Interpretation Of Arguments Research Articles

Disgust in early Islamic thought

The relationship between morality and disgust has been a matter of considerable interest and debate in modern scholarship, while its salience in premodern religious history still deserves more attention. This article focuses on the role of disgust in medieval Muslim thought, identifying relevant notions in classical Arabic and examining their usage in traditionist sources from the first few centuries of Islam (seventh to tenth centuries ce). Hadith narratives illustrate the concept of taqadhdhur or revulsion to a disgusting object, especially in the context of food. Well-known accounts of the Prophet Muhammad’s aversion to an Arab custom of eating lizards raised questions about the normative implications of his disgust, which medieval jurists sought to resolve through interpretive debates on the category of khaba'ith (disgusting things) in dietary law. In contrast to the circumstantial role of disgust in law, appeals to disgust served as a rhetorical strategy for moral persuasion against sin in the literature of hadith, Qur'anic exegesis, and traditions associated with renunciant piety (zuhd). A paradigmatic case is the invocation of a particular motif, the rotting corpse (jifa), which is considered to be a core elicitor of disgust and was frequently used in early Islamic sources as a trope for the vice of gossip or backbiting (ghiba). The metaphor was elaborated through traditions centered on the sensory dimensions of disgust as a bodily phenomenon. Stories of pious Muslims suggest the affective power of such traditions to inculcate revulsion toward sin. I argue that early Muslim pietists regarded disgust as a didactic instrument and a morally productive emotion.

A Tax Deduction for Home Office Expenditure: The Interpretation of and Proposed Removal of the Exclusive-Use Requirement in Section 23(b) of the Income Tax Act

Hybrid and remote working opportunities have become more prevalent, leading to an increase in attempts to claim income tax deductions for home office expenditure. SARS disallowed over R1.8 billion of the R2.9 billion home office tax claims in the 2021/2022 tax year. Unfortunately, efforts to lobby government to relax the requirements of section 23(b) of the Income Tax Act 58 of 1962 have not been met with legislative response. Section 23(b)'s exclusive-use requirement is particularly troublesome. Given the lack of legislative response, this article considers whether the exclusive-use requirement may be interpreted in a manner that would assist more taxpayers to claim a home office deduction. This article argues that the exclusive-use requirement does not require taxpayers to set aside an entire room to be able to claim home office expenditure. Unfortunately for taxpayers, it also finds that "exclusively" is not reasonably capable of bearing a meaning other than "solely" and that absent the application of the de minimis non curat lex rule, any private use of the home office space is fatal to the deduction of home office expenditure. The limited application of the de minimis non curat lex rule to dismiss insignificant private use offers no solution to taxpayers who live in modest homes and who necessarily work in mixed-use spaces. It also considers SAIT's proposal to tie the exclusive-use requirement to working hours through an interpretative argument and argues that it is unlikely to succeed. This article ultimately concludes that it appears as though taxpayers will find little relief from the exclusive-use requirement through interpretive arguments and must increase their efforts to lobby for legislative amendments instead. However, caution is required because SAICA's proposal that the exclusive-use requirement be removed through legislative amendment could trigger unintended consequences.

형사소송법상 ‘피고인이 구속된 때’에 있어서 구속 개념의 해석 및 입법론 - 대법원 2024. 5. 23. 선고 2021도6357 전원합의체 판결

Korean Criminal Procedure Act establishes “when the defendant is in custody” as one of the grounds for appointing a public defender. (Article 33, Paragraph 1(1)) The Supreme Court has traditionally viewed this as a case in which the defendant is detained and on trial in the criminal case in question. It may be reasonably concluded, therefore, that being detained in a separate case or being convicted and sentenced in another criminal case does not qualify as a reason for the appointment. However, in May 2024, the Supreme Court reconsidered its position to include cases where a warrant of arrest has been issued and executed in a separate case or where the defendant has been convicted in another criminal case and is in custody as a result of the execution of the judgment. This artice reviews the decision to reconstruct the contents of its majority opinion, separate opinion, and supplementary opinion by interpreting the legal textual meaning of the concept of restraint, interpreting the purposive meaning, and policy interpretation issues. It will then evaluate them together with related laws and theories, with a view to seeking a legislative solution to the interpretation controversy. While the existing precedents did not present the interpretation arguments in detail, the individual opinions of the judgments indicate that the arguments were based on the stable utilization of the current system and practice on public defenders and the right to counsel, as well as the efficient allocation of judicial resources. There is a difference of opinion as to whether the expansion of the right to counsel and the necessary expansion of the public defender system should be achieved by changing case law or by amending the law. Thus, the author propose the amendment of paragraph 1(1) of the Article 33, “When the criminal defendant is placed under detention”to “When the criminal defendant is placed under custody”.

“Wo Es war, soll Ich werden” A Faustian cogito?*

ABSTRACT Much has been written until this day about the sentence Wo Es war, soll Ich werden, which concludes the XXXIst lecture of the “New introductory lectures on sychoanalysis” devoted to the “Dissection of the psychical personality”. For almost a hundred years, layer upon layer of translation and interpretation have accumulated to obscure the meaning of this suggestive aphorism. My aim here will be to go back to the Freudian original - a move that although inspired by Jacques Lacan's approach in the 1950s does not take up his interpretative line. Rather, acting in the manner of a restorer carefully cleaning a painting so as to bring out the original colors and background, I will endeavor to remove one by one the accumulated layers of interpretation that have come to obscure the meaning of the Freudian formula. By shedding light on the formula's ambiguities as well as its intertextual echoes (Goethe, Romain Rolland and Ferenczi), I intend to breathe new life into it and demonstrate the depth of meaning attached to it, thus reviving its significance and resonance. Indeed, insofar as the very meaning of psychoanalysis is at stake, these interpretive debates are of concern not only to the Freudian exegete, but to all analysts in their relationship to psychoanalysis and to interpretation and theory. I will argue that the equivocation of Freud-Mephistopheles's formula, which I will refer to as a “Faustian Cogito“ or ”Faustian Witz”, is an invitation to devote ourselves to the never-ending task of reinventing psychoanalysis.

Falsifying falsification

Abstract Almost a decade after the UKSC’s decision of AIB v Redler, there remains significant academic criticism and judicial scepticism towards the employment of causal inquiries in equity’s remedial response to trustees’ misapplications of trust property. This article seeks to defend AIB, and the causal principles enunciated therein, from those criticisms. It does so by arguing that the interpretative arguments and normative justifications propounded in the literature in favour of falsification orders rest on shaky foundations. Consequently, it takes the view that the remedial principles espoused in AIB should be broadly accepted as representing equity’s general remedial approach to custodial breaches of trust.

Evaluating large language models’ ability to generate interpretive arguments

In natural language understanding, a crucial goal is correctly interpreting open-textured phrases. In practice, disagreements over the meanings of open-textured phrases are often resolved through the generation and evaluation of interpretive arguments, arguments designed to support or attack a specific interpretation of an expression within a document. In this paper, we discuss some of our work towards the goal of automatically generating and evaluating interpretive arguments. We have curated a set of rules from the code of ethics of various professional organizations and a set of associated scenarios that are ambiguous with respect to some open-textured phrase within the rule. We collected and evaluated arguments from both human annotators and state-of-the-art generative language models in order to determine the relative quality and persuasiveness of both sets of arguments. Finally, we performed a Turing test-inspired study in order to assess whether human annotators can tell the difference between human arguments and machine-generated arguments. The results show that machine-generated arguments, when prompted a certain way, can be consistently rated as more convincing than human-generated arguments, and to the untrained eye, the machine-generated arguments can convincingly sound human-like.

Hume as Regularity Theorist—After All! Completing a Counter-Revolution

Abstract: Traditionally, Hume has widely been viewed as the standard-bearer for regularity accounts of causation. But between 1983 and 1990, two rival interpretations appeared—namely the skeptical realism of Wright, Craig, and Strawson, and the quasi-realist projectivism of Blackburn—and since then the interpretative debate has been dominated by the contest between these three approaches, with projectivism recently appearing the likely winner. This paper argues that the controversy largely arose from a fundamental mistake, namely, the assumption that Hume is committed to the subjectivity of our conception of causal necessity. That assumption generated tensions within the regularity account, which the skeptical realist and quasi-realist alternatives, in very different ways, purported to resolve. But a broader and more balanced view of the textual evidence, taking due account of the relatively neglected sections where Hume applies the results of his analysis, tells strongly in favour of an objectivist regularity view, both in respect of causation and causal necessity. Despite some complications, the upshot is a far more straightforward reading of Hume than those that have hitherto dominated this long-running debate.

Aristotle on the Cause of Unity: the Argument of Metaphysics H.3–6

Abstract I argue that Metaphysics H.6 is not an isolated chapter but the conclusion of an argument begun in H.3. This view will provide further and better arguments for the following view about long-standing interpretative debates: first, Aristotle provides a substantive account of the unity of the composite substance (although he also briefly addresses the unity of the form); second, neither Aristotle’s conception of matter nor his account of form changes between H.1–5 and H.6; and third, H does not rely on and is not completed by book Θ in any significant way.

Development of the Quantitative Modelling Observation Protocol (QMOP) for undergraduate biology courses: validity evidence for score interpretation and uses

ABSTRACT Educational reform priorities such as emphasis on quantitative modelling (QM) have positioned undergraduate biology instructors as designers of QM experiences to engage students in authentic science practices that support the development of data-driven and evidence-based reasoning. Yet, little is known about how biology instructors adapt to the pedagogical movement towards incorporating QM opportunities for students in the courses they teach. This study presents the development of the Quantitative Modelling Observation Protocol (QMOP), a classroom observation instrument designed to support the need to characterise various approaches that instructors use to implement QM instruction in undergraduate biology. QMOP provides information about the breadth and depth of QM implementation across three dimensions – authentic instruction, teaching for understanding, and quantitative approach to teaching biology. We present an interpretive argument, the chain of assumptions we made in relation to the intended use of the instrument, and evidence to assess the validity of our assumptions and inferences about observation scores generated using the instrument. Strengths and weaknesses of evidence pertaining to assumptions about scoring, generalisability, extrapolation, and implications will be discussed to build a validity argument for observations and demonstrate how the instrument can be used for investigating QM instruction in undergraduate biology courses.

MALE CIRCUMCISION

Male circumcision is often practiced across the world for a variety of reasons including health, medical necessity, beauty, tradition, or religion. Jews have practiced male circumcision since Abraham's time and continue until now. This practice is obligatory for Jewish males soon after they are born. In the New Testament, we read Paul talks about circumcision as the practice of Jewish belief, and for Christians, he said spiritual circumcision is the new law of the New Testament. Now, male circumcision is not only related to religion, and culture but connect to the health issue. The interpretation of religion, culture, and health become an interpretation debate over many years. There is Circumcision either improves or decreases male sexual function or satisfaction. It is critical to understand how male circumcision (MC), especially when performed in childhood, impacts men's sexual satisfaction and performance. The topic is also quite contentious. Our objective is to give a comprehensive study of the studies on the influence of male circumcision from Jewish, Christian, and health interpretations.

Wittgenstein's Challenge: The Impossibility of a Private Language

The feasibility of a private language, a concept previously entertained by philosophers like Locke and Russell, is rigorously disputed by Wittgenstein in his later works. This article critically examines Wittgenstein’s standpoint on the notion of a private language, with a specific focus on its plausibility. It meticulously investigates the five arguments proffered by Wittgenstein against the concept of a private language and evaluates the counterarguments presented by his critics. These arguments encompass the future use argument, the interpretation argument, the stage-setting argument, the use argument, and the practice argument. Through a comprehensive analysis of these arguments, Wittgenstein substantiates the intrinsic unattainability of a private language. A privately defined word lacks the fundamental attributes of language, notably an established meaning, usability, prospective applicability, practical implications, interpretability, and a coherent framework governing the roles of its constituent elements. Ultimately, it is asserted that a private language cannot exist autonomously, separate from a public language.

Unsound and Informally Fallacious Preterist Arguments for Mark 13:24‐27

AbstractAbstract: The following article evaluates two common arguments for preterist interpretations of Mark 13:24‐27, collectively dubbed the ‘time‐text’ argument. These two arguments support symbolic and/or historicised interpretations. Our thesis is that the first argument is unsound and the second commits the informal fallacy of false dilemma. Owing to these problems, the arguments and preterist interpretations should be rejected in favour of more plausible futurist interpretations.

Linguistic Analysis of a Literary Text as the Key to its Comprehension: Cognitive and Discoursive Aspect

Structural and semantic linguistics has accumulated colossal experience in the systematization of language units, the relationships between them, has formed a unified view of the language as a complex system. Cognitive and discursive paradigm in linguistics has made it possible to explain linguistic and speech characteristics with the context and attracted the cognitive nature of the linguistic sign as a full-fledged component of analysis. Transferring the idea of anthropocentrism to the figure of the second participant in communication, it came to the conclusion that the last component plays large role in the communicative interaction between addresser - text - addressee, and that the interpretive potential of the text depends on the cognitive abilities of this addressee and his discursive baggage. In the/given article the listed characteristics of the state of modern linguistics made it possible to try to identify an interdependent relationship between the structural and semantic characteristics of language units selected by the author of a literary text from the arsenal of the language and woven into its syntagmatics, and the cognitive and discursive «subtext» that linguistics extracts from the text, which helps expose the author’s intentions more clearly. The material for the analysis made fragments of works by the classical Russian literature authors (I.A. Bunin, I.A. Goncharov, M.M. Prishvin, A.P. Chekhov), structural and semantic analysis was used as a leading method, supplemented with elements of content and discourse analysis. The novelty of the research lies in the desire to make a linguistic analysis of the speech canvas of a literary text in the context of new explanatory «horizons» that have opened up due to the cognitive-discursive paradigm. The study of the linguistic «details» of specific fragments of literary texts has shown that the interpretation of a literary text is based on the characteristics of linguistic units (morphemes, words, word forms, syntactic constructions, CSI, etc.) described in detail within the framework of the structural and semantic paradigm, expanding the view of the contextual environment (in this case - already broad context) allows introduce into the interpretation arguments that depend on the interpreter’s own reading and within his value system.

Hermeneutic Calvinball versus modest digital humanities in philosophical interpretation

In “Calvin and Hobbes,” the character Calvin invents the game of Calvinball. No two games of Calvinball are alike because the only stable rule of Calvinball is that the players make up the rules as they go along, and no rule (other than the one stable rule) can be used twice. Whether a player is winning at a particular game of Calvinball is thus definitionally indeterminate. In philosophy, we risk playing something like Calvinball. It’s often unclear what the rules are, whether there are rules, and who gets to make up the rules as we go along. Even in the more restricted domain of the history of philosophy—the focus of the current paper—it’s often unclear what the rules are, whether there are rules, and who gets to make them up as we go along. Some interpreters of, for instance, Nietzsche, insist on sticking to the letter of the text. Others, most notoriously Heidegger and his followers, insist that what’s most important about a philosopher like Nietzsche is not what he wrote but what he didn’t write. Just like in Calvinball, because people play by different rules and make it up as they go along, it can be hard to tell who is winning an interpretive argument. This paper proposes that digital humanities offers a modest way forward for interpreters who don’t want to play Calvinball. In particular, it is argued that digital humanities methods can be used (1) to set a default for the importance of various concepts, (2) to periodize a philosopher’s works and track the increase or decline in importance of various concepts across a philosopher’s career, and (3) to establish which conceptual connections should or should not be attributed to a philosopher. The value of this approach is demonstrated with a detailed investigation of Nietzsche on the functions of shame.

The Tractatus on Truth

AbstractThe aim of this paper is to discuss Wittgenstein's conception of truth in the Tractatus Logico‐Philosophicus. Section 1 sets the scene by exploring how the notion of truth is in the Tractatus intertwined with notions such as sense and picture. In section 2 I discuss a traditional interpretation that sees the Tractatus as committed to truth as correspondence. In sections 3 and 4 I discuss two more recent alternative lines of interpretation; according to one, we should interpret truth in the Tractatus as a relation of identity. According to the other, the Tractatus endorses a deflationary account of truth. I conclude in section 5 by adjudicating the interpretative debate.

Interpretation, Argumentation, and the Determinacy of Law

AbstractThis article models legal interpretation through argumentation and provides a logical analysis of interpretive arguments, their conflicts, and the resulting indeterminacies. Interpretive arguments are modelled as defeasible inferences, which can be challenged and defeated by counterarguments and be reinstated through further arguments. It is shown what claims are possibly (defensibly) or necessarily (justifiably) supported by the arguments constructible from a given interpretive basis, i.e., a set of interpretive canons coupled with reasons for their application. It is finally established under what conditions such arguments provide single outcomes or rather support alternative interpretive conclusions, thus leading to propositions of law whose truth‐value is undetermined.

Ambivalence in the assessments and perception of the heritage of F. Gulen by the certain part of the Belarusian academic environment

The main aim of the article is to realize the reconstruction of cultural-historical and religious-philosophical foundations of F. Gulen's doctrine, thus, to reveal the place and the role of this doctrine in the ideological heritage of the Republic of Belarus. The objective is subordinated to the logical arguments of historical and philosophical interpretation. The paper also reveals the understanding of the meaning and purpose of the intelligentsia; it carries out the philosophical and epistemological analysis of Gulen's teaching. The aim of the investigation includes a thorough study of plausible inferences showing intensive characteristics of political conclusions, their role and place in modern transitive societies. This article emphasizes the key aspects of understanding the variability of Gulen’s social and philosophical views known as conceptual foundations. Moreover, the study uncovers the ambiguity and even the so-called «extremist» potential of these thoughts. Also the authors revealed the fact to what extent Gulen’s heritage gets into a resonance with the modern philosophical culture. The conclusions of the research can contribute to deepening the ideas about the essence of self-knowledge.

A method for assessing students' interpretations of contextualized data.

Learning to interpret data in context is an important educational outcome. To assess students' attainment of this outcome, it is necessary to examine the interplay between their contextual and statistical reasoning. We describe a research method designed to do so. The method draws upon Toulmin's (1958, 2003) model of argumentation for the first stage of qualitative data analysis and the Structure of the Observed Learning Outcome (SOLO) (Biggs & Collis, 1991) model for the second stage. Toulmin analyses help identify the justifications and expressions of uncertainty students provide in their interpretive arguments. Subsequent analyses based on the multi-modal conceptualization of SOLO help characterize the quality of student arguments relative to one another. Existing literature and an empirical example are drawn upon to explain how the Toulmin and SOLO models can be used in tandem to analyze students' interpretations of contextualized data. We also explain how pairing Toulmin and SOLO can address theoretical and practical limitations that arise when using just one of the two models on its own.

Ralph K. Hawkins. Discovering Exodus: Content, Interpretation, Reception

Ralph K. Hawkins. <i>Discovering Exodus: Content, Interpretation, Reception</i>

The views about Big Data among professionals of police forces: A scoping review of empirical studies

There is a growing tendency toward the introduction of Big Data in police departments to improve the prevention and investigation of crime. However, there is little systematic knowledge about the perspectives of professionals in police forces regarding this technology. This article fills this gap by presenting a scoping review that systematizes empirical studies of the views of professionals in police forces about Big Data in the field of policing and criminal investigation. Fourteen articles were analyzed following a descriptive–analytical method. Optimistic and oppositional views about Big Data among professionals in police forces were then described. Optimistic views focused on the potential of Big Data to improve the objectivity and efficiency of policing and better manage police resources by providing new capabilities and strategies by which to perform crime predictions, risk assessments, criminal investigations, crime analysis, risk management, cooperation and data exchange. Oppositional views related to the police's awareness of Big Data's biases, the lack of a regulatory landscape, misuse of data, privacy threats, data security, misplaced trust in technology, the absence of major changes in work practices, and practical barriers. Analysis of the co-presence of optimistic and oppositional views adds a comprehensive and interpretative argument that might contribute to critical reflections on the technological feasibility, societal usability, and desirability of Big Data technologies in police departments.