In this paper I examine the notion and role of metaphors and illustrations in Maxwell's works in exact science as a pathway into a broader and richer philosophical conception of a scientist and scientific practice. While some of these notions and methods are still at work in current scientific research-from economics and biology to quantum computation and quantum field theory-, here I have chosen to attest to their entrenchment and complexity in actual science by attempting to make some conceptual sense (...) of Maxwell's own usage; this endeavour includes situating Maxwell's conceptions and applications in his own culture of Victorian science and philosophy. I trace Maxwell's notions to the formulation of the problem of understanding, or interpreting, abstract representations such as potential functions and Lagrangian equations. I articulate the solution in terms of abstract-concrete relations, where the concrete, in tune with Victorian British psychology and engineering, includes the muscular as well as the pictorial. This sets the basis for a conception of understanding in terms of unification and concrete modelling, or representation. I examine the relation of illustration to analogies and metaphors on which this account rests. Lastly, I stress and explain the importance of context-dependence, its consequences for realism-instrumentalism debates, and Maxwell's own emphasis on method. (shrink)

According to Philip Kitcher, scientific unification is achieved via the derivation of numerous scientific statements from economies of argument schemata. I demonstrate that the unification of selection phenomena across domains in which it is claimed to occur--evolutionary biology, immunology and, speculatively, neurobiology--is unattainable on Kitcher's view. I then introduce an alternative method for rendering the desired unification based on the concept of a mechanism schema. I conclude that the gain in unification provided by the alternative (...) account suggests that Kitcher's view is defective. (shrink)

The second volume in the _Blackwell Brown Lectures in Philosophy_, this volume offers an original and provocative take on the nature and methodology of philosophy. Based on public lectures at Brown University, given by the pre-eminent philosopher, Timothy Williamson Rejects the ideology of the 'linguistic turn', the most distinctive trend of 20th century philosophy Explains the method of philosophy as a development from non-philosophical ways of thinking Suggests new ways of understanding what contemporary and past philosophers are doing.

_The Foundations of Knowing _ was first published in 1982. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions. This collection of essays on the foundations of empirical knowledge brings together ten of Roderick M. Chisholm's most important papers in epistemology, three of them published for the first time, the others significantly revised and expanded for this edition. The essays in Part I constitute a (...) thoroughgoing defense of foundationalism—the doctrine that our justification for believing always rests upon a self-evident basis. In Part II, Chisholm applies foundationalist principles to various areas within the theory of knowledge, and in part III he presents a history of twentieth-century American epistemology. "Roderick M. Chisholm's work has been most influential both in the development of epistemology and in the widespread application of his analytic method. I am sure this publication featuring the unification of his views will be of great value to those working on the central issues of philosophy." Hector-Neri Castañeda, Indiana University Roderick Chisholm is Andrew W. Mellon Professor of the Humanities in the department of philosophy at Brown University. Among his books are _Perceiving: A Philosophical Study, Theory of Knowledge, Person and Object_,and _The First Person _. (shrink)

The Comprehensibility of the Universe puts forward a radically new conception of science. According to the orthodox conception, scientific theories are accepted and rejected impartially with respect to evidence, no permanent assumption being made about the world independently of the evidence. Nicholas Maxwell argues that this orthodox view is untenable. He urges that in its place a new orthodoxy is needed, which sees science as making a hierarchy of metaphysical assumptions about the comprehensibility and knowability of the universe, these assumptions (...) asserting less and less as one ascends the hierarchy. This view has significant implications: that it is part of scientific knowledge that the universe is physically comprehensible; that metaphysics and philosophy are central to scientific knowledge; that science possesses a rational, if fallible, method of discovery; that a new understanding of scientific method and rationality is required. Maxwell argues that this new conception makes possible a natural resolution of long-standing philosophical problems about science, regarding simplicity, induction, and progress. His goal is the reform not just of the philosophy of science but of science itself, and the healing of the rift between the two. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Jean Monnet was the inventor of the community method; by placing economic integration before the political one, he reversed the criteria of unification that had characterised the development of nation-states in the Old Continent. He was never a government or party leader; despite this, he engaged on an equal footing with the most prestigious statesmen of the twentieth century, influencing their choices: from Viviani in 1914 to Giscard d’Estaing in 1975, passing through Schuman, Spaak, De Gasperi, Adenauer (...) and Kennedy. Monnet favoured the creation of supranational community institutions. Through his foresight he was able to combine ideas and pragmatism and in this way he taught a whole generation of European leaders to debate issues of common interest, thus overcoming national selfishness; from the Schuman Declaration of which he was the main ‘inspirer’ (as he was sarcastically called by Charles de Gaulle) which led to the European Coal and Steel Community (1951) to the first election by universal suffrage of the European Parliament (1979), passing through the failure of the European Defence Community (1954), the Rome Treaties establishing the European Economic Community and Euratom (1957) and his tireless commitment inside the Action Committee for the United States of Europe. (shrink)

This article portrays unification of physics as a central tenet of ErnstMach’s thought, and organizes some of the focal issues in philosophy of science around the process of unification of science. Mach finds a natural place in the history. Newton’s Principia marked the beginning of the era of mathematical physics, which developed triumphantly in the eighteenth century, until new phenomena were discovered in the nineteenth century whose explanations went over and above Newtonian physics. Also Positivism emerged in the (...) nineteenth century. This was the setting where Mach entered. The notion that a central function of physics is to give mathematical descriptions of perceptions is all over Mach’s work, but in Mach’s thought mathematics comes together with hypothetical laws of nature and an overall world-view, similarly as in Newtonian physics where mathematics comes together with the laws of motion. Mach’s criticism of Newtonian absolute time and space was in line with positivism, and his suggestions about an overall holistic worldview were to function as an intuitive background for the new physics. Thus, as a physicist and a philosopher of physics, Mach should be seen primarily as a unifier, and his famous anti-metaphysics should be seen as derivative from this unificationist project: he did not intend to banish the metaphysical core that he himself proposed, but only metaphysics that is not needed in unified science. (shrink)

Qur’ān Recitation (qirā’āt) activities constitute a good part of the Qur’ān education history starting with the revealation of the Qur’ān. In Prophet Muḥammad’s era and after his death, education and teaching activities for spreading the Qur’ān recitations were maintained by muslims. Several institutions were built for this purpose, and many works are written for qirā’ātscience education and methods developed made a big contribution to the spreading of qur’ān recitation science. An Interregnum period for qirā’ātscience has happened at the last period (...) of Ottomans and first years of Republic of Turkey. Qirā’ātScience, under the state supervision and by formal institutions for many years, were sustained in an informal way after the law on unification of education were introduced. With the decrease of teachers, the education of the Qur’ān recitation faced a difficult time and almost nearly ceased. In our country, increasing of the expertness courses and number of men who trained in this places in recent years deserve a separate study, particularly on this subject. SummaryThere are many scholars who have studied the recitation of the Qur’ān (qirā’āt), and many papers that have been written on this subject analysing it by means of practice. Some institutions are founded with the purpose of teaching qirā’ātand a number of different methods have been developed in the historical process of qirā’āt.It is not clear when the knowledge of qur’ānic recitation first emerged in the region of Anatolia. In the Ottoman Empire, Khaṭīb ‘Abdulmu’min Rūmī who was tutee of Ibn al-Cezerī started to accept students for teaching qirā’ātin Bursa. Since then, qirā’ātbecame an official discipline of Islamic sciences. Evidently, the time Turks learned qirā’ātshould be before Ibn al-Cezerī’s arrival to Bursa.The brightest era of the qirā’ātand its institutionalisation was between XI-XIII centuries during the reign of the Ottoman Empire. Not only did training and teaching activities took place as seven and ten recitations, but authors also wrote books as supplementary references by depending on the works of the scholars such as Dānī, Shāṭıbī and Ibn al-Cezerī. Thus, the scholars made education practical and started to teach it as part of certain methods. The end of the 13th century was the time when sab‘a(seven) method based on seven recitations was superseded by ‘ashara(ten) method based on ten recitations. That is, the sab‘amethod was replaced by the ‘asharamethod in the country.The education of qirā’ātwhich were taught in expert institutions known as dār al-qurrāuntill the closure of madrasas was officially interrupted with the the law on unification of education on 3rd March 1924 in Turkey. The education of qirā’ātwas not officially given from the Republic of Turkey to 1968, but it was taught by self-abnegating scholars with their own efforts. The teaching of qirā’ātalmost disappeared due to some reasons such as education which wasn’t officially given by the state and the lack of encouragement for people interested in qirā’ātuntil 1968. The education of qirā’ātlater became official with the initiation of Tayyar Altıkulaç who was the vice president of religious affairs under the presidency of Mehmed Rüşdü Aşıkkutlu in 1968. At that time, a number of staffs were sent to the town Çifaruksa/Uğurlu in Of /Trabzon for the job training with the appointment of the presidency of religious affairs in order to get education from Aşıkkutlu. The specialized training course named as ‘Ashera-Taqrīb-Ṭayyibah’ was the first course about qirā’ātwith the opening of Istanbul Haseki Training Center by the presidency of religious affairs in 1976. The education of qirā’ātwas carried out by Aşıkkutlu who used Egypt method and Gürses used Istanbul method. These specialized training courses were made as periods of 3 years and trainees were begun to be admitted by taking an exam. The first students graduated who learned both methods at the end of the first period which was between 1976 and 1979. The presidency of religious affairs held the exam at a predetermined time for issuing in-service training certification to people, who have worked within its own institution, other institutions and in the private sector, and completed the education on ‘asharamethod with their own efforts and got a degree. This certification has been given to people who succeeded in the written and oral examinations. 184 people got the certification after taking the exam entitled as ‘the exam for external students in the ‘ashara-taqrībcourse’ which was taken place biennially and for the first time in 2010. When students have learned the fundamental principles of ‘ashara method, the first five-ten pages of the Qur’ān were read and indited with regard to distinguish narratives from each other with infirād method. ‘Asheraanalysis of the Qur’ān was indited and read with indirāc method for each student after being taught about certain issues such as the concepts of qirā’āt, its principles, and the grading of the imāmand rāvito students who get education with infirād method in qirā’āteducation in the country. Sources and methods used by scholars who are engaged in qirā’āteducation have become widespread in regions; and these methods have gone under the name of those regions.In this context, the science of qirā’ātwas taught with Istanbul and Egypt methods in the Ottoman Empire. These methods have still been valid in today’s Turkey. Sūfī profession stands for Istanbul method and qirā’āteducation is given with regard to this profession in notably Istanbul and several centers. The education of this profession is given in Pendik, Müftü Yusuf Karali and Haseki Abdurrahman Gürses training centers. Mehmed Rüşdü Aşıkkutlu who was one of the latest period scholars and Gönenli Mehmed are representatives of Egypt method. At the present time, Egypt method is represented as Atāullah profession by reason of the fact that it is commonly followed, adopted and conducted in the country.Nowadays, the edāmethod is used especially at the beginning of qirā’āteducation. Thus, student hears what instructor reads and gives a presentation. Instructors concentrate on the practice arzin the ongoing process and ease off on practice samʿaafter student implemented the lesson. At the present time, the curriculum followed in the qirā’āteducation is the same as the classic method in the country. The ‘Ashera, Taqrīb and Ṭayyibah’ methods were used in education. On the other hand, the person who recites should be a decent ḥāfiẓand know the science of tajweedwell in compliance with Hafs narrative of Asım and implement it. Notwithstanding that, there is the tajweedlesson in curriculum in order to strengthen implementations of the science of tajweed. (shrink)

The uniqueness of Psychiatry as a medical speciality lies in the fact that aside from tackling what it considers as illnesses, it has perchance to comment on and tackle many issues of social relevance as well. Whether this is advisable or not is another matter; but such a process is inevitable due to the inherent nature of the branch and the problems it deals with. Moreover this is at the root of the polarization of psychiatry into opposing psychosocial and biological (...) schools. This gets reflected in their visualization of scope, in definitions and in methodology as well. Whilst healthy criticism of one against the other school is necessary, there should be caution against hasty application of one's frame of reference to an approach that does not intend to follow, or conform to, one's methodology. This should be done within the referential framework of the school critically evaluated, with due consideration for its methods and concepts. Similarly, as at present, there is no evidence to prove one or the other of these approaches as better, aside from personal choice. We can say so even if there is a strong paradigm shift towards the biological at present. A renaissance of scientific psychoanalysis coupled with a perceptive neurobiology which can translate those insights into testable hypotheses holds the greatest promise for psychiatry in the future. This suggests the need for unification of diverse appearing approaches to get a more comprehensive and enlightened worldview. It requires a highly integrative capacity. Just as a physicist thinks simultaneously in terms of particles and waves, a psychiatrist must think of motives, emotions and desires in the same breath as neurobiology, genetics and psychopharmacology. However, the integration must be attempted without destroying the internal cohesiveness of the individual schools. This will give a fair chance for polarization in which a single proper approach in psychiatry could emerge, which may be a conglomerate of diverse appearing approaches of today, or one which supersedes the rest. A synthesis of cognitive psychology and neuroscience offers the greatest promise at present. (shrink)

The Beginnings of Nietzsche's Theory of Language is concerned with the years 1865 through Winter/Spring 1870-71. Four texts of Nietzsche's, "Vom Ursprung der Sprache", "Zur Teleologie", "Zu Schopenhauer", and "Anschauung Notes", are translated into English and interpreted from the perspective of Nietzsche's developing theory of language. An examination of the major influences of Schopenhauer, Kant, Eduard von Hartmann, and Frederick A. Lange are pursued. ;Theory, in this work, does not assume that it is possible to take a position of authority (...) or truth in the interpretation of texts, rather that interpretation of texts constitutes an attempt to uncover a discursive practice, to describe a discourse-object. The method used is Nietzsche's method of genealogy, which follows the formation of discourse, at once scattered, discontinuous, and regular and analyzes the process of rarefaction, consolidation and unification in that discourse. Genealogy is exegesis in Nietzsche's sense of it as rumination, as the slow, repetitive, gray activity of deciphering what is documented. Major genealogical nodes or elements of Nietzsche's beginning theory of language are used and reused in different contexts throughout the work, resulting in a cumulative effect which explores specific elements in Nietzsche's thinking about language. ;This work offers five major contributions to Nietzsche studies: a detailed introduction of the significant influence of Eduard von Hartmann upon Nietzsche's thinking; a comprehensive look at the influence of Lange's History of Materialism upon Nietzsche's beginning theory of language; a thorough analysis of "Zur Teleologie" and "Zu Schopenhauer" in the overall contexts of Nietzsche's thinking with regard to metaphysics and teleology; the gathering together and interpretation into a world view of the "Anschauung Notes"; and a close examination of Nietzsche's breaking away from Schopenhauer as it takes place before the publication of The Birth of Tragedy. ;Nietzsche's primary contributions to a theory of language in these beginning years are three: the adoption of the role of the unconscious instincts in the origins and ongoing production of language; the assertion that unconscious thought processes are a precondition for conscious thought; an examination of the relationships of language to epistemology, which results in the recognition of the limits of language as an instrument of truth, but a realization of the inestimable value and force of its symbolic and figurative aspects, aspects necessitated by the very nature of language itself. (shrink)

The k-provability for an axiomatic system A is to determine, given an integer k 1 and a formula in the language of A, whether or not there is a proof of in A containing at most k lines. In this paper we develop a unification-theoretic method for investigating the k-provability problem for Parikh systems, which are first-order axiomatic systems that contain a finite number of axiom schemata and a finite number of rules of inference. We show that the (...) k-provability problem for a Parikh system reduces to a unification problem that is essentially the unification problem for second-order terms. By solving various subproblems of this unification problem , we solve the k- probability problem for a variety of Parikh systems, including several formulations of Peano arithmetic. Our method for investigating the k-provability problem employs algorithms that compute and characterize unifiers. We give some examples of how these algorithms can be used to solve complexity problems other than the k-provability problem. (shrink)

Like scientific theories, metaphysical theories can and should be justified by the inference of creative abduction. Two rationality conditions are proposed that distinguish scientific from speculative abductions: achievement of unification and independent testability. Particularly important in science is common cause abduction. The justification of metaphysical realism is structurally similar to scientific abductions: external objects are justified as common causes of perceptual experiences. While the reliability of common cause abduction is entailed by a principle of causality, the latter principle has (...) an abductive justification based on statistical phenomena. (shrink)

How do we access the authentic self in order to live fulfilling, meaningful lives? In straightforward terms, The Heart of the Matter: Gifts in Strange Wrapping Paper explains a simple but extraordinarily powerful technique called the See, Feel, Hear Challenge that enables people to easily gain entry into the storehouse of their subconscious core beliefs. In the process, it cracks the coded messages that those beliefs release in the form of disease, suffering, addictions, unhappy relationships, and victimized circumstances. Based in (...) the latest findings in neuroscience and neurocardiology, this book guides readers to an uncomplicated understanding of the astounding power of our emotions and how life automatically delivers experiences that trigger negative reactions that subconsciously impact us. These emotions form the foundation of core beliefs that create unhealthy attitudes and dis-ease patterns that keep us from experiencing the authentic, satisfying lives we desire. Using clear examples and true stories from clients, Dr. Weissman’s latest work demonstrates how we can release these stored emotions and their wisdom via the See, Feel, Hear Challenge. It then explains how to use this simple method to evoke feelings that positively impact the quantum field, remolding our bodies, minds, and everyday lives into purposeful expressions of inner joy and radiant well-being. Whether you’re dealing with addictions, dysfunctional relationships, or illness, or are focused on becoming an Olympic champion, The Heart of the Matter gives you a potent tool for positive change and transformation that you can use for the rest of your life. (shrink)

The uniqueness of Psychiatry as a medical speciality lies in the fact that aside from tackling what it considers as illnesses, it has perchance to comment on and tackle many issues of social relevance as well. Whether this is advisable or not is another matter; but such a process is inevitable due to the inherent nature of the branch and the problems it deals with. Moreover this is at the root of the polarization of psychiatry into opposing psychosocial and biological (...) schools. This gets reflected in their visualization of scope, in definitions and in methodology as well. Whilst healthy criticism of one against the other school is necessary, there should be caution against hasty application of one's frame of reference to an approach that does not intend to follow, or conform to, one's methodology. This should be done within the referential framework of the school critically evaluated, with due consideration for its methods and concepts. Similarly, as at present, there is no evidence to prove one or the other of these approaches as better, aside from personal choice. We can say so even if there is a strong paradigm shift towards the biological at present. A renaissance of scientific psychoanalysis coupled with a perceptive neurobiology which can translate those insights into testable hypotheses holds the greatest promise for psychiatry in the future. This suggests the need for unification of diverse appearing approaches to get a more comprehensive and enlightened worldview. It requires a highly integrative capacity. Just as a physicist thinks simultaneously in terms of particles and waves, a psychiatrist must think of motives, emotions and desires in the same breath as neurobiology, genetics and psychopharmacology. However, the integration must be attempted without destroying the internal cohesiveness of the individual schools. This will give a fair chance for polarization in which a single proper approach in psychiatry could emerge, which may be a conglomerate of diverse appearing approaches of today, or one which supersedes the rest. A synthesis of cognitive psychology and neuroscience offers the greatest promise at present. (shrink)

Interpretation -- Introduction -- Interpreting Plato -- The political culture of Plato's early dialogues -- Dialogue -- Character and history -- The mouthpiece principle -- Forms of evidence -- Desire -- Socrates and eros -- The subjectivist conception of desire -- Instrumental and terminal desire -- Rational and irrational desires -- Desire in the critique of Akrasia -- Interpreting Lysis -- The deficiency conception of desire -- Inauthentic friendship -- Platonic desire -- Antiphilosophical desires -- Knowledge -- Excellence as wisdom (...) -- The epistemic unity of excellence -- Dunamis and technê -- Goodness and form -- The epistemological priority of definitional knowledge -- Ordinary ethical knowledge -- Method -- The Socratic fallacy -- Socrates' pursuit of definitions -- Hupothesis -- Two postulates -- The geometrical illustration -- Geometrical analysis -- The method of reasoning from a postulate -- Elenchus and hupothesis -- Knowledge and aitia -- F-conditions -- Cognitive security -- Aporia -- Forms of aporia -- Dramatic aporia -- The example of Charmides -- Charmides as autobiography -- The politics of Sôphrosunê -- Critias' Philotimia -- Self-knowledge and the knowledge of knowledge -- Knowledge of knowledge and knowledge of the good -- Philosophy and the polis. (shrink)

In this chapter, I argue that an understanding of what shame is through an understanding of its rationality and intentionality can provide a single framework that may be able to unify the research on shame, perhaps even across disciplines. To do so, I begin by explaining what a criterion for the ontological rationality of shame is, and I explain its relation to an understanding of what makes shame the kind of emotion that it is. In doing so, I demonstrate how (...) the rationality of shame, including the criterion for the ontological rationality of shame, is intimately intertwined with shame’s intentionality. Next, I consider some of the research on shame from the disciplines of philosophy and psychology in order to isolate the genus from the differentia of shame, and, with the inclusion of research from the discipline of sociology, I derive the criterion for the ontological rationality of shame. I follow this discussion by introducing an understanding of shame as a superordinate inference rule, which amounts to a non-standard account of shame, in order to fulfill the criterion for the ontological rationality of shame. I conclude by explaining how what I suggest as the core of shame—the superordinate inference rule of shame—fulfills the criterion for the ontological rationality of shame, by constituting the ontological rationality of shame, and I highlight the benefit of my account over alternative accounts of shame in regard to the rationality of our experiences of shame. I thereby argue in virtue of an inference to the best explanation for my proposal to fulfill the criterion for the ontological rationality of shame and to provide a single unifying framework for an understanding of what shame is. (shrink)

One of the hallmarks of Kantian philosophy, especially in connection with its characterization of scientific knowledge, is the importance of unity, a theme that is also the driving force behind a good deal of contemporary high energy physics. There are a variety of ways that unity figures in modern science—there is unity of method where the same kinds of mathematical techniques are used in different sciences, like physics and biology; the search for unified theories like the unification of (...) electromagnetism and optics by Maxwell; and, more recently, the project of grand unification or the quest for a theory of everything which involves a reduction of the four fundamental forces under the umbrella of a single theory. In this latter case it is thought that when energies are high enough, the forces, while very different in strength, range and the types of particles on which they act, become one and the same force. The fact that these interactions are known to have many underlying mathematical features in common suggests that they can all be described by a unified field theory. Such a theory describes elementary particles in terms of force fields which further unifies all the interactions by treating particles and interactions in a technically and conceptually similar way. It is this theoretical framework that allows for the prediction that measurements made at a certain energy level will supposedly indicate that there is only one type of force. In other words, not only is there an ontological reduction of the forces themselves but the mathematical framework used to describe the fields associated with these forces facilitates their description in a unified theory. Specific types of symmetries serve an important function in establishing these kinds of unity, not only in the construction of quantum field theories but also in the classification of particles; classifications that can lead to new predictions and new ways of understanding properties like quantum numbers. Hence, in order to address issues about unification and reduction in contemporary physics we must also address the way that symmetries facilitate these processes. (shrink)

We present the unification of Riemann–Cartan–Weyl (RCW) space-time geometries and random generalized Brownian motions. These are metric compatible connections (albeit the metric can be trivially euclidean) which have a propagating trace-torsion 1-form, whose metric conjugate describes the average motion interaction term. Thus, the universality of torsion fields is proved through the universality of Brownian motions. We extend this approach to give a random symplectic theory on phase-space. We present as a case study of this approach, the invariant Navier–Stokes equations (...) for viscous fluids, and the kinematic dynamo equation of magnetohydrodynamics. We give analytical random representations for these equations. We discuss briefly the relation between them and the Reynolds approach to turbulence. We discuss the role of the Cartan classical development method and the random extension of it as the method to generate these generalized Brownian motions, as well as the key to construct finite-dimensional almost everywhere smooth approximations of the random representations of these equations, the random symplectic theory, and the random Poincaré–Cartan invariants associated to it. We discuss the role of autoparallels of the RCW connections as providing polygonal smooth almost everywhere realizations of the random representations. (shrink)

Bridging the gap between the world of science and the realm of the spiritual, B. Alan Wallace introduces a natural theory of human consciousness that has its roots in contemporary physics and Buddhism. Wallace's "special theory of ontological relativity" suggests that mental phenomena are _conditioned_ by the brain, but do not _emerge_ from it. Rather, the entire natural world of mind and matter, subjects and objects, arises from a unitary dimension of reality that is more fundamental than these dualities, as (...) proposed by Wolfgang Pauli and Carl Jung. To test his hypothesis, Wallace employs the Buddhist meditative practice of _samatha_, refining one's attention and metacognition, to create a kind of telescope to examine the space of the mind. Drawing on the work of the physicist John Wheeler, he then proposes a more general theory in which the participatory nature of reality is envisioned as a self-excited circuit. In comparing these ideas to the Buddhist theory known as the Middle Way philosophy, Wallace explores further aspects of his "general theory of ontological relativity," which can be investigated by means of _vipasyana_, or insight, meditation. Wallace then focuses on the theme of symmetry in reference to quantum cosmology and the "problem of frozen time," relating these issues to the theory and practices of the Great Perfection school of Tibetan Buddhism. He concludes with a discussion of the general theme of complementarity as it relates to science and religion. The theories of relativity and quantum mechanics were major achievements in the physical sciences, and the theory of evolution has had an equally deep impact on the life sciences. However, rigorous scientific methods do not yet exist to observe mental phenomena, and naturalism has its limits for shedding light on the workings of the mind. A pioneer of modern consciousness research, Wallace offers a practical and revolutionary method for exploring the mind that combines the keenest insights of contemporary physicists and philosophers with the time-honored meditative traditions of Buddhism. (shrink)

I argue in a non-reductive sense for a plausible epistemic principle, which can (1) theoretically and instrumentally unify or systematize all fallacies, and (2) provide a justification for using such a principle for characterizing an erroneous argument as a fallacy. This plausible epistemic principle involves the idea of an error in the method of justification, which results in a failure to provide relevant evidence to satisfy certain standards of adequate proof. Thus, all fallacies are systematically disguised failures to provide (...) substantive proof: a failure in the attempt to persuade rationally, as opposed to emotionally or rhetorically. I argue that the epistemic idea of begging the question is essential to this idea of a fallacy as an inadequate proof. (shrink)

The author attempts to investigate connections and interdependencies between periphery countries and the globalisation process, including the attitude of these countries to unification blocs, such as the European integration project. The basic research tool used in this work is a systemic analysis, as well as the core-periphery method, derived from social sciences. Its fundamental hypothesis is that the decline of the liberal architecture of the globe may translate into the periphery’s tendency to abandon real convergence in favour of (...) the fragmentary imitation of supranational bodies, potentially leading to intensified disintegration tendencies within phenomena, such as the consolidation of Europe. In the past, the powerless core of the community only contemplated the imitative Europeanisation of marginal territories. Today, however – because the idea to construct a homogeneous polity has collapsed – postulates of “multi-speed” integration can lead to the reconstruction of the historical division into the core and periphery of the old continent. (shrink)

Bridging the gap between the world of science and the realm of the spiritual, B. Alan Wallace introduces a natural theory of human consciousness that has its roots in contemporary physics and Buddhism. Wallace's "special theory of ontological relativity" suggests that mental phenomena are _conditioned_ by the brain, but do not _emerge_ from it. Rather, the entire natural world of mind and matter, subjects and objects, arises from a unitary dimension of reality that is more fundamental than these dualities, as (...) proposed by Wolfgang Pauli and Carl Jung. To test his hypothesis, Wallace employs the Buddhist meditative practice of _samatha_, refining one's attention and metacognition, to create a kind of telescope to examine the space of the mind. Drawing on the work of the physicist John Wheeler, he then proposes a more general theory in which the participatory nature of reality is envisioned as a self-excited circuit. In comparing these ideas to the Buddhist theory known as the Middle Way philosophy, Wallace explores further aspects of his "general theory of ontological relativity," which can be investigated by means of _vipasyana_, or insight, meditation. Wallace then focuses on the theme of symmetry in reference to quantum cosmology and the "problem of frozen time," relating these issues to the theory and practices of the Great Perfection school of Tibetan Buddhism. He concludes with a discussion of the general theme of complementarity as it relates to science and religion. The theories of relativity and quantum mechanics were major achievements in the physical sciences, and the theory of evolution has had an equally deep impact on the life sciences. However, rigorous scientific methods do not yet exist to observe mental phenomena, and naturalism has its limits for shedding light on the workings of the mind. A pioneer of modern consciousness research, Wallace offers a practical and revolutionary method for exploring the mind that combines the keenest insights of contemporary physicists and philosophers with the time-honored meditative traditions of Buddhism. (shrink)

One of the hallmarks of Kantian philosophy, especially in connection with its characterization of scientific knowledge, is the importance of unity, a theme that is also the driving force behind a good deal of contemporary high energy physics. There are a variety of ways that unity figures in modern science—there is unity of method where the same kinds of mathematical techniques are used in different sciences, like physics and biology; the search for unified theories like the unification of (...) electromagnetism and optics by Maxwell; and, more recently, the project of grand unification or the quest for a theory of everything which involves a reduction of the four fundamental forces under the umbrella of a single theory. In this latter case it is thought that when energies are high enough, the forces , while very different in strength, range and the types of particles on which they act, become one and the same force. The fact that these interactions are known to have many underlying mathematical features in common suggests that they can all be described by a unified field theory. Such a theory describes elementary particles in terms of force fields which further unifies all the interactions by treating particles and interactions in a technically and conceptually similar way. It is this theoretical framework that allows for the prediction that measurements made at a certain energy level will supposedly indicate that there is only one type of force. In other words, not only is there an ontological reduction of the forces themselves but the mathematical framework used to describe the fields associated with these forces facilitates their description in a unified theory. Specific types of symmetries serve an important function in establishing these kinds of unity, not only in the construction of quantum field theories but also in the classification of particles; classifications that can lead to new predictions and new ways of understanding properties like quantum numbers. Hence, in order to address issues about unification and reduction in contemporary physics we must also address the way that symmetries facilitate these processes. (shrink)

The present paper investigates why logical empiricists remained silent about one of the most philosophy-laden matters of theoretical physics of their day, the principle of least action (PLA). In the two decades around 1900, the PLA enjoyed a remarkable renaissance as a formal unification of mechanics, electrodynamics, thermodynamics, and relativity theory. Taking Ernst Mach's historico-critical stance, it could be liberated from much of its physico-theological dross. Variational calculus, the mathematical discipline on which the PLA was based, obtained a new (...) rigorous basis. These three developments prompted Max Planck to consider the PLA as formal embodiment of his convergent realist methodology. Typically rejecting ontological reductionism, David Hilbert took the PLA as the key concept in his axiomatizations of physical theories. It served one of the main goals of the axiomatic method: ''deepening the foundations.'' Although Moritz Schlick was a student of Planck's, and Hans Hahn and Philipp Frank enjoyed close ties to Gottingen, the PLA became a veritable Shibboleth to them. Rather than being worried by its historical connections with teleology and determinism, they erroneously identified Hilbert's axiomatic method tout court with Planck's metaphysical realism. Logical empiricists' strict containment policy against metaphysics required so strict a separation between physics and mathematics to exclude even those features of the PLA and the axiomatic method not tainted with metaphysics. (shrink)

In Machiavelli’s Prince there appears to be a link between Chap.IX on the civil principality and the hope for a unification of Italy by a new prince – a theme presented in the final Exhortation. In both sections, Machiavelli’s unusual lack of historical illustrations suggests the hypothesis that the civil principality and the new prince play a symbolic function. The reading here proposed argues that there is an ideal relation between Machiavelli’s Prince and the Discourses on Livy regarding the (...) opportunity of a regime change from popular principality to Republic. The possibility to switch from one form of government to the other is due to Machiavelli’s idealizations of the civil principality and the new prince. Accordingly, it is argued that Machiavelli’s method follows a strategy of mythologizing realism. In the civil principality the tension between the new prince and his people is not resolved, nor that between the plebs and the nobles. The paper concludes that Machiavelli emphasis on ‘the solitude’ of the prince is what ultimately justifies a transition from the civil principality to the Republic. (shrink)

Schönau et al. (2021) identified four dimensions of agency (authenticity, privacy, self–trust, and responsibility) that may be influenced by the use of neurotechnologies, such as deep brain stimulation (DBS) or brain–computer–interfaces (BCI). The Agency Map they proposed depicts the role of each dimension, and indicates how they may interact. The authors emphasize that a strength of their approach is that it allows to capture the agency dimensions that were previously seen as disconnected and independent as intricately interwoven parts of the (...) person’s experience. This intended unification may help to understand personal agency more fully in various contexts important in neuroethical considerations. However, what is missing in Schönau et al.’s analysis is the mechanism—the very link— by which these various dimensions can come together. As Zawadzki (2020) points out discussing his account of the self (PTS–moral aspects)—which also includes the agency dimensions indicated by Schönau et al. (both authenticity, and responsibility, but also autonomy)—what is crucial in order to unify these various dimensions is narrative. (shrink)

It is possible to talk about many reasons that determine the direction of religious publications in the first quarter of the Republic, both in terms of content, style and method. While some of these factors came into play or became stronger with the Republic, an important part of it has a history that goes back to Ottoman modernization. The decline of the Ottoman state, which started on the battlefields, caused serious land losses. This regression damaged the self-confidence of Muslims (...) and spread the idea that salvation would be possible with a Western-style modernization. In this context, the obligatory relations with the Western world, which were established with the feeling of backwardness, were not limited to the military, political and cultural fields, but also spread to the religious field. For this reason, while Ottoman scholars and thinkers sought ways out through political and administrative reforms, they had to discuss the current understanding of religion and the religion-world conception formed in this direction. It has been especially emphasized that Islam does not prevent progress, encourages scientific and technical developments, and is compatible with the principles of reason and logic in terms of content. It is also known that the emphases in this manner maintain their vitality in the texts written both in the last period of the Ottoman Empire and in the Republic of Turkey. On the other hand, this approach, which was not possible to develop independently of the positivist and materialist understanding of science formed in a determinist framework of the West, also affected the field of creed along with the practical and moral issues of Islam. This situation continued and strengthened when it was transferred to the republican period. Because the founding cadres of the republic, who sought a secular and positivist ground, defended the idea that the religious field in general and the creed in particular should not conflict with the scientific understanding of the period. Expressed in the context of the present study, the political center thinks that there are compulsory fixed laws within the framework of cause-effect relationship in nature and that no effect is possible outside of these laws. In response to this attitude, the issue of miracles has been used in religious publications to express situations that go above the laws of nature, on the one hand, it has been tried to be discussed without prejudice to the attributes and actions of Allah. On the other hand, this discussion was conducted without giving the impression that Islam contradicts modern science. Discussing the issue under the influence of the secular and positivist framework drawn by the political center and Western intellectuals makes the issue a worthwhile subject to investigate. Because, in the period of the New Ilm-i Kalam, the restrictive attitude of the founding cadres accompanied the rational and scientific interpretations about the possibility of miracles. This situation significantly determined the content and style of the texts written during the period. In these circumstances, I believe that it is important to point out the points of conflict and reconciliation in the grounding of a religious issue such as a miracle. In this direction, while the current study covers the years 1924-1960 in terms of time, it is a study that especially includes the publications of the Presidency of Religious Affairs and Ankara University Faculty of Theology as a source. The date 1924, which was determined as the starting date, is important both for the establishment date in terms of the Presidency of Religious Affairs and for the abolition of the caliphate and the taking of some important decisions such as the Law on Unification of Education. On the other hand, the date of 1960 points to a coup date and some fractures in the political sense. During the study, I included the sources published by both the Presidency of Religious Affairs and the Faculty of Theology of Ankara University, as well as other sources directly related to these sources. In addition to this time and resource restriction, it was also referred to important texts written before 1924 and after 1960 when appropriate. (shrink)

The development of robots that closely resemble human beings can contribute to cognitive research. An android provides an experimental apparatus that has the potential to be controlled more precisely than any human actor. However, preliminary results indicate that only very humanlike devices can elicit the broad range of responses that people typically direct toward each other. Conversely, to build androids capable of emulating human behavior, it is necessary to investigate social activity in detail and to develop models of the cognitive (...) mechanisms that support this activity. Because of the reciprocal relationship between android development and the exploration of social mechanisms, it is necessary to establish the field of android science. Androids could be a key testing ground for social, cognitive, and neuroscientific theories as well as platform for their eventual unification. Nevertheless, subtle flaws in appearance and movement can be more apparent and eerie in very humanlike robots. This uncanny phenomenon may be symptomatic of entities that elicit our model of human other but do not measure up to it. If so, very humanlike robots may provide the best means of pinpointing what kinds of behavior are perceived as human, since deviations from human norms are more obvious in them than in more mechanical-looking robots. In pursuing this line of inquiry, it is essential to identify the mechanisms involved in evaluations of human likeness. One hypothesis is that, by playing on an innate fear of death, an uncanny robot elicits culturally-supported defense responses for coping with death’s inevitability. An experiment, which borrows from methods used in terror management research, was performed to test this hypothesis. [Thomson Reuters Essential Science Indicators: Fast Breaking Paper in Social Sciences, May 2008]. (shrink)

Introduction. The article analyzes the problem of the influence of the philosophical and theological creativity of the early Slavophiles on Russian metaphysics of the late 19th - mid-20th centuries, considered as an original philosophical direction of Russian thought. -/- The purpose of the study. The authors attempt to substantiate the fact that the relatively small works of A. S. Khomyakov and very few articles of I. V. Kireevsky contain both amazing philosophical insights and the initial development of the main concepts (...) that will determine the specifics of Russian metaphysics in the future. -/- Methods. As a general philosophical methodology, personalistic and hermeneutic approaches were used, the main feature of which is the assertion of the free creative activity of the individual, who, on the basis of his inner impulses, is able to change the surrounding reality, both social and natural. The authors also use general scientific methods — analysis, synthesis, comparison, generalization. -/- Scientific novelty of the research. The authors focus their attention on the most important epistemological component for the philosophy of the early Slavophiles and the subsequent Russian philosophy — the ideal of “whole knowledge”. In their opinion, the conceptualization of the problems associated with the criticism of the “self-ruling mind” (I. V. Kireevsky) became a necessary and adequate response to the hypertrophy of the place and role of the human mind in cognitive activity that took place in Western European thought. Results. The article provides arguments in favor of the fact that the prerequisites for forming the ideal of “whole knowledge” among the early Slavophils were the traditional Eastern Christian worldview ideas about the relationship of man to the world created by God, open to creative and transformative activity, in the implementation of which one should strive for unification of cognitive efforts, both faith and reason. In a broad historical and philosophical context, Slavophile thought continued on Russian soil to comprehend the phenomenon that K. Jaspers defined as “axial time”, a feature of which was the breakthrough of human consciousness into the sphere of the transcendent. It was at that time that faith was discovered as a way of knowing the incomprehensible, and the Slavophiles made their significant contribution to its understanding. (shrink)

Pragmatism is usually viewed as a unifed school, movement or tradition. Lists of its most important tenets typically include advocacy of open inquiry, pursued with an awareness of human fallibility, a view of justifcation that appeals to shared experience in all its manifestations – aesthetic, religious, moral, political and scientifc – and a conception of philosophy as a practice interwoven with problems of contemporary life. While disagreements among pragmatists are widely acknowledged, they are most often treated as easily resolved or (...) of marginal importance given the substantial body of doctrine that pragmatists are thought to share. I argue that this view of pragmatism obscures important philosophical differences among its proponents, to the serious detriment of our understanding of the tradition. I point out that fgures most often credited with advancing pragmatism – Charles Peirce, William James, John Dewey, W.V. Quine, Hilary Putnam and Richard Rorty – defend signifcantly divergent views, views that are anything but easy to reconcile. Their differences go to the very heart of how pragmatism is to be understood and defended and present serious obstacles to any characterization of it as a tradition with a common philosophical method, purpose or core set of doctrines. Pragmatism is far more diverse, subtle and diffcult to come to terms with than contemporary accounts of what is living and dead in it commonly presume. (shrink)

In this paper we prove some results about the complexity of proofs. We consider proofs in Hilbert-style formal systems such as in [17]. Thus a proof is a sequence offormulas satisfying certain conditions. We can view the formulas as being strings of symbols; hence the whole proof is a string too. We consider the following measures of complexity of proofs: length , depth and number of steps For a particular formal system and a given formula A we consider the shortest (...) length of a proof of A , the minimal depth of a proof of A and the minimal number of steps in a proof of A . The main results are the following: a bound on the depth in terms of the number of steps: Theorem 2.2, a bound on the depth in terms of the length: Theorem 2.3, a bound on the length in terms of the number of steps for restricted systems: Theorem 3.1. These results are applied to obtain several corollaries. In particular we show: a bound on the number of steps in a cut-free proof, some speed-up results, bounds on the number of steps in proofs of Paris-Harrington sentences. Some papers related to our research are listed in the references. We were especially influenced by Parikh's paper [17] on the famous conjecture of Kreisel . Many important problems in this field remain open. We hope that our paper will contribute to progress in this area. It should be noted that some results of this paper can be equally well obtained using unification theory , by translating a complexity-of-proof problem into a unification problem. A unification algorithm solving the unification problem can then be constructed and the complexity of the unification algorithm analyzed. As pointed out by the referee this method can be used to solve the problem stated in Section 3 for some non-simple schematic systems. (shrink)

Why has it been so difficult to integrate paleontology and mainstream evolutionary biology? Two common answers are: (1) the two fields have fundamentally different aims, and (2) the tensions arise out of disciplinary squabbles for funding and prestige. This paper examines the role of fossil data in phylogeny reconstruction in order to assess these two explanations. I argue that while cladistics has provided a framework within which to integrate fossil character data, the stratigraphic (temporal) component of fossil data has been (...) harder to integrate. A close examination of how fossil data have been used in phylogeny reconstruction suggests that neither explanation is adequate. While some of the tensions between the fields may be intellectual turf wars, the second explanation downplays the genuine difficulty of combining the distinctive data of the two fields. Furthermore, it is simply not the case that the two fields pursue completely distinct aims. Systematists do disagree about precisely how to represent phylogeny (e.g., minimalist cladograms or trees with varying levels of detail) but given that every tree presupposes a pattern of branching (a cladogram), these aims are not completely distinct. The central problem has been developing methods that allow scientists to incorporate the distinctive bodies of data generated by these two fields. Further case studies will be required to determine if this explanation holds for other areas of interaction between paleontology and neontology. (shrink)

The present article discusses the Department of Kalam, its foundation, academic structuring, philosophy, and contribution to religious thought at the national and international level since the establishment of Ankara University Faculty of Divinity. The process regarding the field of Kalam since the establishment of Ankara University Faculty of Divinity in 1949 has been studied over two historical periods. The first is the period from its being taught as a course under the Chair of the History of Islam and Sects during (...) the establishment of the Faculty of Divinity to 1974 when it turned into an independent chair, and the second is the process from 1974 to the present. Higher religious education was continued in the Faculty of Theology, established under the Istanbul Dārulfunūn, which was constructed in the western style instead of the madrasahs that were closed in accordance with the Law of Unification of Education (Tawhid Tadrisāt) adopted on March 3, 1924.The faculty in question was closed in 1933 due to the shortage of students. Until Ankara University Faculty of Theology, which started its teaching activities in November 1949, was opened, there was no higher religious education for 16 years in Turkey. During this time, the need for experts trained in the field of religion emerged. In order to meet this need, Ankara University Faculty of Theology was opened. In the newly opened faculty, it is aimed to train theologians with versatile knowledge and perspective by teaching philosophy, psychology, sociology, foreign languages, as well as teaching disciplines related to the field of theology. One of the chairs in the faculty’s academic structure opened for this purpose was the chair of History of Islam and Sects. In Ankara University Faculty of Theology, where the academic structuring was organized according to the chair system, the science of Kalam was taught as a course within the Chair of the History of Islam and Sects until 1974. Within this chair, the teachings of Principles of Islam, the history of Islamic sects, and Kalam lessons were carried out. The first instructor of the chair was Prof. Yusuf ZiyaYörükân. Although there were changes in the academic staff during the process, one of the important names that contributed to the field of kalam until 1974 was Muhammad Tavît al-Tanji. These scholars not only made significant contributions to the field of Kalam in terms of method and content with their own studies but also taught scholars to work in this field after them.The doctoral advisor of HüseyinAtay, who is the founder of the Kalam Chair/Department, is M. Tavît al-Tancî. In 1974, when HüseyinAtay became a professor, the Kalam course was separated from the Chair of Islam and Sects and gained the status of an independent chair. HüseyinAtay is the architect of the transformation of Kalam from a lecture to a chair.As a result of Atay’s efforts, being a theologian in Turkey has turned into an identity rather than being a member of an academic discipline. In the studies carried out by Yörükân, Tancî, Atay and the academicians taught by them in Ankara University Faculty of Theology Department of Kalam, the emphasis on the Quran and reason, the importance of critical thinking in the field of theology, the human-centered theological thought, the effort to find solutions to current problems, the researches on Mu‘tazila and Maturidism, the study and translation activities that are carried out to bring the classical theology to the present day come to the fore. In the essence of academic studies conducted within this framework, the importance of correctly determining the distinction between the divine and human in the analysis of religious thought is emphasized. In addition, it is aimed to give a perspective on the meaning and value of human life. In the Department of Kalam, where the human-centered understanding of kalam is systematically dealt with on the basis of individual, responsibility, and morality, the science of kalam is structured not only as a system of thought consisting of abstract fictions but a discipline that has the function of developing and gaining a perspective on what is happening around us and in the World. (shrink)

Edward Schillebeeckx has consolidated the theoretical and practical dimensions of the Christian approach to human suffering in his theological method, specifically his theology of suffering for others. The various elements and sources of his method can be gleaned from his later writings, especially those published during the 1970s and 1980s. Schillebeeckx's theology is anchored in the Thomist‐phenomenological approach of Flemish philosopher Dominic De Petter; the historical‐experiential theology of Marie‐Dominique Chenu; and the social theory of the Frankfurt School. De (...) Petter's perspective on Aquinas integrated a Thomist epistemology with the phenomenological notion that concepts cannot ultimately capture the reality of human experience. From Chenu, Schillebeeckx acquired his commitment to both solid historical research and engagement with socio‐political problems facing church and world.The problem of suffering, which constitutes an essential dimension of Schillebeeckx's theological ethics with its dual emphasis on theory and praxis, raises the question of human responsibility in the face of unjust and needless suffering. His theoretical‐practical approach to the alleviation of human suffering evolved within the framework of social critical theory, specifically: Schillebeeckx's theological integration of Theodor Adorno's negative dialectics into his own method of correlation, which promotes various forms of critical resistance to socio‐political injustice rather than a single program; and the unification of theory and praxis, a priority of Jürgen Habermas's ‘new’ critical theory that Schillebeeckx endorses. Both principles of critical theory — negative dialectics and the union of theory and praxis — inform Schillebeeckx's eschatological orientation and his conception of liturgy as a form of social ethics. (shrink)

This dissertation starts with a concise overview of what philosophers of science have written about unification and its role in scientific explanation during the last 50 years to provide the reader with some background knowledge. In order to bring unification back into the picture, I have followed two strategies, resulting respectively in Parts I and II of this dissertation. In Part I the idea of unification is used to refine and enrich the dominant causalmechanist and causal-interventionist accounts (...) of scientific explanation. In this part of the dissertation I bracket the classical ideas about unification: deduction and derivation. I do grant, for the sake of argument, that explanations are causal and argue that unification is important from within this causalist perspective. In Part II I continue my strategy of digging into scientific practice to find cases of ontological unification. But here I distance myself from the dominant literature that all explanations must be causal. I will investigate whether explanatory unification is possible in non-causal explanations. Part III contains some further reflections and conclusions. I will formulate my primary results, and I will elaborate on their implications for thinking about unification and explanation. The different forms of ontological unification were quite diverse. This relates to the method I have used. Throughout this dissertation the types of unification that were discussed emerged from digging into scientific practice. This philosophy-of-science-practice approach steered me towards a pluralistic view on unification and on explanation. In this dissertation I do not try to develop a new model of explanation and compare it to existing models. The aim is to show that there are important types of explanatory practice which cannot be properly analyzed if we neglect unification as a desideratum for explanations. (shrink)

Dār al-Funūn Theology founded in 1924 was a modern educational institution which adopted both traditional and modern approach to Islamic Sciences. The changes in the field of hadīth during the process of transition to the university caused a change in the definitions and the titles of the courses such as from hadīth al-sharīf and usul al-hadīth to hadīth and the history of hadīth and the time allocated to each course was gradually reduced. The preparation of the texts by the teachers (...) in the hadith history courses and their content will answer the question of whether there is a transformation in the field of hadīth in the early years of the Republic of Turkey. As a matter of fact, Izmirli İsmāʿīl Ḥaqqī’s History of Ḥadīth and Ḥuseyin ʿAvnīʿ Arapkīrli’s al-Buġya al-Hasîs fī Tārīh al-Hadīth which were written in this period, pioneered the studies based on the field of the history of hadīth in Turkish hadīth literature. In addition, these works are the main source in understanding the period. In this study, the mentioned works will be textually analysed through the induction method. Therefore, the subjects that would reflect the ideas of the teachers will be discussed. Thus, it will be tried to determine whether the courses of the history of hadīth are closer to tradition or modern ideas and, how the education of hadīth is practised.Summary: After the foundation of the Turkish Republic in 1923, the Faculty of Theology was opened at Istanbul University as a result of the abolition of madrasas issuing a law regarding to the Unification of Education announced in 1924. With the opening of this faculty, the education in the field of Religious Sciences continued its presence on a new foundation, which can be considered modern, until 1933. In this study, it was attempted to trace the courses of Ḥadīth and the History of Ḥadīth given in the Faculty of Theology at Istanbul University between 1924 and 1933. Firstly, a brief history of the courses will be given, and then it is among the purposes of this study to perform a textual analysis of the works written by the teachers of these courses. While doing this, Izmirli Ismail Hakkı's History of Ḥadīth, which was written as course notes and Huseyin Avni Arapkirli's al-Buġya al-Hasîs fī Tārīh al-Hadīth, which has not been known until discussed it this article for the first time, were focused on. These works are very important in terms of initiating the History of Ḥadīth literature. Furthermore, these are the first works in the field of hadīth in the Turkish Republic, and they are very important sources for revealing the ideological infrastructure of the period. To begin with, it is necessary to attract attention to the change in the course names and duration if there is a need to briefly mention the history of hadīth courses in University. In the universities founded before the opening of the Faculty of Theology, the courses were named as Ḥadīth al-sharīf and usul al-hadīth. Besides, these courses were included in the curriculum for four years, which constituted the duration of the education. In the university founded in 1924 after the proclamation of the Republic, the name was changed as Ḥadīth and the History of Ḥadīth. It is seen that the courses of Hadīth and the History of Hadīth were taught three hours a week for two years from the opening of the Faculty of Theology until 1931. From 1931 until 1933, when the faculty was closed, the courses continued to be given two hours a week. When the content of the works is viewed, it can be seen that Izmirli İsmāʿīl Ḥaqqī followed a historical system in his work History of Ḥadīth. Beginning the subject with the classification of sciences, Izmirli touches upon the topics such as the writing and codification of hadīths. Afterwards, he also deals with the methodology of in detail. He then mentions about the history of hadīth by Shiʿā and draws a general map of the history of hadīth as of the third century of the Islamic calendar. This work differs from the previous tradition of the education of hadīth in terms of including the Shiʿā’s the history of hadīth and especially of ahl al-raʾy’s understanding of the hadīth. In addition, the detailed discussion of hadīth practice in the work is significant in terms of showing that the content of the course did not only cover the history of hadīth.Moreover, it is observed that Izmirli touched upon controversial topics in his work such as the writing of hadīth, Bukhari's criticism and hadīth-history relation. However, Izmirli does not express his approach to these topics so clearly. In doing so, he hides his views between lines, using ambiguous statements related to the topics while trying to base the views on authority. For instance, he says that the hadīths were written on the special pages of the companions in the early periods when it comes to writing hadīths, which was one of the most important topics of the history of hadīth. Even though this gives an impression that the hadīths were written in the companion period, it is stated in the following explanations that the hadīths had not been gathered and written down in one place. Izmirli also says that they refer to the hadīths in the hearts of the companion. In another example, he mentions that there is no doubt about the accuracy of the narrations in Bukhārī's work. However, in the following pages, he states that there are narrators, who are not trustworthy, in Bukhārī's work and says Dāraqutnī's criticisms related to Bukhārī. When the aforementioned two examples are examined, it can be stated that Izmirli acted a bit more cautiously especially in controversial topics. When it comes to Ḥuseyin ʿAvnīʿ Arapkīrli, who starts his work with the classification of sciences as Izmirli does, it is seen that he discusses the part of practice much more briefly. Additionally, he gives more attention to Prophet Muhammad and companion period of the hadīth history. In his work, he also provides detailed information about the formation of the hadīth literature in the third century of the Islamic calendar and afterwards. When the issue is reviewed within the scope of the topics discussed by Ḥuseyin ʿAvnīʿ in his work, it is necessary to mention that the topics related to the history of hadīth were more dominant in the work. Unlike Izmir, he does not allocate much space to controversial topics in his work. However, it should also be noted that he partly touched upon some controversial topics such as hadīth -history relation and writing of hadīths. Ḥuseyin ʿAvnīʿ considers the history of hadīth as a sub-heading of history. Regarding the writing of hadīths, he states openly that the hadīths generally were not written down because of the possibility for them to be mixed up with the Qur’ān in the early periods, and this continued until the time of caliphate ʿÖmer bin ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz. Thus, it can be said that both writers, who applied different methods in their works, looked for a new method. However, it should be remembered that these names were a part of the Ottoman educational system and included in a new system together with their background. Consequently, the fact that they were somewhere between old and new. (shrink)

The rich blend of theories and experiences that made the history of physics possible still now enlightens the scientific method. We stress the need to learn from this method the force of making its principles explicit, while developing a rich diversity of theories, which are often incompatible. Unity is preserved by common founding principles and their mathematical form, such as the understanding of conservation properties (energy, momentum etc.) in terms of symmetries. When moving from the inert to the (...) living state of matter, new challenges are posed, beginning with biological “heterogenesis”, as “genesis of and from diversity” in a changing space of pertinent observables and parameters: the Darwinian ecosystem. The question that is posed is how we may consistently embed the theories of the inert into biology. By naturalization we mean an analysis of physics as part of the sciences of nature, not as the science governing them all. In particular, the founding symmetry principles of physical theories, often used to “naturalize” (but, actually, to “physicalize”) other sciences, will instead be framed in more general dynamics which deal with fundamental changes of symmetries, as they apply, in our views, in all historical sciences, beginning with biology. This paper will accordingly explore the notion of (non-)conservative extension of theories in a precise mathematical sense. We stress a perspectival epistemology that promotes a dialogue of theories, in search for bridges or even unity, inspired by the method of “unification” at the core of major theoretical inventions in physics. Our main motivation is the need to go beyond the strong dualistic separation of space (or of the more general “phase space”) as a pre-given container of the dynamics of matter, that biased physics from Aristotle to Newton and, in a technically different way, even Einstein. (shrink)

Together again for the first time, Marx and Durkheim join forces in the pages of Disintegration: Bad Love, Collective Suicide, and the Idols of Imperial Twilight for a dialectical exploration of the moral economy of neoliberalism, animated, as it is not only by the capitalist chase for surplus value, but also by an immortal vortex of sacred powers. Classical sociology and psychoanalysis are reconstituted within Hegelian social ontology and dialectical method that differentiates between the ephemeral and free and the (...) eternal and fixed aspects of modern life. (shrink)

The purpose of the article is to analyze the identity policy implemented within the Union State of Belarus and Russia and determine the ways of its improving. Methods and materials: materials include acts of the Union State of Belarus and Russia and materials from Russian and Belarusian media; the methodological basis was laid by general scientific methods (system analysis, ascent from the abstract to the concrete, ascent from the individual to the general, synthesis, comparative method) and special legal and (...) political science scientific methods (formal legal method, method of legal hermeneutics, institutional-functional and system-structural approaches, content analysis method). Results and conclusions: the formation of the Union State of the Republic of Belarus and the Russian Federation is inscribed in a complex multilevel context of international and domestic political processes, which co-determine opportunities and settle limitations for the unification strategies. The authors analyze the international and domestic factors that determine the slow character of the integration process. The authors propose one of the possible integration vectors. This vector assumes implementing a multi-level identity policy, which aims at forming a coherent political community at the heart of the Union State and needs today comprehensive development and legal and institutional support. The authors show that implementing this policy is possible only within the framework of the citizenship development. The article formulates some directions of this policy, which currently have not fully revealed their unifying potential and need further improvement. (shrink)

In a recent reply to our article, “What is Interpretability?,” Prasetya argues against our position that artificial neural networks are explainable. It is claimed that our indefeasibility thesis—that adding complexity to an explanation of a phenomenon does not make the phenomenon any less explainable—is false. More precisely, Prasetya argues that unificationist explanations are defeasible to increasing complexity, and thus, we may not be able to provide such explanations of highly complex AI models. The reply highlights an important lacuna in our (...) original paper, the omission of the unificationist account of explanation, and affords us the opportunity to respond. Here, we argue that artificial neural networks are explainable in a way that should satisfy unificationists and that interpretability methods present ways in which ML theories can achieve unification. (shrink)

Extended Abstract This book introduces and develops a new, universal method of the scientific comprehension of reality providing the objective, ...

This paper offers an exposition of what the question of method in ethics consultation involves under two conditions: when ethics consultation is regarded as a practice and when the question of method is treated systematically. It discusses the concept of the practice and the importance of rules in constituting the actions, cognition, and perceptions of practitioners. The main body of the paper focuses on three elements of the question of method: canon, discipline, and history, which are treated (...) heuristically to outline what the question of method in ethics consultation fully involves. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that the trolley method of moral philosophy has three shortcomings not yet adequately addressed in the literature. First, trolley problems highlight high stakes ethical decisions. These decisions do not represent the majority of ethical decisions made by most people, and thus, the trolley method ignores most of moral life. Second, the trolley method operates by way of a faux-anonymization of moral agents. This process leads to descriptions of moral agents being unwittingly supplied (...) by those to whom the problems are presented and thereby the formation of a paradigmatic moral agent which excludes a considerable number of real world moral persons. Lastly, the trolley method mischaracterizes what most moral decision-making is like by presenting a moral agent's decision as isolated, uninfluenced, and made with full self-awareness. (shrink)

In this paper I examine Don Ross’s application of unificationism as a methodological criterion of theory appraisal in economics and cognitive science. Against Ross’s critique that explanations of the preference reversal phenomenon by the ‘heuristics and biases’ programme is ad hoc or ‘Ptolemaic’, I argue that the compatibility hypothesis, one of the explanations offerd by this programme, is theoretically and empirically well-motivated. A careful examination of this hypothesis suggests several strengths of a procedural approach to modelling cognitive processes underlying individual (...) decision making, compared to a multiple-agent approach which Ross promotes. I argue that the debate between economists and psychologists are both theoretical and empirical, but cannot be resolved by appealing to the ideal of unification. (shrink)

We give a brief overview of the evolution of mathematics, starting from antiquity, through Renaissance, to the 19th century, and the culmination of the train of thought of history’s greatest thinkers that lead to the grand unification of geometry and algebra. The goal of this paper is not a complete formal description of any particular theoretical framework, but to show how extremisation of mathematical rigor in requiring everything be drivable directly from first principles without any arbitrary assumptions actually leads (...) to relaxing the computational difficulty along with maximal conceptual clarity. With this, we consider a revision of the foundations of elementary geometry and algebra based on the work of Grassmann and Clifford and apply it to conceptual and practical problems of past and present modern mathematics and mathematical physics. (shrink)