The article deals with the main ideas of the political philosophy of Abu Abdallah Ibn al-Azraq al-Garnati (1427-1491), a well-known Muslim statesman, supreme judge of Granada, lawyer, diplomat, supporter of Arab Muslim peripatetism, a student of the outstanding thinker of the Muslim Middle Ages Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406). In the history of the political philosophy of the Muslim East, a number of major transformations in the development of the Arab Caliphate from the Medina state of the prophet to the Sultanate in (...) the Abbasid period should be noted, which were reflected in the development of the theory of the Arab-Muslim state (caliphate). The main problem of the theory of the caliphate was connected with the question of the relationship between power and authority in the context of the moral foundations of the state. The creative heritage of Ibn al-Azraq is mainly known for his work in the genre of adab ("mirrors of princes") “Miracles on the way, or the Nature of dominion”. The treatise became a classic of the political philosophy of the Muslim Middle Ages, in which, under the influence of Aristotelian ideas, a special place was given to the moral foundations of power and the state, that is, ethics was considered as a political science. In the form of instructive parables, the rulers and heirs to the throne were explained the basics of state administration as part of their studies and education. His doctrine of the virtues can be viewed as ethical rationalism with a belief in the moral perfection of people in power and subjects of the state. Since morals are largely acquired and a person can control them, the task of purifying his own morals and curing them is entrusted to him. In addition, accordingly, it is possible and necessary to cultivate virtues in rulers, since the well-being of the state and the ummah depends on their morals. The moral foundations of power determine the strength of political authority. (shrink)

The life of the brain is believed to be a major factor determining the existence of subjective reality during clinical death. The duration of the existence in question cannot be measured in the units of astronomical time for two reasons. Firstly, it is impossible to determine once and for all how long the brain survives after cardiac arrest and termination of breathing. Secondly, the duration of subjective time during near death experience (NDE) differs from that typical of daily regular experience. (...) Immobilization, loss of the sensation of one’s body, state of affect and severe sensory deprivation ensure that consciousness is focused and fixated in and onto itself exclusively which, in its turn, diminish and slacken the course of time so that it expands to eternity and subjective reality goes beyond the usual limits of the temporal “past-present-future” paradigm. (shrink)

A new proof is given of the celebrated theorem of M. Davis, H. Putnam and J. Robinson concerning exponential Diophantine representation of recursively enumerable predicates. The proof goes by induction on the defining scheme of a partial recursive function.

This book is a collection of articles on research that attempts to connect logic and mathematics with empirical and cognition. There have been various such a...

The author discusses A. M. Dorozhkin’s ideas about constructing and typology of “trading zones”. He considers the influence of the substantive economics’ on science and education. The author argues that the universality of the institutions of reciprocity, redistribution and trade makes possible their stability in the process of institutionalization of scientific and educational activities.

The author aims at an objective reinterpretation of L.Feuerbach's doctrine and refuting the prejudices that exist in the historical and philosophical tradition in relation to the Feuerbachian philosophical system. Through an analysis of Feuerbach's views on such concepts as the historical and philosophical paradigm, the relation of man to the world, dialectics and religion, the author concludes that these elements of Feuerbach's doctrine were distorted by K. Marx, F. Engels and their followers. The author demonstrates through Feuerbachian responses to 11 (...) theses of Marx by H.M. Sass that some aspects of Feuerbach's philosophy remain relevant to philosophy, and that the founders of Marxism distorted Feuerbach's doctrine in order to distinguish their philosophical system as more modern and true. (shrink)

Let M be a first-order structure; we denote by DEF(M) the set of all first-order definable relations and functions within M. Let π be any one-to-one function from N into the set of prime integers. Let ∣ and $\bullet$ be respectively the divisibility relation and multiplication as function. We show that the sets DEF(N,π,∣) and $\mathrm{DEF}(\mathbb{N},\pi,\bullet)$ are equal. However there exists function π such that the set DEF(N,π,∣), or, equivalently, $\mathrm{DEF}(\mathbb{N},\pi,\bullet)$ is not equal to $\mathrm{DEF}(\mathbb{N},+,\bullet)$ . Nevertheless, in all cases (...) there is an $\{\pi,\bullet\}$ -definable and hence also {π,∣}-definable structure over N which is isomorphic to $\langle\mathbb{N},+,\bullet\rangle$ . Hence theories TH(N,π,∣) and $\mathrm{TH}(\mathbb{N},\pi,\bullet)$ are undecidable. The binary relation of equipotence between two positive integers saying that they have equal number of prime divisors is not definable within the divisibility lattice over positive integers. We prove it first by comparing the lower bound of the computational complexity of the additive theory of positive integers and of the upper bound of the computational complexity of the theory of the mentioned lattice. The last section provides a self-contained alternative proof of this latter result based on a decision method linked to an elimination of quantifiers via specific tables. (shrink)

Philosophical Thought in Russia in the Second Half of the 20th Century is the first book of its kind that offers a systematic overview of an often misrepresented period in Russia's philosophy. Focusing on philosophical ideas produced during the late 1950s – early 1990s, it reconstructs the development of genuine philosophical thought in the Soviet period and introduces those non-dogmatic Russian thinkers who saw in philosophy a means of reforming social and intellectual life. Covering such areas of philosophical inquiry as (...) philosophy of science, philosophical anthropology, the history of philosophy, activity approach as well as communication and dialogue studies, the volume presents and thoroughly discusses central topics and concepts developed by Soviet thinkers in that particular fields. Written by a team of internationally recognized scholars from Russia and abroad, it examines the work of well-known Soviet philosophers (such as Mikhail Bakhtin, Evald Ilyenkov and Merab Mamardashvili) as well as those important figures (such as Vladimir Bibler, Alexander Zinoviev, Yury Lotman, Georgy Shchedrovitsky, Genrich Batishchev, Sergey Rubinstein, and others) who have often been overlooked. By introducing and examining original philosophical ideas that evolved in the Soviet period, the book confirms that not all Soviet philosophy was dogmatic and tied to orthodox Marxism and the ideology of Marxism-Leninism. It shows Russian philosophical development of the Soviet period in a new light, as a philosophy defined by a genuine discourse of exploration and intellectual progress, rather than stagnation and dogmatism. In addition to providing the historical and cultural background that explains the development of the 20th-century Russian philosophy, the book also puts the discussed ideas and theories in the context of contemporary philosophical discussions showing their relevance to nowadays debates in Western philosophy. With short biographies of key thinkers, an extensive current bibliography and a detailed chronology of Soviet philosophy, this research resource provides a new understanding of the Soviet period and its intellectual legacy 100 years after the Russian Revolution. (shrink)

This article traces disagreements about the genetic effects of low-dose radiation exposure as waged by James Neel, a central figure in radiation studies of Japanese populations after World War II, and Yuri Dubrova, who analyzed the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident. In a 1996 article in Nature, Dubrova reported a statistically significant increase in the minisatellite DNA mutation rate in the children of parents who received a high dose of radiation from the Chernobyl accident, contradicting studies that found (...) no significant inherited genetic effects among offspring of Japanese A-bomb survivors. Neel’s subsequent defense of his large-scale longitudinal studies of the genetic effects of ionizing radiation consolidated current scientific understandings of low-dose ionizing radiation. The article seeks to explain how the Hiroshima/nagasaki data remain hegemonic in radiation studies, contextualizing the debate with attention to the perceived inferiority of Soviet genetic science during the Cold War. (shrink)

This essay contextualizes the Dantean figure of Ulysses, as conceived by Yuri M. Lotman, and draws this key figure of modernity into a network of mutually interconnected discourses: primarily transhumanist visions of the human future in space, which nevertheless arise from the specifically modern epistemic dimension of “restlessness,” and intertwine with post-war astronautics, cyborg visions of human re-engineering, and revolutionary considerations of speculative realism. The key is Lotman’s emphasis on Ulysses as a figure of “energy of thought”; in this (...) regard, the essay shows how the original poetic “decision,” embodied by the Ulysses figure, advocates implicit cruelty in the name of the future (treated as an inevitable fate), and how this decision generates a logical and progressively unfolding series of “inhuman” images of man situated in the universe as an event of saturation of matter with merciless intelligence. (shrink)

How should intellectualists respond to apparent Gettier-style counterexamples? Stanley offers an orthodox response which rejects the claim that the subjects in such scenarios possess knowledge-how. I argue that intellectualists should embrace a revisionary response according to which knowledge-how is a distinctively practical species of knowledge-that that is compatible with Gettier-style luck.

In this paper I develop three different arguments against the thesis that knowledge-how is a kind of knowledge-that. Knowledge-that is widely thought to be subject to an anti-luck condition, a justified or warranted belief condition, and a belief condition, respectively. The arguments I give suggest that if either of these standard assumptions is correct then knowledge-how is not a kind of knowledge-that. In closing I identify a possible alternative to the standard Rylean and intellectualist accounts of knowledge-how. This alternative view (...) illustrates that even if the arguments given here succeed it might still be reasonable to hold that knowing how to do something is a matter of standing in an intentional relation to a proposition other than the knowledge-that relation. (shrink)

A common belief is that evolution generally proceeds towards greater complexity at both the organismal and the genomic level, numerous examples of reductive evolution of parasites and symbionts notwithstanding. However, recent evolutionary reconstructions challenge this notion. Two notable examples are the reconstruction of the complex archaeal ancestor and the intron‐rich ancestor of eukaryotes. In both cases, evolution in most of the lineages was apparently dominated by extensive loss of genes and introns, respectively. These and many other cases of reductive evolution (...) are consistent with a general model composed of two distinct evolutionary phases: the short, explosive, innovation phase that leads to an abrupt increase in genome complexity, followed by a much longer reductive phase, which encompasses either a neutral ratchet of genetic material loss or adaptive genome streamlining. Quantitatively, the evolution of genomes appears to be dominated by reduction and simplification, punctuated by episodes of complexification. (shrink)

It is often said that ‘what it is like’-knowledge cannot be acquired by consulting testimony or reading books [Lewis 1998; Paul 2014; 2015a]. However, people also routinely consult books like What It Is Like to Go to War [Marlantes 2014], and countless ‘what it is like’ articles and youtube videos, in the apparent hope of gaining knowledge about what it is like to have experiences they have not had themselves. This article examines this puzzle and tries to solve it by (...) appealing to recent work on knowing-wh ascriptions. In closing I indicate the wider significance of these ideas by showing how they can help us to evaluate prominent arguments by Paul [2014; 2015a] concerning transformative experiences. (shrink)

This article examines the method of reflective equilibrium (RE) and its role in philosophical inquiry. It begins with an overview of RE before discussing some of the subtleties involved in its interpretation, including challenges to the standard assumption that RE is a form of coherentism. It then evaluates some of the main objections to RE, in particular, the criticism that this method generates unreasonable beliefs. It concludes by considering how RE relates to recent debates about the role of intuitions in (...) philosophy. (shrink)

In this paper, the ethical, legal, and social implications of Thailand’s surrogacy regulations from both domestic and global perspectives are explored. Surrogacy tourism in Thailand has expanded since India strengthened its visa regulations in 2012. In 2015, in the wake of a major scandal surrounding the abandonment of a surrogate child by its foreign intended parents, a law prohibiting the practice of surrogacy for commercial purposes was enacted. Consequently, a complete ban on surrogacy tourism was imposed. However, some Thai physicians (...) and surrogate mothers cross into neighboring countries to provide foreign clients with the commercial surrogacy services that are forbidden in Thailand. Under this legislation, the needs of Thai couples who are unable to conceive are accommodated by legally accessible, non-commercial surrogacy services; however, there is currently no provision in place aimed at protecting the rights and interests of surrogate mothers and children. It is widely believed that the abolition of surrogacy tourism, an industry that give rise to several major scandals, and legal access to surrogacy by Thai couples were the Thai government’s primary goal in implementing this legislation. (shrink)

Hawley introduced the idea of the client's perspective on knowledge, which she used to illuminate knowing-how and cases of epistemic injustice involving knowing-how. In this paper, I explore how Hawley's idea might be used to illuminate not only knowing-how, but other forms of knowledge that, like knowing-how, are often claimed to be distinct from mere knowing-that, focusing on the case studies of moral understanding and ‘what it is like’-knowledge.

Knowledge-how often appears to be more difficult to transmit by testimony than knowledge-that and knowledge-wh. Some philosophers have argued that this difference provides us with an important objection to intellectualism—the view that knowledge-how is a species of knowledge-that. This article defends intellectualism against these testimony-based objections.

Surrogacy tourism in Asian countries has surged in recent decades due to affordable prices and favourable regulations. Although it has recently been banned in many countries, it is still carried out illegally across borders. With demand for surrogacy in developed countries increasing and economically vulnerable Asian women lured by lucrative compensation, there are efforts by guest countries to ease the strict surrogacy regulations in host countries. Despite a shift toward “altruistic surrogacy”, commercial surrogacy persists. Recent research carried out by international (...) organizations that seek to establish a legal relationship between the commissioning parents and children in cross-border surrogacy arrangements, under the guise of the “best interests of the child,” appears to promote a resurgence of overseas commercial surrogacy rather than restrict it. Further commercialization of surrogacy should be prevented by carefully investigating the reality of the surrogacy process. (shrink)

This chapter explores the relationship between knowing-how and skill, as well other success-in-action notions like dispositions and abilities. I offer a new view of knowledge-how which combines elements of both intellectualism and Ryleanism. According to this view, knowing how to perform an action is both a kind of knowing-that (in accord with intellectualism) and a complex multi-track dispositional state (in accord with Ryle’s view of knowing-how). I argue that this new view—what I call practical attitude intellectualism—offers an attractive set of (...) solutions to various puzzles concerning the connections between knowing-how and abilities and skills to perform intentional actions. (shrink)

Paul (2014, 2015a) argues that one cannot rationally decide whether to have a transformative experience by trying to form judgments, in advance, about (i) what it would feel like to have that experience, and (ii) the subjective value of having such an experience. The problem is if you haven’t had the experience then you cannot know what it is like, and you need to know what it is like to assess its value. However, in earlier work I argued that ‘what (...) it is like’-knowledge comes in degrees, and I briefly suggested that, consequently, some instances of Paul’s argument schema might commit a fallacy of equivocation. The aim of this paper is to further explore and strengthen this objection by, first, offering a new argument—the modelling argument—in support of it, and then by evaluating a range of replies that might be given to this objection on Paul’s behalf. I conclude that each reply either fails or, at best, only partially succeeds in defending some but not all instances of Paul’s argument schema. In closing, I consider how we might revise Paul’s concepts of transformative experiences and choices in response to this conclusion. (shrink)

Background and assumptions. Persistence and philosophy of time ; Atomism and composition ; Scope ; Some matters of methodology -- Persistence, location, and multilocation in spacetime. Endurance, perdurance, exdurance : some pictures ; More pictures ; Temporal modification and the "problem of temporary intrinsics" ; Persistence, location and multilocation in generic spacetime ; An alternative classification -- Classical and relativistic spacetime. Newtonian spacetime ; Neo-Newtonian (Galilean) spacetime ; Reference frames and coordinate systems ; Galilean transformations in spacetime ; Special relativistic (...) spacetime ; Length contraction and time dilation ; Invariant properties of special relativistic spacetime -- Persisting objects in classical spacetime. Enduring, perduring, and exduring objects in Galilean spacetime ; The argument from vagueness ; From minimal D-fusions to temporal parts ; Motivating a sharp cutoff ; Some objections and replies ; Implications -- Persisting objects in Minkowski spacetime. Enduring, perduring, and exduring objects in Minkowski spacetime ; Flat and curved achronal regions in Minkowski spacetime ; Early reflections on persisting objects in Minkowski spacetime : Quine and Smart ; "Profligate ontology"? ; Is achronal universalism tenable in Minkowski spacetime? ; "Crisscrossing" and immanent causation -- Coexistence in spacetime. The notion of coexistence ; Desiderata ; Coexistence in Galilean spacetime ; Coexistence in Minkowski spacetime : CASH ; Alexandrov-Stein present and Alexandrov-Stein coexistence ; AS-Coexistence v. CASH : symmetry, multigrade, and objectivity ; As-coexistence v. CASH : relevance ; The mixed past of coexistence ; No need in the extended now -- Strange coexistence? Coexistence and existence@ ; The asymmetry thesis ; The absurdity thesis ; Collective CASH value of coexistence ; Collective existence@ and coexistence in classical spacetime ; Collective existence@ and coexistence in Minkowski spacetime ; Contextuality ; Chronological incoherence ; Some objections -- Shapes and other arrangements in Minkowski spacetime. How rigid is a granite block? ; Perspectives in space ; Perspectives in spacetime ; Are shapes intrinsic to objects? ; The causal objection ; The micro-reductive objection ; Pegs, boards, and shapes ; Perduring objects exist. (shrink)

Scale-free network models describe many natural and social phenomena. In particular, networks of interacting components of a living cell were shown to possess scale-free properties. A recent study(1) compares the system-level properties of metabolic and information networks in 43 archaeal, bacterial and eukaryal species and claims that the scale-free organization of these networks is more conserved during evolution than their content. BioEssays 24:105–109, 2002. Published 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

What follows for the ability hypothesis reply to the knowledge argument if knowledge-how is just a form of knowledge-that? The obvious answer is that the ability hypothesis is false. For the ability hypothesis says that, when Mary sees red for the first time, Frank Jackson’s super-scientist gains only knowledge-how and not knowledge-that. In this paper I argue that this obvious answer is wrong: a version of the ability hypothesis might be true even if knowledge-how is a form of knowledge-that. To (...) establish this conclusion I utilize Jason Stanley and Timothy Williamson’s well-known account of knowledge-how as “simply a species of propositional knowledge” . I demonstrate that we can restate the core claims of the ability hypothesis – that Mary only gains new knowledge-how and not knowledge-that – within their account of knowledge-how as a species of knowledge-that. I examine the implications of this result for both critics and proponents of the ability hypothesis. (shrink)

Is there a successful regress argument against intellectualism? In this article I defend the negative answer. I begin by defending Stanley and Williamson's (2001) critique of the contemplation regress against Noë (2005). I then identify a new argument – the employment regress – that is designed to succeed where the contemplation regress fails, and which I take to be the most basic and plausible form of a regress argument against intellectualism. However, I argue that the employment regress still fails. Drawing (...) on the previous discussion, I criticise further regress arguments given by Hetherington (2006) and Noë (2005). (shrink)

Yuri Balashov sets out major rival views of persistence--endurance, perdurance, and exdurance--in a spacetime framework and proceeds to investigate the implications of Einstein's theory of relativity for the debate about persistence. His overall conclusion--that relativistic considerations favour four-dimensionalism over three-dimensionalism--is hardly surprising. It is, however, anything but trivial. Contrary to a common misconception, there is no straightforward argument from relativity to four-dimensionalism. The issues involved are complex, and the debate is closely entangled with a number of other philosophical disputes, (...) including those about the nature and ontology of time, parts and wholes, material constitution, causation and properties, and vagueness. (shrink)

This ambitious book looks into the reasons for the exceptional durability of the Chinese empire, which lasted for more than two millennia (221 B.C.E. - 1911 C.E.). Yuri Pines identifies the roots of the empire's longevity in the activities of thinkers of the Warring States period (453-221 B.C.E.), who, in their search for solutions to an ongoing political crisis, developed ideals, values, and perceptions that would become essential for the future imperial polity. In marked distinction to similar empires worldwide, (...) the Chinese empire was envisioned and to a certain extent 'preplanned' long before it came into being. As a result, it was not only a military and administrative construct, but also an intellectual one. Pines makes the argument that it was precisely its ideological appeal that allowed the survival and regeneration of the empire after repeated periods of turmoil. "Envisioning Eternal Empire" presents a panoptic survey of philosophical and social conflicts in Warring States political culture. By examining the extant corpus of preimperial literature, including transmitted texts and manuscripts uncovered at archaeological sites, Pines locates the common ideas of competing thinkers that underlie their ideological controversies. This bold approach allows him to transcend the once fashionable perspective of competing 'schools of thought' and show that beneath the immense pluralism of Warring States thought one may identify common ideological choices that eventually shaped traditional Chinese political culture. The result is a refreshingly novel look at the foundational period in Chinese intellectual history. (shrink)

This commentary suggests that the ongoing malaise of biomedical research results from adopting a doctrine that is incompatible with the principles of creative scientific discovery and thus should be treated as a mental rather than somatic disorder. I overview the progression of the malaise, outline the doctrine and the history of its marriage to science, formulate the diagnosis, justify it by reviewing the symptoms of the malaise, and suggest how to begin to cure the disease.

What is the relationship between the linguistic properties of knowledge-how ascriptions and the nature of knowledge-how itself? In this chapter I address this question by examining the linguistic methodology of Stanley and Williamson (2011) and Stanley (2011a, 2011b) who defend the intellectualist view that knowledge-how is a kind of knowledge-that. My evaluation of this methodology is mixed. On the one hand, I defend Stanley and Williamson (2011) against critics who argue that the linguistic premises they appeal to—about the syntax and (...) semantics of knowledge-how and knowledge-wh ascriptions—do not establish their desired conclusions about the nature of knowledge-how itself. But, on the other hand, I also criticize the role that linguistic considerations play in Stanley’s (2011a) response to apparent Gettier-style counterexamples to intellectualism. (shrink)

Background In an increasingly globalized world, legal protocols related to health care that are both effective and culturally sensitive are paramount in providing excellent quality of care as well as protection for physicians tasked with decision making. Here, we analyze the current medicolegal status of brain death diagnosis with regard to end-of-life care in Japan, China, and South Korea from the perspectives of front-line health care workers. Main body Japan has legally wrestled with the concept of brain death for decades. (...) An inability to declare brain death without consent from family coupled with cultural expectations of family involvement in medical care is mirrored in other Confucian-based cultures and may complicate care for patients from these countries when traveling or working overseas. Within Japan, China, and South Korea, medicolegal shortcomings in the diagnosis of brain death act as a great source of stress for physicians and expose them to potential public and legal scorn. Here, we detail the medicolegal status of brain death diagnosis within Japan and compare it to China and South Korea to find common ground and elucidate the impact of legal ambiguity on health care workers. Conclusion The Confucian cultural foundation of multiple Asian countries raises common issues of family involvement with diagnosis and cultural considerations that must be met. Leveraging public education systems may increase awareness of brain death issues and lead to evolving laws that clarify such end-of-life issues while protecting physicians from sociocultural backlash. (shrink)