Francesco Guala has written an important book proposing a new account of social institutions and criticizing existing ones. We focus on Guala’s critique of collective acceptance theories of institutions, widely discussed in the literature of collective intentionality. Guala argues that at least some of the collective acceptance theories commit their proponents to antinaturalist methodology of social science. What is at stake here is what kind of philosophizing is relevant for the social sciences. We argue that a Searlean version of collective (...) acceptance theory can be defended against Guala’s critique and question the sufficiency of Guala’s account of the ontology of the social world. (shrink)

The main evidence used in a matter of proving prophethood in Kalām is miracles. For this reason, other extraordinary situations that miraculously occur have always been on the agenda of theologians. Of these the most similar to miracle is karāma events that occur extraordinary in the hands of Walī. Karāma has been discussed on certain theoretical grounds in kalām books during the beginning period of Sunnī kalām. As in other theological debates, the leading adversaries of Sunnī theologians in the issue (...) of karāma were Muʿtazilite theologians. This study discusses approaches towards karāma in early period of Sunnī kalām. Accordingly, the scholars who determined the basic approaches of Ashʿariyya and Māturīdiyya kalām schools are included in the study. İmām al-Ashʿarī, Ibn Fūrak, al-Bāqillānī, ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Baghdādī, Abu’l-Maʿālī İmām al-ḥaramayn al-Juwaynī, Abū ʿAbdallāh al-Ḥalīmī and Abū Isḥāq al-Isfarāyīnī from Ashʿarī school; Abū Manṣūr al-Māturīdī, Ḥakīm as-Samarqandī, Abū al-Yusr al-Bazdawī and Abū al-Muīn an-Nasafī from Māturīdiyya school, in this context, are included in the study. Besides, some authors from fields other than kalām are included in the scope of the study in order to determine the first use of the concept of karāma and different approaches are discussed. In the study, after the views of the theologians on the subject are presented descriptively, these views are critically assessed. (shrink)

Bu makalede Erken dönem Eş‘ariyye’de dakîku’l-kelâm konusu izah edilmeye çalışılacaktır. Kelâm ilminin sistematik hale gelişinden itibaren konuları genellikle dakîku’l-kelâm ve celîlu’l-kelâm şeklinde ikili bir tasnifle ele alınmıştır. Dakîku’l-kelâm, konusu itibariyle âlem, âlemin unsurları, cevher, araz, cisim gibi fizik alanına tekabül ederken celîlu’l-kelâm ise uluhiyyet, nübüvvet ve sem’iyyât ile ilişkili olan metafizik alana tekabül etmektedir. Hicrî dördüncü asırda teşekkül eden Eş‘arî kelâm okulu varlık konusu başta olmak üzere fizik ve metafizik konuları sistematik bir şekilde ele almıştır. Erken dönem Eş‘arî kelâmında kelâm (...) ilminin fizik alanına tekabül eden dakîku’l-kelâm konularına epeyce yer verilmiştir. Bu çalışmada amacımız erken dönem Eş‘ariyye’nin Allah-âlem ilişkisi, âlemin hudûsu ve unsurları, cisim, cevher ve araz gibi meseleleri içeren dakîku’l-kelâm anlayışını sunmaktır. Allah-âlem ilişkisini ele almada daha önceleri Mu‘tezile tarafından kullanılan kelâm atomculuğunun Eş‘arî kelâmında da benimsenip benimsenmediğine değinilecektir. Aynı şekilde Âlemin işleyişinde bir zorunluluğun olup olmadığı meselesini konu edinen illiyet/nedensellik tartışmaları da ele alınacaktır. Bu çalışmanın erken dönem Eş‘arî kelâmının dakîku’l-kelâm alanındaki özgünlüğünü ortaya koymasını ve yeni çalışmalara kapı aralayarak literatüre bir katkı sunmasını umuyoruz. Çalışmada literatür taraması, mukayese ve metin analizi yöntemi kullanılmış olup konu erken dönem Eş‘ariyye ile sınırlandırılmıştır. (shrink)

Recent years have seen an increasing interest in the study of continuous-time computational models. However, not so much has been done with respect to setting up a complexity theoretic framework for such models. The present paper intends to go a step into this direction. We consider problems over the real numbers which we try to relate to Lyapunov theory for dynamical systems: The global minimizers of particular energy functions are supposed to give solutions of the problem. The structure of such (...) energy functions leads to the introduction of problem classes U and NU; for the systems we are considering they parallel the classical complexity classes P and NP. We then introduce a notion of reducibility among problems and show existence of complete problems for NU and for PU, a polynomial hierarchy of continuous-time problems.For previous work on the computational capabilities of continuous-time systems see the surveys by Cris Moore [9] and by Pekka Orponen [10]. Our paper presents a step into the direction of creating a general framework for a complexity theory of continuous-time systems as outlined in [10]. It is closely related to work done by A. Ben-Hur, H. Siegelmann, and S. Fishman [12, 11]. (shrink)

The contents of the inaugural volume of Oxford Studies in Metaethics nicely mirror the variety of issues that make this area of philosophy so interesting. The volume opens with Peter Railton's exploration of some central features of normative guidance, the mental states that underwrite it, and its relationship to our reasons for feeling and acting. In the next offering, Terence Cuneo takes up the case against expressivism, arguing that its central account of the nature of moral judgments is badly mistaken. (...) Terence Horgan and Mark Timmons, two of the most prominent contemporary expressivists, then offer their take on how expressivism manages to avoid a different objection-that of collapsing into an objectionable form of relativism. Daniel Jacobson and Justin D'Arms next offer an article that continues their research program devoted to exploring the extent to which values might depend upon, or be constrained by, human psychology. Ralph Wedgwood engages in some classical metaethical conceptual analysis, seeking to explicate the meaning of ought. Mark van Roojen then contributes a new take on the Moral Twin Earth Argument, a prominent anti-realist puzzle advanced in the early 1990s by Horgan and Timmons. -/- Allan Gibbard next presents his latest thoughts on the nature of moral feelings and moral concepts, crucial elements in the overall project of defending the expressivism he is so well known for. James Dreier then takes up the details of Gibbard's recent efforts to provide a solution to what many view as the most serious difficulty for expressivism, namely, the Frege-Geach problem. Dreier identifies difficulties in Gibbard's expressivist account, and offers a suggestion for their solution. Sergio Tenenbaum explores the concept of a direction of fit, relied on so heavily nowadays in accounts of moral motivation. Nadeem Hussain and Nishiten Shah then consider the merits of Christine Korsgaard's influential critique of moral realism. T. M. Scanlon's widely-discussed buck-passing account of value attracts the critical eye of Pekka Väyrynen, who attempts to reveal the reasons that we might resist it. Derek Parfit's contribution concludes this volume, with an article on normativity that presents his most recent thinking on this fundamental notion. (shrink)

The contents of the inaugural volume of Oxford Studies in Metaethics nicely mirror the variety of issues that make this area of philosophy so interesting. The volume opens with Peter Railton's exploration of some central features of normative guidance, the mental states that underwrite it, and its relationship to our reasons for feeling and acting. In the next offering, Terence Cuneo takes up the case against expressivism, arguing that its central account of the nature of moral judgments is badly mistaken. (...) Terence Horgan and Mark Timmons, two of the most prominent contemporary expressivists, then offer their take on how expressivism manages to avoid a different objection-that of collapsing into an objectionable form of relativism. Daniel Jacobson and Justin D'Arms next offer an article that continues their research program devoted to exploring the extent to which values might depend upon, or be constrained by, human psychology. Ralph Wedgwood engages in some classical metaethical conceptual analysis, seeking to explicate the meaning of ought. Mark van Roojen then contributes a new take on the Moral Twin Earth Argument, a prominent anti-realist puzzle advanced in the early 1990s by Horgan and Timmons.Allan Gibbard next presents his latest thoughts on the nature of moral feelings and moral concepts, crucial elements in the overall project of defending the expressivism he is so well known for. James Dreier then takes up the details of Gibbard's recent efforts to provide a solution to what many view as the most serious difficulty for expressivism, namely, the Frege-Geach problem. Dreier identifies difficulties in Gibbard's expressivist account, and offers a suggestion for their solution. Sergio Tenenbaum explores the concept of a direction of fit, relied on so heavily nowadays in accounts of moral motivation. Nadeem Hussain and Nishiten Shah then consider the merits of Christine Korsgaard's influential critique of moral realism. T. M. Scanlon's widely-discussed buck-passing account of value attracts the critical eye of Pekka Väyrynen, who attempts to reveal the reasons that we might resist it. Derek Parfit's contribution concludes this volume, with an article on normativity that presents his most recent thinking on this fundamental notion. (shrink)

Abstract The increasing prevalence of armed drones in the conduct of military operations has generated robust debate. Among legal scholars, the crux of the dispute generally pits those who herald the new technology's unparalleled precision against those who view such newfound capabilities as an inducement to employ excessive force. Largely overlooked in the discussion over how drone strikes can be accomplished lawfully is a more fundamental question: Can a model of warfare that eschews any risk of harm to one party (...) be squared with the ethical framework that informs the law of war? This matter has less to do with the technology per se than with a policy orientation that utilizes such technology as a strategy in itself, as opposed to one military tool in a larger arsenal. A corollary to the incongruity of riskless warfare is to query whether the ensuing breakdown of ethical and legal norms unwittingly encourages the very instability that the law of war attempts to control, thereby endangering the civilian populations of all parties to the conflict. While other authors have previously addressed the challenges posed by asymmetry to the law of armed conflict in different formats, this article explores these issues through a hypothetical scenario and seeks to elucidate some of the potential ramifications of the pursuit of physical impunity in war. (shrink)

Using as a springboard a three-way debate between theoretical physicist Lee Smolin, philosopher of science Nancy Cartwright and myself, I address in layman’s terms the issues of why we need a unified theory of the fundamental interactions and why, in my opinion, string and M-theory currently offer the best hope. The focus will be on responding more generally to the various criticisms. I also describe the diverse application of string/M-theory techniques to other branches of physics and mathematics which render the (...) whole enterprise worthwhile whether or not “a theory of everything” is forthcoming. (shrink)

In addition to thin concepts like the good, the bad and the ugly, our evaluative thought and talk appeals to thick concepts like the lewd and the rude, the selfish and the cruel, the courageous and the kind -- concepts that somehow combine evaluation and non-evaluative description. Thick concepts are almost universally assumed to be inherently evaluative in content, and many philosophers claimed them to have deep and distinctive significance in ethics and metaethics. In this first book-length treatment of thick (...) concepts, Pekka Väyrynen argues that all this is mistaken. Through detailed attention to the language of thick concepts, he defends a novel theory on which the relationship between thick words and evaluation is best explained by general conversational and pragmatic norms. Drawing on general principles in philosophy of language, he argues that many prominent features of thick words and concepts can be explained by general factors that have nothing in particular to do with being evaluative. If evaluation is not essential to the sort of thinking we do with thick concepts, claims for the deep and distinctive significance of the thick are undermined. The Lewd, the Rude and the Nasty is a fresh and innovative treatment of an important topic in moral philosophy and sets a new agenda for future work. It will be essential reading to anyone interested in the analysis and the broader philosophical significance of evaluative and normative language. (shrink)

Our research is based on a rather large "library" of various works by M. Drahomanov, which contains his views on religion. Among them: Paradise and Progress, From the History of Relations Between Church and State in Western Europe, Faith and Public Affairs, Fight for Spiritual Power and Freedom of Conscience in the 16th - 17th Centuries,, "Church and State in the Roman Empire", "The Status and Tasks of the Science of Ancient History," "Evangelical Faith in Old England," "Populism and Popular (...) Progress in Austrian Rus, Austrian-Russian Remembrance," "Pious The Legend of the Bulgarians "," The Issues of Religious Freedom in Russia, "" On the Brotherhood of the Baptist or the Baptist in Ukraine, "" The Foreword, " Shevchenko, Ukrainianophiles and Socialism "," Wonderful thoughts about the Ukrainian national affair "," Zazdri gods "," Slavic variants of one Gospel legend "," Resurrection of Christ ", etc. (shrink)

Although the history of centrally planned economies has been widely studied, the development of socialist thinking on the subject has remained largely uncharted. In this 1991 work, Pekka Sutela presents a detailed analysis of Soviet economic thought and theory. Dr Sutela traces the competing currents in the Marxist tradition of socialist economies from the Revolution to the present day. In particular he shows how the Gorbachev economic reform programme of 1987 rose from the work of Nobel Prize economist L. (...) V. Kantorovich and his followers. However, this programme failed and the author explains in some detail why this happened. Since then, Soviet economists have tried to abandon their traditional theory of central planning and move along the path and long established contacts with leading Soviet economists, Pekka Sutela is able to show how Soviet economic thinking has moved from dogmatism through reformism to pragmatism. (shrink)

The dimensional structure of phenomenal space and its relation to the brain have not been widely focused on in brain and consciousness studies. This paper postulates that focusing on the dimensional structures displayed in the relation between phenomenal space and the brain is necessary for understanding the integration of distributed brain events in binding. A related issue is why items and events of phenomenal space and consciousness as they appear in experience seem to be beyond the reach of natural scientific (...) empirical observation. The proposed solution to these issues is postulated to require a fourth spatial dimension. A transcendence principle of detection (TPD) is introduced, which states that transcendent degrees of freedom of an n+1 dimension are a necessary condition for experiencing or detecting an n-dimensionally extended physical structure as an n-dimensionally extended phenomenal structure. It is postulated that the phenomenal outcome of binding, i.e. the threedimensionally distributed and extended phenomenal structure of human experience, is the expected first-person outcome of threedimensionally distributed neurophysical structures being monitored at the domain of a fourth spatial dimension. (shrink)

This is the first of a series of commentaries on the works of the latest Heidegger; all of Heidegger's works published by Neske of Pfullingen since 1954 will be presented and interpreted in the series. The expository plan announced in the editor's preface calls for three-part commentaries, with the first part summarizing the work in question, the second presenting glosses of lines or paragraphs as required by their respective importance, and the third giving philological exegesis of texts also as required (...) in the judgment of the editors. The interpretative inspiration is generally traditional, with more emphasis given to themes with echoes in medieval and modern rationalism and in Italian and French ontologism. The editors adopt Heidegger's characteristic attitude in his latter period, his relinquishing of all objective or subjective idealistic presuppositions. Ontology thus becomes the unveiling of the conditions of possibility of Dasein's speech as truth-making. In Being and Time these conditions of possibility were given in the fundamental ontology and reached their existential expression in resolve. In Gelassenheit Dasein has become a mere instrumentality for the ultimate sense of Being to come to pass. The conditions of possibility of the new Dasein are well understood and highlighted by Landolt. Their existential expression is a new temporal tension within the Dasein, that of Warten or attending. If resolve was the modal intentionality of authentic Dasein, attending is the modal intentionality of poetic symbolic Dasein. Landolt does not seem to have been sufficiently critical of the reflective character of this new intentionality. Can it adequately ground essence, fact and freedom? The techniques of this commentary often depart from hermeneutical respect for the text.--A. M. (shrink)