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)

The discussion develops Edward Said's thesis of orientialism. Said approached "orientalism" as a construction of Asia by Europeans, and a problem in Euro-American modernity. This essay argues that, from the beginning, Asians participated in the construction of the orient, and that orientalism therefore should be viewed as a problem in Asian modernities as well. The essay utilizes Mary Louise Pratt's idea of "contact zones" to argue that orientalism was a product of the circulation of Euro-American and Asian intellectuals in these (...) contact zones, or borderlands. While orientalism has been very much implicated in power relations between Euro-America and Asia, the question of power nevertheless should be separated analytically from the construction of orientalism. In support of this argument, the essay points to the contemporary "self-orientalization" of Asian intellectuals, which is a manifestation not of powerlessness but newly-acquired power. (shrink)

The paper argues against Bob Hale's (1999) argument that enquirers must regard some truths as necessary truths. Hale's argument against Quinean skepticism. like many similar arguments due to McFetridge, Wright and others, involves a quantifier shift fallacy.

Sophisticated ‘tickle’-style defences of Evidential Decision Theory take your motivational state to screen off your act from any state that is causally independent of it, thus ensuring that EDT and CDT converge. That leads to unacceptable instability in cases in which the correct action is obvious. We need a more liberal conception of what the agent controls. It follows that an ordinary deliberator should sometimes consider the past and not only the future to be subject to her present choice.

Newcomb's Problem is a controversial paradox of decision theory. It is easily explained and easily understood, and there is a strong chance that most of us have actually faced it in some form or other. And yet it has proven as thorny and intractable a puzzle as much older and better-known philosophical problems of consciousness, scepticism and fatalism. It brings into very sharp and focused disagreement several long-standing philosophical theories on practical rationality, on the nature of free will, and on (...) the direction and analysis of causation. This volume introduces readers to the nature of Newcomb's Problem, and ten chapters by leading scholars present the most recent debates around the Problem and analyse its ramifications for decision theory, metaphysics, philosophical psychology and political science. Their chapters highlight the status of Newcomb's Problem as a live and continuing issue in modern philosophy. (shrink)

Parvalbumins (PVs) are acidic, intracellular Ca2+‐binding proteins of low molecular weight. They are associated with several Ca2+‐mediated cellular activities and physiological processes. It has been suggested that PV might function as a “Ca2+ shuttle” transporting Ca2+ from troponin‐C (TnC) to the sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR) Ca2+ pump during muscle relaxation. Thus, PV may contribute to the performance of rapid, phasic movements by accelerating the contraction–relaxation cycle of fast‐twitch muscle fibers. Interestingly, PVs promote the generation of power stroke in fish by speeding (...) up the rate of relaxation and thus provide impetus to attain maximal sustainable speeds. However, immunological monitoring of diverse tissues demonstrated that PVs are also present in non‐muscle cells. The axoplasmic transport and various intracellular secretory mechanisms including the endocrine secretions seem to be controlled by the Ca2+ regulation machinery. Any defect in the Ca2+ handling apparatus may cause several clinical problems; for instance, PV deficiency alters the neuronal activity, a key mechanism leading to epileptic seizures. Moreover, atypical relaxation of the heart results in diastolic dysfunction, which is a major cause of heart failure predominantly among the aged people. PV may offer a unique potential to correct defective relaxation in energetically compromised failing hearts through PV gene transfer. Consequently, PV gene transfer may present a new therapeutic approach to correct cellular disturbances in Ca2+ signaling pathways of diseased organs. Hence, PVs appear to be amazingly useful candidate proteins regulating a variety of cellular functions through action on Ca2+ flux management. (shrink)

Tourism, as an industry, has become one of the most dynamic sectors of the world economy these days and has specific features that are different from other industries. In the tourism industry, production and consumption points occur spatially at the same time. In addition, the tourism industry contributes to the economic growth of developed regions and can simultaneously distribute the wealth created geographically. It is notable that the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has caused many challenges in the tourism industry (...) regarding the presence of tourists in tourism centres and the closing of all tourism service chains, including food, entertainment, transportation and travel services worldwide. Tourism-related businesses, which are considered as invisible export and one of the engines of development and occupation, have been rendered obsolete. In other words, the businesses, as well as multiple units and activities in the related chain, have been damaged and employees of this industry have lost their jobs. This has led to the recession and regressive course of the developing and large industry of tourism in the world. It is worth noting that the tourism industry includes various sections, the most important of which is religious tourism. All religions in the world have different religious places, works, traditions and customs, which have become amongst the most important tourist attractions. Meanwhile, Muslims and the religion of Islam play a significant role in this branch of tourism. The Hajj, pilgrimage to holy places and the existence of mourning ceremonies or religious celebrations of Muslims are amongst the largest religious tourism events in the world. Given the importance of this issue, the present study aimed to evaluate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on religious tourism in Iraq in 2021. This field study was conducted on 4500 Muslim managers and staff of restaurants, hotels, grocery stores, clothing stores and souvenir shops around the holy shrines of imams and religious places in Karbala, Najaf, Kufa, Samarra and Kazemi. According to the results, the tourism of Iraq, which is mainly limited to Muslim religious sites in several major Iraqi cities, has also seen a decline in the number of religious tourists. The negative effects of COVID-19 on religious tourism have also been proved statistically by the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS), as µ ≥ 3 has been counted in all indices.Contribution: Our findings offered new insights into the impact of COVID-19 on tourism, based on statistical analysis. In this study, the authors showed how COVID-19 affects various aspects of religious tourism, which has not been addressed in previous researches. (shrink)

Le passage spéculatif de la catégorie du mauvais infini dans le véritable infini reste l’un des plus importants dans la Science de la logique. Comme il est bien connu, ce passage est expliqué par Hegel à travers sa théorie de l’idéalité du fini. Pourtant, du fait de sa structure complexe, le surgissement du véritable infini au sein du fini par l’idéalisation peut être considéré comme un processus abstrait, consistant seulement à supprimer la dualité de l’infinité. Cet article se propose donc (...) d’examiner pourquoi l’idéalisation de la véritable infini ne signifie ni une simple neutralisation de la catégorie de la finité ni une infinitisation extérieure de celle-ci, mais un processus dynamique qui s’infinitise en supprimant l’opposition statique du fini et de l’infini. (shrink)

Probably many people have cyclic preferences: they prefer A to B, B to C and C to A for some objects of choice A, B and C. Recent work has resurrected the objection to cyclic preference that agents possessing them are open to exploitation by means of ‘money pumps’. The paper briefly reviews this work and proposes a general approach to problems of sequential choice that makes cyclic preference immune to exploitation by means of these new mechanisms.

You should rather play hide-and-seek against someone who cannot predict where you hide than against someone who can, as the article illustrates in connection with a high-stakes example. Causal Decision Theory denies this. So Causal Decision Theory is false.

This article offers the concept of `global modernity' (in the singular) as a way to understand the contemporary world. It suggests that the concept helps overcome the teleology implicit in a term such as globalization, while it also recognizes global difference and conflict, which are as much characteristics of the contemporary world as tendencies toward unity and homogenization. These differences, and the appearance of `alternative' or `multiple' modernities, it suggests, are expressions, and articulations, of the contradictions of modernity which are (...) now universalized across, as well as within, societies. If we are to speak of alternative or multiple modernities, which presently valorize the persistence of traditions and `civilizational' legacies, we need to recognize that the very language of alternatives and multiplicity is enabled historically by the presupposition of a common modernity shaped by a globalizing capitalism. (shrink)

Intellectual property Rights (IPRs) is protected by different systems of laws. Journals must choose a definitive form of systems. Some Blackwell journals use copyright system and some Blackwell use license from authors. Now a days online journals are using creative common licenses. Under creative common license journals are open access, allowed to download, copy, distribute, and display derivative works with proper attribution to author or owner for noncommercial purpose at a free cost. Education on IPRs will support to comprehend ones (...) rights, professional code of conduct and the doctrine of "fair use" in publication. One cannot do anything with once writing. Researchers, academic, editors and readers must have the basic knowledge on who owns the rights in a publication and what users can do with the publication by law. (shrink)

The paper discusses Ian Wells’s recent argument that there is a decision problem in which followers of Evidential Decision Theory end up poorer than followers of Causal Decision Theory despite having the same opportunities for money. It defends Evidential Decision Theory against Wells’s argument, on the following grounds. Wells's has not presented a decision problem in which his main claim is true. Four possible decision problems can be generated from his central example, in each of which followers of Evidential Decision (...) Theory do at least as well as followers of Causal Decision Theory. There is another case in which followers of Causal Decision Theory have the same opportunities for making money but end up worse than followers of Evidential Decision Theory. (shrink)

Deductive inference seems to reveal semantic connections between their premise(s) and conclusion that were there all along. This looks inconsistent with Wittgenstein's later views on meaning. The paper argues that W's treatment of aspects suggests a Wittgensteinian treatment of deduction that accommodates the troublesome phenomenon without conceding its force.

In recent years, many Small Island Developing State governments have worked to increase openness and transparency of their transactions as a means to enhance efficiency and reduce corruption in their economies. In order to achieve a cost-effective and efficient strategy to implement a transparent government, Information Communication Technologies offer an opportunity of virtualization by deploying e-government services to promote transparency, accountability and consistency in the public sector and to minimize corruption. This paper explores the potential impact of government virtualization by (...) SIDS and against corruption by comparing the corruption perception index rates of 15 SIDS countries. The CPI relates to the degree by which corruption is perceived to exist among public officials and politicians by business people and country analysts. In order to reveal the long-term impact of virtual deployment and its consequences on corruption, an in-depth case analysis based on the CPI index rates was conducted on the deployment of the e-government system in Cyprus. (shrink)

This discussion note examines a recent argument for the principle that any counterfactual with true components is itself true. That argument rests upon two widely accepted principles of counterfactual logic to which the paper presents counterexamples. The conclusion speculates briefly upon the wider lessons that philosophers should draw from these examples for the semantics of counterfactuals.

A resolution must give “seeing it differently” a sense that makes it clear that it is seeing that one is doing differently and not something else that is going on at the same time. The Berlin school of gestalt psychology took the view that alongside the colors and shapes traditionally thought to compose the visual field was a similarly perceptible aspect of “organization”. Wittgenstein considers the possibility of a physiological explanation of aspect change. This chapter details the Wittgenstein's account that (...) it is worth making three general comments about what explaining a psychological concept involves, according to his later philosophy. It focuses on Wittgenstein's writings on sensory aspects and non-sensory aspects. Kant's proposal was that the intuition is of an a priori manifold; but perhaps what is more plausible is that the objects of synoptic vision are not themselves individuals but concepts. (shrink)

_The Belt and Road initiative was announced in 2013 under the administration of China’s President, Xi Jinping. It was designed to fulfill the aim of interconnecting Asia, Europe, and Africa through reliable connectivity networks. In reaction to it, the 47 th summit of G7 in June 2021 has given a response to this Chinese Initiative with the idea of Build Back Better World (B3W). G7 tried to show that the world can have an alternative to BRI. The main objective of (...) the study was to compare the feasibility of these two massive infrastructural projects. It is a qualitative document analysis of the previously published material on the related theme, that highlighted a competition of economic supremacy between the US and China. The research found that BRI was gaining enough popularity as compared to B3W in the eyes of the world specifically in connecting different regions._. (shrink)

Parmenides plays an important role in the first section of Hegel’s Science of Logic due to his definition of being as a pure thought-determination. This article investigates, first, how Hegel conceives the Parmenidean being. Secondly, by discussing Hegel's logical analysis of pure being and pure nothing, it aims to show why and how such conception of being, according to Hegel, provides a crucial insight into the function of the understanding.

"Ruh Üzerine Yazılar" içinde, Berk Özcangiller (ed.), Alfa Yayınları, 2021.

The Belt and Road initiative was announced in 2013 under the administration of China’s President, Xi Jinping. It was designed to fulfill the aim of interconnecting Asia, Europe, and Africa through reliable connectivity networks. In reaction to it, the 47th summit of G7 in June 2021 has given a response to this Chinese Initiative with the idea of Build Back Better World. G7 tried to show that the world can have an alternative to BRI. The main objective of the study (...) is to compare the feasibility of these two massive infrastructural projects. It is a qualitative document analysis of the previously published material on the related theme, that highlighted a competition of economic supremacy between the US and China. The research finds that BRI is gaining enough popularity as compared to B3W in the eyes of the world specifically in connecting different regions. (shrink)

This article explores Ibn Sīnā’s cosmological views and analyzes the underlying assumptions and arguments in support of the theories to which he subscribes. These include the notions of the central and stationary position of the earth in a finite, spherical cosmos, the impossibility of the existence of many universes, and the metaphysical forces that drive, guide, and maintain the perpetual movement of cosmic bodies.