_The Promise of Happiness_ is a provocative cultural critique of the imperative to be happy. It asks what follows when we make our desires and even our own happiness conditional on the happiness of others: “I just want you to be happy”; “I’m happy if you’re happy.” Combining philosophy and feminist cultural studies, Sara Ahmed reveals the affective and moral work performed by the “happiness duty,” the expectation that we will be made happy by taking part in that which (...) is deemed good, and that by being happy ourselves, we will make others happy. Ahmed maintains that happiness is a promise that directs us toward certain life choices and away from others. Happiness is promised to those willing to live their lives in the right way. Ahmed draws on the intellectual history of happiness, from classical accounts of ethics as the good life, through seventeenth-century writings on affect and the passions, eighteenth-century debates on virtue and education, and nineteenth-century utilitarianism. She engages with feminist, antiracist, and queer critics who have shown how happiness is used to justify social oppression, and how challenging oppression causes unhappiness. Reading novels and films including_ Mrs. Dalloway_, _The Well of Loneliness_, _Bend It Like Beckham_, and _Children of Men_, Ahmed considers the plight of the figures who challenge and are challenged by the attribution of happiness to particular objects or social ideals: the feminist killjoy, the unhappy queer, the angry black woman, and the melancholic migrant. Through her readings she raises critical questions about the moral order imposed by the injunction to be happy. (shrink)

In _Willful Subjects_ Sara Ahmed explores willfulness as a charge often made by some against others. One history of will is a history of attempts to eliminate willfulness from the will. Delving into philosophical and literary texts, Ahmed examines the relation between will and willfulness, ill will and good will, and the particular will and general will. Her reflections shed light on how will is embedded in a political and cultural landscape, how it is embodied, and how will (...) and willfulness are socially mediated. Attentive to the wayward, the wandering, and the deviant, Ahmed considers how willfulness is taken up by those who have received its charge. Grounded in feminist, queer, and antiracist politics, her sui generis analysis of the willful subject, the figure who wills wrongly or wills too much, suggests that willfulness might be required to recover from the attempt at its elimination. (shrink)

Ahmed uncovers new historiographical perspectives by critically examining the work of prominent intellectuals, such as Muhammad Abduh, Qasim Amin and Abdul A'la Maududi.

Differences That Matter challenges existing ways of theorising the relationship between feminism and postmodernism which ask 'is or should feminism be modern or postmodern?' Sara Ahmed suggests that postmodernism has been allowed to dictate feminist debates and calls instead for feminist theorists to speak (back) to postmodernism, rather than simply speak on (their relationship to) it. Such a 'speaking back' involves a refusal to position postmodernism as a generalisable condition of the world and requires closer readings of what postmodernism (...) is actually 'doing' in a variety of disciplinary contexts. Sara Ahmed hence examines constructions of postmodernism in relation to rights, ethics, subjectivity, authorship, meta-fiction and film. (shrink)

(1996). Science and technology in the discourse of Sayyid Qutb. Social Epistemology: Vol. 10, Islamic Social Epistemology, pp. 289-304. doi: 10.1080/02691729608578820.

Abstract: Background: In spite of the fact that computers continue to improve in speed and functions operation, they remain complex to use. Problems frequently happen, and it is hard to resolve or find solutions for them. This paper outlines the significance and feasibility of building a desktop PC problems diagnosis system. The system gathers problem symptoms from users’ desktops, rather than the user describes his/her problems to primary search engines. It automatically searches global databases of problem symptoms and solutions, and (...) also allows ordinary users to contribute exact problem reports in a structured manner. Objectives: The main goal of this Knowledge Based System is to get the suitable problem desktop PC symptoms and the correct way to solve the errors. Methods: In this paper the design of the proposed Knowledge Based System which was produced to help users of desktop PC in knowing many of the problems and error such as : Power supply problems, CPU errors, RAM dumping error, hard disk errors and bad sectors and suddenly restarting PC. The proposed Knowledge Based System presents an overview about desktop PC hardware errors are given, the cause of fault are outlined and the solution to the problems whenever possible is given out. CLIPS Knowledge Based System language was used for designing and implementing the proposed expert system. Results: The proposed PC desktop troubleshooting Knowledge Based System was evaluated by IT students and they were satisfied with its performance. (shrink)

Spinoza, Benedictus de, 1632-1677; Islamic philosophy; Ontology.

We formulate several statements in Algebraic Logic that turn out to be independent of ZFC. We relate such statements to Martin's axiom, omitting types for variants of first order logic and topological properties of Baire spaces.

The use of armed drones in post-9/11 US military conflicts has increasingly been the subject of academic writings; few, however, examine its collateral effects from a biopolitically-framed, phenomenological lens. This article examines how the indeterminate field of threat produced and sustained by the preventive military paradigm of drone warfare transforms potential threats into determinate targets of military violence. The spatial disruption experienced by inhabitants of the "space of death" generated by the "drone zone" thus transforms their existential comportment of living (...) under drones into that of 'walking corpses' whose relationships to space expose the devastating phenomenological consequences of drone warfare. (shrink)

Most philosophers agree that causal knowledge is essential to decision-making: agents should choose from the available options those that probably cause the outcomes that they want. This book argues against this theory and in favour of evidential or Bayesian decision theory, which emphasises the symptomatic value of options over their causal role. It examines a variety of settings, including economic theory, quantum mechanics and philosophical thought-experiments, where causal knowledge seems to make a practical difference. The arguments make novel use of (...) machinery from other areas of philosophical inquiry, including first-person epistemology and the free will debate. The book also illustrates the applicability of decision theory itself to questions about the direction of time and the special epistemic status of agents. (shrink)

Buildings energy consumption is growing gradually and put away around 40% of total energy use. Predicting heating and cooling loads of a building in the initial phase of the design to find out optimal solutions amongst different designs is very important, as ell as in the operating phase after the building has been finished for efficient energy. In this study, an artificial neural network model was designed and developed for predicting heating and cooling loads of a building based on a (...) dataset for building energy performance. The main factors for input variables are: relative compactness, roof area, overall height, surface area, glazing are a, wall area, glazing area distribution of a building, orientation, and the output variables: heating and cooling loads of the building. The dataset used for training are the data published in the literature for various 768 residential buildings. The model was trained and validated, most important factors affecting heating load and cooling load are identified, and the accuracy for the validation was 99.60%. (shrink)

This book offers for the first time a complete scholarly translation, commentary, and glossary in a modern European language of the logic section of Avicenna's very important compendium al-Naj=at.

Il s’agit d’essayer de penser un « entre-deux » entre les travaux novateurs de Gilbert Durand sur l’imaginaire et les conceptualisations sémiotiques de la signification. Bien que Durand semble rejeter toute forme d’« explication sémiologique » des images-symboles, sa conception de l’imaginaire est régie par une sémiosis et une rationalité spécifiques qui permettent d’entrevoir, même si l’intersection n’implique pas forcément la fusion, les contours d’un « entre-deux » entre son « archétypologie » et la sémiotique. This paper try to imagine (...) a “In-between” from the semiotic conceptualizations of the significance to the innovative work of Gilbert Durand on the imaginary. Although Durand seems to reject any form of “semiological explanation” of the image-symbols, his conception of imaginary is governed by a specific semiosis and rationality which make it possible to foresee, even if the intersection does not inevitably imply fusion, contours of a “In-between” between his “archetypology” and semiotics. (shrink)

The risk of cigarette smoking plays a pivotal role in increasing the incidence rates of lung cancer. This paper sheds new light on modeling the impact of cigarette smoking on lung cancer evolution, especially genetic instability and the number of gene mutations in the genome of stem cells. To handle this issue, we have set up stochastic multi-stage models to fit the data set of the probabilities of current and former smokers from the Nurses’ Health Study cohort of females and (...) the Health Professionals Follow up Study cohort of men. Throughout this paper, we consider both mutation rates and clonal expansion rates as parameters in each compartment. For current and former smokers, three-driver mutations are most likely to take place in the progression of lung cancer under smoking risk. For current smokers, our findings reveal that two to sixteen gene mutations are required to obtain a cancerous cell among men and women in US. Moreover, two to six cancer-mutations are available in the pathway to lung cancer among former smokers who have quit smoking for more than ten years for both male and female patients. This highlights that cigarette smoking stimulates the number of driver mutations during lung tumorigenesis in both sexes. It is very crucial to examine the role of cigarette smoking in determining whether genomic instability is an early stage or late stage in the process of lung carcinogenesis. (shrink)

Study that try to expose and to define the different types of the language as the juridical, theological, and ascetic-mystical in Miftāḥ al-sa‘āda [Key of Happiness] of Ibn al-‘Arīf. Types that are analyzed in details, to conclude with the influence of the Sufi language of Ibn al-‘Arīf in Ibn ‘Arabī’s work, supporting on considerations of semantic as well as mystical nature.

Este artículo presente y analiza el legado de Abū Madyan cuyas bases van a quedar ilustrado perfectamente en el posterior desarrollo del sufismo andalusi-magrebi de origen šāḏilī y la doctrina de ibn ‘Arabī: traduccion española y estudio critico de las evidencias y cotejos textuales, ensenanzas y practicas espirituales y funcionalidad social.

Feminism is sensational -- On being directed -- Willfulness and feminist subjectivity -- Trying to transform -- Being in question -- Brick walls -- Fragile connections -- Feminist snap -- Lesbian feminism -- Conclusion 1: A killjoy survival kit -- Conclusion 2: A killjoy manifesto.

Le cri que porte l'intitulé de cet ouvrage est un appel aux lecteurs et aux historiens du Rushdisme à une halte réflexive sur ce que l'auteur appelle cri. Car le cri est une revendication légitime du philosophe. C'est une sorte de voix extra temporelle qui, par fidélité à l'esprit de sa philosophie, s'insurge et déclare que sa pensée a été trahie. Qui est donc ce philosophe à qui on a prêté tant de légendes et commis à son égard tant d'erreurs? (...) Est-ce un grand philosophe réduit au statut de simple commentateur? Ou est-ce une grande méprise à l'égard d'un penseur dont le seul tort est d'avoir voulu sauver le rationalisme philosophique? C'est avec force et détermination que l'auteur de cet essai nous démontre ses convictions sur un personnage historique essentiel, manifestement trop méconnu... Ahmed Mellah est professeur de philosophie. Il a pour ambition de soumettre la philosophie islamique à une analyse critique qui la débarrasserait du dogmatisme institué et autres a priori qui la gangrènent et rendent toute lecture audacieuse totalement inopérante. (shrink)

Cette monographie porte sur la question de la connaissance dans le commentaire coranique de Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī. Ahmed Oulddali y étudie, à travers plusieurs sources, les théories psychologiques et épistémologiques sur lesquelles cet exégète sunnite fonde son interprétation du Coran. This monograph addresses the question of knowledge in Faḫr al-Dīn al-Rāzī's Qurʾān commentary. Utilizing a variety of sources, Ahmed Oulddali presents the psychological and epistemological theories on which this Sunni exegete bases his interpretation of the Qurʾān.

We give a new characterization of the class of completely representable cylindric algebras of dimension 2 #lt; n w via special neat embeddings. We prove an independence result connecting cylindric algebra to Martin''s axiom. Finally we apply our results to finite-variable first order logic showing that Henkin and Orey''s omitting types theorem fails for L n, the first order logic restricted to the first n variables when 2 #lt; n#lt;w. L n has been recently (and quite extensively) studied as a (...) many-dimensional modal logic. (shrink)