Philosophical Criteria Research Articles

Intelligence and Philosophy

Intelligence and Philosophy

After Hegel: A postmodern genealogy of historical fiction

In this article, we analyze a possible form of the relationship between modernity and postmodernity by examining the transformation of the place of enunciation of criticism as a philosophical narrative and using it as a historical and philosophical criterion. To achieve this, we first focus on key moments in the critical discourse of modernity, and then analyze the role of Kantian criticism in the formation of a postmodern imaginary associated with the notions of useful fiction and linguistification. Finally, from a Hegelian perspective, we consider the validity of the idea of universal history and its connections to emancipatory narratives.

Fundamental Distinctions between Teaching and Drilling in the Classroom: A Search for a Philosophical Criterion.

This paper makes a fundamental distinction between teaching and drilling within the class room. Whereas many teachers go to the classroom to teach, it has been observed that what really takes place in the class rooms is much of drilling than teaching. This paper while it criticizes the common pedagogical approaches oriented towards drilling, it also proposes a new approach; the philosophical minimum, which leads to meaningful teaching and learning. The Philosophical approach presents three criteria namely; the intentionality Criterion, the Indicative criterion and the Readiness Criterion. This approach attempts to solve the common problems and challenges encountered by teachers as well as learners in the teaching-learning process. This paper makes recommendations which are quite significant in the improvement of the education quality at all learning levels.

Theoretical and Philosophical Criteria of the Standards of Evidence Applicable to Expert Opinion; “from Corroborability to Evidential Reliability”

Theoretical and Philosophical Criteria of the Standards of Evidence Applicable to Expert Opinion; “from Corroborability to Evidential Reliability”

Deluded confession: Response to Kishor Patwardhan.

"Confessions of an Ayurveda Professor", by Kishor Patwardhan, published in IJME, has set the stage for heated discussions within and outside the medical circles. It uses primitive philosophical criteria to argue that Ayurvedic principles relating to anatomy and physiology are obsolete, and that they need to be removed from the syllabus. As Ayurveda students, we explore the counterview to this, pointing out the fallacies behind each point raised, and suggest solutions that we find suitable for effective, competency-based Ayurveda education.

A Philosophical Explanation for the Islamization of Philosophy: How Can Mullā Ṣadrā’s Transcendent Philosophy Contribute to the Islamization of Philosophy in Iran?

ABSTRACT This paper evaluates the potentials of Mullā Şadrā’s philosophy to explain the possibility of the Islamization of philosophy. This contributes to a more general, yet controversial, project in post-revolutionary Iran, namely the Islamization of knowledge, especially in the humanities. If there would be a mechanism through which Islamization of philosophy – as a historical example and as a field of knowledge that provides theoretical grounds of other humanities – can be plausibly explained, then one might think of Islamizing the humanities, as well. One famous explanation in Iran is based on the distinction between contexts of discovery and justification. It explains how a philosopher is permitted to use the Islamic content in the context of discovery – not justification – and how this helps to Islamize philosophy. In this article, we claim a new explanation which is based on Mullā Şadrā’s transcendent philosophy. Such a philosophical explanation not only acknowledges using the Qur’an and authentic narrations in the context of discovery but also necessitates involving revelation as a philosophical criterion in the context of justification and a highly valid epistemic source in producing the new philosophical content. This provides a strong account of the Islamization of philosophy.

Первоисточники учения о стадиальности Пути в индо-тибетской Махаяне

The Mahāyāna concept of gradual Dharma teaching, learning and staged realization of the Path of Enlightenment in Tibet was developed by Tsongkhapa and others as a practical guide to the stages of the Path (Lamrim). However, Lamrim is not a Tibetan teaching and expresses a more general concept of gradualness, which has an Indo-Buddhist origin. The article is to present the system of Indian primary sources of this concept. The novelty of the approach is due to the fact that the authors consider the “internal” position in the systematization and classification of the teachings of the Buddha, presented by the Madhyamikas, especially the reformer of Tibetan Buddhism, Je Tsongkhapa, to be a very significant factor in the reconstruction of the Mahāyāna concept of gradualness. The authors come to conclusions also containing novelty. First, the concept of the "Three Turns of the Wheel of the Teaching" formulated in the “Samdhinirmochana Sūtra” is the first hermeneutical scheme for ordering and classifying the many teachings of the Buddha. It was based on the principle of gradual assimilation of the ontology of emptiness by students. Within this gradualism conceptualization scheme, based on the philosophical (ontological) criteria for classifying the teachings of the Buddha, the Prajnaparamita Sūtras are the root source of the concept of gradualness. Secondly, the Mahāyāna concept of gradualness has both explicit and implicit aspects. The explicit aspect is represented by those Prajnaparamita Sūtras, in which the main subject is the doctrine of emptiness and contains the substantiation of the gradualness of the Path, depending on the depth of comprehension of emptiness and selflessness. This aspect of the Prajnaparamita is presented in Nāgārjuna's six treatises on the Madhyamaka. Chandrakirti revealed the connection of the deep view with the stages of the Path of the Bodhisattvas. Thirdly, along with the ontological scheme for substantiating gradualness, the Indian primary sources also present practical schemes for the gradual systematization of the Buddha's teachings: the concept of three chariots ("Lotus Sūtra"), as well as the doctrine of bhūmi ("Yogācārabhūmi" by Asanga) and six (ten ) paramitās ("Bodhicharyāvatāra" by Śantideva). This article is part of a larger study of the sources of the Mahāyāna concept of gradualness. Results of this analysis are significant for the correct source systematization of Buddhist doctrines and practices.

Between Geographical Sameness and Historical Selfhood: Identity of a Historical Community in Paul Ricoeur’s Philosophy

The issue of the identity of communities considered in a historical context brings many problems. The question of community identity is one of many challenges facing historians. It is subject to a multi-sided debate between extreme positions that seek a hard core of identity, and those that postulate a nomadic identity or deny it any meaning at all. Concerning the thought of Paul Ricoeur, the article will hypothesize that community identity can be considered between the poles of geographical sameness and historical selfhood, based on the model of demography and the model of collective memory. These models relate to the basic philosophical criteria of identity, and allow historians to refer to the multiplicity of aspects that fall within the geographical and historical criteria. By exploring these aspects in a web of interdependence, historians resemble narrators of a novel, who do not create a predictable plot but consider contradictions, twists, and conflicts. Thus, the work of historians acquires an ethical dimension, which is free from influence on the formation of the identity of the community to which they also belong.

What is truth - in science and beyond.

Truth is threatened in our societies and one might wish that scientists should stand up for truth, but in order to do so, one needs to know what is truth and how it can be recognized. The oldest and most widely accepted concept of truth is the Correspondence Theory requesting a fit of propositions and reality. In the Coherence Theory truth is a consistent property of a whole system of propositions. In the Pragmatic Theory truth works in practical terms. Scientists have defined criteria to verify true statements by experiments and by the simplicity of theories. Aristotle proposed parsimony claiming the superiority of theories which derive from fewer hypotheses. David Hume suggested probability arguments to assess the force of evidence. Nicolai Hartmann elaborated a model based on the congruence of a priori logical arguments with a posteriori empirical observations. Karl Popper introduced the falsification of testable theories as a way to better theories. The analysis shows that scientific and medical research uses classical philosophical criteria of truth in their daily work. Humanities use different, hermeneutic criteria of truth. Finally, societies need for their coherence a dialectic approach to truth based on honest discussion of opposing views.

Plants as Machines: History, Philosophy and Practical Consequences of an Idea

This paper elucidates the philosophical origins of the conception of plants as machines and analyses the contemporary technical and ethical consequences of that thinking. First, we explain the historical relationship between the explicit animal machine thesis of Descartes and the implicit plant machine thesis of today. Our hypothesis is that, although it is rarely discussed, the plant machine thesis remains influential. We define the philosophical criteria for both a moderate and radical interpretation of the thesis. Then, assessing the compatibility of current botanical knowledge with both interpretations, we find that neither withstands scrutiny. We trace how biological and agricultural sciences have historically relied upon thinking of plants as machines and how they continue to do so today through rhetoric centred on breeding, biotechnology, and production. We discuss some of the most important legal and ethical consequences of obscuring the vitality of plants. Finally, we explore less reductive and destructive ways of thinking about, and using, plants.

Nombre de la Ciencia y denominación del Profesional de Nutrición

Los miembros y coordinadores de los capítulos nacionales integrantes del Comité Internacional para la Elaboración de Consensos y Estandarización en Nutriología (CIENUT), después de un proceso profundo de discusión, declaramos lo siguiente:
 
 Como las demás especialidades de la salud, la Ciencia de la Nutrición ha debido recorrer un camino largo de trabajo marcado por un proceso de constante evolución y afianzamiento; se ha beneficiado significativamente del desarrollo de disciplinas complementarias como la Física, la Química o la Bioquímica; ha alcanzado un grado suficiente de madurez científica como para que los profesionales que la ejercemos, nos tomemos el tiempo necesario para reflexionar y re-pensar nuestras definiciones, procesos y todo lo relacionado con nuestro quehacer.
 
 En este contexto, hemos elaborado el Consenso 1 denominado Nombre de la Ciencia y denominación del Profesional de Nutrición; este consenso busca fijar los criterios técnicos, científicos y filosóficos, por los cuales se logre lo siguiente:
 
 
 Universalización del término Nutriología Humana para denominar a la Ciencia de la Nutrición que se estudia como carrera profesional.
 
 
 
 Universalización del término Nutriólogo Humano para denominar al profesional que ha estudiado la carrera de Nutriología Humana y que la ejerce de acuerdo a los estándares que la ciencia y el conocimiento demandan en la actualidad.
 
 
 
 Invocamos, además, a todas las instituciones que forman y representan a profesionales de la Nutrición a suscribir este consenso y hacer todo lo necesario para que pueda implementarse en la forma más rápida posible.
 
 Firmado el 14 de setiembre de 2019 en Lima, Perú.

Panpsychism: A Response to the Anthropocene Age

Abstract Panpsychism, the view that the material elements of the universe have mental properties, has until quite recently remained in the periphery of the philosophical mainstream due to its blatant contradiction of normative Cartesian dualities, which divided the world into mental properties (that inhere in human beings alone) and material properties, that are devoid of value and sentience. The recent geological shift to the Anthropocene Age, in which human culture can be found in pesticide resistant mosquitoes and the ozone heavens, has undermined the foundations of Cartesian dualism, making panpsychism a credible alternative. Yet some panpsychists go too far by conflating all distinctions between living and nonliving, human and nonhuman, evolved and made entities. Using Whitehead's process philosophy, this article will defend panpsychism and develop the philosophical criteria of causation, relationality, unity and intentionality to differentiate between natural living forms, natural nonliving forms, and human artifacts.

Factors of semiogenesis (philosophical and linguistic analysis)

The article deals with the philosophical and cognitive criteria of the evolution of the sign (semiogenesis), growing from signal to symbol and further to the sign in Language. The article aims to reveal not only differences among the three semiotic forms, but also their common and generic features. As a common philosophical criterion, to define generic feature of all evolutional semiotic forms and to explain the principle of the inner relationship between the form and the meaning in them, category of otherbeing (inobytié) is used. The cognitive analysis, which deals with the differential features of the evolutional semiotic entities, is developed on the base of the categories of identification and interpretation. The both functions, the identification and the interpretation, correlate with each other differently in signal, in symbol and in conventional sign of Language. The transition from one function to another characterizes the essence of the speech actualization of the sign in the process of semiosis. The only functional condition, that remains common and unchangeable in all kinds of sign, is the transition to the otherbeing. The otherbeing (whatever its functional perspective) represents the phenomenology of the sign in speech. The article may be interesting for the specialists in philosophy, semiotics and general linguistics.

Encyclical Laudato si’ on the Question of Progress

Progress is one of the most recognizable characteristics of modern times. The present paper addresses the question of progress as the underlying theme of the encyclical Laudato si'. Progress has both good and bad sides. The latter are expressed in terms that have a fundamental significance to the encyclical, such as, “irrational faith in progress” and “the myth of unlimited material progress”. In order to gain a clearer understanding of those terms, the author begins with outlining the history of the idea of progress and the philosophical criterion for its assessment. Then, he provides a critical analysis of the technocratic paradigm embodying the false face of progress. Within this framework, progress is presented as imperative and unlimited. However, by placing man in the centre and reducing his purpose in life to a relativistic principle “use and throw away”, it leads to a global ecological, spiritual and cultural crisis. The following part of the paper is devoted to a new model of progress proposed by Pope Francis. This type of progress has both a vertical and horizontal dimension. Embedded in the Holy Trinity, it reaches its peak in Jesus Christ and it promotes human life and protects the work of creation. Its fruit is to be individual concern for the poor and greater justice between nations. It cannot be achieved without changing the mentality (conversion) and specific individual and political decisions. The last part of the article answers the question about the novelty of the model of progress proposed by Pope Francis.

Is Roger Scruton a Christian Platonist?

ABSTRACTThis article situates Roger Scruton in the tradition of Christian Platonism. It begins by revisiting Scruton’s reluctance to pursue theological speculation as it has been traditionally practised in the Platonising tradition of Christian metaphysics, and identifies potential misunderstandings of this tradition as Scruton represents it, as well as points of common ground. Drawing on the scholarship of Lloyd Gerson, this article goes on to argue that Scruton satisfies the basic philosophical criteria that allow a philosopher to be classified as a Platonist, and then shows how his thought can be located within a Platonising hermeneutical tradition. Scruton re-imagines a number of Christian Platonic themes in the post-Kantian, phenomenological, and existential territory he inhabits. These themes include: imaginative contemplation, transcendence, the sacred, the real presence, meditation on death (meditatio mortis), love, and becoming like God (Gottwerdung). The article concludes with some reflections about why it matters that Scruton’s thought should be included in the tradition of Christian Platonism i.e. why it should matter to his readers, to the potential logical unfolding of his own philosophical position, and to his standing as one of the most powerful spiritual writers of our time.

Check Your Truth Conditions! Clarifying the Relationship between Theories of Causation and Social Science Methods for Causal Inference

Theories of causation in philosophy ask what makes causal claims true and establish the so-called truth conditions allowing one to separate causal from noncausal relationships. We argue that social scientists should be aware of truth conditions of causal claims because they imply which method of causal inference can establish whether a specific claim holds true. A survey of social scientists shows that this is worth emphasizing because many respondents have unclear concepts of causation and link methods to philosophical criteria in an incoherent way. We link five major theories of causation to major small and large- n methods of causal inference to provide clear guidelines to researchers and improve dialogue across methods. While most theories can be linked to more than one method, we argue that structural counterfactual theories are most useful for the social sciences since they require neither social and natural laws nor physical processes to assess causal claims.

A meta-analysis of economic valuation of ecosystem services in Mexico

This paper provides a comprehensive review of the literature on the economic values for ecosystem goods and services in Mexico. We analyzed 106 studies that estimated an economic value for any given environmental good or service in the country. In total, we coded and classified 352 values according to the Common International Classification of Ecosystem Services (CICES) and the Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) ecosystem classification. We then estimated an econometric model to compare the value of different services in different ecosystems. We show that regulation services are more valuable than cultural and provisioning services, that wetlands are more valuable than forests and cultivated systems, and that deforestation for arable land is not cost-effective, because the regulation services of forests are more valuable than the provisioning services of crops. We also calculate the elasticity between the value of ecosystem services that forests provide in Mexico (in USD/hectare per year) and the supply of each ecosystem (in hectares). This elasticity is statistically significant and equal to −0.37. This estimate is relevant in policy terms, since it adds an economic rationale for conservation to other moral and philosophical criteria, especially in areas currently experiencing a high degree of deforestation and degradation.

Per un’etica esperienziale e non normativa

In this article, I try to develop an approach to Ethics considering it as a process and not as a doctrinaire corpus or a list of universal precepts. Through a constructivist vision and by referring to the Personal Constructs Psychology, I try to understand and explore the “ways” of ethical knowledge instead of the “thing” subsumed from a religious faith or from the western rationalization assumed as a philosophical criterion of Truth. Moreover, I try to illustrate how, by focussing on Ethics as an experience and a form of knowledge, it would be possible to take a position on morally relevant issues, but without falling into a dogmatic absolutism nor becoming the victims of an inertial relativism.

Philosophical Criteria in Whitehead and Rorty

AbstractRorty's aversion to metaphysics is well known, so the extent of his early work on Whitehead might come as a surprise. This article examines the young Rorty's critical assessment of Whitehead to show how it demonstrates the consequences of diverging metaphilosophical orientations. It argues that Rorty's insistence on judging Whitehead's work through an exclusively epistemological frame causes him to miss its more radical existential and epistemic implications. After examining how Rorty and Whitehead operate with different cost‐benefit analyses as to the risks and benefits of speculative philosophy, it suggests that closer attention to the fuller stakes of Whitehead's project shows that his metaphysics are not opposed to the “poeticized” culture that Rorty calls for, one where the distinction between making and finding is no longer metaphysically foundational.

La connaissance vraie comme cause possible de souffrance perpétuelle chez al-Fārābī

We examine Fārābī’s ideas through a set of formal heresiography, since there is parallel between his claims and the classification of Islamic sects. In him, there is a kind of heresiography of the cities (or religions) based on philosophical criteria: the leader, the inhabitants, the religion (with its two folds: opinions and actions) and individual or collective destiny. Obviously, he substitutes philosophical criteria for Islamic heresiographical ones: true or wrong opinions and good or bad actions. These criteria determine the human destiny: eternal happiness for the one who has true opinions and virtuous actions, eternal suffering for the one who has true opinions but bad actions, and nothingness for the one who has false opinions and bad actions.Hence, we can conclude that:- The combination of the components of the city gives only these three possible destinies.- The theoretical dimension (ideas on beings), be it philosophical (truths) or religious (symbols), is the real cause of survival after death...