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This study investigates the impact of translational contact on use of epistemic modality in Persian translations  and originals in the genre of education.  Our findings show that the frequency and distribution of epistemic markers (especially, hedges) in the English texts is considerably higher than those of the Persian translations and originals. However, this has changed in the period of some sixty years, and Persian texts have become noticeably similar to English texts. Upon investigation of the ways translators rendered the epistemic uses of English modal auxiliaries (e.g., may, must, etc.) we found that translators in the 2006–2015 time farme have omitted fewer epitemic modals and translated fewer of them into Persian modals of higher confidence than translators in 1957–1968 time frame. These findings suggest that as the translational contact between English and Persian prolonged translated and original Persian texts have relatively converged towards the communicative preferences of English and have become more addressee-oriented. In fact, the addresee orientation of has first leaked into Persian translations and then has found its way into Persian originals. Weakening of cultural filtering  in Persian translations has facilitated this process.
 

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This paper is focused on fuzzy theory of democracy. Here, it has been argued that the theory of democracy provides a two-valued description of political order (democratic or non democratic).However, this account of democracy is not consistent with the scientific truth. Democracy is characterized by fuzzy truth. Thus, following a critical discussion on the epistemology of critical rationality, a fuzzy epistemic apparatus has been formulated. Considering the fuzzy epistemology, it has been claimed that on this epistemic horizon, every thing is relatively calibrated and truth is something between zero and one. Also, in the mentioned apparatus, the black and white truth transforms into a gray truth and all follow the principle of uncertainty. Consequently, in the fuzzy epistemology, the membership function of zero and one will be generalized to a fuzzy membership based on a range of zero and one. To support the above mentioned epistemic apparatus, the writer of the paper has provided an empirical argument. The evidences the writer provides indicate that democracy as a truth represents values in the range of zero to one. The value of zero represents a completely non democratic country and the value of one represents a full democratic one. Any other value between zero to one is an indicator of a mixed category consisting of both democratic and non democratic aspects. Finally, based on the empirical evidences, it has been concluded that the U.S.A, England, Japan, Turkey, India, France, and Iran (1998-2003) are of democratic countries, albeit the kind and degree of democracies vary

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Putnam argues that accepting semantic externalism would require refuting the brains-in-a-vat skeptical hypothesis, and as a result, the skeptic will not succeed in proving her claim. Putnam's argument, however, is epistemically circular and inconclusive. The present article is devoted to evaluating Wright and Noonan's attempt to provide a plausible version of Putnam's argument. Based on the evaluation of these arguments, it was determined that (1) Wright and Noonan's arguments can at best only show that I am not a brain in a vat, but without the use of any auxiliary premises, they can not prove that we are not brains in a vat; (2) Contrary to Wright's claim, this premise of his argument that In BIVese, “brain-in-a-vat” does not refer to brains-in-a-vat, and its result, that is, that my language is not BIVese, lead his argument to be epistemically circular;  and (3) Noonan's attempt to avoid epistemic circularity has not led to the desired result, and his argument, like Wright's, is epistemically circular.

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Non-epistemic values in scientific reasoning bring many discussions. One way to justify the role of these values is the argument from inductive risk. The aim of this article is to examine a version of this argument that is presented by Douglas. By raising the question about "evidential sufficiency", Douglas advances her argument to justify the influence of non-epistemic values. Assuming the correctness of Douglas' argument, we try to determine the answer of "evidential sufficiency" based on the conclusion of her argument. Even considering both epistemic and non-epistemic values, we will show that the question of sufficiency will not have a proper answer. Because to determine evidential sufficiency, we will either confront circularity or force to add other ambiguous things. Also, we will explain that Douglas should have sought the "evidential sufficiency" by emphasizing more on the practice of scientists in actuality, in which there is no requirement to incorporate scientific claims with policy-making claims. This criticism is sympathetic to some other criticisms of Douglas, according to which she incorporated pragmatic and epistemic domains of science.
 

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The present article critically discusses about the relation of theory and experimentation. This text is based on rational reasoning. The problem is that dominantmethodology on the relation oftheoryandexperimentationisbasedAristotelian logic in which experimentation has Context of Discovery or context of justification. In Iran, positivism and it’s relation with critical rationalism are misunderstood. This paper attempts to solve this kind of methodological issues through critical discussion. First, we discussed about epistemic apparatuses of positivism and critical rationality. Then, after critical discussion about the two epistemic apparatuses, fuzzy methodology is formulated as result of criticism excised the intellectual traditions. In the end, positivism is discussed as a problem in Iran.

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According to conciliationist (reductionist) argumentations in epistemology of disagreement, disagreement with an epistemic peer, due to epistemic symmetry, reduces the confidence in the justification. But many religious believers are not willing to take the existence of epistemic peer disagreement. They think that they have different evidence for their religious beliefs and, hence, aren’t really epistemic peers with their opponents. They present private evidence, especially religious experiences, as a symmetry breaker. For this reason, some reductionists have argued to defend the reductionist position. In this article, we examine the responses of the reductionists to this challenge. In one of these answers, it is added an “alternative explanation or story” to the conditions of epistemic peer and claimed that the true epistemic peer under full disclosure should takes into account private evidences or experiences and gives a good story or explanation about why such experiences aren’t as efficacious as the religious person might think. We show that the “alternative explanation” presented by reductionists is not readily available in the most of the religious disagreements.
 

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By accepting the role of human will in accepting and forming, maintaining, and using belief-forming procedures, John Heil emphasizes the responsibility of man towards beliefs. Despite Heil's defense of indirect doxastic voluntarism, he follows a graded process from the directness of the will's role in the procedure of forming and maintaining belief to the indirect influence of accepting and forming belief. In the formation of beliefs, Heil does not accept the direct will to believe, which is based on the famous idea of Cartesian. However, by distinguishing between direct doxastic voluntarism and indirect doxastic voluntarism, explaining the concept of basic and non-basic acts, and expressing procedures and techniques such as behavioral change, he tries to interpret the acceptance and formation of beliefs under the voluntary but indirect control of people. In this research, by using the analytical-critical method, we aim to show that by modifying Heil's view, accepting epistemic responsibility based on the view of indirect doxastic voluntarism is meaningful.
 

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The characteristics of epistemic collections are divided into two categories: accuracy (hard) and perfection (soft). The soft criterion focuses on the desired perfection; for example fluency and eloquence. This research considers the seven features of simplicity and clarity, proportionality and balance, correspondence, reciprocating, transition, symmetry and self-generation to be the most important components of soft criterion. This criterion is founded on a philosophical explanation based on transcendent wisdom. To achieve a further explanation of the components of this criterion, this indicator is included in some tables of logic, for example the table of co-true propositions. First, it is evaluated with the components of the soft criteria and while identifying some weaknesses and through philosophic analysis, in order to solve these cases, proposals are presented, implemented and improvements made to address them. The result was meaningfully positive and the suggestions increased the performance and beauty of the main tables. All the steps are descriptive-logical and the result is that with these revisions, the efficiency and usefulness of this table have increased.
 

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Modality is a grammatical feature which plays a crucial role in determining the ultimate interpretation of propositions. Different languages make use of different linguistic elements like mood, modal auxiliaries, modal verbs, modal adjectives and adverbs for encoding the concept of modality. Despite of its importance in the overall structure of any language, little attention has been paid to the study of modality in Iranian Languages. The present paper focuses on the analysis of the modal auxiliaries in Hawrami. After taking a short look at the concept of modality and getting familiar with the Palmer's (1999, 2001) basic classification of modal systems, these three modals are introduced:"mašjo/mašjā: must", "biey:become", "tāwāy: can". It is argued that among the other modals, only "mašjo" is used to denote the degree of "necessity" in both "epistemic" and "deontic" modal systems. "biey" and "tāwāy", on the other hand, exhibit the concept of "possibility" in "epistemic" and "deontic" systems. Moreover, "biey" and "tāwāy" encode different types of dynamic modality. Although "biey" can also be used to indicate "necessity" in deontic system as well, it imposes less severe obligations on the agent compared to the deontic "mašjo". It is also shown that "mašjā" is the only modal verb which can convey the "deontic" reading in the past tense constructions. None of the aforementioned modal auxiliaries encode evidentiality in Hawrami. Key Words: modal auxiliaries, epistemic modality, deontic modality, dynamic modality, Hawrami.

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In this article, considering syntactic and semantic behavior of central modal verbs (Bayestæn, Šodæn) in Persian, we try to make a suitable decision about these verbs by demonstrating whether they are control or raising verbs. Based on previous point of views, we proposed three hypotheses: a) epistemic modals are raising and root modals including deontic and dynamic modals are control verbs b) epistemic and indirect deontic root modals having external participant are raising but dynamic and direct deontic root modals having internal participant are control verbs c) all kinds of models are raising verbs. In this article, using semantic and syntactic accounts, we concluded central modals which all of them are propositional in Persian, whether epistemic or root and whether internal or external participant are raising.

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The purpose of the present study is to investigate the sub-worlds in Werth's Text Worlds Theory (1999) based on Cognitive Poetics Approach. Upon analysis, the authors showed that up to what extent the writer of Blind owl has used the sub-worlds including deictic, attitudinal, and epistemic. The methodological nature of this qualitative research is descriptive-analytic. It should be noted that all the clauses have been examined. But due to the limitation of the paper volume, in only 20 clauses of this story, the three sub-worlds have been analyzed as one of the semantic layers in Werth's Text Worlds Theory. The authors sought to illustrate the representation of the three sub-worlds in Blind owl and the way the writer has used these three layers in the story. The findings indicated that the epistemic sub-world has been used significantly more than other two sub-worlds, i.e. deictic and attitudinal. Also, the results showed that most of the clauses are narrative and discursive, and the epistemic sub-world has been reflected widely in this story.
Extended Abstract
The Aim of Research: The purpose of the present study is to investigate the sub-worlds in Werth's Text Worlds Theory (1999) based on Cognitive Poetics Approach. With this investigation, the authors showed that up to what extent the writer of Blind owl has used the sub-worlds including deictic, attitudinal, and epistemic. The present study seeks to show that any text based on Text Worlds Theory in the cognitive poetics approach can be examined in the form of three layers of text world, discourse world and sub-worlds which the authors have tried to explore the three layers of the semantic layer of sub-worlds including, deictic, attitudinal, and epistemic in the story of Blind owl. In this regard, we try to use the theory of cognitive poetics to achieve a correct reading of these texts that is far from any personal interpretations. It is worth noting that showing different semantic layers and understanding them correctly is possible only by applying this theory.
Methodology: The methodological nature of this qualitative research has been descriptive-analytical. The authors collected data by reading and analyzing the text of the story of “Blind Owl” by Sadegh Hedayat. In reviewing the clauses of this story, due to the limited volume of the article, the authors considered 20 clauses of the story from the perspective of the three layers of the sub-worlds as one of the semantic layers in the theory of text worlds in the cognitive approach from the perspective of Werth (1999).
Theoretical Framework: The theoretical framework of this research is informed by the approach of cognitive poetics in linguistics and Werth’s Text World Theory (1999). What makes this theory unique is its comprehensive application of cognitive principles in analysis. Text worlds Theory is a discourse framework, in the sense that its attention is not only focused on a particular text, but also on the contextual context and its surroundings that influence its production and acceptance. The purpose of this theory is to provide a framework for studying discourse in which situational, social, historical and psychological factors are involved and play an important role in language cognition (Gavins, 2007). Werth’s book was published after his death by Short in 1999 titled Text Worlds: Representation of Conceptual Space in Discourse, that includes Werth's full account of this theory. According to Johnson (1987), the cognitive approach shows that language is a product that is not produced from a separate structural system in the mind, but from cognitive processes that enable the human mind to make perceptions of experiences which linguists call them embodied cognition (Freeman, 2000, p. 281). Also, Stockwel (2002) states a broader concept of cognitive poetics and introduces all approaches that provide a framework for describing literary texts based on the tools of cognitive science, with the label of cognitive poetics. Text worlds are mental structures that form conceptual representations of certain aspects of reality. Werth's model is based on the distinction between two prominent functions of language: the informative function and modal function. Werth considers the informative function as what is often called the propositional meaning.
Conclusion: In this study, we have examined and evaluated the story of Blind Owl, by Sadegh Hedayat, based on the theory of ​​Text Worlds in the cognitive poetics approach, and it has been determined how the writer of the story has acted in order to understand the reader. It is worth noting that the three sub-worlds of deictic, attitudinal and epistemic, represent an important part of the construction and formation of the worlds of the story text. In order to fully understand the text, one must describe and analyze a part of it in order to determine the idea of ​​the text through the text itself, and not through utterances that are formed outside the text. The theory of ​​text worlds based on the approach of cognitive poetics opens a new path in literary criticism, the discovery of how the mind works, the relationships between time, and anything else that helps to build the reader's mental representation. Hence, this approach is a bridge between literary studies and the field of cognitive linguistics. To answer the first question, it should be said that Sadegh Hedayat has used more narrative and discursive text in this story. Regarding the second question, it must be acknowledged that although the three sub-worlds of deictic, attitudinal and epistemic are observed in the Blind Owl, but the sub-world of epistemic plays a decisive role through conditional sentences, frequency adverbs, cognitive metaphors and repetition. The findings indicated that three sub-worlds including 29.63% deictic, 33.33% attitudinal and 37.04% epistemic, have been used in the story of Blind Owl. The results also showed that the epistemic sub-world has the highest usage and the deictic sub-world has the lowest usage in this story.
 

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The “epistemic climate” of a classroom can be thought of as a major determinant of classroom procedures and the learning outcome. The present ethnographic case study involved the investigation of the epistemic orientation of the instructional materials, teacher, and students of an online tenth-grade high school English language classroom in Iran, regarding the core dimensions of their L2 learning-specific epistemologies: beliefs about the nature of L2 knowledge’s simplicity, certainty, source, and justification. The researcher’s observation and reflective notes paired with semi-structured interview data were qualitatively analyzed. Nine epistemology-related themes were extracted from the interview data. The results showed the predominantly absolutist orientation of the materials and students; the teacher, on the other hand, subscribed herself to a view of L2 knowledge as context-contingent and integrated, obtainable from multiple sources and subject to contextual evaluatism; however, there was a conspicuous incongruence between her beliefs and the epistemological orientation of her teaching practice, materials, and students. She attributed this observation to the mandatory instructional materials and stakeholders’ conceptions of L2 achievement. The findings reveal the significance of investigating the epistemic orientation of L2 teaching and learning in order to better facilitate students’ epistemological development and enhance their recognition of the context-contingency of L2 knowledge and knowing.
1. Introduction
Despite ample research evidence into the significance of learners’ beliefs about language learning (Bernat & Gvozdenko, 2005; Fazilatfar et al., 2015; Ghobadi Mohebi & Khodadady, 2011; Horwitz, 1988; Mori, 1999; White, 2008), research into language learning-specific epistemological beliefs (LLEBs), i.e., developmental beliefs about the nature of L2 knowledge and L2 knowing from absolutism to contextualism, is at a premium (Mardiha & Alibakhshi, 2020; Mori, 1999; Nikitina & Furuoka, 2018; Soleimani, 2018, 2020;  Ziegler, 2015; Wagner, 2019).  Research has shown that the epistemic climate of educational settings, which embeds epistemological beliefs held by learners and teachers and those underlying instructional approaches and materials, significantly influences the quality and outcome of instruction (Feucht, 2010). Moreover, epistemic climates vary widely across different subject matters and disciplines (Bendixen & Rule, 2004), and there is no direct relationship between language learners’ general beliefs about language learning and their general epistemological beliefs (Mori, 1999). Accordingly, the epistemic climate of L2 classrooms, which can potentially enhance our understanding of classroom processes and LLEBs-related influences on them, is worth investigating. This gains salience when school language education in Iran is concerned, owing to its apparent failure to help learners develop communicative competence in the English language. Given this, the present study was designed to explore the epistemic climate of a 10^th-grade English language classroom in Iran, with an eye to the epistemological beliefs of the teacher, the learners, and the materials.  
Research Question(s)
The present study addressed the following research questions:

1. What is the epistemic orientation of the students in a 10th-grade English language classroom?
2. What is the epistemic orientation of the teacher in a 10th-grade English language classroom?
3. What is the epistemic orientation of the 10th grade English language coursebook (second lesson) and the teachers’ guidebook?
4. To what extent do the epistemic orientations of the teacher, students, and learning materials in a 10th grade English language classroom match?

2. Literature Review
The teaching and learning process is significantly influenced by the epistemological orientation of the educational environment (Ziegler, 2015). Feucht (2010) refers to five components of the classroom epistemic climate, which are: (a) the epistemological beliefs of students, (b) the epistemological beliefs of the teacher, (c) the epistemological basis of instructional approach, (d) the representation of knowledge in the discipline, course, as well as materials and curriculum, (d) the interaction of these four components. These aspects of the epistemic climate can be analyzed from the perspective of its four basic dimensions explicated by Hoffer and Pintridge (1997): simplicity, certainty, source, and justification. According to Hofer (2001), epistemic beliefs are evolutionary in nature, and a spectrum can be envisioned with absolutist beliefs on one side and critical context-oriented beliefs on the other for each of these four main dimensions.

Research has shown the relationship of teachers’ epistemological beliefs with their (a) teaching styles and management strategies (Soleimani, 2018, 2020) and (b) perceptions of teaching (Mardiha & Alibakhshi, 2020). As for language learners, Ziegler (2015) investigated epistemological beliefs about vocabulary learning. Learners were shown to hold absolutist beliefs about the source and justification of vocabulary knowledge, which Ziegler attributed to the lack of critical thinking facilitation tasks in the materials.

On the other hand, language education in Iran's official education system is marked with ignorance of communication skills, and the focus of teachers and students on the university entrance exam, the English section of which generally consists of multiple-choice vocabulary questions, grammar, and reading comprehension (Bagherkazemi & Arefkal, 2021). Against this background, the present study investigated the epistemic climate of a high school language classroom in Iran to unearth the epistemic orientations of the teacher, the students, and the materials.

3. Methodology

The study, which deployed an ethnographic case study approach, was initiated by obtaining the consent of the high school principal, teacher, and students. The researcher participated as an outsider in 21 sessions of a 10th-grade English course, with 32 female students registered in it. The classes were held online in "Shad" application. She recorded her observations in the form of field and reflection notes in accord with the core aspects of epistemology, focusing on the teacher, the students, and the materials. Observation data were triangulated with semi-structured interviews with the teacher and 15 convenience-sampled students in the post-course period. Data coding was subsequently conducted jointly by the researcher and a colleague of hers. Firstly, interviewees’ utterances directly related to each of the four main dimensions of epistemology (simplicity and stability of knowledge, and its source and justification) were determined (N = 409) through the directed qualitative content analysis approach (DQCA). These were further categorized into nine general themes in a secondary coding phase. The inter-coder agreement was ensured through Cronbach’s alpha coefficients in both coding phases. The researchers’ field and reflection notes as well as the course content were subsequently subjected to DQCA to unearth the epistemological basis of the materials and explore the extent to which the teacher and students’ epistemological beliefs and the materials’ epistemological basis went together.

4. Results
Regarding the teacher and students’ LLEBs, interview data analysis brought to the surface nine themes in relation to the four core aspects of epistemological beliefs. Beliefs about L2 knowledge certainty were categorized into those related to (a) stability/dynamicity of L2 skills and components, (b) simultaneous/spiral L2 presentation in the materials, and (c) significance of communicative tasks. Beliefs about L2 knowledge simplicity were classified into those pertaining to (a) separability/integratedness of language skills and components and (b) significance of memorization in L2 learning. Beliefs about L2 knowledge sources were divided into those associated with (a) teacher role and (b) learners’ role. Finally, beliefs about L2 knowledge justification fell into the two categories of (a) nativespeakerism/critical language awareness and (b) significance of effort/aptitude. Overall, the students proved to hold mostly absolutist beliefs in terms of the extracted themes, whereas the teacher more visibly adhered to contextual knowing beliefs.
Epistemological beliefs underlying the course book were also shown to be essentially absolutist in nature, as evident in the explicit presentation of vocabulary and grammar, sentence-based exercises, and emphasis on native-like pronunciation, among others. In addition, learners’ epistemological beliefs tended to be more clearly allied with the absolutism underlying the materials, and accordingly diverged from the teacher’s epistemologically more advanced beliefs; however, there was no congruence between the teacher’s beliefs and her teaching practice, which she attributed to the predominantly absolutist epistemology ruling school language education in Iran.
 

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              The debate over whether judges’ decisions are adequately constrained by law is predicated on a more fundamental issue, namely, whether the law is indeterminate. In the debates over legal indeterminacy, the most basic issue that may arise is:  "What is the source of legal indeterminacy?" By emphasizing on the three distinct sources of those “gaps”, three distinct approaches in legal theory emerge: an ontic approach, a semantic approach, and an epistemic approach. Philosophers have also taken a parallel threefold approache to describe the similar phenomenon of vagueness. In what follows, we describe those parallel accounts, and show that they may be reconcilable in a more comprehensive theory.                    
* Corresponding author’s E-mail: hojatima@modares.ac.ir

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