يقدم المؤلف لنا قانونا اجتماعيًا لعلماء النفس والاجتماع السياسي صاغه كالآتي: (إذا زاد عدد الأفراد الذين يمارسون تصرّفًا يعدّ خزيًا، وتساهل القانون في محاسبة مرتكبيه، وعجز الناس عن إيقافه أو وجدوا له تبريرًا، تحوّل إلى ظاهرة ولم يعد خزيًا كما كان). و من هذه العبارة التقديمية يمكن أن نؤكد أن هذا الكتاب لا يمكن إيفاءه حقه بنبذة موجزة، فهو سفر فكري ممتع، حيث يتناول المؤلف فيه بشكل تحليلي وعلمي مقنع أهم الموضوعات التي تشغل العقل العربي، ما بين شخصيات سياسية كصدام (...) وسليماني، وما بين فكرة الموت والانتحار، والبغاء والجريمة، والالحاد والإيمان، واللاوعي الجمعي العربي وما يحمله من أمراض وانحرافات، والتحرش والكبت، والفساد والسلطة، واللغة العربية والحضارة. (shrink)

The research is devoted to the study of the phenomenon of spiritual culture of Modern times - creationism. Authors analyze the causes of creationist teachings, as well as develop a classification of forms of creationism. As such, the following are distinguished and analyzed: biblical creationism, scientific creationism, theological evolutionism, teleological creationism, alterism, missionary creationism. Biblical creationism is a literal understanding of the texts of the Bible relating to the creation of the Earth and man. Scientific creationism is an attempt by (...) individual scientists to combine scientific knowledge with religious beliefs. It gathers scientific evidence in favor of the biblical narrative, and, at the same time, rational arguments against the scientific theory of evolution. On the contrary, theological evolutionism, especially in the form of concordism, tries to reconcile the scientific and religious view of evolution. This is achieved through the interpretation of Biblical symbols through modern scientific concepts, or by the creation of a new pseudo-religion (for example, Teilhardism). Teleological creationism, in the modern form of Intelligent Design theory, popular in Western Protestantism, using the data of natural sciences, criticizes the foundations of the theory of biological evolution, thus demonstrating the gap of natural causality in order to justify the supernatural purposefulness of the Universe. Alterism asserts that the very nature of the world before original sin was different, therefore, the current knowledge of nature cannot correspond to the original plan of God reflected in the Bible. For the first time, highlighted and explored in this work, missionary creationism seeks to interpret the Bible from the point of view of concepts of modern science in order to bring a person with an already formed scientific picture of the world to faith. It is shown that most of the above forms demonstrate a pseudoscientific or pseudo-religious essence. The authors make an assumption about the origins of creationist teachings rooted in the introduction of elements of Neoplatonic philosophy into Christian teaching. The seeming contradiction between science and religion in understanding the evolution of nature finds its explanation through the disclosure of creationism's claim to understand the world as a "thing in itself". (shrink)

In this paper we present the concept of neutrosophic quadruple algebraic structures. Specially, we study neutrosophic quadruple rings and we present their elementary properties.

Patients and physicians do not know the cost of medical procedures. Opaque medical billing thus contributes to exorbitant, rising medical costs, burdening the healthcare system and individuals. After criticizing two proposed solutions to the problem of opaque medical billing, I argue that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services should pursue a rule requiring that patients be informed by the physician of a reasonable out-of-pocket expense estimate for non-urgent procedures prior to services rendered.

Tom 1. Metafilosofii︠a︡, ontologii︠a︡, gnoseologii︠a︡, filosofii︠a︡ i metodologii︠a︡ nauki --.

Interpretation of Vedanta, Hindu philosophy.

While the rise of a ‘dictatorship of relativism’ was a longstanding concern for Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI, some commentators have suggested that—for better or for worse—the challenge posed by relativism appears to be less of a priority for Pope Francis. Indeed, Francis's remark, ‘Who am I to judge?’ appears to have become as much the defining soundbite for his papacy as the ‘dictatorship of relativism’ was for Benedict's. Contrary to these perceptions, this article argues that a critique of relativism is (...) in fact a central aspect of Pope Francis's magisterium. Francis exhibits continuity with Benedict by amplifying his concerns about the danger of attempting to reconstruct reality according to human desire, but Francis also develops his predecessor's teaching by introducing the category of ‘practical relativism’. With this development, relativism cannot be dismissed as a theoretical problem that only plagues those who refuse to assent to the truth intellectually. The willingness to set aside the truth to which one assents when it proves inconvenient represents a more pernicious—precisely because more subtle—form of relativism that Francis argues must be rooted out, not by argument, but through self‐examination and the practice of solidarity. (shrink)

Для широкого круга читателей (слушателей, аспирантов, преподавателей) интересующихся данной проблемой.

The expertise defense is the best-known response by armchair philosophers to the challenge posed by experimental philosophers regarding the trustworthiness of intuitions. In a series of recent experiments, Experimental philosophers have recently focused on professional philosophers, claiming that, contrary to what the expertise defense assumes, philosophers’ intuitions are no less susceptible to the influence of irrelevant factors (the direct strategy). Additionally, drawing from literature on expertise, they contend that, unlike other domains of expertise, practice does not improve philosophers’ intuitions (the (...) indirect strategy). In this paper, adopting a skill-based perspective on expertise, my primary objective is to defend the expertise defense against both direct and indirect strategies. Based on the skill-based account, I present three arguments against the direct strategy by challenging its power, scope and methodology. Furthermore, borrowing empirical findings from recent literature on expertise, I argue against the indirect strategy that four skills that constitute philosophical expertise regarding thought experiments can be improved through various forms of practice, including deliberate practice. However, my moderate defense departs from typical versions of the expertise defense since I argue that while recent experiments by experimental philosophers cannot undermine the expertise defense, they provide valuable insights into philosophical expertise. (shrink)

BackgroundInformed consent as stipulated in regulatory human research guidelines requires volunteers to be well-informed about what will happen to them in a trial. However, researchers may be faced with the challenge of how to ensure that a volunteer agreeing to take part in a clinical trial is truly informed. This study aimed to find out volunteers’ comprehension of informed consent and voluntary participation in Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) clinical trials during the registration cohort.MethodsWe conducted a qualitative study among volunteers who (...) were enrolled in the registration cohort of HIV clinical trials in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. A purposive sampling strategy was used to obtain twenty study participants. The data were collected between June and September 2020 using a semi-structured interview guide. In-depth interviews were used to collect the data to obtain deep insights of the individual study participants on the comprehension of informed consent and participation in the clinical trial. A thematic analysis approach was used to analyze the data. Themes and subthemes were supported by the quotes from the participants.ResultsVolunteers described comprehension of informed consent from different perspectives. They reported that various components of the informed consent such as study procedure, confidentiality, risk and benefits were grasped during engagement meetings. Furthermore, the volunteers’ decision to participate in the registration cohort was voluntary. However, trial aspects such as health insurance, free condoms, and medical checkups could have indirectly influenced their reluctance to withdraw from the study.ConclusionEngagement meetings may increase the comprehension of informed consent among potential participants for HIV clinical trials. However, trial incentives may influence participation, and thus future research should focus on the challenges of giving incentives in the study. This will ensure comprehension and voluntary participation in the context of HIV clinical trials. (shrink)

In this case report, we describe a woman with advancing dementia who still retained decisional capacity and was able to clearly articulate her request for deactivation of her implanted cardiac pacemaker—a scenario that would result in her death. In this case, the patient had the autonomy to make her decision, but clinicians at an outside hospital refused to deactivate her pacemaker even though they were in unanimous agreement that the patient had capacity to make this decision, citing personal discomfort and (...) a belief that her decision seemed out of proportion to her suffering. We evaluated her at our hospital, found her to have decision-making capacity, and deactivated her pacer resulting in her death about 9 days later. While some clinicians may be comfortable discussing patient preferences for device deactivation in patients who are imminently dying, we can find no reports in the literature of requests for device deactivation from patients with terminal diagnoses who are not imminently dying. (shrink)

This paper considers the African communal ethic of Ubuntu as it is understood in the South African context. Its background and context and the various interpretations of this lived ethic in society and academia will be explored. According to Ubuntu, what is good is constituted by how one relates to others (affirming others, empathising, etc.). It is not an ethic that is purely governed by laws and the outcomes of actions. This paper considers the detrimental effect of gangsterism on prisoners’ (...) personal and social development in South African prisons and illustrates how the solidarity and identity of prisoners is merely an illusion that misguidedly resembles communal harmony or Ubuntu. Specifically, after pointing out how indigenous values in South Africa tend to prescribe honouring harmonious relationships, this paper will reveal how this approach to morality affects the way one understands prison conditions, prison relations and criminal justice. It advances that the values of Ubuntu have the potential to aid in prisoner rehabilitation and help prisoners stand against gang life in prison. This paper will suggest that the harmony found in Ubuntu has implications different from gang conformity. Lacking the space to systematically defend harmony as a fundamental value, it nonetheless urges theorists not to disregard it when considering prison transformation in South Africa. The intention of this study is not to demonstrate that Ubuntu is superior to the more popular Western moral theories in South Africa, but rather to tease out the implications of one plausible interpretation of Ubuntu and apply it to prison communities in South Africa. (shrink)

Cognitive Stylistics or Poetics has emerged as a powerful framework for the analysis of literary works due to the fact that it provides us with tools stemming from bodily experience which aim at universality. This proposal attempts to shed additional light on the analysis of the characters and settings carried out by Freeman (1995) by making use of some recent developments within the framework of Cognitive Linguistics, especially in connection with metonymy and image-schemas. It lends further support to the thesis (...) that Cognitive Poetics is endowed with explanatory power since it accounts both for the processes of generation and understanding of literary texts. (shrink)

More than 50 years ago, Bongard introduced 100 visual concept learning problems as a challenge for artificial vision systems. These problems are now known as Bongard problems. Although they are well known in cognitive science and artificial intelligence, only very little progress has been made toward building systems that can solve a substantial subset of them. In the system presented here, visual features are extracted through image processing and then translated into a symbolic visual vocabulary. We introduce a formal language (...) that allows representing compositional visual concepts based on this vocabulary. Using this language and Bayesian inference, concepts can be induced from the examples that are provided in each problem. We find a reasonable agreement between the concepts with high posterior probability and the solutions formulated by Bongard himself for a subset of 35 problems. While this approach is far from solving Bongard problems like humans, it does considerably better than previous approaches. We discuss the issues we encountered while developing this system and their continuing relevance for understanding visual cognition. For instance, contrary to other concept learning problems, the examples are not random in Bongard problems; instead they are carefully chosen to ensure that the concept can be induced, and we found it helpful to take the resulting pragmatic constraints into account. (shrink)

Serving as a healthcare worker in a conflict zone is an experience that is characterized by peculiar and unimaginable challenges. This commentary is an exposition on twelve collated stories of healthcare providers currently serving or who have previously served in war. The stories bring to bear the heaviness of emotions such as fear and guilt that the authors grappled with, while concurrently showing that they embody virtues such as altruism, self-sacrifice, courage, and solidarity. In these stories, we see highlighted recurrent (...) ethical themes including the tension between the duty to others and the duty to self, prioritization and allocation of scarce health resources, ethics of research in war, ethics of virtue and the lasting effects of war. This commentary thus explores and heightens our awareness of the interplay between personal morals and the translation of these into ethics of healthcare provision in war. In so doing, the commentary urges us to reflect on ways by which we can engage the discourse pertaining to war and healthcare ethics. (shrink)

United Nations (UN) leaders suggest that the world is not on track to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. The purpose of this paper is to explore whether the SDGs provide a valuable platform to call for a basic income (BI) globally. Adopting a critical historical studies approach, the article traces the evolution of ‘development’, including the UN decades of development, the Millennium Development Goals, and the SDGs. It subsequently describes the structural adjustment and poverty reduction efforts by (...) the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, and then outlines why the SDG framework may be helpful in advancing a BI. We argue that as climate-related disasters increase, a BI will be vital in providing a modicum of security in an increasingly unstable world. Calls for BI must be anchored to a broader change agenda that recognizes the causes of poverty and income inequality, and seeks their dismantling and redress. (shrink)