What does it mean for a general term to be rigid? It is argued by some that if we take general terms to designate their extensions, then almost no empirical general term will turn out to be rigid; and if we take them to designate some abstract entity, such as a kind, then it turns out that almost all general terms will be rigid. Various authors who pursue this line of reasoning have attempted to capture Kripke’s intent by defining a (...) rigid general term as one that applies to the objects in its extension essentially. I argue that this account is significantly mistaken for various reasons: it conflates a metaphysical notion (essentialism) with a semantic one (rigidity); it fails to countenance the fact that any term can be introduced into a language by stipulating that it be a rigid designator; it limits the extension of rigid terms so much that terms such as ‘meter’, ‘rectangle’, ‘truth’, etc. do not turn out to be rigid, when they obviously are; and it wrongly concentrates on the predicative use of a general term in applying a certain test offered by Kripke to determine whether a term is rigid. (shrink)

The aim of this study was to develop an Administrative Ethical Behaviour Scale (AEBS) and to determine whether nurses found their head nurses’ behaviours ethical and to reveal head nurses’ ethical and unethical administrative behaviour. It was conducted on 264 nurses working in five state hospitals in Trabzon, Turkey. Content validity index of the scale was 0.87, item-to-total correlations ranged from 0.50 to 0.81 and Chronbach Alpha was 0.98. The scale included five subscales, i.e. truthfulness and honesty, liabilities and supremacy (...) of laws, rights and freedom, good human relationships and humanism, justice and equality. Overall, head nurses’ behaviour was considered ethical by nurses; however, their behaviour in terms of justice and equality, good human relationships and humanism was not found ethical. Positions, satisfaction with head nurses’ behaviour and frequency of contact with them affect nurses’ opinions. (shrink)

Background: The developments in technology and communication channels, increasing workload, and carelessness cause problems regarding patient privacy and confidentiality in nursing services. Research objectives: The study was conducted to develop a patient privacy scale to identify whether nurses observe or violate patient privacy at workplace. Research design: This research was a methodological and descriptive study. Participants and research context: Participants were 354 nurses working at private hospitals and hospitals affiliated with the Ministry of Health in Istanbul/Turkey. Data were collected with (...) a questionnaire about the demographic characteristics of nurses and their opinions about patient privacy and with patient privacy scale. Ethical considerations: After getting permission from the top management of hospitals, information about the study was given to nurses. Those willing to participate were informed that participation was voluntary and invited to give written consent before data collection. Findings: The content validity index of scale was 0.91, Cronbach’s alpha was 0.93, Spearman–Brown and Guttman coefficients were 0.85, the upper and lower 27% test was −29.65, and item-total correlation values ranged from 0.47 to 0.71. The scale had five subscales. In addition, 49% of the nurses stated that patient privacy was always observed in their services/units. They appraised with a mean score of 4.51 ± 0.49 for the total scale, 4.39 ± 0.61 for confidentiality of personal information and private life, 4.39 ± 0.70 for sexual privacy, 4.56 ± 0.57 for the privacy of those unable to protect themselves, 4.60 ± 0.59 for physical privacy, and 4.60 ± 0.52 for ensuring a favorable environment. Discussion: The findings of this study were in contrast with the results of some international studies which determined the violation of the patient privacy. Conclusion: The patient privacy scale is a valid and reliable tool to collect data on whether nurses observe or violate patient privacy, and the nurses generally reported observing or paying attention to patient privacy in all hospitals and especially private hospitals. (shrink)

In this essay I argue that given Donnellan’s formulation of the attributive uses of definite descriptions, as well as Kripke’s [6] and Salmon’s [10] generalized accounts, most uses of definite descriptions that are taken to be attributive turn out not to be so. In building up to my main thesis, I first consider certain problematic cases of uses of definite descriptions that do not neatly fit into any category. I then argue that, in general, a complete definite description we use (...) is complex, in which there is an embedded singular term that is used referentially. From this I conclude that an attributive use of a definite description is an extremely rare linguistic phenomenon, much less frequent than what Donnellan, Kripke, and Salmon have presupposed; so much so that the standard examples given by Donnellan of the attributive use of definite descriptions do not qualify as attributive. (shrink)

Bu makale kapsamında, XII. yüzyılda yaşamış önemli Yahudi din âlimlerinden Musa bin Meymûn (öl. 601/1204) ile XVII. yüzyılda yaşamış olan ve düşünceleri neticesinde ateist olduğu suçlamasıyla yirmi dört yaşındayken aforoz edilip bağlı bulunduğu Yahudi cemaatinden kovulan Spinoza’nın (öl. 1088/1677) vahiy ve nübüvvet anlayışları ele alınmıştır. Spinoza, Teolojik-Politik İnceleme adlı eserinde, teolojinin felsefeden ayrılması gerekliliğini göstermek amacındadır. Spinoza’nın bu arzusu onu, İbn Meymûn’la ve onun temsil ettiği gelenekle karşı karşıya getirmiştir. Neticede Spinoza’nın vahiy ve nübüvvet konusunda İbn Meymûn’dan etkilendiği ve onunla (...) bir hesaplaşmaya girdiği görülmektedir. Onun İbn Meymûn’dan hangi bakımdan etkilendiği ya da onunla nasıl bir hesaplaşmaya girdiği makalenin asıl konusunu teşkil etmektedir. Çalışmamız giriş, ana bölüm ve sonuç olarak üç bölümden oluşmaktadır. Giriş bölümünde öncelikle vahiy kavramının ne ifade ettiğine ve hem İslam düşünürlerinin hem de İbn Meymûn’un beslendiği ana kaynak olması nedeniyle Platon ile Aristoteles’in kehanet ve rüya hakkındaki görüşlerine kısaca değinilmiştir. Ayrıca Spinoza’nın İbn Meymûn’dan etkilenmesi veya onunla hesaplaşmasının, İbn Meymûn’un da mensubu olduğu İslam filozoflarının temsil ettiği gelenekle alakalı olmasından dolayı giriş bölümünde, bazı İslam filozoflarının görüşlerine de ana hatlarıyla değinme gereği duyulmuştur. Bunu yaparken Müslüman filozofların ilklerinden ve en önemlilerinden kabul edilen Kindî (öl. 252/866?), Fârâbî (öl. 339/950) ve İbn Sinâ’nın (öl. 428/1037) düşüncelerine özlü şekilde değinilmesi yeterli görülmüştür. Bu arada tarihsel açıdan İbn Meymûn’la Spinoza arasında bir yerde duran diğer bir Yahudi filozof Levi ben Gershom’un (öl. 745/1344) fikirleri de kısaca ele alınmıştır. Bu filozofların düşüncelerinden yola çıkılarak vahyin mütehayyile kuvvetiyle, ayrıca rüya ve kehanetle ilgisi gösterilmeye çalışılmıştır. Çalışmanın asıl bölümünde ise öncelikle İbn Meymûn’un vahiy ve nübüvvet anlayışı incelenmiş, akabinde bu, Spinoza’nın vahiy ve nübüvvet anlayışıyla mukayese edilmiştir. İbn Meymûn’un nübüvvet anlayışı incelenirken yer yer İslam filozoflarından etkilendiği kısımlara değinilmiştir. Bu mukayesede bilhassa İbn Meymûn’un Delâletu’l-Hâirîn adlı eseriyle Spinoza’nın Teolojik-Politik İnceleme adlı eseri ana kaynaklar olarak değerlendirilmiştir. Bu çalışma neticesinde hem iki düşünürün teolojik yaklaşımının daha iyi anlaşılması hem de Aydınlanmanın müjdecilerinden biri sayılan Spinoza’nın eleştirel dahi olsa İbn Meymûn’a kadar uzanan düşünce kodları gösterilmek istenmiştir. İbn Meymûn’a kadar uzanan bu kodların aynı zamanda İslam düşünce dünyasına uzandığı da vurgulanmak istenmiştir. Bu makalede, konunun kapsamı iki düşünürün peygamber, vahiy ve vahyin oluşmasında rol alan enfüsi ve afaki etmeler ile vahyin dili yönündeki düşünceleriyle sınırlandırılmıştır. İki düşünürün teolojiye ait mucize gibi diğer görüşlerindeki farklılıklar ya da benzerlikler makalenin kapsamı dışında tutulmuştur. (shrink)

Advances in medical technology and information have facilitated clinical practices that favourably affect the success rates of treatment for diseases. Regenerative medicine has been the focus of the recent medical agenda, to the extent of fundamentally changing treatment paradigms. Stem cell practices, their efficacy, and associated ethical concerns have been debated intensively in many countries. Stem cell research is carried out along with the treatment of patients. Thus, various groups affected by the practices inevitably participate in the discussions. In addition (...) to discussions based on avoiding any harm, providing benefits and respecting personal autonomy and justice, problems arise owing to the lack of legal regulations for stem cell research and practice. The dimensions of the problems vary in the developing countries, with widespread use of advanced medical technology but with lack of sources allocated for healthcare, dominance of paternalistic physician–patient relationships and failure to achieve a sufficient level of awareness of patients’ rights. This article discusses the current situation of stem cell practices within the context of regenerative medicine in Turkey and ethical concerns about some of the legal regulations, such as the Regulation for Umblical Cord Blood Banking and Guidelines for Non-embryonic Stem Cell Study for Non-clinical Purposes directing the research on this issue. (shrink)

During the Second World War, the Allies faced a question colloquially known as the “German Tank Problem”: how many tanks will the Axis ever produce? The answer resulted from an elegant probabilistic argument which was used by Allied mathematicians to make successful upper-bound estimates for the total Axis tank production. This paper shows that if two empirical postulates are true of the history of science, a parallel argument can be used to come up with lower-bound estimates for the number of (...) alternative scientific theories that remain undiscovered. The lower bound in question increases proportionally with the number of theories that have already been discovered. So, the problem of underconsideration is a serious problem and it will get worse, not better, as we discover new theories. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Byzantinische Zeitschrift Jahrgang: 107 Heft: 2 Seiten: 785-810.

Corporeality: Emergent consciousness within its spatial dimensions develops our understanding of what we can experience through our bodies in relation to the space around us. Rather than considering architecture as being about manifestation and mediation of fixed meanings, the book focuses instead on architectural space as a field that envelopes us incessantly, intimately, and affectively. We are in immediate contact with that space, and the way we relate to it determines how we are able to grasp the realities of the (...) social and material worlds around us. This enquiry considers architectural space and its impact on and relation to us from a range of disciplines and perspectives, leading from space to sense and to sensibility. The theatre becomes a central point of reference on this journey, allowing us to understand how space “works” by linking concrete spatial conditions to corresponding “forms of experience”. It allows showing how the ways we feel, think, and act emerge from within the rich texture of the pre-conscious and non-contemplative. That texture is induced and nourished by our bodily encounters with space. Offering a view of how immediate experience is generated in the body, this book enhances empirical research into the links between space, body, experience and consciousness. Maya Nanitchkova Öztürk is Associate Professor in Theory and Criticism of Architecture. Her academic interests and publications focus on space-body relationships and experience of space/place, as grounds for developing analytical methodologies and interdisciplinary links in discourse, and teaching. She works at Bilkent University (Ankara), Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture, Department of Interior Architecture and Environmental Design. She is on the editorial boards of ISI journal Space and Culture, and the web-journal Consciousness, Literature and the Arts. (shrink)

The first-person authority view (FPA) is the current dominant view about what someone’s gender is. According to FPA the person has authority over her own gender identity; her sincere self-identification trumps the opinions of others. There are two versions of FPA: epistemic and ethical. Both versions try to explain why a person has authority over her own gender identity. But both have problems. Epistemic FPA attributes to the self-identifier an unrealistic degree of doxastic reliability. Ethical FPA implies the existence of (...) an unreasonably strong and unqualified obligation on the part of others not to reject the person’s identification. This essay offers an alternative: the negotiative theory of identity. Unlike epistemic FPA, the negotiative theory doesn’t presume the reliability of self-directed beliefs. Unlike ethical FPA, the negotiative theory doesn’t imply an obligation not to reject. Instead, it contends that an act of rejection is morally permissible if and only if it respects three ethical and epistemic constraints. In doing so, the negotiative theory combines the strengths and avoids the weaknesses of both versions of FPA, and gives us substantive insight into how far first-person authority reaches in terms of grounding rights and obligating others. (shrink)

Despite the recent increase in interest in philosophy about ignorance, little attention has been paid to the question of what makes it possible for a being to become aware of their own ignorance. In this paper, I try to provide such an account by arguing that, for a being to become aware of their own ignorance, they must have the mental capacity to represent something as being unknown to them. For normal adult humans who have mastered a language, mental representation (...) of an unknown is enabled by forming linguistic expressions whose content is grasped, but whose referent is unknown. I provide a neo-Fregean, a neo-Russellian, and then a unified account of this. On that basis, I then argue further that the content of ignorance can always be captured by a question. I then distinguish between propositional ignorance and non-propositional ignorance and argue that propositional ignorance attributions can be of three types, that-ignorance, whether-ignorance, and fact-ignorance. I conclude by arguing that the acquisition of truths, even when it yields knowledge that is certain, does not always eliminate one’s ignorance and that there is a degree of ignorance in almost everything we claim to know. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungIn wertpluralen Gesellschaften begegnen uns in der medizinischen Versorgung zahlreiche Konflikte, bei denen die kulturellen und religiösen Wertvorstellungen und Einstellungen des Patienten eine wichtige Rolle spielen. Besonders komplex wird es, wenn die betroffene Person nicht mehr in der Lage ist, selbst über die medizinischen Maßnahmen zu entscheiden. Ob eine Patientenverfügung in solchen Konfliktsituationen einen entscheidenden Beitrag zu einer ethisch angemessenen Lösung leisten kann, bleibt eine berechtigte Frage. Im Folgenden werden die ethischen Aspekte im Umgang mit muslimischen Patienten und die Nutzung (...) einer kultursensiblen und kultursensitiven Patientenverfügung bei diesen Patienten differenziert behandelt.Die Vielfalt an Haltungen zu Entscheidungen am Lebensende innerhalb der islamischen Welt, der Einfluss der Familie und traditioneller sittlicher Einstellungen, heterogene Formen der Religiosität und das Gesundheitssystem des jeweiligen Landes erweisen sich als wichtige normative Anhaltspunkte für die Anwendung einer Patientenverfügung bei muslimischen Patienten. Trotz zahlreicher Schwierigkeiten kann eine kultursensible und kultursensitive Patientenverfügung einen wichtigen Beitrag zur Berücksichtigung und Umsetzung der Entscheidungen eines entscheidungsunfähig gewordenen muslimischen Patienten leisten. (shrink)

A lot has been said about how the notion of reference relates to the notion of knowledge; not much has been said, however, on how the notion of referencerelates to our ability to become aware of what we do not know that allows us to be curious. In this essay I attempt to spell out a certain type of reference I call ‘inostensible’ that I claim to be a fundamental linguistic tool which allows us to become curious of what we (...) do not know. In the first part, I try to explicate the notion of inostensible reference, both for singular and for general terms, as well as full declarative sentences, and in the second part, I argue that our capacity to enjoy conceptual curiosity is essentially based upon our aptitude for inostensible reference. (shrink)

Universities regulate speech in various ways. How should we assess when such restrictions are justified, if they ever are? Here, we propose an answer to this question. In short, we argue that we should think about speech restrictions as being like acts of war, and so should approach their justification using just war theory. We also make some suggestions about its implications. For instance, one of the jus ad bellum requirements for a just war is that you have a reasonable (...) hope of success; you shouldn’t enter or continue a war unless you’ve got good reason to think that your objectives are achievable. We offer some reasons to think that many speech restrictions fail to pass this test in our current political climate: we are too far from the kind of society that universities hope to create via speech restrictions, and in employing them, they only exacerbate the problems they’re trying to solve. (shrink)

Despite the apparent lack of any cultural and religious connection between Kierkegaard and Iqbal, their philosophical and religious concerns and their methods of dealing with these concerns show certain parallels. This book provides a Kierkegaardian reading of Muhammad Iqbal's idea of becoming a genuine Muslim. It reflects on the parallels between the philosophical approaches of Kierkegaard and Iqbal, and argues that, though there are certain parallels between their approaches, there is a significant difference between their philosophical stances. Kierkegaard was concerned (...) with developing an existential dialectics; Iqbal, however, focused mostly on the identification of the problems of the modern Muslim world. As a result, Iqbal's idea of becoming a genuine Muslim - the practical aspect of his thought and one of the most central issues of his philosophy - seems to be unclear and even contradictory at points. This book therefore uses the parallels between the two philosopher's endeavours and the notions developed by Kierkegaard to provide a strong hermeneutical tool for clarifying where the significance of Iqbal's idea of becoming a Muslim lies. By bringing together two philosophers from different cultural, traditional and religious backgrounds, this book will appeal to students and scholars of Comparative Politics, Contemporary Islamic Philosophy and the Philosophy of Religion. (shrink)

The foundations of almost all Islamic sciences were laid in the first and second centuries of hijra. With the expansion of the Islamic world since the first century of hijra, the existence of a collective effort to transfer oral information into writing is notable. With the invitation of the prophet Muḥammad to Islam, an unprecedented increase in the culture of writing has been observed. Since the emergence of Islam, the world history scene has witnessed feverish writing activity. Especially in the (...) 2th/8th century, when the transition from oral culture to written culture accelerated, the founding texts of the science of language and religion, which were the carriers of these sciences related to aqāid-kalām, fiqh and uṣūl al-fiqh, tasawwuf, tafsir, and hadith, were compiled. Thanks to the founding texts containing the basic principles, the sciences have had the opportunity to develop by deepening. In this study, the contribution of Fiqh al-akbar, the founding text of the science of creed, to the science of kalam, which has made significant progress, will be discussed. In order for a text to be considered a founding and root, there must be a system that it establishes as the fruit of the tree. In this sense, Fiqh al-akbar established a moderate and defensible belief system. There is an organic link between the most concise faith texts and the most voluminous kalām books. While the creed texts, which consist of writing the goals at the end of the road, are the counting of the principles of faith, the texts of the kalām represent the walking of the road that leads to the goal of faith. Fiqh al-akbar, which marks the end of the road by finishing the roads to be walked, is the first and most important of the milestones of Islamic thought. In this study, the contribution of Fiqh al-akbar, the founding text of the science of aqāid, to the science of kalām will be discussed in the context of its belonging to its author. This text gave direction to Ahl al-Sunna theology, which would be written in the later stages of Islamic thought. In this study, the internal and external contexts of the founding text mentioned will be confirmed in terms of its relative acumen to Abū Ḥanīfa. In addition, the reason for the increase in the commentaries (Sharḥ) of Fiqh al-akbar during the Ottoman period will be shown. As a matter of fact, each annotation strengthens that it belongs to the author. In the annotations, there is no sentence stating that the text does not belong to Abū Ḥanīfa, on the contrary, the authenticity of the belonging is emphasized. Of course, not all the annotations of the relevant text will be included here, but mostly printed works will be emphasized. Theology, prophecy and the hereafter are discussed in Fiqh al-akbar. Here, how theological debates and problems related to the history of theological concepts are handled in the commentaries will be shown. In this article, within the framework of the method discussed as an example, a preparation will be made for further studies to evaluate the topics and concepts of prophecy and the hereafter in the context of commentaries. The point that should be emphasized here is that none of the scholars who commented on the text pointed out that the subject or concept was not discussed in the period of Abū Ḥanīfa. Moreover, from the early period until as late as the 7th/13th century, both theology and bibliography books did not have any doubts about the belonging of Fiqh al-akbar to Abū Ḥanīfa. Moreover, since the early period, both theological and bibliographical works did not have any doubts about Fiqh al-akbar’s belonging to Abū Ḥanīfa. (shrink)

In this paper I respond to and elaborate on some of the ideas put forth on my book The Philosophy of Curiosity (2012) as well as its follow-up “Curiosity and Ignorance” (2016) by Nenad Miščević, Erhan Demircioğlu, Mirela Fuš, Safi ye Yiğit, Danilo Šuster, Irem Günhan Altıparmak, and Aran Arslan.