The relationship between Peircean abduction and the modern notion of Inference to the Best Explanation is a matter of dispute. Some philosophers, such as Harman :88–95, 1965) and Lipton, claim that abduction and IBE are virtually the same. Others, however, hold that they are quite different :503, 1998; Minnameier in Erkenntnis 60:75–105, 2004) and there is no link between them :419–442, 2009). In this paper, I argue that neither of these views is correct. I show that abduction and IBE have (...) important similarities as well as differences. Moreover, by bringing a historical perspective to the study of the relationship between abduction and IBE—a perspective that is lacking in the literature—I show that their differences can be well understood in terms of two historic developments in the history of philosophy of science: first, Reichenbach’s distinction between the context of discovery and the context of justification—and the consequent jettisoning of the context of discovery from philosophy of science—and second, underdetermination of theory by data. (shrink)

Many non-physicalists, including Chalmers, hold that the zombie argument succeeds in rejecting the physicalist view of consciousness. Some non-physicalists, including, again, Chalmers, hold that quantum collapse interactionism, i.e., the idea that non-physical consciousness causes collapse of the wave function in phenomena such as quantum measurement, is a viable interactionist solution for the problem of the relationship between the physical world and the non-physical consciousness. In this paper, I argue that if QCI is true, the zombie argument fails. In particular, I (...) show that if QCI is true, a zombie world physically identical to our world is impossible because there is at least one law of nature, a fundamental law of physics in particular, that exist only in the zombie world but not in our world. This shows that philosophers like Chalmers are committing an error in endorsing the zombie argument and QCI at the same time. (shrink)

I examine and resolve an exegetical dichotomy between two main interpretations of Peirce’s theory of abduction, namely, the Generative Interpretation and the Pursuitworthiness Interpretation. According to the former, abduction is the instinctive process of generating explanatory hypotheses through a mental faculty called insight. According to the latter, abduction is a rule-governed procedure for determining the relative pursuitworthiness of available hypotheses and adopting the worthiest one for further investigation—such as empirical tests—based on economic considerations. It is shown that the Generative Interpretation (...) is inconsistent with a fundamental fact of logic for Peirce—i.e., abduction is a kind of inference—and the Pursuitworthiness Interpretation is flawed and inconsistent with Peirce’s naturalistic explanation for the possibility of science and his view about the limitations of classical scientific method. Changing the exegetical locus classicus from the logical form of abduction to insight and economy of research, I argue for the Unified Interpretation according to which abduction includes both instinctive hypotheses-generation and rule-governed hypotheses-ranking. I show that the Unified Interpretation is immune to the objections raised successfully against the Generative and the Pursuitworthiness interpretations. (shrink)

I argue that if simplicity is a theoretical virtue and some theoretical virtues are the constituents of the aims of theorizing in physics—i.e., theory choice and theory development in physics—and scientific rationality is instrumental rationality, then simplicity cannot be a mere means to achieve the aims. I do this by showing that considering simplicity as a mere means brings about counterintuitive ramifications concerning scientific rationality. These counterintuitive ramifications can be avoided if we consider simplicity a constituent of the aims of (...) theorizing in physics. (shrink)

Bird reveals an important problem at the heart of Armstrong’s theory of laws of nature: to explain how a law necessitates its corresponding regularity, Armstrong is committed to a vicious regress. In his very brief response, Armstrong gestures towards an argument that, as he admits, is more of a “speculation.” Later, Barker and Smart argue that a very similar problem threatens Bird’s dispositional monist theory of laws of nature and he is committed to a similar vicious regress. In this paper, (...) first, I construct Armstrong’s would-be argument in response to Bird. Second, I argue that his response makes his account of laws and natural properties incompatible with science. Finally, I argue that Armstrong’s strategy to address Bird’s criticism can be used, quite ironically, to defuse Barker and Smart’s argument against Bird. (shrink)

One of the many notable virtues of Igor Douven's The Art of Abduction is that it is open access. Since a well-written chapter-by-chapter overview of the book is.

Multiculturalism has become a central theme in many academic disciplines from philosophy to education, social work and psychology, ultimately reaching political science and law. What seems to be unique in current studies on multiculturalism is not merely the observance and display of societies that happen to be diverse in terms of the religious, cultural, national and ethnic affiliation of their members. Rather, it is the central argument that such divergence is legitimate and should be accommodated. Accepting other groups in society (...) and the legitimacy of accommodating them has become a virtue of tolerance.This paper argues that we must first look into multicultural theory itself to discover what can be called ‘multicultural qualifications’. These are in essence pre-conditions without the presence of which group accommodations, even if granted based on group membership, should not be considered as multicultural in nature. With multicultural theory as a backdrop, this article intends to identify such multicultural qualifications. The Palestinian-Arab minority in Israel is studied in its constellation as both a national minority group and as a religiously diverse group as an object for testing the application of the identified multicultural qualifications. (shrink)

Bu makalede, Miladi 18. yy. sonlarına doğru Erbil şehirinin doğu tarafına düşen Koy bölgesinde yaşayan Abdulkadir el-Koyî adlı müfessirin hayatı ve tefsir alanındaki uğraşları aydınlatılmaya çalışılacaktır. Bu çalışmanın birinci bölümünde müfessirin hayatı ve ilmi kişiliği, inanç ve fıkhi olarak bağlı olduğu mezhebin yanı sıra hocaları, öğrencileri ve ilmi değeri, ayrıca kendi döneminde şöhret bulduğu belirgin özellikleri konularına yoğunlaşılaşaktır. İkinci bölümde çalışmamızın konusu olan tefsir tanıtılacaktır. Bunun yanı sıra müfessirin kaynakları arasında yer alan tefsirlerin özellikleri anlatılacaktır. Ayrıca müellifin, tefsiri hazırlama nedeni (...) ele alınacaktır. Üçüncü bölümde, müfessirin çalışmasında takip ettiği yöntem irdelenecektir. Bazı örnekler üzerinden tefsirin olumlu-olumsuz yönleri belirtilecektir. Bu çalışmayı seçmemin nedeni: Eski alimlerimizin In this article, the 18th century. Towards the end of the city of Arbil, Abdulkadir al-Koyî, who lives in the area of the eastern side of the city of Arbil, will try to illuminate his life and commentary. (shrink)

PurposeThe purpose of this paper was to develop a framework of working-together relations and investigate ways to enhance working-together relations among people, organisations, communities and neighbourhoods using working-together applications. Today, people in communities, neighbourhoods and constituencies often work together in a coalition of public, private and non-profit institutions. The technology used today has enabled new forms of communications and collaboration. The rapid growth of mobile technologies and interactive, collaborative applications based on Web technologies has enabled the development of new approaches (...) to derive and share organisational and local knowledge. Not all of these applications have succeeded; after a certain time, users tend to stop using online applications that do not assist them in developing collaborative practices with their team members.Design/methodology/approachTo better understand the essential characteristics of a successful online application that effectively supports people to work together, the authors undertook an inductive analysis of related literature and existing social media application.FindingsBy combining and categorising the findings, it was possible to articulate the characteristics associated with four identified categories of working-together relations: networking, coordination, cooperation and collaboration. The study also identified essential activities that are performed in each working-together category and the factors that enable successful working-together relations: trust, risk and rewards.Research limitations/implicationsFuture studies will look into how applications could be further enhanced, so that, for example, an application that is currently classified as “coordination” could be improved and the required characteristics of “collaboration” could be met.Practical implicationsIt is expected that the framework derived will assist in the design of successful online applications to support different categories of working-together relations.Originality/valueThe main contribution of this study is a new framework that can now be used to identify how effective an existing application can be in assisting the working-together relations. (shrink)

The study investigates the effect of board characteristics and firm performance on disclosure tones by considering DICTION five master variables namely activity, optimism, certainty, realism and commonality tones using a sample of 779 annual reports of GCC listed firms (2012 to 2018). Disclosure tones of the sampled GCC firms were measured through corporate narrative disclosures by DICTION 7.0 software. Then, the ordinary least square regression analysis was conducted. The main findings of the study show that firm performance has a significant (...) effect on disclosure tones in terms of activity, optimism, certainty, and realism tones except for commonality reported tone. Board characteristics have different effects on the five disclosure tones. The study offers a unique contribution to accounting literature as it is one of the first studies in the Gulf region that seeks to examine the relationship between disclosure tones and firm performance as well as board governance. (shrink)

This research implements a recent evolutionary-based algorithm of equilibrium optimizer to resolve the constrained combined economic emission dispatch problem. This problem has two objective functions that represent the minimizing of generation costs and minimizing the emission of environmental pollution caused by generators. The proposed algorithm integrates the dominant criteria for multiobjective functions that allow the decision-maker to detect all the Pareto boundaries of constrained combined economic emission dispatch problem. In order to save the effort for the decision-maker to select the (...) best compromise alternative, a cluster study was carried out to minimize the size of the Pareto boundary to an acceptable size, representing all the characteristics of the main Pareto frontier. On the other hand, in order to deal with the infringement of constraints, a repair algorithm was used to preserve the viability of the particles. The proposed algorithm is applied to solve the standard 30-bus IEEE system with 6 generators to validate its robustness and efficiency to produce a well-distributed Pareto frontier for constrained combined economic emission dispatch problem. Compared with other studies, good results in solving constrained combined economic emission dispatch problem are obtained and a reasonable reduced Pareto set is found. (shrink)

Purpose The developing academic field of machine ethics seeks to make artificial agents safer as they become more pervasive throughout society. In contrast to computer ethics, machine ethics is concerned with the behavior of machines toward human users and other machines. This study aims to use an action-based ethical theory founded on the combinational aspects of deontological and teleological theories of ethics in the construction of an artificial moral agent. Design/methodology/approach The decision results derived by the AMA are acquired via (...) fuzzy logic interpretation of the relative values of the steady-state simulations of the corresponding rule-based fuzzy cognitive map. Findings Through the use of RBFCMs, the following paper illustrates the possibility of incorporating ethical components into machines, where latent semantic analysis and RBFCMs can be used to model dynamic and complex situations, and to provide abilities in acquiring causal knowledge. Research limitations/implications This approach is especially appropriate for data-poor and uncertain situations common in ethics. Nonetheless, to ensure that a machine with an ethical component can function autonomously in the world, research in artificial intelligence will need to further investigate the representation and determination of ethical principles, the incorporation of these ethical principles into a system’s decision procedure, ethical decision-making with incomplete and uncertain knowledge, the explanation for decisions made using ethical principles and the evaluation of systems that act based upon ethical principles. Practical implications To date, the conducted research has contributed to a theoretical foundation for machine ethics through exploration of the rationale and the feasibility of adding an ethical dimension to machines. Further, the constructed AMA illustrates the possibility of utilizing an action-based ethical theory that provides guidance in ethical decision-making according to the precepts of its respective duties. The use of LSA illustrates their powerful capabilities in understanding text and their potential application as information retrieval systems in AMAs. The use of cognitive maps provides an approach and a decision procedure for resolving conflicts between different duties. Originality/value This paper suggests that cognitive maps could be used in AMAs as tools for meta-analysis, where comparisons regarding multiple ethical principles and duties can be examined and considered. With cognitive mapping, complex and abstract variables that cannot easily be measured but are important to decision-making can be modeled. This approach is especially appropriate for data-poor and uncertain situations common in ethics. (shrink)

Multiculturalism has become a central theme in many academic disciplines from philosophy to education, social work and psychology, ultimately reaching political science and law. What seems to be unique in current studies on multiculturalism is not merely the observance and display of societies that happen to be diverse in terms of the religious, cultural, national and ethnic affiliation of their members. Rather, it is the central argument that such divergence is legitimate and should be accommodated. Accepting other groups in society (...) and the legitimacy of accommodating them has become a virtue of tolerance.This paper argues that we must first look into multicultural theory itself to discover what can be called ‘multicultural qualifications’. These are in essence pre-conditions without the presence of which group accommodations, even if granted based on group membership, should not be considered as multicultural in nature. With multicultural theory as a backdrop, this article intends to identify such multicultural qualifications. The Palestinian-Arab minority in Israel is studied in its constellation as both a national minority group and as a religiously diverse group as an object for testing the application of the identified multicultural qualifications. (shrink)

Where did we come from? Why are we here? Where are we going? How should we live? I am sure that whoever is reading my words now has probably, at least once, asked these existential questions [1]. Among them, which one resonates the most? Probably the first question. You are not the only one since it has occupied minds of mankind since the dawn of history. But, why does it have such significance? Simply because its answer impacts everything else including (...) the other three questions. Our lives would become profoundly different based on our answer. There are only two possible answers, each of which has proponents. Theists give the affirmative answer while atheists give the negative one. This controversy involves both philosophical and scientific arguments. The scope of this paper will revolve more around philosophical argumentation than empirical scientific dialogue, into which it shall not dive deeply. The paper gathers different types of arguments, cosmological, moral, and fine-tuning arguments. This way, it introduces a reader new to the controversy to the types of arguments used, and, to readers familiar with the controversy, it gives insight about each type of argument through criticism. Each argument type has a lot of details. However, I care more about presenting the core of each type. My aim in this paper is equipping the reader with a firm foundation for their future search in pursuit of the truth. The main focus shall be on the existence of a first cause. Nonetheless, there shall be also a brief discussion about its attributes. The paper’s methodology for each type of argument is showing evidence for both theistic and atheistic views. Then a collective critical evaluation of each side’s arguments to show which side argues more soundly. (shrink)

On September 11th, 2001, men working for the extremist group, Al-Qaeda, hijacked commercial airplanes and targeted several United States federal buildings: The Pentagon, The White House, and the World Trade Center in New York City. This caused an uproar within the US state and civil society, along with a mass-media coverage on the “terrorist” attacks; this event also resulted in an outbreak of hate-crimes towards Muslims, and those who were believed to be Muslim. The Muslim body was somehow identifiable. A (...) set of religious beliefs turned into an indicator of appearance, and it was the way that the United States utilized biopolitical tactics to marginalize and control this new racial “other.” It is tactics such as Special Registration, among others like preemptive strike that were implemented by the Bush administration that exacerbate the discourse surrounding Muslims as “terrorists.” The term becomes racialized, and the identity of the Muslim becomes intertwined within its meaning. Islam as a religion has been turned into something that can be aesthetically identified. Things like special registration have become ways to make legible and simplify a set of religious beliefs. Sets of thoughts. Ideas. On November 9th 2017 Donald Trump was elected as the next president of the United States. The predecessor to the first black president--Barack Obama--and former reality TV star, was inaugurated in January 2017. The rhetoric during his campaign explicitly targeted minority communities such as the black, latinx, and Muslim population living in the United States. Trump’s tactics such as the border wall, discrimination towards black people, and the Muslim ban heightened the number of hate crimes. Donald Trump’s rhetoric spurs from a long-intact pattern of the Muslim as “other.” In this thesis, I trace a genealogy to reveal the structures that were the foundation of the United States that allow President Donald Trump to continue using the rhetoric of terror to expel Muslims from this country. I analyze Donald Trump's Muslim Ban, the president's own rhetoric, as well as alt right news media. I use Giorgio Agamben’s framework of the state of exception, as well as the histories involving the Spanish Inquisition and the expulsion of the Moors to lay bare the power structures that created what Nicholas DeGenova calls the specter of Terror. (shrink)

This study was conducted to investigate the possible association of the rs1801133 SNP located in the methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase gene through for the development of growth hormone deficiency in Iraqi children. In this study, one genetic locus of 232 bp was designed for amplification. In this locus, a high-frequency single nucleotide polymorphism rs1801133 was targeted. Then, a direct sequencing stratagem was accomplished for designed the PCR amplicons to evaluate the pattern of these SNPs variation among the investigated population. Results identified three (...) forms of the highly polymorphic rs1801133 SNP, namely the normal homozygous, the mutant heterozygous, and the mutant homozygous. Both mutant forms were identified in the majority samples of patients, while the normal G/G form was observed in the majority of the control samples.In conclusion, rs7007634 SNP is a possible causative SNP for our development of the growth hormone deficiency in the children, which revealed a remarkable association with the progression of this disease. (shrink)

Al-Ghazali, as one of the greatest thinkers of the Islamic world, has proposed notable views on religious language. He has addressed the language of revelation according to ontological and epistemological bases and theological-mystical approaches. His most important work in this subject is Jawaher-al-Koran. In this book, which pertains to the period of his engagement with mysticism, al-Ghazali has comprehensively addressed the esoteric understanding of the Qur’an. Based on his notion of revelation and his theory of the conformity of different worlds, (...) he tries to explain how and by which criteria the revelation descends, and also the way the entities of the spiritual world are represented in the mundane world. He, then, presents the way through which mystics can attain the purposes of revelation. This view which should be named the representative language of revelation theory is not similar to any of the theories of other philosophers of religion. (shrink)

BackgroundAfter the declaration of the COVID-19 pandemic, governments established national lockdowns and social distancing as an effective plan to control this disease. As a result of the lockdown policies, diabetic patients` access to food products, medication, and routine follow-ups is disrupted, making it difficult for them to control their disease.MethodsInternational databases, including PubMed/Medline, Web of Science, and Scopus, were searched until April 2022. All observational studies included assessing the impact of lockdown and social distancing on eating habits, and glycemic and (...) anthropometric indices of diabetic patients during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Newcastle-Ottawa Quality Scale was used to assess the quality rating of the studies.ResultsOverall, 22 studies were included in this systematic review, the results of which varied in different communities. In most studies, consumption of grains, fruits, and vegetables was reported to increase. On the other hand, consumption of snacks and sweets was reported to increase in other surveys. During the COVID-19 lockdown, most diabetic patients preferred to cook meals at home, using less takeout, fast foods, and alcoholic drinks. Although the patients mostly improved their eating habits, the glycemic and anthropometric indices were contradictory in different studies. Studies showed that the eating habits of diabetic patients vary from country to country, even in some cases and studies done in the same country showed different results. For example, all the studies done in Japan showed an increase in the consumption of snacks and sweets, leading to weight gain in the patients. However, conflicting results in eating habits have been observed in studies conducted in India.ConclusionThe lockdown policies have led to a beneficial change in the eating habits of diabetic patients to consume more fruits and vegetables and reduce the consumption of animal protein products and alcoholic beverages. While some diabetic patients have increased consumption of snacks and sweets, leading to a disturbance in their glycemic and anthropometric indices control. Understanding the consequences of lockdown and social distancing of the diabetic patient during the COVID-19 pandemic can help public health authorities make better recommendations to improve glycemic control. (shrink)

Structurally, the book is comprised of 35 chapters plus an overview (chapter 1) and an epilogue (part VI, chapter 37) by the editors each of which has its own outstanding merit and objectives. The book consists of two types of chapters: experience-based and data-based. The former chapters are listed together first in each part of the volume and are based on the authors’ direct consideration and observations of challenges in language testing, including narrations, reflections, and analyses about LTA issues. The (...) latter chapters are deployed in the second group of chapters in each part. These chapters portray data collected and analyzed by authors. Thematically, there are five main parts in this volume, each of which featuring challenges confronted, observed, or inspected by the authors; the challenges from which language test users can derive benefits via observing the significant impacts of diversified challenges, issues, and problems and how they were approached and resolved, culminating in invaluable insight into LTA and language test use. (shrink)

Decision trees learning is one of the most practical classification methods in machine learning, which is used for approximating discrete-valued target functions. However, they may overfit the training data, which limits their ability to generalize to unseen instances. In this study, we investigated the use of instance reduction techniques to smooth the decision boundaries before training the decision trees. Noise filters such as ENN, RENN, and ALLKNN remove noisy instances while DROP3 and DROP5 may remove genuine instances. Extensive empirical experiments (...) were conducted on 13 benchmark datasets from UCI machine learning repository with and without intentionally introduced noise. Empirical results show that eliminating border instances improves the classification accuracy of decision trees and reduces the tree size, which reduces the training and classification times. In datasets without intentionally added noise, applying noise filters without the use of the built-in Reduced Error Pruning gave the best classification accuracy. ENN, RENN, and ALLKNN outperformed decision trees learning without pruning in 9, 9, and 8 out of 13 datasets, respectively. The datasets reduced using ENN and RENN without built-in pruning were more effective when noise was intentionally introduced in different ratios. (shrink)