The basing relation is a relation that obtains between a belief and the evidence or reason for which it is held. It is a highly controversial question in epistemology how such a relation should be characterized. Almost all epistemologists believe that causation must play a role in articulating the notion of the basing relation. The causal account however faces the serious problem of the deviant causal chains. In this paper, I will be particularly looking at the philosophers’ appeal to the (...) notion of disposition as a way of excluding deviant chains. Having argued against such accounts, it will be suggested that, since the obtaining of the basing relation is what distinguishes propositional from doxastic justification, we may have a better grasp of this notion if we could clearly see how those two species of justification are related to one another. Drawing on earlier work, a dispositional account of propositional and doxastic justification is subsequently defended. It will be argued that such a view has the resources to resolve the problem of causal deviance, thus, providing an acceptable account of the notion of the basing relation. (shrink)

In one of the earlier influential papers in the field of experimental philosophy titled Normativity and Epistemic Intuitions published in 2001, Jonathan M. Weinberg, Shaun Nichols and Stephen Stich reported that respondents answered Gettier type questions differently depending on their ethnic background as well as socioeconomic status. There is currently a debate going on, on the significance of the results of Weinberg et al. (2001) and its implications for philosophical methodology in general and epistemology in specific. Despite the debates, however, (...) to our knowledge, there has not been a replication attempt of the experiments of the original paper. We collected data from four different sources (two on-line and two in-person) to replicate the experiments. Despite several different data sets and in various cases larger sample sizes and hence greater power to detect differences, we failed to detect significant differences between the above-mentioned ethnic and socioeconomic groups. Our results suggest that epistemic intuitions are more robust across ethnic and socioeconomic groups than Weinberg et al. (2001) indicates. Given our data, we believe that the notion of differences in epistemic intuitions among different ethnic and socioeconomic groups that follows from Weinberg et al. (2001) needs to be corrected. (shrink)

Shāhnāmeh, Book of Kings, is one of the greatest epics in the world, beautifully put into verse by Abolqāsem Ferdowsi. It is the great Persian epic which makes the Persian language proud. One of th...

Global changes in capital, power, technology and the media have caused massive shifts in how we define home and community, leaving redrawn territories and globalized contexts. This interdisciplinary study of the media brings together essays by accomplished critics to discuss the way film, television, music, and computer and electronic media are shaping identities and cultures in an increasingly globalized world. Ranging from intensely personal to highly theoretical, the contributors explore our complex negotiation of "home" and homeland" in a postmodern world. (...) Contributors: Homi Bhabha, Thomas Elsaesser, Rosa Linda Fregoso, Teshome H. Gabriel, George Lipsitz, Margaret Morse, David Morley, John Peters, Patricia Seed, Ella Shohat, and Vivian Sobchack. (shrink)

In their paper titled “Gender and philosophical intuition,” Buckwalter and Stich argue that the intuitions of women and men differ significantly on various types of philosophical questions. Furthermore, men's intuitions, so the authors claim, are more in line with traditionally accepted solutions of classical problems. This inherent bias, so the argument goes, is one of the factors that leads more men than women to pursue degrees and careers in philosophy. These findings have received a considerable amount of attention and the (...) paper is to appear in the second edition of Experimental Philosophy edited by Knobe and Nichols , which itself is an influential outlet. Given the exposure of these results, we attempted to replicate three of the classes of questions that Buckwalter and Stich review in their paper and for which they report significant differences. We failed to replicate the results using several different sources for data collection (one being identical to the original procedures.. (shrink)

According to the thesis of epistemic conservatism it would be unreasonable to change one's beliefs in the absence of any good reasons. Although it is claimed that epistemic conservatism has informed and resolved a number of positions and problems in epistemology, it is difficult to identify a single representative view of the thesis. This has resulted in advancing a series of disparate and largely unconnected arguments to establish conservatism. In this paper, I begin by casting doubt on the claim of (...) widespread and genuine applications of the conservative policy. I then distinguish between three main varieties of epistemic conservatism, namely, differential, perseverance and generation conservatism Having evaluated various arguments that have been offered or may be considered on behalf of the conservative thesis, I close by concluding that those versions of the thesis that survive critical scrutiny fail to live up to the aspirations of the thesis as a substantive canon of rationality, that to the extent that principles of conservatism are epistemically promising, they are not plausible. While to the extent that they are plausible, they are not of much epistemic interest. (shrink)

The unsettling fear of COVID-19 infections has caused a new trend in consumer behavior in the food and beverage industry. The unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic has shifted consumers’ preferences from eat-in to online delivery. This research aims to measure the impact of consumers’ motivation to protect themselves from contracting COVID-19, which explains why people switch from eat-in to online food delivery. We adopted the theory of protection motivation to explain consumer switching behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic. The present study investigated the (...) mediating effect of switching intention on the relationship between vulnerability, altruistic fear, anticipated regret, and switching behavior. Simultaneously, we examined the role of brand awareness as a moderator of behavioral choices of consumers switching from eat-in to online delivery. We collected data from 681 eatery consumers in Kuala Terengganu, Malaysia, using scenario-based survey questionnaires. Then, the data were analyzed using structural equation modeling. This new generation analysis was conducted using the analysis of moment structure and the statistical package for social science. The results indicated that consumer vulnerability, altruistic fear, and anticipated regret of COVID-19 increased consumers’ propensity to shift from eat-in to online food delivery. Allegedly, consumer behavioral control and intention of switching toward online delivery were pointedly affected by switching behavior. The results indicated that consumer vulnerability, altruistic fear, and anticipated regret of COVID-19 increased the shifting of restaurant dine-in patterns and made the intention to switch to online delivery. Consumers’ alleged behavioral control and their intention of switching toward online delivery were pointedly affected by switching behavior. We also found that brand awareness moderately affects switching behavior toward restaurant settings. The present research contributes to developing the consumer behavior model of switching from eat-in to online delivery. This study also provides eatery customers and the business community with a safer and healthier proposition of shifting to online food delivery during the pandemic. (shrink)

Transcendental arguments have been described as disclosing the necessary conditions of the possibility of phenomena as diverse as experience, self-knowledge and language. Although many theorists saw them as powerful means to combat varieties of skepticism, this optimism gradually waned as many such arguments turned out, on examination, to deliver much less than was originally thought. In this paper, I distinguish between two species of transcendental arguments claiming that they do not actually constitute distinct forms of reasoning by showing how they (...) collapse into more familiar inferences. I then turn to the question of their epistemic potentials which I argue to be a function of both their types as well as their targets. Finally, these claims are reinforced by uncovering links between certain recent claims about the efficacy of transcendental arguments and the so-called Moore’s paradox. (shrink)

One of the earliest and most‐fundamental pattern‐ formation events in embryonic development is endoderm and mesoderm specification. In sea urchin embryos, this process begins with blimp1 and wnt8 gene expression at the vegetal pole as soon as embryonic transcription begins. Shortly afterwards, wnt8/blimp1 expression spreads to the adjacent ring of mesoderm progenitor cells and is extinguished in the vegetal‐most cells. A little later, the ring of wnt8/blimp1 activity moves out of the mesoderm progenitors and into the neighboring endoderm cells. Remarkably, (...) this moving ring of gene expression has now been shown to be controlled entirely by transcriptional cis‐regulatory logic.1. BioEssays 30:412–417, 2008. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

In this study, we solve analytically the Schrödinger equation for a macroscopic quantum oscillator as a central system coupled to two environmental micro-oscillating particles. Then, the double-slit interference patterns are investigated in two limiting cases, considering the limits of uncertainty in the position probability distribution. Moreover, we analyze the interference patterns based on a recent proposal called stochastic electrodynamics with spin. Our results show that when the quantum character of the macro-system is decreased, the diffraction pattern becomes more similar to (...) a classical one. We also show that, depending on the size of the slits, the predictions of quantum approach could be apparently different with those of the aforementioned stochastic description. (shrink)

Contents: 1. Introduction, 2. Life And Times Of Al Ghazzali, 3. Ghazzali`S Philosophical Credentials, 4. Ghazzali`S Philosophy, 5. Ghazzali`S Method Of Doubt And His Views On Epistemology With Special Reference To Rene Descartes, 6. Ghazzali`S Impact On Medieval Western Philosophers, 7. Ghazzali`S Impact On Ibn Tufayl, 8. Ghazzali`S Impact On Ibn Rushd, 9. Ghazzali`S Impact On Modern Western Philosophers, 10. Conclusions.

IntroductionNowadays, biotechnology has a significant influence on different aspects of human life. The applications of biotechnology are so broad, and the advantages so compelling, that virtually every industry is using this technology. Developments are under way in areas as diverse as pharmaceuticals, diagnostics, textiles, aquaculture, forestry, chemicals, household products, environmental cleanup, food processing, and forensics, to name a few. Biotechnology is enabling these industries to make new or better products, often with greater speed, efficiency, and flexibility. Biotechnology is any technological (...) application that uses biological systems, living organisms, or derivatives thereof to make or modify products or processes for specific use. It applies the knowledge of biology to enhance and improve the environment, health, and food supply. Using biotechnology, scientists work to develop environment-friendly alternatives to fossil fuels and plastics; new medicines, vaccines, and. (shrink)

Although it is widely recognized that perceptual experience confers justification on the beliefs it gives rise to, it is unclear how its epistemic value should be properly characterized. Liberals hold, and conservatives deny, that the justification conditions of perceptual beliefs merely involve experiences with the same content. The recent debate on this question has, however, seen further fragmentations of the positions involved with the disputants seeking to identify intermediate positions between liberalism and conservatism. In this paper, I suggest a framework (...) to account for the differences and similarities of the positions within the liberalism/conservatism debate. More importantly, I suggest that, instead of focusing on one particular species of conservatism, we should recognize varieties of conservatism. My conclusion is that no theory of justification need be conservative or liberal tout court. Whether a theory of justification is liberal or conservative depends on which dimension of evaluation is taken to be salient. The implications of this finding for the liberalism/conservatism debate are then investigated. (shrink)

The problem that will be dealt with in this paper is al-Ghazālī’saccount of causality in the observed phenomenal world where he denies thenecessity of that causation. This denial brought about Ibn Rushd’s accusationon the denial of knowledge, arguing that knowledge is based on causalityin the phenomenal words. However, detailed perusal of al-Ghazālī’s workssuggests that Ibn Rushd’s accusation is not the case. al-Ghazālī differentiatesbetween knowledge of the fact and knowledge of reasoned fact, or in otherwords he distinguished ontological causality from logical (...) causality. Inaddition, al-Ghazālī’s denial of causal necessity is supported by his ownlogic, where the knowledge attainment becomes possible when it is examinedfrom demonstrative sciences, especially from empirically tested premises. (shrink)

Corporate activities conducted under the banner of creating shared value (CSV) have gained popularity over the last decade, and some MNCs have espoused that CSV has entered the heart of their practices. There has, however, been criticism about the lack of a standard definition of CSV. The purpose of the current study was to develop a working definition of CSV by identifying distinctions between CSV and various conceptions of corporate social responsibility (CSR). We conducted 26 semi-structured interviews with managers and (...) stakeholder representatives of five multinational corporations (MNCs) and three small and medium enterprises (SMEs), all headquartered or rooted in Asia. These firms had received public recognition for their CSV engagement. We compared and contrasted interviewees’ conceptions and descriptions of CSV and traditional CSR (philanthropy) and mapped these against Carroll’s four-layer model of responsible corporate management. Interviewees tended to frame CSV as a sustainable business model that generates social and economic value simultaneously. Traditional CSR was characterized as “giving back” some of the surplus from economic returns. In addition, interviewees described examples of strategic CSR, which involved pump-priming interventions for empowering and enabling stakeholders of the CSV practices of the focal firm to participate in the associated wealth and well-being co-creation. Keywords: Corporate social responsibility, creating shared value, qualitative, Asia. (shrink)

In recent years a new discussion on the nature of philosophical expertise has emerged: whether philosophers possess a special kind of expertise, what such expertise would entail, how to measure it, and related concerns. The aim of the present article is to clarify certain related points across these debates in the hope of paving a clearer path forward, by addressing the following. (1) The expertise defense, which seems central to many discussions on methodology and expertise, has been misconstrued at times. (...) (2) Questions of expertise and methodology could be separated more clearly. (3) The study of expertise may be important in its own right; however, there may be good reasons to give priority to methodological concerns. (4) Finally, when viewed in light of methodological concerns, a new project emerges when engaging with recent contributions to the expertise debate. The present article attempts a brief outline of this project. (shrink)

It is not difficult to make sense of the idea that beliefs may derive their justification from other beliefs. Difficulties surface when, as in certain epistemological theories, one appeals to sensory experiences to give an account of the structure of justification. This gives rise to the so-called problem of ‘nondoxastic justification’, namely, the problem of seeing how sensory experiences can confer justification on the beliefs they give rise to. In this paper, I begin by criticizing a number of theories that (...) are currently on offer. Finding them all wanting, I shall then offer a diagnosis of why they fail while gesturing towards a promising way of resolving the dispute. It will be argued that what makes the problem of nondoxastic justification a hard one is the difficulty of striking the right balance between a notion of normative justification that is content-sensitive and truth conducive and the possibility of error while acknowledging the fact that our experiences can justify our beliefs in cases we are hallucinating. (shrink)

Anton Marty (Schwyz, 1847–Prague, 1914) contributed significantly to some of the central themes of Austrian philosophy. This collection contributes to assessing the specificity of his theses in relation with other Austrian philosophers. Although strongly inspired by his master, Franz Brentano, Marty developed his own theory of intentionality, understood as a sui generis relation of similarity. Moreover, he established a comprehensive philosophy of language, or "semasiology", based on descriptive psychology, and in which the utterer’s meaning plays a central role, anticipating Grice’s (...) pragmatic semantics. The present volume, including sixteen articles by scholars in the field of the history of Austrian philosophy and in contemporary philosophy, aims at exposing some of Marty’s most important contributions in philosophy of mind and language, but also in other fields of research such as ontology and metaphysics. As archive material, the volume contains the edition of a correspondence between Marty and Hans Cornelius on similarity. This book will interest scholars in the fields of the history of philosophy in the 19th and 20th centuries, historians of phenomenology, and, more broadly, contemporary theoretical philosophers. (shrink)

The legal-ethical dynamism in Islamic law which allows it to respond to the challenges of modernity is said to reside in the institution of ijtihād (independent legal thinking and hermeneutics). However, jurists like Mohsen Kadivar and Ayatollah Faḍlalla have argued that the “traditional ijtihād” paradigm has reached its limits of flexibility as it allows for only minor adaptations and lacks a rigorous methodology because of its reliance on vague and highly subjective juridical devices such as public welfare (maṣlaḥa), imperative necessity (...) (ḍarūra), emergency (iḍtirār), need (ḥāja), averting difficulty (‘usr) and distress (ḥaraj), hardship (mashaqqa), and harm (ḍarar) without interrogating the fundamentals (uṣūl) of ijtihād. In contrast, in the “foundational ijtihād” model theology, ethics, intellect, epistemology, linguistics, hermeneutics, modern sciences, history, cosmology, anthropology, and the sources of Islamic legal theory (uṣūl al-fiqh) interact with one another to obtain resolutions that are just and non-discriminatory. (shrink)

Developmental processes in complex animals are directed by a hardwired genomic regulatory code, the ultimate function of which is to set up a progression of transcriptional regulatory states in space and time. The code specifies the gene regulatory networks (GRNs) that underlie all major developmental events. Models of GRNs are required for analysis, for experimental manipulation and, most fundamentally, for comprehension of how GRNs work. To model GRNs requires knowledge of both their overall structure, which depends upon linkage amongst regulatory (...) genes, and the modular building blocks of which GRNs are heirarchically constructed. The building blocks consist of basic transcriptional control processes executed by one or a few functionally linked genes. We show how the functions of several such building blocks can be considered in mathematical terms, and discuss resolution of GRNs by both “top down” and “bottom up” approaches. BioEssays 24:1118–1129, 2002. © 2002 Wiley‐Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Some scholars showed that Mīrdāmād believed in the ‘primacy of quiddity’ by adducing his theory of ‘the simple act of creation’ in which an entity’s quiddity is the ‘object‘ of the act of creation, and by adducing his belief that ‘existence‘ is constructed. Some other passages in Mīrdāmād’s work reinforce such attribution, made by his prominent student, Mullā Ṣadrā and his followers. This article offers a careful account of Mīrdāmād’s theory of ‘simple act of creation’ to assess the accuracy or (...) inaccuracy of this attribution, and to provide a precise picture of quiddity in his philosophical system. The authors concluded that Mīrdāmād’s idea about ‘quiddity’ as the ‘object’ of creation by no means implies the primacy of quiddity as understood by Mullā Ṣadrā.By explicating his theory of ‘the simple act of creation’, they showed that it does’ imply the primacy of quiddity. (shrink)

The method of phenomenal contrast (in perception) invokes the phenomenal character of perceptual experience as a means to discover its contents. The method implicitly takes for granted that ‘what it is like’ to have a perceptual experience e is the same as ‘what it is like’ to imagine or recall it; accordingly, in its various proposed implementations, the method treats imaginations and/or recollections as interchangeable with real experiences. The method thus always contrasts a pair of experiences, at least one of (...) which is imagined or remembered rather than occurrent. Surveying all eighteen forms of implementing the method, I argue that in all of the proposed pairings, the substitution of imagination or recollection for perceptual experience in the method, is either inconceivable or impermissible. I identify four reasons why I think imagination cannot be substituted for real experience, and three reasons why recollection cannot be substituted for real experience. If my argument works, there is no form of implementing the method that is useful for discovering the contents of experience, and thus the method is not a well‐functioning tool to study the contents of perception. (shrink)

In the spirit of Von Neumann and Morgenstern (Theory of games and economic behavior, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1944), we introduce a notion of network stability. We study the structure of stable economic networks and their associated stable payoff allocations by analyzing the conditions under which complete networks and star networks (both with desirable property of inclusiveness) are stable. We also address conditions for existence and uniqueness of stable set of networks.

Source: Author: Hamid Abrishami, Masoud Saboji Studying the function of banks is crucial because their vigorous role in the economy seems to be a subject of immense importance. In the present study, we analyze and study the role of whole banks, commercial banks and specialized banks between 2002 and 2012 in Isfahan, based on the growth of value added approach in the industrial sector. In order to investigate this matter, we have estimated three extinction panels for the whole banking (...) system, specialized banks and commercial banks in Eviews 9. Based on the results it can be argued that in the panels of whole banks and specialized banks, payment facilities have a positive and meaningful impact on the growth of value added in all three sectors of the economy, but in the panel of commercial banks, only banking facilities on a 10 percent level have a positive and meaningful impact on the growth of value added in the industrial sector. As a result, we can conclude that specializing the bank's activities can have a positive effect on the growth of value added in various sectors of the economy. ]]>. (shrink)

Ayn al-Qudat is one of the geniuses of Islamic intellectual history and has even been described as the true father of deconstructionism. This text provides a clearly-written critical introduction to the intellectual, literary, religious and philosophical struggles of the 12th century as expressed by one of Islam's greatest and most radical writers.

The research problem focused on curriculum has specific courses with a small number of educational units through which the student must go through all the stages of learning basic skills. Therefore, we must increase the effectiveness of learning these skills and correct the errors that the learner may face. From here, the problem of the research became clear to us in the lack of effectiveness of learning some skills. Basic skills for students in fencing and the many technical errors during (...) performance, so the researcher thought one should study educational exercises that are appropriate for the stages of building the motor program for some basic fencing skills to increase the effectiveness of learning so that the learner can master the skill with the least number of errors. The research objectives prepared educational exercises according to the stages of building the motor program, and Identifying the effect of educational exercises according to the stages of building a motor program on learning some epee skills for students in the experimental group, and Identify the differences between the two groups Control and experimental In learning some skills with epee weapons for students In the posttest. and Use Finder One The experimental approach was designed with two equal groups : control and experimental. The same pre-test and post-test, because it suits the nature of the problem and achieves the research objectives. And the research population are third-year students in the Department of Physical Education and Sports Sciences/Islamic University, who number (306) students, and the research sample of (40) students was randomly selected and divided into two equal groups(Control and experimental) with (20) students for each group, in addition to the exploratory experiment sample of (8) students. And it was done using some educational means during educational exercises and based on the stages of building the motor program for the skill to be learned. The time of the educational unit was (90/min), and the implementation of the educational curriculum began on (11/21/2023 AD) and ended on (1/18/2024 AD). The researchers concluded that the use of complex instructional exercises helped to learn and develop the skill performance of some skills with the epee weapon according to the stages of building the motor program, and the use of focused educational exercises helped build motor perception among learners, which led to accelerating and activating the learning process. The most important recommendations were: Emphasis on the use of complex educational exercises when learning basic skills for students with epee weapons to build motor programs and new motor perceptions about the skill to be learned. also it is necessary to focus on the use of complex educational exercises according to the construction of the motor program in the educational units by trainers and teachers. (shrink)

This article proposes an analysis of changes implemented during Malaysia's Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's administration (20032003), which displayed bias against changes and introduced schemes to justify the systems it upheld. Transmutations wrought during Abdullah's tenure may have been neither substantial nor totalizing, but within the conservative paradigm which had long gripped national politics, Abdullah's deviations were significant nevertheless.

Eukaryotic gene expression is extensively controlled at the level of mRNA stability and the mechanisms underlying this regulation are markedly different from their archaeal and bacterial counterparts. We propose that two such mechanisms, nonsense‐mediated decay (NMD) and motif‐specific transcript destabilization by CCCH‐type zinc finger RNA‐binding proteins, originated as a part of cellular defense against RNA pathogens. These branches of the mRNA turnover pathway might have been used by primeval eukaryotes alongside RNA interference to distinguish their own messages from those of (...) RNA viruses and retrotransposable elements. We further hypothesize that the subsequent advent of “professional” innate and adaptive immunity systems allowed NMD and the motif‐triggered mechanisms to be efficiently repurposed for regulation of endogenous cellular transcripts. This scenario explains the rapid emergence of archetypical mRNA destabilization pathways in eukaryotes and argues that other aspects of post‐transcriptional gene regulation in this lineage might have been derived through a similar exaptation route. -/- . (shrink)

This book explores the concept of epistemic justification and our understanding of the problem of skepticism. Providing critical examination of key responses to the skeptical challenge, Hamid Vahid presents a theory which is shown to work alongside the internalism/externalism issue and the thesis of semantic externalism, with a deontological conception of justification at its core.

_ Source: _Page Count 19 Epistemic akrasia refers to the possibility of forming an attitude that fails to conform to one’s best judgment. In this paper, I will be concerned with the question whether epistemic akrasia is rational and I will argue that it is not. Addressing this question, in turn, raises the question of the epistemic significance of higher-order evidence. After examining some of the views on this subject, I will present an argument to show why higher-order evidence is (...) relevant to the epistemic status of the pertinent first-order beliefs. This helps to show why a standard argument for the rationality of epistemic akrasia does not work. Finally, I shall try to show how considerations involving Davidson’s theory of radical interpretation bear on the question of the rationality of epistemic akrasia. (shrink)

Crispin Wright has recently suggested that, in addition to the notion of justification, we also possess a non-evidential notion of warrant, ‘entitlement’, that can play an important role in responding to various skeptical questions. My concern here is with the question of whether entitlement constitutes an epistemic kind of warrant. I claim Wright's argument for this thesis at most shows that entitlement has a pragmatic character. Having identified the sources of the troubles of this argument in its underlying assumptions, I (...) examine and criticize a number of attempts that have sought to substantiate those assumptions. I offer some suggestions as to how one can improve on Wright's account and make some general observations about the prospects of showing that entitlement is an epistemic type of warrant. (shrink)