophical view, it considered Buddhism as a religion from God, as well as other religions. Thus, some Muslim inclusivists and pluralists recognise Buddhism. This research is qualitative. The method used in this research is descriptive-analytic, emphasising content analysis of the data from various books and articles covering Muslim view on Buddhism and the patterns of relations between Islam and Buddhism. Studies suggest the understanding of each framework to encourage Muslims to improve comprehensive interreligious dialogue with Buddhists.Contribution: Religious tolerance, inclusivism, and pluralism is a panacea to inordinate and incessant religious conflict, if given its proper place in Malaysia, it will breed harmony and peace in the society. This work would be of immense benefit to interfaith scholars and religious leaders across all strata of discipline. (shrink)

Atheism is an ideology that rejects the existence of God and has gained increasing prominence in societies globally, including Malaysia. Atheism significantly challenges the religious orientation of Malaysian society. Specifically, atheism challenges spiritual and ethical foundations, unity, and cultural heritage linked to religious beliefs. Understanding these challenges is vital to formulate proactive measures, education, and informed dialogue to mitigate the negative impact of atheism on Malaysian society. This study explored the effects of atheism on Malaysian religious society via library research (...) analysis. Scholarly articles, books, and reputable online resources on religious and atheism underwent content analysis, which yielded five key findings. Firstly, atheism leads to the loss of spiritual guidance and morality. Secondly, atheism potentially erodes ethical values and societal norms, and subsequently reduces social trust and cohesion. Thirdly, atheism contributes to moral relativism and ethical ambiguity, which potentially undermines established moral frameworks and social norms. Fourthly, atheism can weaken community cohesion. Lastly, atheism threatens religious institutions and practices. Additionally, the absence of the role of God might undermine the cultural and heritage importance of religion. This study presented critical insights on the negative societal effects of atheism. By exploring the potential consequences of atheism on social cohesion, moral foundations, and existential perspectives, this study highlighted the need for religious education as part of atheism prevention and rehabilitation. (shrink)

This volume features the complete text of all regular papers, posters, and summaries of symposia presented at the 16th annual meeting of the Cognitive Science ...

Thoughts and thinking on Malay philosophy and literature.

Islamic concepts and principles to the universal with a sourced Quran and hadith; collection of thought of Y.B. Dato' Seri Tuan Guru Haji Abdul Hadi Awang.

In the last decade, reading research has seen a paradigmatic shift. A new wave of computational models of orthographic processing that offer various forms of noisy position or context-sensitive coding have revolutionized the field of visual word recognition. The influx of such models stems mainly from consistent findings, coming mostly from European languages, regarding an apparent insensitivity of skilled readers to letter order. Underlying the current revolution is the theoretical assumption that the insensitivity of readers to letter order reflects the (...) special way in which the human brain encodes the position of letters in printed words. The present article discusses the theoretical shortcomings and misconceptions of this approach to visual word recognition. A systematic review of data obtained from a variety of languages demonstrates that letter-order insensitivity is neither a general property of the cognitive system nor a property of the brain in encoding letters. Rather, it is a variant and idiosyncratic characteristic of some languages, mostly European, reflecting a strategy of optimizing encoding resources, given the specific structure of words. Since the main goal of reading research is to develop theories that describe the fundamental and invariant phenomena of reading across orthographies, an alternative approach to model visual word recognition is offered. The dimensions of a possible universal model of reading, which outlines the common cognitive operations involved in orthographic processing in all writing systems, are discussed. (shrink)

I have argued that orthographic processing cannot be understood and modeled without considering the manner in which orthographic structure represents phonological, semantic, and morphological information in a given writing system. A reading theory, therefore, must be a theory of the interaction of the reader with his/her linguistic environment. This outlines a novel approach to studying and modeling visual word recognition, an approach that focuses on the common cognitive principles involved in processing printed words across different writing systems. These claims were (...) challenged by several commentaries that contested the merits of my general theoretical agenda, the relevance of the evolution of writing systems, and the plausibility of finding commonalities in reading across orthographies. Other commentaries extended the scope of the debate by bringing into the discussion additional perspectives. My response addresses all these issues. By considering the constraints of neurobiology on modeling reading, developmental data, and a large scope of cross-linguistic evidence, I argue that front-end implementations of orthographic processing that do not stem from a comprehensive theory of the complex information conveyed by writing systems do not present a viable approach for understanding reading. The common principles by which writing systems have evolved to represent orthographic, phonological, and semantic information in a language reveal the critical distributional characteristics of orthographic structure that govern reading behavior. Models of reading should thus be learning models, primarily constrained by cross-linguistic developmental evidence that describes how the statistical properties of writing systems shape the characteristics of orthographic processing. When this approach is adopted, a universal model of reading is possible. (shrink)

A skeptic claims that I do not have knowledge of the external world. It has been thought that the skeptic reaches this conclusion because she employs unusually stringent standards for knowledge. But the skeptic does not employ unusually high standards for knowledge. Rather, she employs unusually restrictive standards of evidence. Thus, her claim that we lack knowledge of the external world is supported by considerations that would equally support the claim that we lack evidence for our beliefs about the external (...) world. These considerations do not threaten the truth of our ordinary attributions of evidence, however, for such attributions are context‐sensitive in their semantics.It is argued that this solution to the problem of the external world enjoys all of the benefits. and suffers none of the problems, of other solutions to the problem of the external world. (shrink)

Your evidence constrains your rational degrees of confidence both locally and globally. On the one hand, particular bits of evidence can boost or diminish your rational degree of confidence in various hypotheses, relative to your background information. On the other hand, epistemic rationality requires that, for any hypothesis h, your confidence in h is proportional to the support that h receives from your total evidence. Why is it that your evidence has these two epistemic powers? I argue that various proposed (...) accounts of what it is for something to be an element of your evidence set cannot answer this question. I then propose an alternative account of what it is for something to be an element of your evidence set. 1. Introduction2. The elements of one's evidence set are propositions3. Which kinds of propositions are in one's evidence set?3.1. Doxastic accounts of evidence3.2. Non-doxastic accounts of evidence4. Elaborating and defending the LIE. (shrink)

I here describe meanings attributed to the term consciousness, extracted from the literature and from recent online discussions. Forty such meanings were identified and categorized according to whether they were principally about function or about experience; some overlapped but others were apparently mutually exclusive - and this list is by no means exhaustive. Most can be regarded as expressions of authors' views about the basis of con-sciousness, or opinions about the significance of aspects of its con-tents. The prospects for reaching (...) any single, agreed, theory independent definition of consciousness thus appear remote. How-ever, much confusion could be avoided if authors were always to spec-ify which aspects of consciousness they refer to when using the term. An example is outlined of how this can be done. (shrink)

Sometimes, there are reasons for which we believe, intend, resent, decide, and so on: these reasons are the “bases” of the latter, and the explanatory relation between these bases and the latter is what I will call “the basing relation.” What kind of explanatory relation is this? Dispositionalists claim that the basing relation consists in the agent’s manifesting a disposition to respond to those bases by having the belief, intention, resentment, and so on, in question. Representationalists claim that the basing (...) relation consists in the agent’s representing the bases as justifying the belief, intention, resentment, and so on, in question. This article shows that an adequate account of the basing relation requires a particular refinement and combination of these two views. On the hybrid account defended here, the basing relation involves a disposition exercise that is individuated by the agent’s object-involving de se representation of that very exercise as justifying. (shrink)

The term non-governmental organisations (NGOs) has been well-known for the development of human rights, charity works and organisational developments. On the other hand, some NGOs also have their specialised roles to help the community such as in conflict resolution, cultural preservation, policy analysis and information provision. Apart from that, there are many categories of NGOs: Islamic-oriented non-governmental organisation (IONGOs), faith-based organisation (FBO), humanitarian NGOs (HNGOs) and government organised NGOs (GONGOs). However, in this research, the researchers focus on how IONGOs compare (...) with NGOs in assisting the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community based on four hijrah NGOs: Persatuan Islah Movement, Persatuan Insaf Pahang, Hijrah Republique Network and Usrah Iqrak. These four NGOs were chosen because of their roles in assisting the LGBT community. In this research, the researchers adapt the qualitative research by using a case study method; phenomenological approaches and a document analysis have also been applied as well. The result shows that these four IONGOs are different from the NGOs based on the seven typologies applied: intersection, distinct, substantive, subset, co-existing, atomistic grouping and constitutive. The implications of this article highlight the fact that IONGOs are different from the LGBT NGOs in Malaysia as they focus more on spirituality and an Islamic pathway. Hence, future research should include focus group interviews with all the members in NGOs that assist the LGBT hijrah in the community. Contribution: This study contributes to LGBT hijrah community and its relationship towards the establishment of Islamic-oriented non-governmental organisation (IONGOs). (shrink)

Stephen Schiffer has argued that contextualist solutions to skepticism rest on an implausible “error theory” concerning our own semantic intentions. Similar arguments have recently been offered also by Thomas Hofweber and Patrick Rysiew. I attempt to show how contextualists can rebut these arguments. The kind of self‐knowledge that contextualists are committed to denying us is not a kind of self‐knowledge that we need, nor is it a kind of self‐knowledge that we can plausibly be thought to possess.

In his recent Knowledge and its Limits, Timothy Williamson argues that no non-trivial mental state is such that being in that state suffices for one to be in a position to know that one is in it. In short, there are no “luminous” mental states. His argument depends on a “safety” requirement on knowledge, that one’s confident belief could not easily have been wrong if it is to count as knowledge. We argue that the safety requirement is ambiguous; on one (...) interpretation it is obviously true but useless to his argument, and on the other interpretation it is false. (shrink)

Right now, I see a computer in front of me. Now, according to current philosophical orthodoxy, I could have the very same perceptual experience that I’m having right now even if I were not seeing a computer in front of me. Indeed, such orthodoxy tells us, I could have the very same experience that I’m having right now even if I were not seeing anything at all in front of me, but simply suffering from a hallucination. More generally, someone can (...) have the very same perceptual experience no matter whether she is enjoying a veridical perception of some mindindependent object, or merely hallucinating. What differs across these two kinds of case is not the kind of experience that she has, but rather the connections between her experience and the rest of the world. So say most philosophers. (shrink)

This analysis demonstrates the application of a data duplication technique in linear regression with censored observations of the waiting time to third pregnancy ending in two outcome types, using data from Malaysia. The linear model not only confirmed the results obtained by the Cox proportional hazards model, but also identified two additional significant factors. The method provides a useful alternative when Cox proportionality assumption of the hazards is violated.

Sustainability reporting guidelines developed by Global Reporting Initiative provide a systematic approach for the companies to report their performance on social, environmental, and economic dimensions of sustainability. This study compared the sustainability reports of leading Indian public and private sector companies. Reports were analyzed based on GRI guidelines toward their reporting on sustainability. A numerical score from 0 to 3 was assigned for each of the 84 performance indicators of the GRI 2011 guidelines based on inclusiveness of sustainability report. The (...) analysis showed that reporting on economic dimension was comparatively better as compared to social and environmental dimensions. Sampled companies did not show much difference in their reporting practices on economic performances. However, considerable difference was observed in their reporting practices on environmental and social dimensions. Reporting practices of Tata Steel were better in all dimensions of sustainability and emerged as a responsible company on sustainability reporting. (shrink)

Since the publication of W.V. Quine’s “Epistemology Naturalized”1, a growing number of self-described “naturalist” epistemologists have come to hold a particular view of what epistemology can and ought to be. In order to articulate this naturalist view, let me begin by describing the epistemological work that the naturalist tends to criticize – a motley that I will refer to collectively as “non-naturalist epistemology”. I will describe this motley in terms that are designed to capture the naturalist’s discontentment with it, as (...) follows: Non-naturalist epistemology has devoted itself, by and large, to addressing a small set of now familiar questions. What is it for someone to know that something is the case? What is it for someone to be justified in believing that something is the case? How does evidence confirm theory? To what degree ought one to be confident in a theory, given such-and-such evidence? What sorts of semantic properties do our various epistemic appraisals have? In order to answer these familiar questions, the non-naturalist epistemologist typically does not adduce any scientific findings concerning human cognition. Rather, she consults her intuitions about which properties are exemplified by various imagined cases. Unfortunately, if any of these familiar questions have been correctly answered, the correctness of these answers is not generally appreciated as such, even among professional non-naturalist epistemologists. Furthermore, virtually none of the work that’s been done in the course of trying to answer these familiar questions has any clear prospect of helping to guide or improve human intellectual conduct. As it’s been generally practiced then, non-naturalist epistemology offers us no useful advice, and.. (shrink)

Many philosophers accept a “privileged access” thesis concerning our own present mental states and mental events. According to these philosophers, if I am in mental state (or undergoing mental event) M, then – at least in many cases – I have privileged access to the fact that I am in (or undergoing) M. For instance, if I now believe that my cat is sitting on my lap, then (in normal circumstances) I have privileged access to the fact that I now (...) believe that my cat is sitting on my lap. Similarly, if I now imagine a parade coming down Main Street, then (again, in normal circumstances) I have privileged access to the fact that I am now imagining a parade coming down Main Street. And again, if it now visually appears to me as if there is a cloud in the sky, then (again, in normal circumstances) I have privileged access to the fact that it now visually appears to me as if there is a cloud in the sky. In each of these aforementioned cases, if circumstances are normal, then, these philosophers say, I have a distinctive kind of privileged epistemic access to facts about my own mental states or events. Of course, I don’t have privileged epistemic access to all facts about my own mental states or events. For instance, I don’t have privileged epistemic access to facts about which unconscious mental states or events I have. But I do have privileged epistemic access to many facts about my own mental states or events, and in particular to the various facts listed above. (shrink)