Western Philosophy Research Articles

The Ubuntu Way: Ensuring Ethical AI Integration in Health Research

The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in health research has grown rapidly, particularly in African nations, which have also been developing data protection laws and AI strategies. However, the ethical frameworks governing AI use in health research are often based on Western philosophies, focusing on individualism, and may not fully address the unique challenges and cultural contexts of African communities. This paper advocates for the incorporation of African philosophies, specifically Ubuntu, into AI health research ethics frameworks to better align with African values and contexts. This study explores the concept of Ubuntu, a philosophy that emphasises communalism, interconnectedness, and collective well-being, and its application to AI health research ethics. By analysing existing global AI ethics frameworks and contrasting them with the Ubuntu philosophy, a new ethics framework is proposed that integrates these perspectives. The framework is designed to address ethical challenges at individual, community, national, and environmental levels, with a particular focus on the African context. The proposed framework highlights four key principles derived from Ubuntu: communalism and openness, harmony and support, research prioritisation and community empowerment, and community-oriented decision-making. These principles are aligned with global ethical standards such as justice, beneficence, transparency, and accountability but are adapted to reflect the communal and relational values inherent in Ubuntu. The framework aims to ensure that AI-driven health research benefits communities equitably, respects local contexts and promotes long-term sustainability. Integrating Ubuntu into AI health research ethics can address the limitations of current frameworks that emphasise individualism. This approach not only aligns with African values but also offers a model that could be applied more broadly to enhance the ethical governance of AI in health research worldwide. By prioritising communal well-being, inclusivity, and environmental stewardship, the proposed framework has the potential to foster more responsible and contextually relevant AI health research practices in Africa.

An Eastern Look at a Western Dilemma: Cross-Cultural Differences in Action-Balanced Trolley Dilemmas

Moral judgment has been extensively studied utilizing traditional trolley-like sacrificial dilemmas. However, by building on Western philosophies and relying on WEIRD samples, this approach has potentially introduced a Western-centric bias to our understanding of the morality of sacrificial harm, by (a) assuming an inherent opposition between utilitarian and deontological morality and (b) underestimating cultural differences on the moral value of inaction. To address this bias, our study examined cross-cultural differences in moral judgment using an adapted methodology that equally weighs action/inaction framing and considers utilitarian and deontological choices separately. The findings demonstrate that Chinese participants ( n = 273) embraced a more holistic moral construct with utilitarian and deontological moral approaches being positively correlated, whereas American participants ( n = 240) viewed them as opposing to each other. Moreover, we also found that Chinese participants were more, rather than less utilitarian than American participants in trolley-like dilemmas when balancing action and inaction.

Enriching Flaws of Scent عطر עטרה A Guava Scent Collection

Abstract This essay is written around the art-action عطر עטרה A Guava scent collection from an artist’s point of view. It connects the decision-making process and manifestations of the scent collection to dominant convictions about the “flaws” of scent and the sense of smell in Western philosophy. According to these convictions, the sense of smell and scent have no relevance to rational thinking and/or scientific knowledge and by implication to a political debate, for three reasons: scent is volatile, the sense of smell is non-verbal, and the sense of smell is too subjective to rely on. By contrast, I argue that the supposed “flaws” of scent and the sense of smell, might, in fact, contribute in a constructive and productive way to a sociopolitical debate, as will be demonstrated by the art installation of the Guava scent collection.

The Three Postulate Idea: Between Limits and Metaphysical Beliefs in Immanuel Kant's System of Philosophy

In the history of Western philosophy, debates about truth and error have continued to develop, reflecting diverse views that have emerged over time. The question of human nature became the center of intellectual attention, expanding philosophical study from speculation to fundamental thinking. Amid this context, Immanuel Kant emerged as a key figure who brought a new approach to philosophical inquiry. Although he spent his life in Koningsberg, his ideas in epistemology, anthropology, ethics, and education gained global recognition and made him one of the most influential philosophers of the modern era. However, his views have also drawn criticism, especially for the inconsistencies that are perceived to support dogmatism, although he originally intended to criticize it. This research analyzes Kant's thought, especially about the limits of human knowledge, metaphysics, and criticism of dogmatism. The method used is qualitative text analysis, which examines Kant's main work, "Critique of Pure Reason," as well as the views of other philosophers. Primary and secondary literature is reviewed to identify inconsistencies in Kant's arguments. The results show that although Kant's philosophical system has made an outstanding contribution, there are significant areas for improvement in the handling of metaphysical concepts and the limits of knowledge, which ultimately has the potential to fall into dogmatism. This study concludes that Kant's thought remains relevant and essential, but it needs to be reread critically to fully understand its impact on modern philosophy.

At the Boundaries of Birth, Love, and Death: Jean-Luc Nancy’s Batailleanism with Reserve – from Restricted to General Natology

ABSTRACT Experience does not have boundaries; it is a boundary. Transgression, as envisaged by Bataille, consists in the realisation of this circumstance. Boundary experiences are experiences of the limit. The experience itself communicates the boundary; communication takes place at the boundary of two experiences. Following Bataille, Jean-Luc Nancy further developed this thought, arguing that in this impossible inner experience, a community of beings is communicated, or indicated, but cannot be translated into any specific (organisational) form of community, or concrete politics. Such an ‘inoperative’ or ‘unrepresentable’ community is to be found in birth, love, and death. This paper will try to apply Derrida’s famous judgement of ascribing Bataille a Hegelianism without reserve, by reading Nancy’s thought mutatis mutandis as a Batailleanism with reserve. This coincides with a transition from a restricted natology – which presupposes an equivalence, or exchangeability, of birth and death – to a general natology. This represents a shift in Western philosophy’s thanatological tradition, which over the course of the twentieth century has gradually come to refuse such an easy equation in the wake of its discovery of birth as a philosophical phenomenon in its own right – independent of death.

Debts of Gratitude in Cross‐Cultural Perspective: Confucian and Western Ethics

ABSTRACTThis article examines the contrasting conceptions of gratitude in Early Confucian and Western philosophy. It focuses on a key difference: the presence of the notion of ‘debts of gratitude’ in Western thought and its absence in Confucianism. We explore how this difference is rooted in contrasting ethical outlooks and values. Western philosophy often conceives of gratitude as a duty of reciprocation, furthering the values of social equality and individual autonomy. By contrast, Early Confucians viewed gratitude as proper acknowledgement that strengthens social relationships that are part of an ongoing collective project, spanning generations. This view reflects the importance of values such as community, harmony, and ritual propriety in Confucianism. Unlike the Western context, in the Early Confucian social world, there was no role for ‘debts of gratitude’ to play. There were no Confucian values that ‘debts of gratitude’ would help to realize, or would be responsive to, in the way that debts of gratitude further the values of equality and independence in the West. We conclude by noting that some Western philosophers express ideas about gratitude in collaborative contexts that align with Confucian ideas, suggesting some shared elements between Confucian and Western ethical outlooks.

오성다도(五性茶道)의 수양론과 서양철학의 비교 연구

This study explores the philosophical system of Oseong Tea Ceremony, founded by Ahn park Jong-han, and seeks to examine its integrative potential through a comparison with Western philosophy. Oseong Tea Ceremony emphasizes moral growth and holistic human cultivation by nurturing five qualities: physicality, spirituality, sociality, individuality, and sensibility. Ahn park Jong-han merged the traditional thoughts of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism to pursue inner development through tea ceremonies, which holds significant relevance in modern society. While existing research has inadequately compared Oseong Tea Ceremony with Western philosophy, this study aims to present the contemporary significance and philosophical similarities of Oseong Tea Ceremony through comparisons with plato's tripartite theory of the soul, Kant's moral philosophy, and Martin Buber's philosophy of relation. Through this analysis, the study discusses how Oseong Tea Ceremony can be established as a practical philosophy for holistic human growth.

A comparative study of Indian philosophical human values with western philosophy

A comparative study of Indian philosophical human values with western philosophy

인공지능 로봇의 도덕감정 함양 가능성에 대한 검토 -초등 도덕과를 중심으로-

This study examined the possibility of cultivating moral emotions of artificial intelligence robots that are developing recently. The 2022 revised elementary moral curriculum provides an opportunity for thought by asking questions about the relationship between artificial intelligence robots and humans. For the study, we first investigated the nature and expression process of emotions from ancient Western philosophy to modern brain science and neuroscience. Based on this, we explored what kind of emotional view the currently developed artificial intelligence robots express emotions based on. As a result, current artificial intelligence robots showed responses to humans using information accumulated through facial movements and facial expressions, focusing on basic emotions, according to Ekman's theory. This may be seen as a passive form based on human physical characteristics. However, moral emotion has a complex and active character that combines understanding of moral problem situations, empathy for others, and appropriate responses to situations. Accordingly, it was recommended to clearly teach the status and limitations of artificial intelligence robots in the field of current moral emotions in elementary moral education and educate students to form desirable relationships with artificial intelligence robots.

Being-Time, or How Traditional Japanese Thought Collided with Western Philosophy and Modern Physics at Hiroshima

The atom bomb that annihilated Hiroshima, Japan, on August 6, 1945, proved Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity. Mass became energy and the classic Western dialectic of three-dimensional space and linear time was displaced by the integrated concept of spacetime. On that day, modern physics also collided with the traditional Japanese understanding that space and time are interdependent phenomena. This collision speaks to conceptual parallels relating Buddhist thought, modern Japanese philosophy, phenomenology, and the physics of spacetime. The thirteenth-century Zen Buddhist monk Dōgen said that all phenomena are made possible by the universal principle of emptiness and that our existence arises with each moment in what he termed Being-Time, where past, present, and future co-exist. The Japanese philosopher Nishida Kitarō, along with Tanabe Hajime and Watsuji Tetsurō, saw reality as a multi-dimensional field of space-in-time where the individual subject no longer stood apart from the objective world but instead arose dynamically as contingent activities rather than an autonomous thing. The German philosopher Martin Heidegger rejected the rational binary of subject and object in Western thought and grounded our “being” in phenomena that came from their temporal being-in-the-world rather than representing some preexisting objective reality. The physicist Albert Einstein radically rethought the dialectic of three-dimensional space and linear time, used to schematize the physical world in the West since antiquity, and theorized the relativity of spacetime, in which all phenomena occur in space in relation to their place in time. Interwoven, these intellectual threads stripped the bombing of Hiroshima of its historical inevitability. The story of human experience lost its customary sense of going <i>somewhere</i> predetermined and was revealed instead to be an endlessly discrete accumulation of moments that could go <i>anywhere</i> at every transient and directionless moment in time.

Нужен ли философской антропологии «социогенетический поворот»?

Philosophical anthropology, which arose each time in a specific historical reality, sought to create a universal image of man, calling this process the revelation of his essence. This problem was solved by Russian philosophy, which developed the Orthodox Christian tradition within certain historical boundaries. Modern philosophy, solving this problem, cannot ignore the basic philosophical and anthropological ideas of different civilizations, primarily Eastern, Western and Russian philosophy. The space for their comparison and synthesis can be the semantic conceptual field of sociogenesis, which opens up a universal approach to the formation of a human being as a global cultural and biological species. The sociogenetic approach reveals the opportunity to compare two main essential models of man, which are represented by the version of the self-sufficient individual, which developed in the European Enlightenment, and the version of the conciliar (communal) man, the discussion of which began in Russian philosophy of the 19th century. In the context of sociogenesis, the basis for distinguishing anthropological versions is the opposition of individualistic and communal (conciliar) principles of behavior. A specifi c synthesis of these principles in one or another cultural-historical model appears as a solution to the contradiction between the individual and species model of behavior within the cultural-biological species “human being”. In the natural world, the coordination of individual and species behavior is resolved through the genetic inheritance of species behavior, eliminating the conflict between species and individual. The sociogenetic evolution of a human being has posed the task of searching for species-specifi c universal principles of behavior, which has complicated the solution of the problem of harmonizing species and individual behavior. The complexity of the situation is that human behavior is directed by cultural programs in the context of a sociogenetic search for a species program capable of ensuring the global consolidation of the human species. In this context, philosophical anthropology requires a sociogenetic support, and the appeal to it can be called the “sociogenetic turn” in philosophical anthropology.

Seyyed Hossein Nasr’s Views of Modern Science: An Evaluation

This paper focuses on Seyyed Hossein Nasr’s views of modern science. By focusing on Nasr’s opinion of modern science this paper explores how and why he rejects mechanical and positivist views of modern scholars. This research examines why he accepts the theory of creation and appreciates the spiritual and religious worldviews of science. In so doing, this article contributes to the ongoing discourse on the issue of modern science and eternal wisdom. By reviewing the relevant literary sources, some required data are collected and then used in the analysis hereafter. In this discussion Nasr talked about practicing science while keeping religious beliefs integrated. That is why, the existence of the creator of the world has been acknowledged. Whereas he excelled in the knowledge of science. As a result, the limitations of science arise in his mind. The philosophical problems he faced in his youth were not solved by modern science or western philosophy but were solved by the holy Qur’an. He accepts Tawheed or the oneness of God. Although he accepts modern science, he criticizes the resulting secularism. Nasr said that science should be practiced while maintaining religious values. His response to modern Science was to subordinate it to the systems and principles of the Islamic worldview. Moreover, to him, Modern Science was the largest framework of Knowledge (Ilm). This Modern science does not violate the core values of Islamic knowledge but inspires it with divine inspiration. In this case, the method came to be known as the Islamization of knowledge. Philosophy and Progress, Vol#73-74; No#1-2; Jan-Dec 2023 P 215-240

Pedagogical tact and attention: a phenomenological exploration

ABSTRACT While attention has long been a concern in western philosophy and eastern spirituality, technologies (e.g., social media, gaming) and pathologies (e.g., attention deficit disorders) have recently foregrounded the issue specifically in education. Issues of student absorption and diversion have been widely discussed; comparatively less has been said about teachers and the kind of attention that the individuality of each of their students claims. This paper begins by reconstructing the kind of awareness and attention that are implied in Kant’s account of logical tact and Herbart’s lecture on specifically pedagogical tact. Potentially tactful forms of awareness are then explored and delineated in phenomenological, Gestaltist terms – as well as through reference to Freud’s notion of ‘free-floating attention.’ The paper concludes by outlining characteristics of awareness that appear requisite to the demands of tactful decision and action, an attention at once receptive to the world outside yet also modulated by the one attending.

The Interaction Between Japanese Buddhism and Christianity in the Meiji Period

Although initially fraught with tension, spanning roughly two decades, Buddhists employed various strategies to combat the spread of Christianity and uphold their traditional values. As the 1890s dawned, a new wave of Buddhists emerged, spearheading the reconstruction of Japanese Buddhism through processes of secularization and westernization in alignment with the currents of the Meiji Restoration. This paper delves into the intricate relationship between Buddhism and Christianity in Japan following the Perry Expedition. By scrutinizing the writings and orations of numerous Buddhist leaders spanning the period from the 1860s to the 1890s, this paper elucidates the multifaceted conflicts and interactions between Japanese Buddhism and Christianity. A nuanced analysis of their endeavors, reveals the evolving dynamics and strategies employed by both religions in navigating their coexistence in Japan's religious landscape, where both involuntarily made corresponding relative changes to be involved in social trends and Japanese traditions. This paper also discusses the cooperation and potential union between the two religions at the beginning of the 19th century, when New Buddhists received education in Western philosophy and examined Christianity. In short, the Buddhist-Christian relationship underwent a conversion from opponents to equal religion, even collaboratively enforcing social justice and care.

The Interaction Between Japanese Buddhism and Christianity in the Meiji Period

Although initially fraught with tension, spanning roughly two decades, Buddhists employed various strategies to combat the spread of Christianity and uphold their traditional values. As the 1890s dawned, a new wave of Buddhists emerged, spearheading the reconstruction of Japanese Buddhism through processes of secularization and westernization in alignment with the currents of the Meiji Restoration. This paper delves into the intricate relationship between Buddhism and Christianity in Japan following the Perry Expedition. By scrutinizing the writings and orations of numerous Buddhist leaders spanning the period from the 1860s to the 1890s, this paper elucidates the multifaceted conflicts and interactions between Japanese Buddhism and Christianity. A nuanced analysis of their endeavors, reveals the evolving dynamics and strategies employed by both religions in navigating their coexistence in Japan's religious landscape, where both involuntarily made corresponding relative changes to be involved in social trends and Japanese traditions. This paper also discusses the cooperation and potential union between the two religions at the beginning of the 19th century, when New Buddhists received education in Western philosophy and examined Christianity. In short, the Buddhist-Christian relationship underwent a conversion from opponents to equal religion, even collaboratively enforcing social justice and care.

Национальные певческие голоса Советского Союза в 1920-х годах

The aim of the study is to determine the ways of describing the national voice in the 1920s. With all the multiple functions of the voice, it is most clearly manifested in singing, and, accordingly, in relation to singing, it undergoes the greatest theorization among music critics of that time. The body of the Soviet singer is marked through social class, topos and ethnicity and is endowed with multiple emotionally charged characteristics. Ultimately, many singers of that time, precisely due to their voice features, often were marked by contemporaries with the ethnographic clichés of ‘nature’ or ‘naturalness’ and formed a musical fashion for many decades. Others, though, despite possessing similar characteristics, were persecuted. The study will be devoted to the analysis of these characteristics. The novelty of the work is determined by the use of approaches to the voice characteristic of cultural studies and Western philosophy of sound, coming from the works of R. Barthes, J. Derrida and M. Dolar, in relation to the problems and tasks of the field of soviet studies. As a result, several clusters of national voices were identified: the first of them are Jewish, Gypsy and Ukrainian voices, marked mainly through class and political affiliation with previous era. The second cluster is represented by Caucasus and Central Asian voices, which possessed, on the contrary, purely colonial-ethnographic characteristics. Conclusions are made about the high level of theorization and politization of the human voice in the early Soviet period.

Exploring Utilitarianism

This study explores the contrasting conceptions of virtue in Western philosophy and Islam. Western philosophers predominantly advocate a utilitarian perspective, emphasizing individual and societal utility as the ultimate moral criterion. Happiness and maximum benefit are prioritized, with little consideration for the broader welfare of others. In contrast, Islamic thought diverges, incorporating notions of sacrifice and communal welfare alongside material pursuits. Professionalism and materialism, central to Western ideals, are critiqued within an Islamic framework for their emphasis on acquisition at the expense of altruism.

Africa and the Possibility of Philosophy: Paulin Hountondji’s Intellectual Legacy

Abstract In this brief memoriam, I argue that Hountondji’s methodological concern over the possibility of African philosophy led him to query the very idea of philosophy as the search for universal knowledge. Hountondji’s lasting legacy thus consists, among other things, in challenging the image of Western philosophy as the repository of universal knowledge. To the contrary, philosophy will come into its own only through the critical construction of culturally and politically unrestricted discourse from different philosophical traditions.

Inoperative Education as Drift between Eastern and Western Philosophies

“Inoperative Education as Drift Between Eastern and Western Philosophies” expands upon recent notions of “inoperativity” in educational philosophy in the West through an encounter with the Taoist philosophy of Zhuangzi. Thus far, the concept of inoperativity has largely been inspired by Giorgio Agamben, the contemporary Italian critical theorist. Educational theory has taken up inoperativity in order to rethink the school as a space of free time, the student as a studier, and the gymnastic body, to name only a few. Through a comparative, philosophical analysis, inoperativity is rethought in a decisively Taoist register in order to generate three movements of inoperativity: drift as use, drift as use of uselessness, and drift as deactivation of learning (un-learning).

Review and Reflection on Individualism

Individualism is the core value of the western world, which is rooted in the western culture and philosophy and possesses a long history. Individualism guides people’s thought and life, reflecting the spiritual outlook of the people in the western world. The values of individualism and the Eastern world are rooted in different historical and cultural traditions, and there are differences in their value connotations. This paper reviews the concept of individualism from the perspective of its origin, development process, rationality and limitations, so as to enhance the understanding of the individualism. And then the paper goes on to the discussion of the measures in dealing with the impact of western individualism by the promotion of community values in the new era and the construction and development of socialist core value system. It is hoped that this paper may provide reflections on the interactions between the collectivism and individualism.