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AbstractSystem dynamics models, as causal models, are much like scientific theories. Hence, in evaluating such models, we assume certain norms of scientific inquiry. Most critics hold that the system dynamics approach does not employ formal, objective, quantitative model validation tests. This article argues that this type of criticism presupposes the traditional logical empiricist philosophy of science, which assumes that knowledge is an objective representation of reality and that theory justification can be an objective, formal process. According to the more recent relativist philosophy of science, knowledge is relative to a given society, epoch, and scientific world view. Theory justification is therefore a semiformal, relative social process. We show that relativist philosophy is consistent with the system dynamics paradigm and discuss the practical implications of the two philosophies of science for system dynamics modelers and their critics.

"In Inherent Human Rights: Philosophical Roots of the Universal Declaration, philosopher and political theorist Johannes Morsink offers an alternative to contemporary assumptions. A major historian of the Universal Declaration, Morsink traces the philosophical roots of the Declaration back to the Enlightenment and to a shared revulsion at the horrors of the Holocaust. He defends the Declaration's perspective that all people have human rights simply by virtue of being born into the human family and that human beings have these rights regardless of any government or court action (or inaction). Like mathematical principles, human rights are truly universal, not the products of a particular culture, economic scheme, or political system. Our understanding of their existence can be blocked only by madness and false ideologies. Morsink argues that the drafters of the Declaration shared this metaphysical view of human rights. By denying the inherence of human rights and their metaphysical nature, and removing the concepts of the Declaration from their historical and philosophical context, contemporary constructivist scholars and pragmatic activists create an unnecessary and potentially dangerous political fog. The book carefully dissects various human rights models and ends with a defense of the Declaration's cosmopolitan vision against charges of unrealistic utopianism and Western ethnocentrism." "Inherent Human Rights takes exception to the reigning view that the Golden Rule is the best defense of human rights. Instead, it calls for us to "follow the lead of the Declaration's drafters and liberate the idea of human rights from the realm of the political and the juridical, which is where contemporary theorists have imprisoned it.""--Jacket

Moderation was a triumphant discourse of Iran's eleventh presidential election. It's a new attitude in the political realm and most of the movements relate themselves to it and each one interprete their actions according to moderation. For clarifying this ambiguous trend, we should refer to its philosophical root. It seems that Aristotle is the first one who represented this theory. In fact, moderation is one of the main principles of Aristotelian ethics. Understanding this concept requires understanding the basic concepts of the intellectual and moral theory of Aristotle. Moderation is the center of his theory of virtue. According to this principle, all the moral virtues are intermediates and excess, and defects in the actions and emotions cause moral vices. This theory could be the best way to pass excess and deficiencies in Iran's political sphere.