In light of the development of “CRISPR” technology, new promising advances in therapeutic and preventive approaches have become a reality. However, with it came many ethical challenges. The most recent worldwide condemnation of the first use of CRISPR to genetically modify a human embryo is the latest example of ethically questionable use of this new and emerging field. Monotheistic religions are very conservative about such changes to the human genome and can be considered an interference with God’s creation. Moreover, these (...) changes could cause perpetual changes to future generations. The Muslim scholars establish their decisions by addressing five foundations of Islamic law i.e. “maqāṣid al sharı̄`a”; the purposes of the law. These are dın̄, nafs, nasl, `aql and māl. To achieve this, the five principles should all be met before approval of an experiment like the Chinese embryo modifications; Qaṣd which is achieved in this case as it aims to protect the embryo from HIV. Yaqın̄ and Ḍarar were not satisfied as they require strong scientific certainty of the procedures, and evidence of safety. Ḍarūra by which the alternatives being compared; in this case more established and proven safe alternatives to protect the HIV transmission from the father are available, so this principle is not met. The final principle is `Urf, by which the social context of using any contemporary technology should be taken in consideration, and clearly this was not achieved. Collectively, germline changes are rejected from an Islamic perspective until the five principles are fulfilled. In the Chinese Twins gene editing case, there was clearly no justification or support for it according to the Muslim Jurisprudence laws. These laws and approaches can serve as an ethical checklist for such controversial research, especially in early stages of the research. (shrink)

Slavná kniha Elementární formy náboženského života francouzského sociologa Émile Durkheima je jedním z nejdůležitějších příspěvků k sociologii náboženství. Po řadu let byla vychvalována a citována, stejně jako kritizována a zavrhována. Kniha se stala chartou celé řady sociálně vědních badatelů, zejména těch, kteří se zaměřovali na studium společnosti a náboženství. V roce 1966 však vyšel článek amerického antropologa Clifforda Geertze nazvaný „Nábo- ženství jako kulturní systém", v němž autor tvrdil, že Durkheimova teorie náboženství, stejně jako teorie náboženství Sigmunda Freuda, Bronislawa Malinowského (...) a Maxe Webera, by měla být překonána dokonalejší teorií náboženství. Touto dokonalejší teorií měla být Geertzova teorie. Porozuměl však Geertz Durkheimově teorii dostatečně, aby nás to opravňovalo k tvrzení, že Durkheim byl na poli teorie náboženství překonán? (shrink)

Unlike previous studies which generally seem to focus more on Hausa metaphorical expressions, this study investigates a wide range of uses ofίdὸ‘eye’ in its constructional metonymy patterns in the language by exploring corpus data that contain over 300 eye-related expressions. We observe that some constructional metonymies maintain a set of fixed words and syntax in activating conceptual shifts and producing eye metonymies while others have semi-fixed patterns and produce the same metonymies. Lexical items liketsόkάlế,kὰn,ὰ,dὰ, andbὰsίrὰamong others are constant constituents in (...) the constructional metonymies in which they appear. In the metonymic chaining, the basic mapping of eye metonymies occurs via thepart for partrelation under E-metonymies and thesub- for supercategoryrelation under C-metonymies. We also observe that E→E→C coding has the highest chained metonymic structure in the creation of the eye metonymies. Both attributive and predicative colligates motivate metonymic senses in the language. Finally, our analysis reveals that the eye is metonymically conceptualized and semantically extended to various target domains and produces metonymic conceptualizations that make the eye stand for vision, desire, envy, control, attention, perception, person, meeting, brain, intelligence, and so on. (shrink)

This volume is a collection of S.K. Chakraborty's papers on the east-west distinction in worldviews. The essays are reflective and deliberate upon philosophical diferences and attitudes of thinkers that have shaped the behavior of the common man, both in and out of the workplace.

Jean-François Revel is the first philosopher to take food seriously and to offer a topology for food practices. He draws a distinction between different kinds of cuisine -- popular (regional) cuisine and erudite (professional) cuisine. With this distinction, he traces the evolution of food practices from the ancient Greeks and Romans, down through the Middle Ages, and into the Renaissance and the Modern Period. His contribution has been acknowledged by Deane Curtin who offers an interpretation of Revel’s conceptual scheme along (...) Platonic lines. In this essay the author reviews Curtin’s interpretation, finds it wanting in certain respects, and develops an alternative reading of Revel along Hegelian lines. This interpretation, the author believes, does greater justice to Revel’s topology for food practices. (shrink)

Мета. Стаття являє собою філософсько-антропологічну репрезентацію ідеї духовності в трилогії "Фундація" американського письменника-фантаста, філософа, популяризатора науки Айзека Азімова. Теоретичний базис. Дослідження базується на розумінні світоглядних імперативів творчості А. Азімова, які висвітлюють його філософсько-антропологічне бачення духовності як історично усталеної властивості раціонально організованого суспільства і ключову умову його прогресивної еволюції. Емерджентність, стохастичність і евентуальність розвитку сучасного глобального соціуму виводить зміст філософсько-антропологічних ідей А. Азімова на принципово новий рівень розуміння подальшого розвитку людства. Артикуляція А. Азімовим ідеї духовності в трилогії "Фундація" дозволяє визначити філософсько-антропологічну (...) концепцію письменника у всій повноті її соціального, філософського, екзистенціального та аксіологічного вимірів. Наукова новизна. Автори обґрунтували доцільність та актуальність розгляду ідеї духовності в трилогії А. Азімова "Фундація" в смисловому полі філософської антропології. Показано, що філософська антропологія А. Азімова має чітко виражене телеологічне "навантаження". В інтерпретації письменника людина майбутнього – це не "постлюдина" зі зміненою за допомогою спеціальних технологій біологічною природою, а людина, орієнтована на духовний розвиток і самовдосконалення, що базуються на одвічних цінностях, зафіксованих у ментальному коді Homo sapiens – щасті, любові, свободі, гідності, незалежності, патріотизмі. Висновки. "Фундація" – твір багатоплановий, сюжетно насичений, композиційно мозаїчний, поліфонічний, у якому, на перший погляд, важко визначити якусь домінантну ідею. У процесі дослідження встановлено, що в творчості А. Азімова одним із основних змістових центрів є філософсько-антропологічний дискурс, у просторі якого значну увагу приділено духовності людини. (shrink)

THIS ESSAY DEALS WITH D F NORTON’S INTERPRETATION OF HUME’S METHODOLOGY IN THE LATTER’S FAMOUS DISCUSSION OF MIRACLES IN THE FIRST INQUIRY. NORTON CONSTRUES "EXPERIENCE" TO MEAN PERSONAL, INDIVIDUAL EXPERIENCE. THE AUTHOR SHOWS THAT THERE IS ANOTHER SENSE OF THE WORD WHICH IS MORE COSMOPOLITAN AND ONE WHICH SQUARES MORE WITH THE USES OF EVIDENCE FOUND IN THE "HISTORY OF ENGLAND". ALTERNATIVE INTERPRETATIONS OF THE HUME PASSAGE ARE GIVEN AND HUME’S METHOD IS COMPARED WITH R G COLLINGWOOD’S IMAGINATIVE RECONSTRUCTIONIST IDEA (...) OF HISTORY. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume Studies Volume XX, Number 2, November 1994, pp. 261-287 Collingwood's Understanding of Hume S. K. WERTZ What was David Hume's reception in the British idealistic tradition? In this paper, I shall contribute a short chapter on this question by examining Hume's place in R. G. Collingwood's thought.1 Such an examination has been lacking in the literature, so what follows is a comprehensive study of Collingwood's use of Hume (...) throughout all of R.G.'s writings. I shall mainly focus on two main, unrelated discussions of Hume: first is the theory of the imagination which primarily occurs in The Principles of Art, and second is the set of relations between human nature and human history which is principally found in The Idea of History. These sections will be followed by a section on minor discussions and omissions and a conclusion. It is a common misconception that Collingwood (1889-1943) has little to offer Hume scholarship, and I wish to amend that here. Actually, Collingwood has good insights into the nature of the imagination and its role in human understanding, besides instructive thoughts on Hume on human nature and history, even though his discussion of the latter is flawed. This essay serves both historical and philosophical purposes. It is to sample Hume's place in early twentieth century British idealism at a time when he began to emerge as an important philosophical figure worthy of careful study. (By "idealism," I mean the philosophical movement which takes ideas to be an irreducible part of the world and whose program is opposed to both materialism and realism.) So Collingwood's portrait is historically interesting. But over and above this, it carries significant philosophical amendments, S. K. Wertz is at the Department of Philosophy, Texas Christian University, Box 30781, Fort Worth, TX 76129 USA. e-mail: [email protected] 262 S. K. Wertz criticisms, and suggestions about Hume's thought and the eighteenth century intellectual climate. Collingwood has mostly been studied as a philosopher of history or as an aesthetician, but not in toto from the perspective of one of the historical figures to whom he is deeply indebted. Such a view affords a portrait of Hume that is instructive and rewarding. The comparison of Hume and Collingwood lead us to finer appreciation of both philosophers. Let us first look at Collingwood's positive contribution. Imagination Collingwood begins his analysis by declaring his intentions: I shall...try to show that there are such things, to be with what Hume (whose account of them I shall take as my starting-point) called 'ideas' as distinct from 'impressions'. I shall try to show that there is a special activity of mind correlative to them, and that this is what we generally call imagination, as distinct from sensation on the one hand and intellect on the other. (PA 170-71, emphasis added) Why would Collingwood start with Hume's distinction between impressions and ideas? Undoubtedly, this means that Collingwood is willing to accept the validity of the distinction and to build on it. Isn't this a strange place for an idealist to begin? Not really. When we look at British philosophy at the turn of this century, we find idealists preoccupied with the distinction,2 so it is not extraordinary to find Collingwood utilizing it to some extent. Like most Oxford students of the time, Collingwood read Locke, Berkeley, and Hume in his undergraduate program. Consequently we find them in the problems he addresses. "It was Hume who first perceived the [Lockean] problem [of confusing sensation with imagination]," Collingwood attributes, "and tried to solve it by distinguishing ideas from impressions" (PA 200). In detail: He [Hume] was right when he laid it down that the immediate concern of thought is not with impressions but with ideas; that it is ideas, not impressions, that are associated with one another and thus built up into the fabric of knowledge; and that ideas, though 'derived' from impressions, are not mere relics of them like an after-taste of onions or an after-image of the sun (as Lockeans like Condillac supposed), but something different in kind: different, if not in what he... (shrink)

A set S of degrees is said to be an initial segment if c ≤ d ∈ S→-c∈S. Shoenfield has shown that if P is the lattice of all subsets of a finite set then there is an initial segment of degrees isomorphic to P. Rosenstein [2] (independently) proved the same to hold of the lattice of all finite subsets of a countable set. We shall show that “countable set” may be replaced by “set of cardinality at most that of (...) the continuum.” This result is also an extension of [3, Corollary 2 to Theorem 15], which states that there is a sublattice of degrees isomorphic to the lattice of all finite subsets of 2N. (A sublattice of degrees is a subset closed under ∪ and ∩; an initial segment closed under ∪ is necessarily a sublattice, but not conversely.)It seems worth noting that the proof of the present result was preceded in time by our proof [4] of the analogous theorem for hyperdegrees, and is in fact an adaptation of that proof. Thus the present work has been influenced much more directly by the Gandy-Sacks forcing construction of a minimal hyperdegree [1] than by previous work on initial segments of degrees. (shrink)

What are the historical origins of aesthetic education? One of these comes from the eighteenth century. This became an important theme in a novel of the time. Published in 1761, Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Julie, or the New Heloise: Letters of Two Lovers Who Live in a Small Town at the Foot of the Alps1 was an instant success in eighteenth-century Europe. Widely read, the novel made European culture self-conscious and forced it to pay attention to aspects of living that had gone (...) unnoticed or underappreciated, including taste and food.2 These aspects—taste and food—become concrete manifestations of aesthetic education. Through the voices of Julie and her tutor-turned-lover Saint Preux, they provide a lively critique of.. (shrink)

This article takes a close look at the nature offeminine values in congruence with natural law. The thoughts of Tagore primarily and to a lesser degree of Vivekananda, Gandhi and Nivedita on this most momentous area of social-psychological well-beingfor humans are highlighted. Trendy and shallow modernism seems to be aiming at cheap goals in the name of women's liberation, and the long-term damage to humanity is becoming incalculable. The tragic and bizarre events occurring across the whole spectrum, from homes and (...) schools to business and politics, can be traced in a big way to the hot pace of centrifugalized breaking up of stable family values woven around natural, centripetal feminine values. (shrink)

Written from the perspective of philosophy of liberation, this essay holds that the reform of basic human relationships and their cultural instantiation(s) is central to all serious societal change. The essay analyzes naive, mythological, and critical consciousness. It examines how these modes of consciousness are embodied in the health delivery system and then describes areas where practitioners and patients of critical consciousness might work for greater humanization of health care.

There seems to exist a dilemma in the literature as to the correct relativistic formula for the Sagnac phase-shift. The paper addresses this issue in the light of a novel, kinematically equivalent linear Sagnac-type thought experiment, which provides a vantage point from which the effect of rotation in the usual Sagnac effect can be analyzed. The question is shown to be related to the so-called rotating disc problem known as the Ehrenfest paradox. The relativistic formula for the Sagnac phase-shift seems (...) to depend on the way the paradox is resolved. Kinematic resolution of the Ehrenfest paradox proposed by some authors predicts the usually quoted formula for the Sagnac delay but the resolution itself is shown to be based upon some implicit assumptions regarding the behaviour of solid bodies under acceleration. In order to have a greater insight into the problem, a second version of the thought experiment involving linear motion of a “special type” of a non-rigid frame of reference is discussed. It is shown by analogy that the usually quoted special relativistic formula for the Sagnac delay follows, provided the material of the disc matches the “special type.”. (shrink)