Social Sciences & Humanities

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Children
(Scientific Research, 2018-02) Wu, Kuang-Ming
As children grow, so this paper develops many themes that children and we all love, coherently yet freely, and attractively as children are enthralling.
The Mind-Body Problem: The Perspective of Psychology
(Scientific Research, 2018-02) Kreitler, Shulamith
The paper traces the changes in the conceptualization of body-mind relations in psychology in terms of five sequential phases. The first phase is characterized by the view that there is nothing but the body. The second phase is marked by the conception that the mind is the only relevant agent. The third phase is based on the view that both body and mind exist but are on parallel tracks. The main assumption in the fourth phase is that both body and mind exist and function in interaction. Finally, the major tenet of the fifth phase is that body and mind are identical. The role and status of cognition, emotion, and behavior in the five phases are discussed. The paper presents for each phase the main theoretical constructs and implications for empirical studies, as well as major research products and insights yielded in the frameworks defined in terms of each phase.
Analysis of Various Biblical Themes
(Scientific Research, 2018-05) Bissonnet, Peter
The author believes that people are turning away from Christianity because (due to their free will) they cannot believe in the validity of various concepts, such as a unique and universal Crucifixion. They believe that everything was localized to this insignificant planet and nowhere else, and, hence, Christianity is pretty blasé and probably has a lot of deceptions, misconceptions, etc., just like most of human history has. Of course, the Crucifixion occurred locally on this planet, but the implications for other planets in far off galaxies are just as crucial. Do earthlings make better Christians than those in some galaxy residing out where the quasars roam? No, we don’t. The Bible tells us to “prove all things”; in other words, reason analytically, responsibly, determine the truth! That is just what science does, or is supposed to do, but when scientists ally themselves too closely to government, their objectivity is capable of being bought or skewed by those governments, which keeps some subjects taboo as far as being investigated properly. This paper is trying desperately to determine what the truth is in those, admittedly strange events which have happened in the history of the New Testament. The author has also included a section on the search for new physical principles, by establishing working hypotheses and using these to analyze certain Bible miracles and such other phenomena which might seem appropriate. As a physicist and mathematician, the author finds the miracles of the Bible to be filled with a vast potential for discovery of new physical principles. The author hopes you will too.
Free Will, Subjectivity and the Physics of the Nervous System
(Scientific Research, 2018-05) Ceroni, Mauro; Prosperi, Giovanni Maria
We want to stress the irreducibility of subjectivity to a pure physical process and, related to this the existence of an actual free will. A discussion on the existence of free will goes back at least to the Middle Ages. Today however the problem has been considered again in the framework of Neurophysiology and in connection with specific experiments. The problem is related to reductionism, i.e. the claim that subjectivity could be considered an epiphenomenon of the cerebral processes, the argument being that all our sensorial perceptions, the control of movement, our states of wakefulness or of unconsciousness can be related to the activation or to the block of specific areas of our cerebral cortex. In the frame of this conception free will is denied essentially on the basis of physical determinism. In contrast to such attitude, we argue that experiences like consciousness of ourselves, of a personal identity or even simply of qualia completely escape from concepts of physical nature. As a consequence of the specific epistemological choice, they cannot even be expressed in the language of Physics. The point of view of Physics and introspection appear both essential but complementary and irreducible one to the other; any attempt to do so brings to unresolvable aporias. Specifically on free will, we note that our nervous system is a complex mesoscopic system, for an understanding of its occurrences, reference to Quantum Theory is essential. As consequence, its reaction to any external input is not uniquely determined but is open to a plurality of responses for which only a distribution of probability is given. Physics does not provide any cause for one response rather than another, while we experience our response to be intentional. Quantum Mechanics seems to offer the logical space to reconcile Physics with introspection. Some basic notions on the structure and working of neurons and of the central nervous systems are also recalled, Liebet’s experiments on retarded awareness and the role of free will in the knowledge process are discussed.
Time-Logic
(Scientific Research, 2017-05) Wu, Kuang-Ming
Time-logic is ever at work as story-logic in open coherence. This theme and its enormous significance, both sadly, totally, and usually neglected, are elucidated in this essay. This essay has five headings: time as not space, time-logic as not space-logic, matters are situation-dependent, story-logic in time-logic, and harmony in dissonance. In these five directions time-logic is etched forth impressively, surprisingly. Finally, these five sections are rounded up into an actual scene common and fresh.
Research on Chewing Gum: Questions of Ethics
(Scientific Research, 2017-08) Vieira, Sonia
Guidelines for clinical research and ethics committees are significant contributions to decision made in science and law. But since research methods need to follow the changes and the development of science, guidelines for clinical research have to be continuously revised. Many innovations are perceived for their intended beneficiaries as benefits. Unfortunately, this is not always true. Therefore two issues should be mandatory in discussions of research ethics committees: 1) What constitutes a harmful intervention? 2) What procedures should be established for obtaining data and evaluating their relevance? These questions are too broad and there are no ethical solutions that can leap off a paper. But an example can be worked on. Dental caries is a public health challenge in any country and chewing gum may have an effect with respect to plaque reduction, at least in a short period of time. But sugar chewing gum cannot be used as a positive control in biomedical researches. However, trials referred herein allocated participants for a sugar chewing gum group. Therefore, the aim of this critical review is to emphasize that such a procedure is an example of a conscious disregard for the consideration which is due to trial participants. Were these desirable researches themselves or they had other purposes?
An Analogical Hermeneutic Approach to Bioethics
(Scientific Research, 2018-02) Islas, David S. Contreras
Bioethics has the hermeneutical task of interpreting scientific knowledge produced by the biological and social sciences in order to propose moral norms and values that are adequate to it. Therefore, it needs to account for the process of translating descriptive statements into normative ones, without falling prey to the naturalistic fallacy. It also requires an interdisciplinary conception of human nature as the basis for the hermeneutical process. That conception should avoid a univocal anthropocentrism as well as an equivocal biocentrism and reconcile the biological and historical dimensions that constitute the human being. This paper examines analogical hermeneutics, as proposed and developed by the Mexican philosopher Mauricio Beuchot, as a largely unplumbed resource for meaningfully illumining inescapable challenges and tensions at the core of bioethics. In brief, the author suggests that analogical hermeneutics can provide bioethics with a philosophical framework for the normative interpretation of descriptive statements. An analogical-hermeneutical approach is suggested for other bioethical problems, such as the elaboration of an interdisciplinary notion of human nature or the search for alternatives to anthropocentric and biocentric positions.
Africa, Poverty and Forces of Change: A Holistic Approach to Perceiving and Addressing Poverty in Africa
(Scientific Research, 2016-11) Eegunlusi, Tayo Raymond Ezekiel
This work argues that Africa’s condition of poverty lingers because the continent fails to view poverty in its holistic sense in her attempts at tackling her economic challenges. Other types of poverty exist, such as mental poverty, moral poverty, emotional poverty, spiritual poverty, political poverty and social poverty, which pose great problems for the continent. Obviously, her failure to give worthwhile attention to solving these problems largely contribute to why she has not really benefited from her vast wealth of human and material resources. Also, this lack of holistic approach to perceiving poverty often allows Africa to be swayed by global forces of change such as socio-cultural factors, political factors, wars and terrorist activities, technological forces as information technology and electronic media, and so on. Consequently, majority of Africans seem to be blinded to the reality of possibility of redemption from the continents precarious economic condition. Thus, neglecting their nations, they emigrate abroad, under the guise of seeking enabling environment for productivity and survival. At the same time, those at the helms of affairs perpetuate the economic poverty status-quo by greedily enriching themselves. Thus, the continent becomes an unfortunate victim of parochial perspectives as other continents become undeserving beneficiaries of her endowments and heritages. Using philosophy’s critical and argumentative methods of empirical, conceptual and historical analysis, this paper debates that a holistic perspective to poverty can help control global forces of change in ways that will favour Africa’s total development and enhance her profiting in the globalisation era.
Justification and False Belief: Gettier’s First Point
(Scientific Research, 2016-11) Perrick, Michael
Appearances notwithstanding, in this paper we do not discuss the Gettier problem. The question at issue is whether one can be justified in believing a false proposition. So, what is at stake is the relation between justified belief and falseness. In his famous paper, Gettier presupposes explicitly that one can be justified in believing a false proposition (Gettier’s “first point”). He makes essential use of this point in arguing for his well-known Gettier cases. I will prove that this point, in Gettier’s robust reading, is untenable since it leads to incompatible or contradictory consequences. It is only in a much weaker sense than we find in Gettier’s paper that it seems possible to be justified in believing a false proposition.
Aliens, Humans, Animals, & Luck: Animal Treatment & Human Morality
(Scientific Research, 2016-08) Firestone, Randall S.
This paper proposes two thought experiments to demonstrate that our current treatment of animals is immoral. The first thought experiment involves aliens coming to earth and doing to us what we do to animals—eating us, confining us in farms and zoos, doing experiments on us, etc. Drawing on the latest scientific research on the abilities of animals, this thought experiment seeks to show that there are more relevant similarities between human beings and animals than most people realize, and that the differences between us and many other animals are not morally relevant. Moreover, this thought experiment attempts to appeal primarily to our sense of justice by tapping into our emotions for ourselves rather than to the usual approach which appeals to our emotions for animals. The second thought experiment is similar to the first, but more centrally emphasizes the idea of luck. It will, in part, take an approach recommended by Donald VanDeVeer to employ Rawl’s veil of ignorance to mask not only our natural and social starting places, but also our species—whether we are human or of another species. However, one serious objection made to VanDeVeer’s approach will be circumvented, namely, that it is difficult to imagine ourselves as an animal. Rather, we will imagine that evolution has made it so we are not the smartest and most powerful species on earth. This thought experiment invites us to ask ourselves that if there were only two species to consider and we were the less advanced of the two, would we still not expect to be treated with dignity and respect? Both analogies ultimately challenge us to ask the following question: What principles of justice would we choose to govern the interactions between species if we were not the most intelligent and powerful species on earth?
Users’ Perception of University Library Resources and Services in South East Zone of Nigeria
(Scientific Research, 2015-03) Nkechi, Obiozor-Ekeze Roseline
This study seeks to determine how users of the university libraries perceive the services rendered to them. Department of Mechanical Engineering was chosen as the population of this study. It is heavily populated with students seeking for information. 600 copies of questionnaire were made, only 450 copies were returned, well-filled, that is 75% of the questionnaire. Results were gathered and findings were made. The result showed that University Libraries are underfunded, they lack qualified personnel and also the university libraries do not have a general standard that guild them to access if actually users of the libraries are satisfied with the library or not.
Organ Transplant Trade: A Moral Examination
(Scientific Research, 2015-05) Koali, Seeiso J.
This article normatively discusses two moral theories namely: Ubuntu and Deontology, with the aim of arguing against the practice of organ transplant trade. It is argued that this practice violates a rule of categorical imperative which states that human beings should not be used as the means, but always be treated as ends into themselves. Organ transplant trade also affects negatively the process of informed consent of vulnerable people who may overlook the risks in trading of organs and focus only on the monetary incentives. This article is based on non-empirical research which employs the method of critical and conceptual analysis with a review of existing literatures on the subject. Therefore, this article addresses the following question: do people have ownership of their bodily parts to an extent that they can autonomously sell them to make a living? This question is answered by concluding that the upholding of moral duties of human beings eliminates all human acts that violate the notion of human dignity.
Study on Implicit Ideological and Political Education Theory and Reform in Higher Vocational Colleges
(Scientific Research, 2015-05) Zhang, Yanling
The rapid development of higher vocational education in our country, to higher vocational ideological and political education work has brought serious challenges, researching the effectiveness of the ideological and political education work, improving the effect of education, higher vocational education is not only the objective need of development, is suspending in front of ideological and political education workers a key subject concerning theory and practice. Based on the method of recessive ideological and political education in higher vocational colleges in the field of the characteristics and development, the paper analyzes the current situation of ideological and political education, and puts forward the recessive ideological system of ideological and political education of college students in China.
Music Education and Youth Empowerment: A Conceptual Clarification
(Scientific Research, 2015-02) Abiogu, G. C.; Mbaji, I. N.; Adeogun, A. O.
This paper is a conceptual clarification of the nexus between music education and youth empowerment. It is also an exposition of how music education can be utilized for the empowerment of the Nigerian youths with a brief incursion into the meaning of education and its need for national development. The paper considers music education as a performance art which involves unique educational activities designed to enable the youths to achieve self-realization and life adjustment in the society. The conceptual clarifications touch upon some philosophical principles which guide music education in its application as a tool of empowerment of youths and how Nigerian government can borrow a leaf from some of the African countries who partner with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) such as the Music Crossroad International (MCI) organization to empower their youths and communities. Through the creation of such musical opportunities through partnerships by such countries, implications for Nigeria are drawn with recommendations and conclusions.
Ethnophilosophy and Public Morality in an African Tribe
(Scientific Research, 2015-03) Dike, Uche A.
The paper is a field research work delving into the ethnophilosophy of Ogba religion. Its focal point is on the people’ worldview, as it pertains to life, public morality, value and Adamic sins in Ogba Land Rivers State, Nigeria. It posits that the natural or physical world is an extension of the supernatural or the spiritual and must be understood in that sense if a valid explanation about Ogba people’ vision of life must be sufficiently compatible with their cosmology. In the area of public morality, the ethnophilosophy of Ogba people is holistic and integrated. Thus, anti social behaviours or abominations known as Adamic sins in this paper are viewed as disruptive of public order and morality. In this wise the people’s weltanschauung provided value essence as a foundation for existence. Hence, inviolable sanctity of human life and good moral character ranked to be the highest value in Ogba Land.
The Effective Power of Music in Africa
(Scientific Research, 2015-03) Mbaegbu, Celestine Chukwuemeka
This article investigates the role of music in Africa. The study is primarily motivated by the fact that music plays an indispensable role in the being of Africans at work, in politics, in their socioeconomic engagements, in religious worship, integral development, in their moral life, etc. The primary objective therefore is to ascertain the influence of music with regard to the integral development of the Africans and the overall acknowledgment of this indispensable role on the active and meaningful behavior of Africans. Using the methods of phenomenology and analysis, the findings reveal that Africans are music lovers and that music features as an indispensable handmaid of any meaningful behavior and sustainability of the being of any African person whether young or old.
Revisiting the Catalogue Cards in University Libraries in Nigeria
(Scientific Research, 2015-03) Nkechi, Obiozor-Ekeze Roseline
The card catalogues are neglected in the university libraries in Nigeria because of the introduction of OPAC (Online Public Access Catalogue) which is rarely seen in most of university libraries. After conducting a research on the usefulness of card catalogues, the researcher observes that users of the libraries still appreciate the card catalogues in the libraries because they help them to know the collections of the library.
Living Organ Donation, Beneficient Helping, & the Kantian Concept of Partial Self-Murder
(Scientific Research, 2014-11) Articulo, Archimedes C.
This paper deals with the ethical issues concerning living organ donor transplantation in the context of Immanuel Kant’s Ethical Theory. It primarily aims to refute the common perception about Kant’s categorical opposition to organ transplantation as violative to his concept of duty of selfpreservation (transplantation as a form of mutilation or partial suicide). In this paper we will argue that: 1) Kantian concept of mutilation, or partial self-murder, should be perceived within the context of Kant’s prohibition of killing oneself; 2) Kant does not prohibit all forms of organ donation as contrary to duty of self-preservation (i.e., duty to maintain quality of life and donation as violative to the strict prohibition against mutilation). Organ donation could hardly be considered as mutilation or contrary to duty of self-preservation if the following conditions are satisfied: 1) the organ to be donated and the surgical procedure involved, would not pose grave risk (e.g. physical disability and death) to the donor; and 2) the moral personality of the donor would not be at risk by donating his organ.
Are Background Feelings Intentional Feelings?
(Scientific Research, 2014-11) Barile, Emilia
I address the problem of the intentionality of “feeling”, considering the study-case of “background feelings” (malaise, tension, etc.) in Damasio (2003, 2010). Background feelings, in fact, are “border case” feelings: These feelings seem lacking intentionality, at least by the meaning that their intentional content is not any object in the world they refer to. Differently from other feelings connected to intentional states (such as emotions, for ex., feelings are mainly considered arising from), background feelings reveal a bodily nature of feeling at its core, while intentionality of feelings, when any, rather depends on the intentionality of the states feelings concern. Background feelings reveal an intimate, immediate relation to our own body we can’t catch considering feelings always and only connected to emotions. The intimate relation to the body, coming in “foreground” in these feelings only, should shed more light on another key feature of feelings, namely their phenomenality, more than their “supposed” intentionality.
Do We Have an Inborn Moral Sense?
(Scientific Research, 2014-11) Walker, Marilyn
This paper reviews some recent work in the relationship between caring behavior among humans, an evolutionary adaptation necessary for survival of the species, and our moral sense of right and wrong. The investigation presents some of our current understandings; the question is part of ongoing work in neuroscience and evolutionary biology. Does caring behavior necessarily imply a moral sensibility?

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