Uygar Abaci presents a comprehensive study of Immanuel Kant's theory of modality - of the notions of possibility, actuality, and necessity. Abaci argues that Kant redefined these notions as ways in which our representations of objects are related to our cognitive faculty and thus as irreducibly subjective, relational, and conceptual.

Kant states in §76 of the third Critique that the divine intuitive intellect would not represent modal distinctions. Kohl and Stang claim that this statement entails that noumena lack modal properties, which, in turn, conflicts with Kant’s attribution of contingency to human noumenal wills. They both propose resolutions to this conflict based on conjectures regarding how God might non-modally represent what our discursive intellects represent as modally determined. I argue that these proposals fail; the viable resolution consists in recognizing that (...) we modalize human noumenal wills as a merely regulative-practical principle in our judgements of imputation. (shrink)

one important product of kant's pre-critical metaphysics is the proof of God's existence that he presented in The Only Possible Argument of 1763.1 Kant's proof moves from what I will call here the 'actualist principle', every real possibility must be grounded in actuality, to the conclusion that there exists a unique necessary being, i.e. an ens realissimum, which grounds all real possibility. The pre-critical proof deserves interest in its own right, for not only does it have an intriguing logical structure, (...) but it also allows us to observe Kant's first elaborate discussion of modal concepts. However, what has attracted particular scholarly attention in the last few decades is the perplexing attitude... (shrink)

Artificial intelligence and robotics is pervasive in daily life and set to expand to new levels potentially replacing human decision-making and action. Self-driving cars, home and healthcare robots, and autonomous weapons are some examples. A distinction appears to be emerging between potentially benevolent civilian uses of the technology (eg unmanned aerial vehicles delivering medicines), and potentially malevolent military uses (eg lethal autonomous weapons killing human com- batants). Machine-mediated human interaction challenges the philosophical basis of human existence and ethical conduct. Aside (...) from technical challenges of ensuring ethical conduct in artificial intelligence and robotics, there are moral questions about the desirability of replacing human functions and the human mind with such technology. How will artificial intelligence and robotics engage in moral reasoning in order to act ethically? Is there a need for a new set of moral rules? What happens to human interaction when it is mediated by technology? Should such technology be used to end human life? Who bears responsibility for wrongdoing or harmful conduct by artificial intelligence and robotics? -/- Whilst Kant may be familiar to international lawyers for setting restraints on the use of force and rules for perpetual peace, his foundational work on ethics provides an inclusive moral philosophy for assessing ethical conduct of individuals and states and, thus, is relevant to discussions on the use and development of artificial intelligence and robotics. His philosophy is inclusive because it incorporates justifications for morals and legitimate responses to immoral conduct, and applies to all human agents irrespective of whether they are wrongdoers, unlawful combatants, or unjust enemies. Humans are at the centre of rational thinking, action, and norm-creation so that the rationale for restraints on methods and means of warfare, for example, is based on preserving human dignity as well as ensuring conditions for perpetual peace among states. Unlike utilitarian arguments which favour use of autonomous weapons on the basis of cost-benefit reasoning or the potential to save lives, Kantian ethics establish non-consequentialist and deontological rules which are good in themselves to follow and not dependent on expediency or achieving a greater public good. -/- Kantian ethics make two distinct contributions to the debate. First, they provide a human-centric ethical framework whereby human exist- ence and capacity are at the centre of a norm-creating moral philosophy guiding our understanding of moral conduct. Second, the ultimate aim of Kantian ethics is practical philosophy that is relevant and applicable to achieving moral conduct. -/- I will seek to address the moral questions outlined above by exploring how core elements of Kantian ethics relate to use of artificial intelli- gence and robotics in the civilian and military spheres. Section 2 sets out and examines core elements of Kantian ethics: the categorical imperative; autonomy of the will; rational beings and rational thinking capacity; and human dignity and humanity as an end in itself. Sections 3-7 consider how these core elements apply to artificial intelligence and robotics with discussion of fully autonomous and human-machine rule-generating approaches; types of moral reasoning; the difference be- tween ‘human will’ and ‘machine will’; and respecting human dignity. (shrink)

Andrew Chignell recently proposed an original reconstruction of Kant's ‘Only Possible Argument’ for the existence of God. Chignell claims that what motivates the ‘Grounding Premise’ of Kant's proof, ‘real possibility must be grounded in actuality’, is the requirement that the predicates of a really possible thing must be ‘really harmonious’, i.e. compatible in an extra-logical or metaphysical sense. I take issue with Chignell's reconstruction. First, the pre-Critical Kant does not present ‘real harmony’ as a general condition of real possibility. Second, (...) the real harmony requirement is not what motivates the ‘Grounding Premise’ of the proof. Instead, this premise is sufficiently motivated by what Chignell labels the ‘content’ requirement. Finally, Kant's downgrading of the proof in his Critical period is not based on a concern regarding the real harmony of the predicates of God, but on his Critical restrictions on cognition in general and modal cognition in particular. (shrink)

As research on ethical consumers and consumption practices has continued to grow, a complimentary body of work concerned less with ethical consumption but more with ethics in consumption has emerged. Problematizing the divide between ethical and non-ethical consumption, this stream of research focuses on the domain of everyday and explores the moral struggles individuals face while engaging in ordinary consumption practices. However, the attention on the ordinary runs the risk of obscuring the contribution of the ‘extraordinary’ or the transcendental to (...) the ethical concerns embedded in the mundane flow of the everyday. This study addresses this blind spot and explores the ways in which religion is implicated in everyday consumption ethics. In doing so, I go beyond a view of religion as an individual trait and emphasize its role as a major institutional structure of the contemporary political economy. The empirical context of the study is the controversy over the so-called halal nail polish. The debate over the products’ appropriateness for Muslim women provides a fertile setting to explore how an ordinary object becomes an ethical problem amid changing relations between religion and market. In order to trace and analyse the linkages between daily practices and institutional dynamics I draw from the moral economy framework and discuss the multiple and conflicting moral repertoires that shape the ethical evaluations of the object. The study offers several contributions to the existing theorizations of everyday consumption ethics and moral economies of consumption. It also highlights the potential of interdisciplinary approaches in providing a holistic understanding of the ethical and moral dimensions of consumption. (shrink)

In the Critique of Pure Reason, following his elucidation of the ‘postulates’ of possibility, actuality, and necessity, Kant makes a series of puzzling remarks. He seems to deny the somewhat metaphysically intuitive contention that the extension of possibility is greater than that of actuality, which, in turn, is greater than that of necessity. Further, he states that the actual adds nothing to the possible. This leads to the view, fairly common in the literature, that Kant holds that all modal categories, (...) in their empirical applications, are coextensive. I diverge from the common view. First, Kant is not committed to the coextensiveness thesis, understood as above. Instead, he espouses a weaker, epistemological version of the coextensiveness thesis, namely that what we can assert to be really possible is coextensive with what we cognize to be actual. Second, Kant's remarks are not intended to introduce a positive ontological thesis about the extensions of modal categories. Rather, he means to criticize a certain conception of modalities that was prevalent among his rationalist predecessors, i.e., the conception of modalities as various determinations that enter the intensions of concepts of things. (shrink)

In Plato's dialogue of the Republic, politics is a concept questioned in the context of one of the most ancient problems of philosophy, that is, the relationship between theory and practice, and formulated as a paradox. Plato finds a solution to the paradox by establishing the city-state proximate to his theory and to put forward three conditions. The last of those conditions, as Plato calls it the greatest wave of paradox in his own terms, that the rulers must be philosopher-kings, (...) contains many clues about Plato's conception of politics. The aim of this study is to examine the implications of the philosopher-king condition in Plato's political philosophy. To this end, first, it is demonstrated that the political meaning of the philosopher's exit from the cave on the way to becoming ruler is apolitical. Secondly, it will be shown how the political activity of the philosopher, contrary to the nature of politics and in a way that excludes others, is reduced to both ascetic and cognitive activity. (shrink)

Corporate social responsibility is often framed in terms of opposing constructions of the firm. These reflect, respectively, different accounts of its obligations: either to shareholders or to stakeholders. Although these opposing constructions of corporate responsibility are diametrically opposed, they are also much more fluid and mobile in certain contexts, since they can act as discursive resources that are deployed and brought into play in the struggle over shaping what responsibility means. They are less the fixed, ideological “signposts” they might appear, (...) and more like “weathervanes” that move alongside changing rhetorical currents. To show this, we analyse the Securities and Exchange Commission consultation process, and legislation, relating to the provenance of “conflict minerals”. We identify two dialectically opposed camps, each seeking to influence final legislation and with end goals in keeping with the shareholder/stakeholder dichotomy. One camp lobbied for firms to scrutinize their entire supply chain, constructing the firm as a “global citizen” with very wide social responsibilities. The second camp lobbied for a lighter touch approach, constructing the firm as a “trader”, with much narrower social responsibilities. We analyse the complex interplay between these two opposed camps, our contribution being to show how both deploy competing conceptions of the corporation as discursive resources. (shrink)

Is uncertainty, often brought about by loss, collapse, interruption, or disturbance in life, an entirely negative state that must be resolved as soon and as fully as possible by resettlement? Or, can we view uncertainty and loss as affective states that might open up new possibilities for friendships, solidarities, collectivities, and hope? As a response to Carla J. Maier’s ‘The Table and the Dancer’ this essay attends to affective and emotional registers of migration. It attempts to rethink the senses of (...) loss, uprootedness, and uncertainty as possible sources for affinities and hope, with a particular focus on the new migration from Turkey. (shrink)

We study the automorphism group of the algebraic closure of a substructure A of a pseudofinite field F. We show that the behavior of this group, even when A is large, depends essentially on the roots of unity in F. For almost all completions of the theory of pseudofinite fields, we show that over A, algebraic closure agrees with definable closure, as soon as A contains the relative algebraic closure of the prime field.

The model companion of the theory of fields with valuation and automorphism exists. A counterexample shows that the theory of models of ACFA equipped with valuation is not this model companion.

This article demonstrates a priori cosmopolitan values of restraint and harm limitation exist to establish a cosmopolitan “no-harm” duty in warfare, predating utilitarianism and permeating modern international humanitarian law. In doing so, the author exposes the atemporal and ahistorical nature of utilitarianism which introduces chaos and brutality into the international legal system. Part 2 conceptualises the duty as derived from the “no-harm” principle under international environmental law. Part 3 frames the discussion within legal pluralism and cosmopolitan ethics, arguing that divergent (...) legal jurisdictions without an international authority necessitates a “public international sphere” to mediate differences leading to strong value-commitment norm-creation. One such norm is the “no-harm” duty in warfare. Part 4 traces the duty to the Stoics, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, African traditional culture, Hinduism, and Confucianism. Parts 5 and 6 explain how the duty manifests in principles of distinction and proportionality under international humanitarian law. (shrink)

Bu makalenin amacı, Türkiye örnekleminde Tanrı algısı üzerine yapılmış ampirik araştırmaların sistematik bir incelemesini sunmaktır. Tanrı algısı çok boyutlu bir yapı olarak ele alınmış ve Tanrı algısının sosyodemografik ve psikolojik süreçleri içeren diğer değişkenlerle ilişkisi tartışılmıştır. Tanrı algısı ile psikopatoloji ve manevi bakım arasındaki ilişki de gözden geçirilmiştir. İnceleme sonucunda Tanrı algısının yaşa göre her zaman anlamlı bir farklılık göstermediği ancak ilişkinin olumlu yönde seyrettiği, yaş ilerledikçe Tanrı algısının daha olumlu olduğu söylenebilir. Cinsiyet farklılığına bakıldığında kadınların erkeklere göre daha olumlu (...) bir Tanrı algısına sahip oldukları, gelir düzeyi ve eğitim düzeyi açısından ise anlamlı bir farklılığın olmadığı görülmüştür. Ayrıca Tanrı algısının okul türüne göre (dini ve seküler okullar) farklılık gösterebildiği, Tanrı algısının oluşumunda anne baba tutumlarının önemli olduğu görülmüştür. Çalışmalar baskıcı, otoriter veya ilgisiz/ ihmalkar anne baba tutumları ile büyüyen insanların Tanrı algılarının daha korku yönelimli olduğunu, demokratik anne baba tutumları ile büyüyenlerin ise daha sevgi yönelimli Tanrı algıları olduğunu göstermiştir. Öznel dindarlık ve olumlu dini başa çıkmanın Tanrı algısı ile pozitif ilişkili olabildiği sonucuna varılmıştır. Sosyodemografik değişkenlere ek olarak, sevgi yönelimli Tanrı algısının daha iyi psikolojik sağlık, daha yüksek iyi oluş, etkili ve olumlu başa çıkma, olumlu benlik saygısı, daha düşük depresyon ve daha düşük psikopatolojik belirtilerle pozitif yönde ilişkili olduğu söylenebilir. Gözden geçirilen 55 çalışma içerisinde pek çok bulguya ulaşılmış olsa da incelenen değişkenlerin çok çeşitli olduğu, ancak her değişken hakkında genel bir çıkarım yapmak için yeterli çalışma olmadığı, bu nedenle halen Türkiye örnekleminde Tanrı algısı ile ilgili çalışmaların artırılması gerektiği düşünülmektedir. Son olarak, daha fazla araştırmaya ihtiyaç duyulan alanlar tartışma bölümünde ele alınmıştır. (shrink)

Nick Stang offers an extremely meticulous and original study of Immanuel Kant’s theory of modality. It is the first book dedicated solely to Kantian modality in the Anglophone Kant literature, crowning the recent surge of articles on the subject, while also setting up a fertile ground for further discussion. The book’s appeal is not limited to Kant readers. Considering its historical focus and scope, Stang’s book is unusually rigorous, analytically argued, and well informed by twentieth-century modal metaphysics and logic, making (...) it perfectly accessible to those who are interested in modality from a contemporary metaphysical point of view. Stang presents a developmental account of Kant’s... (shrink)

The main thesis I put forward in this article is that the democratic theory needs an anthropological perspective which defines the human in plurality and signifies the possibility of achieving a fully inclusive rational consensus. I argue that a model of democracy in terms of cosmopolitan anthropology can help us to better envision the main challenge facing universal norms and principles today. How to create democratic forms of living together? I think we can answer this question by interpreting Hannah Arendt’s (...) theory of political action on a philosophical anthropological basis. It is common knowledge that Hannah Arendt is suspicious of ethics and warns that ethics and conscience alone cannot produce the conditions for peace. In the present paper, I examine Arendt’s philosophical project together with Kant’s philosophical anthropology and try to demonstrate its importance for plurality and living together in peace. (shrink)

According to the majority of linguists, case markers at the end of a declinable word, which could be of vowel, letter or elision type, are indicators of meaning. In other words according to the general acceptance, the iʿrāb signs at the end of words help one to understand the function of a given word in a sentence. Knowing the functions of the words of a sentence in turn enables the sentence to be understood correctly. Although there are those who say (...) that iʿrāb signs at the end of the words do not have anything to do with the function of words in a sentence, and that they only function to facilitate the transition between words, this view was not accepted by the majority. For this reason, thisarticle examines the iʿrāb-meaning within the scope of the prevailing attitude of naḥw scholars and Quranic exegetes. The majority of linguists accept that iʿrāb is an indicator of meaning. For this reason, explanations of iʿrāb, which are frequently used in Quranic commentaries, are aimed at understanding the sentences in the verses more accurately. The fact that Abū al-Aswad al-Duʾalīput vowel marks on certain words of the Quran was to facilitate the correct reading of the Quran and prevent a wrong vowel mark from causing any misunderstanding. Therefore, the close relationship between iʿrāb and meaning is clearly emphasized in naḥw books. Although it is stated as a general rule that iʿrāb is key in desciphering the meaning, there are cases where this general rule does not hold. This happens when there is a discrepancy between an iʿrāb sign at the end of a givenword and its meaning. Such situations are considered by naḥw scholars as qurb al-jiwār. According to this exception, a word does not take the iʿrāb indicator appropriate to its position in sentence and instead takes the same iʿrāb indicator of the previous word so as to be in harmony with it. The purpose of this is to prevent any disruption to the phonetic flow of the sentence rather than to function as an indicator of meaning. In fact, this phonetic harmony is not only limited to the iʿrāb at the end of words. In order to ensure harmony within a word, changes can be made in morphology of the word in question. This stems from the importance Arabs attach to the harmony of both intra-word and inter-word vowels, despite its contradiction to the rules of morphology and syntax. As a matter of fact, this kind of reading provides a sense of cohesion in terms of both ease of pronunciation and correspondence. In this article, I claim that the iʿrāb signs is not always a sign that reveals the meanings in the verses of the Qurʾān. In the light of this view, some of the verses of the Qurʾān comprise case endings that are contrary to the meaning for the sake of phonetic harmony, just as is the case in the current usage in Arabic language. This situation shows that besides the literary arts related tomeaning, those which are related to phonetic arts also constitute important literary aspects of the Qurʾān. The approaches of the Qurʾānic commentators towards the verses in which this feature, which is expressed as qurb al-jiwār in Naḥw, is found differ from each other. On the basis of these different approaches, the relevant narrations, syntax school, etc. that the commentators have generally considered matters are included. In fact, given that they lead to no confusion, irregularities contrary to the established grammar rules are tolerated. For this reason, qurb al-jiwār is used in the absence of ambiguity even though it is contrary to iʿrāb al-naḥwī. Unlike the Basran Grammarians, who regard qurb al-jiwār as a mere use, the Kufan Grammarians made the issue a regular grammar rule and used it as the basis for the jussiveness of apodosis of conditional clauses. Although qurb al-jiwār is accepted as a usage both in the Arabic language and the Quran by the majority of grammarians, there are differences of opinion in terms of the place of its use. While there is no clarity on this subject among the early grammarians, according to the general of late naḥw scholars, the issue of qurb al-jiwār is reserved for noun-adjective, corroborating-corroborated and connective explanation. However, it is controversial whether or not the qurb al-jiwār can be used in connectives. While in the early periods when controversies arose for the first time, qurb al-jiwār was generally unacceptable, in later periods it started to became more widely accepted. Extrapolating a theoretical framework for the issue based on primary classical sources on Naḥw constitutes a core methodology used in this work. According to the theoretical framework thus put forward, the discussions about the verses that are the subject of the iʿrāb of vicinity in the primary tafsīr sources from the first period to the present have been examined from an analysis-semantic perspective. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The extant attempts in the literature to refute the greatest difficulty argument in the Parmenides have focused on denying the parallelism between the pros relations among Forms and those among particulars. However, these attempts are unsatisfactory, for the argument can reach its conclusion that we cannot know any Forms without relying on this parallelism. I argue that a more effective strategy is to deny the more essential premise that the knowledge-object relation is a pros relation. This premise is false (...) because pros relations require definitional and ontological codependence between the relata, and the knowledge-object relation does not satisfy this reciprocity condition. RÉSUMÉ Les tentatives existantes dans la littérature de réfuter l'argument de la plus grande difficulté dans le Parménide ont surtout entrepris de nier le parallélisme entre les relations de type pros entre les Formes et celles entre les particuliers. Par contre, ces tentatives sont insatisfaisantes, parce que l'argument peut mener à sa conclusion selon laquelle on ne peut connaître les Formes sans s'appuyer sur ce parallélisme. Je soutiens qu'une stratégie plus efficace consiste à nier la prémisse plus essentielle selon laquelle la relation objet-connaissance est une relation de type pros. Cette prémisse est fausse parce que les relations de type pros requièrent une codépendance définitionnelle et ontologique entre les relata, et la relation objet-connaissance ne satisfait pas à cette condition de réciprocité. (shrink)

Emerged as a movement within the evangelical wing of Protestantism in the 20th century, Pentecostal Christianity is a mystical religious movement that seeks holiness in a purely individual experience and emphasizes spiritual unity. This movement, assumed an important role in spreading Christianity to the world is claimed to be the second largest group after Roman Catholicism with its different discourse and organization structure. Its mystical aspect, especially affects churches in the northern hemisphere as well as the southern hemisphere and the (...) movement's activities are considered a harvest of new souls collected by the Holy Spirit. Therefore, this situation raises the question of what is the place of the movement within the Christian unity. For this reason, it is important to examine the participation of the movement in the issues of ecumenical unity since its emergence in the North of America.This article aims to reveal the relationship between Pentecostal Christianity and the global ecumenical movement and tends to provide a way of thinking about ecumenism encouraging Pentecostal participation in the ecumenical mission. Although Pentecostal movement defined as an ecumenical spirit has shown a negative attitude towards formal ecumenical processes in the early period, it has recently changed the way of approaching regional and international ecumenical negotiations. The aim of bilateral dialogues between Pentecostals and other historical churches seems to be on developing mutual respect and understanding rather than structural unity. The next will show whether these visible associations for now will become a realistic dialogue goal that includes structural unity in the future, or to form a spiritually invisible unity that moves freely in spirit without the need for a structural unity. (shrink)

The Scottish historical novelist, John Galt assumed that the origins of law rested on the anarchistic and primitive nature of human beings, who formed a society on a contractual basis out of the need for security. Although generally agreeing with enlightenment thinkers on the formation of society, law and human nature a divergence in Galt's thought appeared in the secular treatment of crimes. Adhering to prevalent Christian notions about sin and crime, Galt rejected a clear distinction between the two, and (...) between morality and law, such as were upheld by such enlightenment figures as Cesare Beccaria. Such a clear distinction failed in its analysis of the phenomena. He was at one with Enlightenment-influenced thought in its criticism of cruel punishments and advocated a humanitarian approach to the criminal, but he also emphasised education in Christian morality as the most appropriate means of deterrence. This divergence from more radical enlightenment views sprang from his lack of confidence in the capacities of human reason. Nevertheless, a fundamentally humanist philosophy and a belief in the importance of learning linked his conservatism with an enlightenment belief in human progress. (shrink)