BackgroundDuring extensive outbreaks of infectious diseases, people who are impacted, particularly the subgroups of the community who are at an increased risk of mental health problems, may experience increased stress and mental health difficulties. University students are one such susceptible population and are prone to experiencing high levels of stress as compared with the general population. Therefore, this study aimed at assessing perceived stress and identifying its associated factors among university students in Ethiopia during the late stage of the COVID-19 (...) pandemic.MethodsA cross-sectional study was conducted among university students in Ethiopia from 30 May to 30 June 2021. Students were asked to fill out an online survey on Google Forms that included consent, sociodemographic information, the UCLA-8 Loneliness Scale, the standard validated stress scale questionnaire, and the three-item Oslo Social Support Scale to assess social support. The collected data were exported to SPSS 26. Descriptive and analytical statistics were carried out. Binary and multiple logistic regression analyses were performed to find associated factors, and variables with a p-value of 0.05 were considered statistically significant variables.ResultsA total of 426 university students were included in the survey, among whom 268 were male participants. The age of the participants ranged from 18 to 37 years. Health-related departments accounted for 37.1% of the participants, while non-health-related departments accounted for 62.9%. The prevalence of stress was 18.3% in the study population. In this study, extreme susceptibility to COVID-19, sleeping problems, poor self-efficacy to prevent COVID-19, and loneliness were significantly associated with perceived stress.ConclusionStress was prevalent among university students in Ethiopia during the late stage of the COVID-19 pandemic. Extreme susceptibility to COVID-19, sleeping problems, poor self-efficacy, and loneliness were identified as factors for stress. Therefore, we suggest that universities should provide opportunities for safe social connection, counseling, and guidance for students. (shrink)

J.S. Mill's plural voting proposal in Considerations on Representative Government presents political theorists with a puzzle: the elitist proposal that some individuals deserve a greater voice than others seems at odds with Mill's repeated arguments for the value of full participation in government. This essay looks at Mill's arguments for plural voting, arguing that, far from being motivated solely by elitism, Mill's account is actually driven by a commitment to both competence and participation. It goes on to argue that, for (...) Mill, much of the value of political participation lies in its unique ability to educate the participants. That ability to educate is not, however, a product of participation alone; rather, for Mill, the true educative benefits of participation obtain only when competence and participation work together in the political sphere. Plural voting, then, is a mechanism for allowing Mill to take advantage of the educative benefits that arise from the intersection of competence and participation. (shrink)

J M Tarrant; J. Wilson and B. Cowell on the Democratic Myth, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 18, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 123–127, https://doi.org.

Thomas J.J. Altizer is one of the most important theologians of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, and all radical theology must pass through and be conversant with his work and the historical significance of his earlier contributions. This chapter presents Altizer’s essential ideas in a straightforward and accessible manner and provides a guide for the beginning reader.

The texts collected in this volume, which was originally published in 1969, contain Herder's most original and stimulating ideas on politics, history and language. They had for the most part not been previously available in English. In his introduction, Professor Barnard analyses the basic premises of Herder's political thought against the background of the Enlightenment. He examines Herder's concepts of language, community and culture, his theory of historical interaction, and his approach to the problem of change and progress. Finally, he (...) provides a brief comparative analysis of traditionalist thought following the French Revolution, showing how substantive writers like Burke differed from Herder despite the close similarity of political vocabulary. (shrink)

The first English translation of Fichte’s second set of 1804 lectures on the Wissenschaftslehre.

This essay is written on the following premises and argues for them. “Enlightenment” is a word or signifier, and not a single or unifiable phenomenon which it consistently signifies. There is no single or unifiable phenomenon describable as “the Enlightenment,” but it is the definite article rather than the noun which is to be avoided. In studying the intellectual history of the late seventeenth century and the eighteenth, we encounter a variety of statements made, and assumptions proposed, to which the (...) term “Enlightenment” may usefully be applied, but the meanings of the term shift as we apply it. The things are connected, but not continuous; they cannot be reduced to a single narrative; and we find ourselves using the word “Enlightenment” in a family of ways and talking about a family of phenomena, resembling and related to one another in a variety of ways that permit of various generalizations about them. We are not, however, committed to a single root meaning of the word “Enlightenment,” and we do not need to reduce the phenomena of which we treat to a single process or entity to be termed “the” Enlightenment. It is a reification that we wish to avoid, but the structure of our language is such that this is difficult, and we will find ourselves talking of “the French” or “the Scottish,” “the Newtonian” or the “the Arminian” Enlightenments, and hoping that by employing qualifying adjectives we may constantly remind ourselves that the keyword “Enlightenment” is ours to use and should not master us. (shrink)