Abstract This article traces the evolution of Dariush Shayegan’s (1935–2018) conception of nihilism across three distinct phases of his thought. It argues that Shayegan’s work offers a crucial, non-Western perspective on nihilism, framing it not merely as a philosophical problem but as a central facet of Iran’s experience with modernity. In his early phase, influenced by Ahmad Fardid, he identified nihilism ( Nistengāri ) as a spiritual malady endemic to the West, which he contrasted with the perceived spiritual integrity of Eastern traditions. The 1979 Revolution precipitated a second phase, wherein Shayegan, deeply influenced by his mentor Henry Corbin, diagnosed nihilism as an internalized “disease” manifesting as the “ideologization of tradition” and a collective “schizophrenia.” His final phase, marked by a reading of Heidegger and Vattimo, moved from attempts to transcend nihilism towards its Verwindung (incorporation or recovery), finding in the poetry of Omar Khayyām a model for embracing a “pregnant nothingness” and affirming the present moment. Through this trajectory, Shayegan’s thought demonstrates how the Iranian intellectual tradition actively engaged with and transformed the concept of nihilism, contributing a unique intercultural response to a global philosophical concern.

This paper explores the complexity of Plato’s approach to mimesis and poetry, focusing on his critique in Republic Books II, III, and X. While Plato dismisses poetry as ethically and epistemologically flawed, his arguments reveal a deeper tension between philosophy and artistic representation. Through an analysis of Plato’s tripartite division of reality, the critique of imitation, and the ethical concerns surrounding poetry’s influence, the paper examines whether his rejection of art is absolute or if it leaves room for an alternative poetic function. Drawing on Stephen Halliwell’s interpretation, the study highlights how Plato’s stance is shaped by a broader philosophical concern with truth, knowledge, and the role of art in society. The analysis considers whether Plato’s discussion of mimesis is not merely an attack on art but part of a larger philosophical negotiation over the intersection of aesthetics, morality, and epistemology.

This article proposes an ethno-epistemic approach to teaching ontology in the performing arts at the postgraduate level. Ontology is often introduced to students as an abstract philosophical concern, detached from artistic practice and cultural experience. This article reframes ontology as an interpretive inquiry grounded in cultural knowledge, embodied encounters, and reflective analysis. Drawing on scholarship in the anthropology of knowledge, cultural cognition, linguistics, and adult learning theory, the article develops a pedagogical approach that treats students’ cultural backgrounds, artistic lineages, and experiential histories as epistemic resources rather than contextual noise. The discussion does not present an empirical evaluation of learning outcomes. Instead, it offers a theoretically informed articulation of course design, assignment structure, and reflective sequencing that operationalize ethno-epistemic principles in teaching practice. Ontological understanding is framed as emerging through cycles of observation, field-based engagement, analytical writing, and formative feedback. These pedagogical processes support students in identifying and interrogating the cultural assumptions that shape how performance meaning, action, and presence are interpreted. The article positions the proposed approach as context-dependent and provisional rather than universally generalizable. Its contribution lies in clarifying how ontological inquiry can be pedagogically organized in culturally diverse postgraduate settings, where performance traditions carry distinct epistemic and ontological logics. The ethno-epistemic approach advances discussions in performing arts pedagogy by shifting ontology from a static conceptual domain toward a culturally situated practice of interpretation.

ABSTRACT Philosophical worries about the capacity of language to represent our reality are as old as Plato’s attack on poets. Within analytic philosophy such worries have contributed either to the negative view of art’s (primarily poetry and literary fiction) cognitive value, or to the need to provide a particular account of how artistic employment of language contributes to, rather than deters from, its capacity to describe our world and thus transfer knowledge about it. While some philosophers, most notably J. L. Austin, reject art forms such as poetry as serious, on the account of their employment of language, others, such as Cassirer, cherish art for its unique cognitive achievements, relating these achievements to artistic language. My aim here is, via the example of Michel Houellebecq’s novel Submission, to build on Cassirer’s account of art as a symbolic form and to explore how linguistic arts provide unique cognitive access into various forms of our experience, primarily but not exclusively emotional, and thus help us grasp certain segments of our reality that may not be expressible in non-artistic formulations.

The Indian industry, with its extensive reach and resources, is in a Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana (PMMY) drive transformative changes within this sector, and it must act swiftly. A robust microenterprise sector is not only a business necessity but also a social imperative. This segment has the potential to significantly enhance the global competitiveness of Indian businesses by tackling challenges related to sustainable supply chains, fostering innovation, exploring new markets, and building climate resilience. Empowerment is essential for speeding up economic growth, which is a concern for political philosophers and social scientists. Self-help groups (SHGs) have opened the way for rural economic independence by engaging in micro business with their members Keywords: Enterprises, Empowerment, Economic, Develop, Microbusiness

Philosophical concern for the human future is more important today than ever because of the ethical, social, and technological challenges we face—Human Enhancement (HE) and Transhumanism (H+) are some of the theories that are involved with the future of our species. These two positions tend to be confused, but we contend that a distinction can and should be made between the two approaches. To perform this explanation, we propose two axes of differentiation: the concept of enhancement itself and the valuation of the biological body. In this context, H+ begins with a disregard for the body and seeks to transcend the human condition with exponential enhancements, while HE advocates a gradual enhancement within our current limits. Clarifying this contrast between H+ and HE is vital for the responsible adoption of future technologies, enabling informed decisions about which scientific promises are viable and worthy of support, and which should be reconsidered.

Throughout the history of philosophy, ethics has often been a source of guidance on how to live a meaningful life. Accordingly, when the ethical foundations of mindfulness are considered, an important question arises concerning the role of meditation in providing meaning. The present article proposes a new theoretical route for understanding the links between mindfulness meditation and meaningfulness by employing the terminology of Susan Wolf’s contemporary philosophical account of a meaningful life. It opens by examining the question of what kinds of life-meanings are made available by Buddhist doctrine, considering the two alternatives of a cosmic, human-independent meaning of life versus the subjective meanings that humans give to their individual lives. After surveying current psychological theories that aim to explain the correlation between mindfulness as a trait and meaning in life, all of which see mindfulness as a mediating factor in the production of meaning, I argue that Wolf’s framework offers a promising theoretical basis for clarifying the relationship between mindfulness and meaning in that it explains why mindfulness has a direct bearing on meaning in life. I then show that mindfulness meditation, as understood in Buddhism, can respond to some of the philosophical worries that arise from Wolf’s theory, specifically her concern with the standards for securing the objective value of meaningful activities and projects. My claim is that mindfulness meditation is representative of a broader class of activities that are non-subjectively valuable insofar as they are required for any exploration of objective meaning or standards of values, as well as for engagement in objectively valuable projects and activities.

This article offers a critical analysis of the idea of ‘Authenticity’ as the moral virtue of Sartre’s existential morality. Sartrean approach to morality leads us to the idea of authenticity which is treated as an alternative to traditional approach of morality in present time. The question is ‘how is man to live the life of a moral creature?’ From the existential approach, by being a social creature man must have to maintain the individuality. As we know, the individuality is the prime concern of any existentialist philosophers; and for them, we can attain our individual existence by apprehending the freedom as an inherent value of human reality. Jean-Paul Sartre, the most eminent existentialist philosopher so far, too begins his philosophical investigation with the same issue to offer a new kind of moral perspective to the socially living being apart from traditional and conventional moral system in our modern society. At the same time he offers an idea of ‘Authenticity’ as the moral virtue that focuses on the interpersonal relation in the society. Here my prime concern is to demonstrate the idea of authenticity after Sartre and then to search whether it would really be an accessible alternative approach to the moral man in the society. On the way to search I must go through a short description of his phenomenological ontology to understand the nature of human reality.

Davidson was right when he said that the idea of truth as a goal or norm makes no sense — truth is not something we can aim for, and whenever we say that we aim for truth, what we are really aiming for is some kind of epistemic justification. Nevertheless, the notion of a concern for or with truth can be understood in (at least) three ways that do make sense: (1) it can refer to a philosophical concern with the nature of truth, theories of truth, and related philosophical problems; (2) it can refer to a concern (or aim) for ‘strong’ justification; and (3) it can refer to an attitude or ideal of truth(fulness). Concern for epistemic justification can be found in the Chinese and Indian philosophical traditions as well, and is probably universal among philosophical and scientific traditions. Assessing the third sense of concern for truth is more complicated, but considering that a lack of desire for the truth of one’s theories and ideas seems anathema to science and philosophy, it seems likely that something like this concern is universal among philosophical and scientific traditions as well. Concern with truth in the most literal sense — that is, a philosophical concern with truth in its basic sense as captured in Tarski’s schema — appears to be rare, however, and may even be unique to the Western tradition.

Human freedom has long served as one of the central inquiries across disciplines, interrogating the nature, limits, and possibilities of self-determination. In the modern era, as technology permeates nearly every sphere of life-from professional and personal realms to healthcare, education, communication, and leisure-the question of freedom assumes new dimensions and dilemmas. This paper offers a comprehensive, multidisciplinary exploration of human freedom, tracing its evolution from historical and philosophical conceptions to its present-day reinterpretations in a digital age. The introductory section reviews centuries of thought on freedom through philosophical, psychological, anthropological, social, and cultural lenses. The main body of the paper is divided into two focal areas. The first, "Promethean Price and Technologically Mediated Living," examines how rapid technological evolution has reconfigured daily life, reshaping the structures and practices that define modern existence while influencing individual agency and collective social dynamics. The second, "Conceptual Golden Cage or Mind-forged Manacles," draws on philosophical, social, psychological, and anthropological analyses-invoking the insights of Marshall McLuhan and the poetic imagery of William Blake-to explore how the integration of technology into every facet of human existence might simultaneously empower and constrain. By comparing the liberatory potential of technological advances with their capacity to condition thought, behavior, and even values, the paper highlights the dual-edged nature of modern innovation. The concluding section reflects on human freedom as an ultimate philosophical concern, proposing that without critical engagement and conscious control over technological integration, the very concept of freedom risks being undermined. In doing so, this paper contributes to ongoing debates about technology's role in shaping human agency and the future of freedom.

In reflective explorations of the nature of truth in the philosophical concern with truth (as conceived in people’s pre-theoretic understanding of truth), there are two seemingly opposed strategic directions of explaining the relationship between the two closely related but distinct basic semantic notions, truth (with sentential truth bearers) and reference (with referring terms at the subject position): by virtue of which to hook up to the world in the fundamental relationship between language, thought and the world; eventually which one is more fundamental in this connection, explaining truth by virtue of reference or explaining reference by virtue of truth. In this essay, through elaborating a holistic double-reference explanatory basis of truth, I explain how our pre-theoretic “way-things-are-capturing” understanding of truth fundamentally plays its normative-basis role for a unifying pluralist account of truth through the complementary interplay of its vertical “double-reference-based” dimension and horizontal “sentential-predication-based” dimension. For illustration and for a relatively complete understanding, in Appendix, I present a sample version of the suggested unifying pluralist account of truth which consists of the referentially enhanced base account, as explained in this essay, and sample accounts of some distinct types of perspective elaborations.

Abstract Explanation is commonly considered one of the central goals of science. Although computer simulations have become an important tool in many scientific areas, various philosophical concerns indicate that their explanatory power requires further scrutiny. We examine a case study in which atomistic simulations have been used to examine the factors responsible for the transport selectivity of certain channel proteins located at cell membranes. By elucidating how precisely atomistic simulations helped scientists draw inferences about the molecular system under investigation, we respond to some concerns regarding their explanatory power. We argue that atomistic simulations can be tools for managing molecular complexity and for systematically assessing how the occurrence of the explanandum is sensitive to a range of factors.

The concern of scientists, educators, philosophers, poets and observers regarding man's distancing from nature dates back many centuries. In this sense, this work aimed to analyze the historical context of Environmental Education in Amazonas from 2008 to 2021, through a bibliographical review tracing the relevant points in this process, which contributed to the strengthening of EE in recent years. For data collection, the SCIELO, Google Academic, Google Scholar, Capes and Plataforma Sucupira databases were used, language was not limited in an attempt to obtain a relevant amount of theoretical reference, for data collection, information provided and disclosed without consider the period of publication. An average of 43 scientific works were found, including articles, dissertations and theses, of which only 20 were selected according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Of these works, all were published in Portuguese. With regard to Environmental Education in Amazonas, there is an urgent need for it to be participatory, transformative and emancipatory, in search of the transition from naive consciousness to critical consciousness. And for praxis to occur (reflection-action), the generating themes, proposed by Freire, can meet the confrontation of the society/culture and nature dichotomy and, in this sense, implement the attributes of EE in a Critical-Transforming perspective.

The significant contribution of ordinary language to the pragmatic turn in analytic philosophy has received a great deal of attention from philosophers and linguists, but there is still a gap in the special study of the influence of ordinary language on the pragmatic turn from the perspective of its vagueness. On the basis of the fact that ideal language cannot portray the reality of some linguistic facts, this article compares and analyzes the differences between ideal language and ordinary language in terms of vagueness, and further argue that ordinary language cannot exist in the process of language use in isolation from the reality of the situation through three subdivisions of vagueness: roughness, ambiguity, and incompleteness. The vagueness creates the opportunities for language to be used in a way that is closely tied to the actual situation, dismantling the artificially shaped conditions of perfect use of the ideal language and redirecting the philosophers' attention to the concrete elaboration of language. In this manner, philosophy's concern of ordinary language use and the subjective experience of language users coincides with pragmatics and further drives philosophy to take a pragmatic turn.

Abstract Though irony is a category familiar to rhetoric and literature, its philosophical forms are far less explored, and this is especially true with regards to its articulation in the work of Friedrich Schlegel. Schlegel’s engagement with irony is essential to the Romantic philosophical project, one that is fundamentally concerned with contradiction and posits itself as a challenge to and continuation of idealism. Through exploring his relation to the philosophies of Kant and Fichte, this essay demonstrates that Schlegel can deploy irony as a method of taking up the philosophical paradigm of idealism without limiting himself to their systems. He can use Kant and Fichte against themselves, making sincere philosophical arguments through a brazen playfulness. Further, Schlegel’s concept of irony is shown to be a philosophical faculty that is concerned with the limits of philosophy in language. Irony is much more than a rhetorical device – it is a form that allows Schlegel to approach the limits of discursivity from within and so continually stage instances of philosophical contradiction, undermining systematicity. This centering of contradiction is one of Schlegel’s major contributions to the development of German philosophy, critical of those who precede him and spurning their presuppositions of univocal logic. The outworking of Schlegel’s philosophical concern with irony is unmistakably humorous, full of puns, jokes and witticisms, which nevertheless need to be taken seriously. This paper contends that irony is at the crux of Schlegel’s philosophical project, simultaneously the content and mode of his criticism, the source and justification of his humour, and one of Romanticism’s most significant conceptual developments.

Organized immaturity, the reduction of individual capacities for public use of reason constrained by sociotechnological systems, constitutes a significant pushback against the project of Enlightenment. Forms of immaturity have long been a concern for philosophers and social theorists, such as Kant, Arendt, Fromm, Marcuse, and Foucault. Recently, Zuboff’s concept of “surveillance capitalism” describes how advancements in digital technologies lead to new, increasingly sophisticated forms of organized immaturity in democratic societies. We discuss how sociotechnological systems initially designed to meet human needs can inhibit the multidimensional development of individuals as mature citizens. To counteract these trends, we suggest two mechanisms: disorganizing immaturity as a way to safeguard individuals’ and collectives’ negative freedoms (freedoms from), and organizing maturity as a way to strengthen positive freedoms (freedoms to). Finally, we provide an outlook on the five further articles that constitute the Business Ethics Quarterly Special Issue “Sociotechnological Conditions of Organized Immaturity in the Twenty-First Century.”

This paper was born from the researcher’s inquisitiveness in prying into such discourses in the Bible that seem to pose so much philosophical concern, which has led to many psychological semantic and theological arguments in the scholastic realm of beliefs. The purpose of delving into this area, then, is to demystify the accurate meaning of the response of Jesus Christ when he said, “I never knew you,” thus helping young preachers of the word and, indeed, scholars avert possible future misapplication of the passage and to further recommend to the contemporary Christians the possible ways of averting such scenario in the imminent post-generational judgment and reign of the Lord. The researcher keenly used the best articulate methods for arriving at the preconceived goal, so the study utilized the descriptive exegetical method via historical-grammatical and lexical syntactical tools to analyze the verses of the text. Fantastic discoveries were realized, which assert that what they claimed intimacy with Christ is just what He repudiates and with a certain scornful dignity. This means then that his acquaintance with the impostors was not broken off- but they have never at any point in time known the Lord via belief, confession, repentance, and salvation. This heightened the researcher’s curiosity, suggesting some physical, social, spiritual, and ethical implications for contemporary Christians. Finally, the researcher recommended that contemporary Christians must not allow themselves to be overdriven with a fervent passion for miraculous works, prophecies, and demonic exorcisms that outweigh the central focus befitting called people of God that will witness to the redemptive work of Christ

In this paper, we will be examining the question of personal identity in the context of Immanuel Kant?s philosophy, as well as among contemporary Kantian thinkers such as Christine Korsgaard. Our investigation will focus primarily on those aspects of the issue that are relevant to moral philosophy. While some may believe that personal identity is not a primary concern of philosophy, or that it does not merit extensive discussion, we argue that it is indeed a significant philosophical question, particularly in the context of moral philosophy. Our inquiry will begin with Kant?s theoretical philosophy, specifically his transcendental deduction of categories and his treatment of paralogisms, as we aim to gain a deeper understanding of Kant?s views on personal identity. Following our analysis of the relevant parts of Kant?s work, we will then turn to the contemporary Kantian thinker Kristin Korsgaard, who has offered critiques of Derek Parfit?s understanding of personal identity.

Loneliness has been a major concern for philosophers, poets and psychologists for centuries. In the past several decades, it has concerned clinicians and public health practitioners as well. The research...

The systematic study of male misogyny began with Christine de Pizan at the start of the fifteenth century. Although her work has generally been neglected within the history of philosophy, her ideas illuminate many questions of pressing current philosophical concern, including the nature of epistemic injustice, the prospects for an individualistic methodology in social theory, and the epistemology of disagreement.