Ghazzālī, 1058-1111; views on behaviorism ; religious aspects; Islam.

An analytical exposition of Hindu religion and philosophy.

Introduction : La philosophie en Égypte -- La philosophie chretienne arabe contemporaine : Kanawati et Youssef Karam -- Le discours éthique en Égypte -- Naguib Mahfouz et la philosophie -- La philosophie et la revolution en Égypte.

The dominant model of curriculum design in the last century assumed that school education could be organized around aims, defined primarily in terms of students' behaviour. The credentials of this model were questioned by, among others, Lawrence Stenhouse, who pointed out that education serves purposes that cannot be stated in terms of behavioural objectives. In this article, I offer support for Stenhouse's conclusion and go beyond it, showing that if education aims at critical understanding of its own value, then it (...) is even more radically open-ended than Stenhouse argued.My argument is based on two premises. One of them is that the reason why people disagree about what education involves is that they have less-than-perfect knowledge of what human characteristics are worth cultivating. This premise is supported by a theory of meaning advanced by Hilary Putnam. The other premise is that one of the aims of education is intellectual independence. From these premises, I conclude that a successful course of education serves purposes that cannot be completely stated in advance. (shrink)

Aristotle took practical wisdom to include cleverness, and something more. The hard question, that he does not explicitly answer, is what this something more is. On my interpretation, the practically wise are not merely more knowledgeable about what is good for people. They are also better able to discern all the values at stake, in whatever circumstances they find themselves. This is an ability that good people develop, typically rather late in life, provided they are masters of their own affairs. (...) According to Aristotle, this development is stunted by wickedness and also by wretchedness. It follows from his account that attempts to teach this virtue are not likely to succeed unless teachers have opportunities for developing practical wisdom through their work. Aristotle’s arguments give us reasons to doubt that teachers can help their students to become virtuous and wise, if their own way to earn a living is not conductive to human flourishing. If we take his message to heart, we should, first and foremost, think about how to steer clear of wretched work conditions, where teachers’ moral agency is narrowly circumscribed. (shrink)

يقوم هذا الكتاب على فكرة عميقة الدلالة والأثر، تقول فى بساطة ان الدين الاسلامى لا يقوم فقط على الحلال والحرام، وانما هناك معانى اكبر وحياة اشمل تكون بعد الابجديات التى تنظم حياة الفرد والمجتمع حلالا وحراما، فما اعظم القيم التى ثبتها هذا الدين فى نفوس اصحابه، بل فى نفوس كل الاسوياء والباحثين عن الحق فى كل زمان ومكان، فإن اى مجتمع مهما بلغ من درجات الرقى لا يقوم الا على القيم الاصلية فهى التى تقيم اسسه وتشكل ملامحه وترسم طريقه، فالانسان (...) حين يُجرد من القيم، لا يُؤمن له جانب ولا يطيب عيش الى جواره، فإذا كانت هذه القيم صنيعة هذا الدين الذى ارسى قواعدها وتشبع بها كل تعاليمه فهى لاشك قيم عالية ثابتة تنظم حياة الفرد والمجتمع وتلملم شتات الحائرين وتهدى الى صراط مستقيم. (shrink)

من نعم الله على عباده أنه شرع لهم ما يصلحهم وحرم عليهم ما يفسدهم؛ فجعل رضاه حيث منفعتهم، وجعل سخطه حيث مضرتهم؛ ومن هنا لا يخفى على عاقل لِمَ حرم الله الغرور وجعله من الحوائل دون دخول الجنة -كما أخبر بذلك المعصوم صلى الله عليه وسلم- وما كان لامرئ أن يدخل الغرور قلبه إذ الملك كله لله والعباد مستخلفون في الأرض يعمرونها لا ليتفاخروا ولا ليتكبروا وإنما لتعلو كلمة الله -تعالى- التي تقضي بالحق لكل العباد. في هذا الكتاب إطلالة على (...) الذنب الأول )الغرور( الذي من أجله تكبر إبليس عَلى السجود لآدم فاستحق لعنة الله -عز وجل- عبرة لمن أراد السلامة من هذه الآفة الكبرى، فيعرض الكتاب في فصوله الثلاثة: مفهوم الغرور وماهيته التي يخلط كثير من الناس بينها وبين الثقة بالنفس والإخبار بالواقع. ثم يطوف في نماذج من الرسل الكرام الذين لم يقعوا في هذه الآفة مع أنهم لهم كل كمال بشري. ثم يسرد الكتاب عواقب الغرور ومآله ليتبين الخيط الأبيض من الخيط الأسود، ويظهر الصبح لذي عينين. (shrink)

A typical expository strategy for the predictive processing account begins with perception and then extends to other cognitive domains, such as action or non-human animal cognition. Because this standard, perception-first expository strategy begins at the end of an evolutionary process, it may introduce both diachronic and synchronic distortions into the overall account. As far as the diachronic distortion is concerned, because the perception-first strategy presupposes a highly decoupled cognitive architecture, it invites us to project this architecture onto the coupled cognitive (...) systems of our evolutionary ancestors and other non-human organisms. Turning to the synchronic distortion, as the perception-first strategy is extended to conative states, it invites a cognitivism that seeks to reconstrue motivational states as a species of belief. In this paper, I explore what a predictive processing account would look like if it began at the beginning, with the highly coupled representations carried by our evolutionary ancestors and other non-human organisms. I conclude by exploring the proposal’s implications for a non-cognitivist, predictive processing account of action. (shrink)

Articles on Hindu religion, society, and philosophy.