The era of ‘big data’ studies and computational social science has recently given rise to a number of realignments within and beyond the social sciences, where otherwise distinct data formats – digital, numerical, ethnographic, visual, etc. – rub off and emerge from one another in new ways. This article chronicles the collaboration between a team of anthropologists and sociologists, who worked together for one week in an experimental attempt to combine ‘big’ transactional and ‘small’ ethnographic data formats. Our collaboration is (...) part of a larger cross-disciplinary project carried out at the Danish Technical University, where high-resolution transactional data from smartphones allows for recordings of social networks amongst a freshman class. With a parallel deployment of ethnographic fieldwork among the DTU students, this research set-up raises a number of questions concerning how to assemble disparate ‘data-worlds’ and to what epistemological and political effects? To address these questions, a specific social event – a lively student party – was singled out from the broader DTU dataset. Our experimental collaboration used recordings of Bluetooth signals between students’ phones to visualize the ebb and flow of social intensities at the DTU party, juxtaposing these with ethnographic field-notes on shifting party atmospheres. Tracing and reflecting on the process of combining heterogeneous data, the article offers a concrete case of how a ‘stitching together’ of digital and ethnographic data-worlds might take place. (shrink)

The attitudes of women patients with cancer were explored when they were invited to participate in one of three randomised trials that included chemotherapy at two university centres and a satellite centre. Fourteen patients participating in and 15 patients declining trials were interviewed. Analysis was based on the constant comparative method. Most patients voiced positive attitudes towards clinical research, believing that trials are necessary for further medical development, and most spontaneously argued that participation is a moral obligation. Most trial decliners, (...) however, described a radical change in focus as they faced the actual personal choice. Almost no one got an impression of clinical equipoise between treatments in the trials, and most patients expressed discomfort with randomisation. A patient’s choice to participate was mainly determined by whether the primary focus was on treatment effect or on adverse effects. Both knowledge about and feelings towards trials originated mostly from the media, although paradoxically the media were largely seen as untrustworthy. Mistrust was shown towards the pharmaceutical industry, and although most patients originally trusted that doctors primarily pursued the interest of patients, they did not trust the adequacy of doctors or industry in maintaining self-regulation. Thus, public control measures were judged to be essential. (shrink)

This article addresses two great global challenges of the 2020s. On one hand, the accelerating climate crisis and, on the other, the deepening crisis of representation within liberal democracies. As temperatures and water levels rise, rates of popular confidence in existing democratic institutions decline. So, what is to be done? This article discusses whether sortition – the ancient Greek practice of selecting individuals for political office through lottery – could serve to mitigate both crises simultaneously. Since the 2000s, sortition has (...) attracted growing interest among activists and academics. Recently it has been identified in countries like the UK and France as a mechanism for producing legitimate political answers to the climate challenge. However, few theoretical reflections on the potentials and perils of sortition-based climate governance have yet emerged. This article contributes to filling the gap. Based on a critique of the first successful case of sortition used to enhance national environmental policy – in Ireland in 2017–18 – we argue that sortition-based deliberation could indeed speed up meaningful climate action whilst improving the health of democratic systems. However, this positive outcome is not preordained. Success depends not only on green social movements getting behind climate sortition but also on developing flexible, context-specific designs that identify adequate solutions to a number of problems, including those of power ; expertise ; and participation. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:The link between firm corporate social performance (CSP) and executive compensation could be driven by a sorting effect (a firm’s CSP is related to the initial levels of compensation of newly hired executives), or by an incentive effect (incumbent executives are rewarded for past firm CSP). Existing empirical work focuses exclusively on the incentive effect. In contrast, in this paper we explore the sorting effect of firm CSP on the initial compensation of newly hired executives. In doing so, we develop (...) a novel theoretical approach based on an integration of stakeholder theory and human capital theory, suggesting a positive association between the initial compensation of executives and firm CSP strengths and concerns. It also suggests that the strength of this relationship varies between different executive roles (as a function of stakeholder-management responsibilities). We find support for this theoretical framework in a large sample of newly-hired executives employed by Standard & Poor 1500 firms. (shrink)

_Examining inequality through the lenses of moral traditions_ Rising inequality has attracted a great deal of attention in recent years from scholars and politicians, but the moral dimensions of inequality tend to be ignored. Is inequality morally acceptable? Is it morally permissible to allow practices and systems that contribute to inequality? Is there an ethical obligation to try to alleviate inequality, and if so, who is obligated to take that action? This book addresses these and similar questions not through a (...) single lens of morality but through a comparative study of ethical traditions, both secular and religious, Western and non-Western. The moral and political traditions considered are: liberalism, Marxism, natural law, feminism, Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, Christianity, and Confucianism. The types of inequality examined include property, natural resources, products, wealth, income, jobs, and taxation. The editors open the book with an introduction providing information on contemporary dimensions of the problem of economic inequality, and the book concludes with a summary of the perspectives represented. _Economic Inequality and Morality_ is unusual in that it addresses similarities and differences on the questions of inequality within and across moral traditions. Authors of the individual studies answer a common set of topic-related questions, giving the reader a broad perspective on how a broad range of traditions view and respond to inequality. (shrink)

Deepening and developing the seminal vision of _Habits of the Heart_, this volume presents original essays by leading thinkers in the social sciences, philosophy, and religion.

The primary question addressed in this article is how to understand and produce praxis development in the complex and contentious field of street communities of young marginalized men, an area highlighted almost on a daily basis in the Danish media under headlines with terms such as ‘foreigner problems’, ‘ghetto problems’, ‘gang conflicts’ and ‘gang war’. Since 2009, activists and professionals related to this field have gathered at Grundtvigs Højskole where they initiated and inspired community building activities in relation to the (...) recent gang conflicts in the Copenhagen area of Denmark. The article explores these practices and changes, including some of the communal initiatives arising in response to the escalating gang conflicts. The conflict and community building activities are contextualized in terms of broader tendencies and changes in Danish society, from enduring struggles with ethnic othering of young minority men since the late 1990s, to other societal changes escalating ‘gang-conflicts’ to ‘gang-war’. The article examines how these changes produce new dynamics, tensions and dimensions of binary thinking, which in turn creates new dilemmas in the everyday lives of the people involved in social work practice, community building activities and praxis research. (shrink)

This paper considers Cassius Dio's account of the early worship of Augustus. Its main focus is the number of cults consecrated to the worship of Rome's new undisputed leader and his father, the now deceased and deified Divus Iulius, after the triumvir, on his way back from Alexandria in 29 b.c.e., wintered in Asia Minor. In his account of how the first official worship of Augustus was organized, Dio describes how Augustus let two separate cults inaugurate: a joint cult to (...) the worship of Divus Iulius and the goddess Thea Roma—a Greek deity, which since the second century served as a personification of Roman rule or Roman power—and a personal cult to the worship of the victorious triumvir. (shrink)

This article engages with socialist republicanism, which is preoccupied with extending freedom as non-domination, central to the neo-republican revival, from the political sphere of formal democracy to the economic sphere of capitalist production. Firstly, we discuss the transition from neo-republicanism to socialist republicanism. Secondly, we reconstruct the socialist republicanism of Antonio Gramsci, who was involved in the council movements in Turin in 1919–20. We argue that Gramsci applies the republican vocabulary of servitude to describe the capitalist workplace and analyse the (...) workers’ councils as republican forms, allowing for popular self-determination in the economic sphere. Consequently, we contribute to the ongoing exploration of the historical, political, and conceptual affinities between republicanism and socialism and inscribe Gramsci as a key thinker in this endeavour. (shrink)

Constellations, Volume 29, Issue 3, Page 310-328, September 2022.

Despite the availability of evidence-based treatment models for adolescent behavior problems, little is known about the effectiveness of these programs for adolescents with callous-unemotional traits. Defined by lack of empathy, lack of guilt, flattened affect and lack of caring, CU traits have been linked to long-term anti-social behavior and unfavorable treatment outcomes and might be negatively related to outcomes in evidence-based programs such as Functional Family Therapy. This study used a single-group pre-post evaluation design with a sample of 407 adolescents (...) receiving FFT to investigate whether outcomes in FFT are predicted by CU traits and to what extent reliable changes in CU traits can be observed. The results showed that although CU traits are related to increased problem severity at baseline, they predicted neither treatment dropout nor post-treatment externalizing behavior and family functioning. CU traits were related to diminished improvement ratings, in particular with respect to parental supervision. Reductions in CU traits were observed across the time of treatment, and these were most profound among adolescents with elevated levels of CU traits at baseline. Further research should investigate whether certain evidence-based treatment components are more suited for adolescents with CU, and if the addition of specific intervention elements for reducing CU-traits could further improve outcomes for this high-risk population. (shrink)

This book presents a collection of contemporary discourses that reconsider the relationship of democracy as a political ideology and American ideal and education as the foundation of preparing democratic citizens in America.

The aim of the present investigation was to describe and to classify significant ethical problems encountered by the members of the staff during the daily clinical work at a hospital medical department. A set of definitions was prepared for the purpose, including the definition of a 'significant ethical problem'. During a three month period 426 inpatients and 173 outpatients were admitted. Significant ethical problems were encountered during the management of 106 in-patients (25 per cent) and 9 out-patients (5 per cent). (...) No significant difference was found between the frequency of ethical problems in female and male patients, but a positive correlation was noted between the number of problems and the patients' age. The problem types were classified according to a problem list. The results of this investigation suggest that greater attention must be paid to discussions about ethical problems among doctors and other categories of health personnel and that, among others, medical students ought to be taught the analysis of ethical problems. (shrink)

_Initiating Psychoanalysis_ presents an international collection of papers brought together by the Working Party on Initiating Psychoanalysis of the European Psychoanalytic Federation and addresses the specific clinical and technical issues involved in launching the processes that are at the core of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic treatment. Expert contributors provide introductions and commentaries on a selection of psychoanalytic papers, including one by Freud himself, which refer to beginning psychoanalytic treatment in a wide range of settings. Divided into four main sections, areas of (...) discussion include: historical and conceptual developments in the field practical, technical and ethical considerations unconscious transference and counter-transference dynamics of initial interviews internal factors that can help or hinder psychoanalysts in their work to initiate psychoanalysis. This book will be helpful to all psychoanalytical practitioners in thinking about their work in first interviews with prospective patients, as well as psychoanalysts and psychotherapists at all levels of experience, who will be able to use this book to enrich their own practice. (shrink)

Vividharatnakarandaka. Festgabe für Adelheid Mette. Edited by Christine Chojnacki, Jens-Uwe Hartmann and Volker M. Tschannerl. Indica et Tibetica Verlag, Swisttal-Odendorf 2000. 540 pp. DM 128. ISBN 3-923776-37-3.

continent. 2.1 (2012): 22–28. Jeroen Mettes burst onto the Dutch poetry scene twice. First, in 2005, when he became a strong presence on the nascent Dutch poetry blogosphere overnight as he embarked on his critical project Dichtersalfabet (Poet’s Alphabet). And again in 2011, when to great critical acclaim (and some bafflement) his complete writings were published – almost five years after his far too early death. 2005 was the year in which Dutch poetry blogging exploded. That year saw the foundation (...) of the influential, polemical, and populistically inclined weblog De Contrabas (The Double Bass), which became a strong force for internet poetry in Dutch in the years to follow. In the summer of that year, a lively debate raged in the aftermath of Bas Belleman’s article “ Doet poëzie er nu eindelijk toe ?” (“Does poetry finally matter now?”), on a blog specifically devoted to this question. Up to that point, the poetical debate in the Netherlands had largely been confined to literary reviews (which were often subsidized), having become mostly marginalized in more mainstream media, where poetry could be covered by only a small number of so-called authorities. As a result, literary debate had acquired a rather placid quality. Though a variety of camps with different aesthetics could be discerned, most poetical positions shared a general acceptance of poetry as a form of art somewhat apart from fundamental political concerns. Late modernists would pursue subtlety and density of reference. Others would insist poetry was best understood as a form of entertainment that should ideally be accessible and work well on the stage. Still others would insist that poetry is mostly a play with forms. Linguistically disruptive strategies were valued highly by some, but mostly for their aesthetic effect. Values of disinterested playfulness reigned supreme everywhere. Any idea that poetry could be a field in which one confronts politics and the world was decidedly marginal. This led to a climate in which most attempts at polemics were DOA, often based on far too superficial positioning and analysis. The greatest polemical debates were revolving around the question of whether poetry should be difficult or easy, with both camps defining their ideas of difficulty and accessibility in ways that were so utterly shallow as to make the entire point moot. Debates were performed, rather than engaged with. It was a postmodern hell of underarticulated poetics. Half-consciously, people were yearning for new forms of criticism that could put the oomph back into poetry. Weblogs provided for ways to explore debate directly outside of the clotted older channels of the reviews and the newspapers. Belleman’s essay and the resulting online activity had shown that there was a widespread eagerness to take poetry more seriously as a social art form. It was in this environment that Mettes started his remarkable project Dichtersalfabet . At that moment, Mettes was active mostly in academic circles, having become noted at Leiden University as a particularly gifted student of literary theory. Within the Netherlands, the field of literary theory has a very odd relationship to literature as it is practiced in the country. Academic theory tends to have a mostly international view and engage with international debates of cultural criticism, literary theory, and philosophy, with academics often publishing in English and attending conferences around the world. Literature itself however is much more concerned with domestic traditions. Consequently, in the Netherlands, there exists a language gap between academic theoretical practice (as it is studied in the literary theory departments) and literary practice (which, academically, gets studied in specialized departments of Dutch literature). The Dichtersalfabet can be seen as Mettes’s attempt to close this gap. It is also an attempt to bridge the divide between theory and practice, in which he could apply his theoretical knowledge in a very unorthodox and unacademic critical mode that moreover could reach far beyond the domain of conventional criticism. Mettes’s goal was to trace a diagonal through Dutch poetic culture, to “strangle” what he perceived to be its dominant oppressive traditions of agreeable irrelevance, in order to see whatever might be able to survive his critical assaults. But he could only do so by means of a very serious engagement with poetry itself. To this end, he would go systematically through the poetry bookshelf of the Verwijs bookshop (part of a mainstream chain of booksellers) in The Hague, buying one publication per blog item, starting from A and working his way through the alphabet, reading whatever he might encounter that way in the restaurant of the HEMA store (another big commercial chain in the country). He would subsequently write down his reading experiences, refraining however from trying to write a nuanced book review. Rather, he would write about anything that caught his attention and sparked his critical interest. This way of working would yield vast, at times somewhat rambling, dense, lively, and generally brilliant essays, in which he held no punches. He never hesitated to pull out his entire arsenal of concepts from the international theory traditions, while never degenerating into mere academic exercise and pointless intertextualities. The attempt was rather to live the poetry that he read, and to engage it with the full range of political, academic, cultural, and personal references that he had at his disposal—all that composed the individual named Jeroen Mettes as a reader. Often what he wrote would not be according to the standards of what we usually think of as a critical review of a book of poetry. Sometimes he would even be a little sloppy in his judgments of poets or representations of the books he read, for example by basing an entire essay on the blurb of a book rather than its poetry content. But what he did was always brilliant writing nonetheless—virtuoso riffs on poetic fragments randomly found within capitalist society, exposing an incisive and insistent poetical sensibility. Mettes read poetry for political reasons, to see whether poetry could offer him a way to deal with a political world he detested. The right-wing horrors of the Bush years, the Iraq war, and the turn of Dutch public opinion towards ever more conservative, narrow-minded, and xenophobic views alongside a complete failure of the political left to present any credible alternative, were weighing heavily on the times in which Mettes reported on his reading. Poetry was to measure this world, diagram it, to lay bare its inconsistencies and faults, to indicate where lines of flight might be found. Amid the ruins of a world wrecked by imperialist policies, corporate capitalism, and doctrinal neoliberalism it would have to show the possibility of a new community. And it was, through its rhythmical workings, to release the reading subject from his confinement to ideologically conditioned individuality and lead him into the immanent paradise of reading. The stakes were high. Much higher than anything Dutch poetry had seen for many years. Mettes’s blog was widely read from the start. His posts sparked lively debates. Some of these subsequently led to the publication of extensive essays on a few key poets in some literary journals, particularly Parmentier and the Flemish journal yang , for which Mettes would become a member of the editorial board, a few months after starting the Dichtersalfabet . This could have been the start of a brilliant career, but this was not to be. The initial manic energy that fueled the blog gradually subsided. The Alfabet was updated less and less regularly. Mettes sometimes just disappeared for many weeks, then suddenly returning with a brilliant essay. Until, on September 21, 2006, he posted his final blogpost, consisting of no text whatsoever. That night I learned from his mentor at Leiden University that he had committed suicide. Mettes and I had had some fruitful exchanges on poetry, rhythm, music, and form, mostly on the blogs, but also by email. Three weeks before his death was the last time I heard from him: a very sudden, uncharacteristically curt note saying “My old new sentence epic.” Attached to that message I found a DOC-file of a work so major that I felt intimidated. This was N30 , a text he had been working on for over five years. After his death, it took me a long time before I dared to read it in its entirety. In the meantime, the work of preparing the manuscript for publication was entrusted by his relatives to his colleagues at yang magazine. It took them a few years to brush up the text and to edit the Dichtersalfabet -blog (which, apart from the Alphabet project itself, incorporated many other fragments of political, polemical, and theoretical writing) into book form along with the essays. The result of this labor was finally published in 2011 as a two-book set, and Mettes burst onto the Dutch poetry scene for the second time. The work was widely reviewed, on blogs, in journals, magazines, and newspapers. Many critics who had not followed the blogs in 2005 showed themselves surprised, baffled even, by the intensity of Mettes’s critical writing. But for those who had read the blog, the main surprise was in the poetry. During Mettes’s lifetime, some of his poems had already been published in Parmentier . Although these were strong texts by themselves, in no way did they prepare readers for N30 . Nothing like it had been written in Dutch before. Instead, N30 explicitly follows the American tradition of Language Writing, directly referencing Ron Silliman and his concept of The New Sentence. However, it would seem that much of the poetical thinking around his use of this technique puts him closer to a writer such as Bruce Andrews. For Mettes, using non sequiturs as a unit of poetic construction was not only a way of reinventing formal textual construction, but it was another way of finding the fault lines in the social fabric. From the perspective of the Language tradition, one may put N30 somewhere between Silliman and Andrews. N30 shares an autobiographical element with Silliman’s New Sentence projects, and as in Andrews, there is a concern for mapping out social totality within text—what Mettes refers to as a “textual world civil war.” Again this shows a formal textual strategy for allowing the person “Jeroen Mettes” to be absorbed by the world, which here appears as a whirlwind of demotic and demonic chatter, full of violence, humor, intensity, beauty, disgust, sex, commerce, and strife. Influenced as it may by American precursors, Mettes’s tone and form end up quite different from his American counterparts, consistently referencing a world that is Dutch, all too Dutch, taking on the oppressive orderliness of Dutch society with its endemic penchant for consensus by introducing chaos into its daily life and laying bare its implicit aggressions. The work’s 31 chapters each have a different feel and rhythmical outline, but none of them follow a predetermined pattern. Rather, Mettes would consistently edit and reedit the text, randomly rewriting parts of it, as he explains in his poetical creed Politieke Poëzie (Political Poetry). N30 – referring to the 1999 antiglobalist protest in Seattle – was to be the first text of a trilogy. The work itself was written “in the mode of the present.” A second text was to be written in the mode of the future, and a third one, in the mode of the past, was going to be an epic poem about the Paris Commune, and to form an alternative poetic constitution for the European project. I still deeply regret that Jeroen Mettes never got to complete those projects, just as I would be very keen on knowing what he might have had to say about more recent political developments. Instead, in 2006, he remained stuck in the horrors of the present, that ended up consuming him completely. He left Dutch literature with some of its most piercing criticism and its most profoundly moving, exciting and powerful poetry. Excerpts from N30 Translated by Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei from Jeroen Mettes. "N30." In N30+ . Amsterdam: De wereldbibliotheek, 2011. Published with permission of Uitgeverij Wereldbibliotheek, Amsterdam. Chapter 1 1999. A day is a space too. And another man, who had chained himself, had his ribs crushed, and a motor has driven over somebody’s legs. Dutch health care system spends ±145 million guilders per year on worriers. A spiderweb vibrates as I pass by. Randstad renovating. She slaps her bag against her ass: “Hurry up!” OPINION IS TRUE FRIENDSHIP Your skin. It doesn’t express anything. “But the use of the sword, that’s what I learned, and you’ll need nothing more for the moment.” Just try to interrogate a guy like that. Gullit in Sierra Leone. Codes silently lying all around. But that’s simply what belongs to “that it’s just allowed”: that sigh of “world” (a word expressing that the trees are now standing along the water like black men with white bags in their hair); that’s nothing else right? And you see how everything has to move, and first of all what cannot do so. Without Elysium and without savings, barbarians lashing out, horny for an enemy, staring across the water, staring into the air—staring to get out of it. “You’ve never showed me more than the mall,” she said. All those “dreams” in the end—and now? It was lying on the stairway, so I picked it up and took it upstairs. Chapter 3 “You know what?” Telecommunication. For love… I don’t really like that cheap cultural pessimism, but… The holy city is on pilgrimage in the earthly bodies of the faithful until the time of the heavenly kingdom has come. The end of an exhausting autumn day behind the computer, my eyes filled with tears of fatigue. KITCHEN / INSTALLATION / SPECIALIST. Network integration. In the sun, stretched out on a sheet. (…) I don’t believe what I’m reading, because I want to believe something else. An illusion? Suits me. There’s a variety of shapes and tastes… “So what?” you may think. 102 dalmatians can’t be wrong. But I want more, dear… A feel good movie. I’m smashing the burned body. So what? We continue to save the European civilization. What’s there to win? Plato with poets = Stalin without gulag? Ball against the crossbar. No wonder. She comes straight to her point. She’s standing in the kitchen eating an apple. (…) The godless Napoleon had used her as a stable and wanted to have her taken down. “Our” Rutger Hauer. Ready or not here I come. Psst… are you also wearing a string? Nobody understands our desire. Cliffs breaking the waves and shattering the sunset. I used to be a real romantic (as a poet). A typical fantasy used to be the one in which I brutally raped mother and daughter Seaver from the sitcom Growing Pains . Nevertheless you only contain bad words. Eyelashes. Automatic or manual? That your skin always in the afternoon. Integration. The air is empty. Too bad! Hand in hand on their lonely way. Alaska! Chapter 12 May 5, 2001 [10:00-10:30] A dust cloud on a hill. Globe. Indian (British) (tie) / pope. Damascus. Rape. We’re carrying the ayatollah’s portrait through the streets. At the moment the girl is mostly suede jacket with white ribbons on her sleeves. A small explosion flares up/impact. Camouflage. Close up. We’re analyzing the situation. He’s dead right? Dead dead. Dead. Everything without, these, and only with the body. Indices signal death. Dollar bills are printed in factories. Holes. Light patch. Globe in a box. Microphone. What’s the situation? Grey impact on a green hill (field?). The water is blue. He has no lips. Interns on the background with skirts that are too long. This is an example of a sonnet. An Islamic woman pushes against the door of an electronics shop. Arrows (percentages (prices)). Is this what awaits the American? Touch screen interface. The word, an island, can only be a sign in that situation. We pull up a chair, join in on the fun. On the shelves only books about computers. One glance in the distance is enough to lighten up a luna park in the distance. She’s really desperate, especially when she laughs. Click. Ah. Next. And now it’s raining, but that’s ok. Yellow stains sliding over the south. Shallow caves light: clothes, boots, electrical equipment. 45. 22:10. Nothing gives you the right to eat more than people starving to death. The Hague. Slam dunk. Traffic light. Two H’s, one L (standing for the L (little prick)). We’re happy to say something. Clouds, small suns, temperatures, cities. The truth is never an excuse. Yellow. Yellow. Green. Yellow. Yellow. Yellow. Yellow. Green. Green. Yellow. Will you email me? Skeleton: “No.” Ex-nerds in brand-new and brightly red sport cars. $$$. I love. Shihab. Hooves in the sand. Skinny senior with over-sized sunglasses; old jockey (cap, trophy) smiling in slow motion. And there I am again, flashback, crying with my head in between my hands. Sometimes I’ve got the feeling that cannibals. Eyes: blue. Cancer. Why would I wait until tomorrow? Golden beams protruding from the lifted/lit earth. May 5, 2001 [11:30-12:45] You’ll remember this for the rest of your life. Graphs, diagrams. Bu$ine$$. Blue shirt, white collar, no neck (porn star). A name lights up. I’m hysteric. Will you join us? Letters falling in their words. Fingers set up a tent and start to dance. Young entrepreneurs from poor neighborhoods (read: black) guided by Microsoft. Kinda makes me happy, that sort of kitsch. A sense of exhaustion/impotence to see anything but the present. (…) Wouldn’t you like to? Orange explosion in an industrial zone. YOU’RE DOING THIS FOR AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL. Would you. A familiar face. Clouds and blossom. Sunflowers. Supermodels. Mountainous area in a rectangle: shades of brown, from dark to beige, more green toward the south. Tents and next to them (it’s all a blur) people. Plane. Stadium. Geometrical block of people. No, I ain’t crying. I don’t speak no more. I just want. Quote + photo. (Positive:) screaming crowd. Three-piece suit, seen from the back, before entering the arena. On the back: “Daddy abused me.” Oh, bummer. State of emergency has been declared and everyone has to cooperate. She’s cut her wrists. What we do know (…) is that there’s never been a unique word, an imperative name, nor will there ever be. [Click here for work that suits you.] Barefooted children are watching it (coherent pieces revelation of what’s lying below). Who knows how she’s changed during those two years. “Everything used to be better” + sigh. And here we are. An empty field of parquet. A city lying behind it. Explosion. Blue. A rain drop falling in my coffee. May 5, 2001 [14:30-15:30] A young Arafat on video speaking with raised finger. “I’m calling from my convertible.” Names on walls, victims, numbers… Tourists. Yellow. Yellow. “Your own child! Really, what kind of human are you?” I don’t want to hear it no more. A woman jumping out of the water in a yellow bikini against a background of fireworks and the Cheops pyramid. Thy sorrow shall become good fortune, thy complaints laudation. All planets will float and wander. Wo die Welt zum Bild wird, kommt das System (…) zur Herrschaft. It is something, but is it? May 5, 2001 [18:30-19:00] Iris. Leaves. NASDAQ. Open / and white and. For the one who’s doing nothing, just waiting. (…) NO DEFEAT is made entirely up of defeat -- since / the world it opens is always a place / formerly / unsuspected. October 2002. “Jeroen, I’m leaving for the cemetery, byeeee.” The rise of the middle class. My entire oeuvre is an ode to the. My entire head is a fight against the. God always demands what you cannot sacrifice. You may take that the easy way, but… “The state hasn’t made us, but we make the state” (Hitler). A stork exits the elevator. Skeletons of. Moscow. Helsinki. Palermo. Paris. Chapter 30 Like your paradises: nothing. United Desire, as only remaining superpower. And even though the sea is now calmer and the wind is blowing pleasantly in my face… Heart! Who determines whether a tradition is “alive”? The yellow leaf or the white branch? Mars. This sentence is a typical example. Most Dutch people are happy. No consolation. When I see a girl sitting at a table with a book, a notepad, a pen, a bottle of mineral water, her hand writing in the light—then I consider that one thing. “Presents,” “poetry,” “classics.” We are what we cannot make from ourselves. “Left”: mendicant orders, missionaries. Saint-Just: “A republic is founded on the destruction of its enemies.” She crosses the street with a banana peel between her fingers. (…) We chose our own wardens, torturers, it was us who called all this insanity upon ourselves, we created this nightmare… But “no”? Girl (just like a beach ball) talking rapid Spanish (Portuguese?) in a mobile phone. Do I have a chance now that her boyfriend is getting bold? CLIO, horny bitch. What else do you want? An old woman, between the doors of the C1000, is suddenly unable to go on; her husband stretches out his hand, speaking a few encouraging words. Selection from. Der Führer schenkt den Jüden ein Stadt. How can it reach us if we haven’t been already reached somehow? It doesn’t “speak.” No problem. Each word she uses is a small miracle, as if she doesn’t belong to it, to language, but wanders around with a pocket light looking for the exit; she’s never desperate (maybe a little nervous), lighting up heavy words from the inside. But indeed, we’re free. But the predicate is not an attribute, but an event, and the subject is not a subject, but a shell. That’s why also samurai, knights, and warriors raised the blossom as emblem: they knew how to die. Locked up in a baby carriage with a McDonald’s balloon. Blue helicopter, the blue sky. Whether you want to refer? The point is. How / Motherfucker can I sing a sad song / When I remember Zion? You’ll feel so miserable and worthless that you think: “If only I were dead!,” or: “Just put an end to it!” “So you’re an economist?” Her card—two little birds building a nest, her handwriting shaking—is still on the mantelpiece. Guevara: “No, a communist.” A straw fire, such was our life: rapidly it flared up, rapidly it passed. I’m fleeing, coming from nowhere. (…) Eazy-E drinking coffee with the American president. If I’d scream, would that be an event? Drown it: the cleaner it will rise up from the depths. No! The night, so fast… As if there’s something opened up in that face. Come on, we may not curse life. He shows me his methadone: “If you drink that all at once, you’ll die instantly.” The last one dictates how we should behave to deserve happiness. One shine / above the earth. “I want to go to Bosnia,” I said bluntly. I don’t even know the name of the current mayor. Let’s despise our success! “There is no future; this is the future. Hope is a weakness that we've overcome. We have found happiness!” Sun. Sushi. Volvo. I feel like a bomb about to explode at any moment. Makes a difference for the reconstruction right? The decor moves forward. Daughter of Nereus, you nymphs of the sea, and you Thetis, you should have kept his tired head above the waves! Alas! This sentence has been written wearing a green cap. I receive my orders from the future. A frog jumps into it. Her husband has turned the Intifada, which he follows daily on CCN, into his hobby, “to forget that he doesn’t have his driver’s license yet." Suddenly the sun slides over the crosswalk. Her (his?) foot is playing with the slipper under the table. Is this how I’m writing this book now? I’m not a fellow man. I hate you and I want to hurt you. These are my people. Their screaming doesn’t rise above the constantly wailing sirens which we've learned to ignore. My whole body became warm and suddenly started to tremble. Unfortunate is he who is standing on the threshold of the most beautiful time, but awaits a better one. Arafat’s “removal” is contrary to American interests. Jeep drives into boy. What you can do alone, you should do alone. A food gift from the people of the United States of America. Two seagulls. [...]. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 263 articles, and supplementing his anthology of Wright (Liberal Arts Press). The biographical chapter presents Wright as an attractive character among devoted friends and also as a solitary, original scientist. Wright's primary achievement was to apply utilitarian principles to Darwinian natural selection theory. Since Darwin himself made no such attempt, nor did John Stuart Mill, and since Darwin showed an evident interest in Wright's attempt, this represents (...) a major contribution to evolutionary theory. On the negative side, too, Wright was incisive in his criticisms of Spencer, Mivart, Hamilton, Mansel, and Lewes. The pragmatic strains in Wright's philosophical method were incidental to his primary interest in showing that sciences are metaphysically "neutral." But his influence on Peirce and James was direct and strong, both on their cosmological and methodological doctrines. He deserves to be mentioned as the prime mover in this trinity of early pragmatism and naturalism, but since his own writings were relatively few and scattered, his historical importance rests largely on the use which Peirce and James made of his ideas and the development which they gave to his philosophy. HER~VRTW. SCHNEIDER Claremont, California Propos sur Jules Lequier: Philosophe de la libert~--R~flexions sur sa vie et sur sa pens~e. Par s Callot. (Paris: l~ditions Marcel Rivi~re et Cie, 1962. Pp. 142 [1]. Biblioth6que Philosophique.) L'oeuvre de Jules Lequier est importante. Nos philosophes am~ricains Charles Hartshorne et William L. Reese en ont fait un grand ~loge dans leur Philosophers Speak of God (pp. ix, 17, 109, 118, 227-230). Dans ce nouveau livre I~mile Callot nous donne des rfiflexions, des considerations, vraiment des Propos sur Jules Lequier en occasion du centenaire de la mort de Lequier (1862). La vie de Lequier est incontestablement dramatique. N~ en 1814 en Br6tagne off il passa son enfance, Lequier subit l'influence de son pays natal, de sa m~re dont il ~tait le ills unique, et d'une 6ducation profond~ment catholique. I1 entra ~t l'l~cole Polytechnique et il en sortit peu apr~s. Mais il y connut Renouvier et c'est grace ~ Renouvier que la pens~e de Lequier nous est connue. Renouvier intercala dans ses livres des fragments de Lequier et en publia des bonnes pages sous ce titre La recherche d'une premiOre v~rit& A l'~ge de 37 ans Lequier eut un acc6s de dfimence. Puis il eut un amour exaltfi pour une jeune fille qui le refusa en mariage. Lequier mourut, noy~, ~t l'~ge de 48 ans. De sa fin il nous est impossible de savoir si elle a 6t~ un suicide ou un accident, mais Lequier garda toujours con- 264 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY science de son g6nie: "Je crois avoir trouv6 un myst~re merveilleux de simplicitY, de profondeur et de t~n6bres: quelque chose h quoi nul ne pense." Lequier est un philosophe de la libert& Tout philosophe part de l'id& de v~rit~, cela est n&essaire, mais la prudence exige qu'on la mette sans cesse en cause. Comme Vinet (1797-1847) a dit, "La v6rit~, sans la recherche de la verit6, n'est que la moiti~ de la v~rit& On ne salt bien que ce qu'on n'a pas su toujours; on ne croit bien qu'apr& avoir dour6; on n'est vainqueur qu'apr6s avoir &6 vaincu. Et c'est pourquoi, en cette mati~re, notre premier effort doit avoir pour objet de mettre l'homme en demeure de choisir." Lequier avait eu tr& fort le sentiment du d&erminisme universel. Mais, au moment oth la croyance ~ la n&essit6 semblait devoir triompher dans son esprit, il la rejetta brusquement "par une r&olte de l'&re entier." Selon Lequier, la premiere et fondamentale d6marche de l'esprit est une affirmation de la libert~ par la libert6 m~me. La libert~ ne cr& pas la v6rit6, mais la croyance en la libert6 est une premi6re v6rit6. Sans cette croyance, on ne peut rien chercher et rien d&ouvrir. Mais l'homme, auteur de ses actes par la libertY, ne l'est pas de sa libert& Le Dieu de la Bible est un &re infini qui rien ne peut &happer. Ainsi le probl6me entier de la pr6destination se pose ici de nouveau. Et Lequier d&ouvre une solution originale: Si Dieu... (shrink)

The article, after providing a general survey of prescriptive theories (or theories on rules) in Hellenistic philosophy, tries to offer a detailed analysis of the moral doxography of Philo of Larissa conserved in Stobaeus' Anthology (Stob. Ecl. II 7, 2, pp. 39-40 W.-H. = 25 Wiśniewski, 2 Mette, 32 Brittain). According to this evidence, Philo divided moral philosophy in three parts : hortatory, or protreptic, topos, therapeutic topos, prescriptive topos –; besides, he parted the prescriptive topos into general and (...) particular logos. This doctrine is contextualised in rhetoric reflection of Hermagorean school and also considered in the light of Academic probabilism. In particular, Carneades' theory of the representations attested by Sextus, M VII 184 is the background against which to evaluate Philo's position. (shrink)

La moderna riscoperta del lavoro di Ibn Khaldūn da parte degli studiosi arabi si è sviluppata attorno a una vera e propria dicotomia: alcuni hanno descritto Ibn Khaldūn come un pensatore originale e anomalo tenendo conto del suo contesto e del suo tempo, o l’unico e più alto rappresentante del pensiero arabo-islamico, legittimando gli interessi di coloro che puntavano a mettere in ombra la restante parte della tradizione. Dall’altra parte si è assistito al tentativo opposto di ridimensionare la sua originalità (...) rispetto al contesto evidenziando la sua piena appartenenza alla tradizione storiografica e di pensiero islamica. Questo contributo intende approfondire le interpretazioni di quattro importanti esponenti del pensiero marocchino contemporaneo che hanno dedicato a Ibn Khaldūn importanti studi: si tratta di Mohammed Aziz Lahbābi, Mohammed Abed al-Jābrī (importante esponente della scuola filosofica di Rabat), il noto intellettuale Abdallah Laroui, e il letterato Bensalem Himmich. Si fa riferimento in primo luogo a M.A. Lahbābi e al suo allievo più noto, M.A. al-Jābrī, al primo perché ha dato sicuramente un impulso importante allo studio dell’autore ed è tra i fondatori della _scuola di Rabat_, al secondo per la sistematicità e importanza della sua proposta teorica di critica della ragione araba. L’analisi proposta da A. Laroui, anch’egli rappresentante della _scuola di Rabat_, mette in luce caratteristiche diverse dell’opera di Ibn Khaldūn rispetto ai primi due studiosi, concentrandosi sui temi della modernità e dello Stato. Si è dato spazio infine a un’altra lettura, quella proposta da B. Himmich che all’autore ha dedicato uno studio e una biografia romanzata, a dimostrazione della sua attitudine a intrecciare ricerca accademica e letteratura. Si tratta di autori che hanno avuto grande riscontro e risonanza nel mondo arabo e che sono ben noti anche in quello occidentale, in particolare Laroui. The modern rediscovery and re-appropriation of Ibn Khaldūn’s work by Arab scholars has largely developed along the following dichotomy. On the one hand, some have described Ibn Khaldūn as an original and atypical thinker for his context and time, and as the only or highest representative of Arab-Islamic thought – thus partly reinforcing the view of many Western scholars who had minimized the role of the tradition to which he belonged. On the other hand, there has been an opposite trend that demotes his originality, by highlighting his complete adherence to the Islamic tradition of historiography and thought. This contribution studies four prominent contemporary Moroccan scholars who have systematically addressed Ibn Khaldūn’s philosophy: Mohammed Aziz Lahbābi, Mohammed Abed al-Jābrī, Abdallah Laroui, and Bensalem Himmich. The essay first considers Lahbābi and al-Jabri, Lahbābi’s most renowned pupil; the former due to his contribution to the advancement of the study of Ibn Khaldūn in general, and as one of the founders of the _school of Rabat_, and the latter due to the theoretical importance and systematic nature of his critical approach to Arab thought. Laroui, another representative of the _school of Rabat_, offers an analysis which highlights different characteristics of Ibn Khaldūn’s work, compared to the first two scholars, by focusing on the subjects of modernity and the State. Finally, the chapter examines Himmich’s reading. Himmich has written both an academic work as well as a literary/fictional biography of the Maghrebi figure in focus. All these four scholars have made a substantial impact on the Arab world, whilst also being wellknown in the West, Laroui in particular. (shrink)

The vast majority of contributions to the literature on spirituality in nursing make extravagant claims about transcendence, eternity, the numinous, higher powers, higher levels of existence, invisible forces, cosmic unity, the essence of humanity, or other supernatural concepts. Typically, these assertions are made without the support of argument or evidence; and, as a consequence, alternative ways of theorizing ‘spirituality’ have been closed off, while the lack of consistent scholarship has turned the topic into a metaphysical backwater. In this paper, I (...) adopt a different premise, rejecting unsupported claims, and surveying the ‘spirituality’ terrain from a naturalistic and reductionist perspective. I argue that, if we rid ourselves of non‐naturalistic assumptions, we will discover theoretical and clinical resources in health psychology, social psychology, neuropsychology, and pharmacopsychology – resources which confirm that it is possible to conceptualize the study of existential concerns, and how health professionals might respond to them, in a properly scientific manner. In order to illustrate the potential usefulness of these resources, I will take palliative care as an example. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reason m Seneca JOSIAH B. GOULD MAx POHLENZ,in his last great work on the Stoa,1 maintained that Logos is the central concept of Stoic philosophy (I, 34). Neither Mette2nor Edelstein,3each of whom reviewed Pohlenz's study, notes the author's frequent reminders that Stoicism is "eine Logosphilosophie" and his contention, set forth early in Volume I, that the concept of Logos has in Stoic philosophy "pushed wholly to one side the (...) Aristotelian J,o~sin doctrine as well as in terminology." One who is familiar with the fragments of the writings of the early Stoics hardly needs to be told that for Zeno, Cleanthes, and Chrysippus, Logos is a fundamental notion. Help is needed when one tries to make clear to himself the content of this notion. An example is the moral philosophy of Chrysippus as we have reconstructed it from the fragments of his writings. For Chrysippus the basic expression in Stoic moral philosophy, "life in accordance with nature" (zb ~arh ~b~Lu~'~u) becomes "life in accordance with reason" (r~ KaTh~,bTou~'~). I have, however, found it difficult to render an account of what, for Chrysippus, it would be to live in accordance with Logos or reason. On one hand, it would appear that to live in conformity with reason is to be guided by cumulative experience or generalizations from past experience about what would or would not be advantageous. It seems, that is, to be assent to reason when it passes from experience of this benefit following on that action to judgments such as "that kind of action issues in this kind of advantage." On the other hand, reason or Logos, in a fully developed state, we are informed, is the knowledge of genuinely good and genuinely bad things; and such knowledge is obviously not the kind of thing to be induced from particular experiences. In the first place a judgment that a particular consequence of a particular deed is of value presupposes the knowledge which Chrysippus describes as the "knowledge of things really good or really advantageous." For example, given that one has a relatively clear notion as to what health is, he with some experience, can judge whether or not this food and that activity contribute to health. But, on Chrysippus' view, it would seem that reason or Logos in order to come to conclusions about the value of health-inducing foods or activities has to possess a relatively clear notion about the value of something else in whose acquisition health is instrumental. The assertion that actions leading to health or wealth have value could not follow from some special insight by Logos into the intrinsic worth of health or wealth, for it is explicitly denied that they are unqualifiedly good. The question then arises whether Logos has an insight into 1Max Pohlenz, Die Stoa. Geschichte einer geistigen Bewegung. 2nd. ed. (GSttingen: Vandenhoeck & Rupreeht, 1959). H. J. Mette, Max Pohlenz: Die Stoa. Geschichte einer geistigen Bewegung. 2 Bde. (G6ttingen : Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht). Review, GnomonXXIII (1951),27-39. Ludwig Edelstein, Max Pohlenz. Die Stoa. Geschichte einer geistigen Bewegung. (GSttingen : Yandenhoeck und Ruprecht, I [1948},490 pp.; II [1949],230 pp.). Review,American Journal of Philology, LXXII (Oct., 1951),426--432. [13] 14 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY something else which is genuinely good by reference to which judgments can be made about the value of health and wealth under certain conditions. The suspicion that this is so is heightened by the exalted status assigned to the wise man. The ideal of the wise man does not fit snuglywith Chrysippus' conception of Logos as a generalizing instrument for determining what things and activities are useful. The wise man is too contemptuous of or, at least, too indifferent toward the "goods" of the world. It is unthinkable that he should attend to them with a view to determining which of them is useful. He knows already; his wisdom comes from other parts. He is sure of what is really good because an unobfuscated reason or Logns has declared this to him in an immediate way; he has not had to wait for the verdict of reason's generalizations on experience. It is difficult to ignore either of... (shrink)

According to the standard analysis of degree questions, the logical form of a degree question contains a variable that ranges over individual degrees and is bound by the degree question operator how. In contrast with this, we claim that the variable bound by the degree question operator how does not range over individual degrees but over intervals of degrees, by analogy with Schwarzschild and Wilkinson's proposal regarding the semantics of comparative clauses. Not only does the interval-based semantics predict the existence (...) of certain readings that are not predicted under the standard view, it is also able, together with other natural assumptions, to account for the sensitivity of degree questions to negative islands, as well as for the fact, uncovered by Fox and Hackl, that negative islands can be obviated by some properly placed modals. Like Fox and Hackl, we characterize negative island effects as arising from the fact that the relevant question, due to its meaning alone, can never have a maximally informative answer. Contrary to Fox and Hackl, however, we do not need to assume that scales are universally dense, nor that the notion of maximal informativity responsible for negative islands is blind to contextual parameters. (shrink)

Many contemporary logicians acknowledge a plurality of logical theories and accept that theory choice is in part motivated by logical evidence. However, just as there is no agreement on logical theories, there is also no consensus on what constitutes logical evidence. In this paper, I outline Jean Piaget’s psychological theory of reasoning and show how he used it to diagnose and solve one of the paradoxes of material implication. I assess Piaget’s use of psychology as a source of evidence for (...) logical theory in light of reservations raised by psychologism, and I highlight some ramifications for exceptionalism and anti-exceptionalism about logic by considering his use of psychology as logical evidence in the framework of genetic epistemology, Piaget’s research programme. I conclude that Piaget’s psychological theory of reasoning not only plausibly serves as a source of evidence for logical theory but also makes a strong case for anti-exceptionalism about logic. (shrink)

In una fase della teoria del cinema e dei media, come quella attuale, che appare segnata da un dibattito sempre più intenso sul significato e sulla portata di nozioni come quelle di medium e dispositivo, riprendere l’opera di autori come Dziga Vertov e Sergei M. Ejzenštejn, Siegfried Kracauer e Walter Benjamin, può risultare una via produttiva non solo nel tentativo di situare in una prospettiva storica il dibattito contemporaneo, ma anche di trovare nuove modi di pensare le nozioni citate di (...) medium e di dispositivo. Nel presente studio, l’autore esamina la riflessione di Ejzenštejn riguardo al dispositivo cinematografico come assemblage – flessibile, dinamico e in evoluzione – di tecniche, spazi e operazioni, concentrandosi su due momenti cruciali della sua lunga e complessa carriera: la conferenza The Dynamic Square tenuta a Hollywood nel 1930, e il progetto per film rimasto incompiuto e intitolato Glass House, presentato quello stesso anno alla Paramount. In entrambi i casi, Ejzenštejn considera lo schermo – una delle componenti cruciali del dispositivo cinematografico – come allo stesso tempo condizione senza la quale le immagini proiettate non possono essere visualizzate, come superfice di dimensioni e forme variabili, e come luogo di una serie di sperimentazioni sul montaggio e sullo spazio cinematografico, che in Glass House mette in luce le implicazioni estetiche e sociali di uno spazio completamente trasparente. (shrink)

There is no denying the Central Dogma’s impact on the biological sciences. Since the Dogma’s formulation by Francis Crick in 1958, however, many have debated the Dogma’s empirical adequacy. My aim is to move beyond these discussions, and instead consider the Central Dogma’s significance to contemporary biological practice. To do this, I consider four distinct approaches for determining the non-descriptive methodological significance of a scientific principle. I argue that these approaches fail to vindicate the Central Dogma, and that, under many (...) of these approaches, the Dogma amounts to a triviality. (shrink)

The article presents the conceptualization of philosophical education, in the context of which the evolution of the development of society from informational to smart society takes place. The purpose of the article is to reveal the conceptualization of philosophical education in the context of the idea of a smart society and to show that philosophical education does not stand still but develops along with the development of science and technology, which requires the development of a conceptual and categorical apparatus. Research (...) objectives: to show the development of philosophical knowledge, in the context of which new innovative ideas are ripening; to reveal that the concept of a smart society is based on the expectation or belief in the ability of modern smart technologies to positively influence social processes and lead to a new qualitative state of all social life, which is called a smart society; to prove that much in solving all these problems depends on the state of education, including philosophical and ideological, not only developing our cognitive abilities, but also forming a responsible and demanding attitude to goal setting, the choice of basic life values. Analysis of recent research and publications, which presents a solution to this problem. We rely on the works of I.Ardashkin, V.Voronkova, M.Kastels, O.Kivlyuk, K.Korsak, A.Lazarevich, R.Oleksenko, O.Punchenko, which in one way or another reflected the problem of the formation of a smart society. The research methodology is the dialectical, historical, systemic, informational methods, which allowed to penetrate deeply into the evolution of philosophical knowledge that is not in mass, but develops with the development of science, technique and technology. The result of research - based smart society the development of information and computer technologies that lead to breakthrough technologies and innovative development It is noted that the proposed reorganization of the system of social-humanitarian education in the universities of the Republic of Belarus intended to raise to the level of philosophical training of domestic specialists. (shrink)

This study introduces and evaluates the GIBAC Learning Model, aimed at enhancing students’ mathematical communication skills in Indonesian secondary schools, achieving an impressive 30% increase in students’ mathematical communication skills as evidenced by the n-gain method and dependent t-test analysis. Grounded in cooperative learning theory and motivation, the model integrates local academic culture and promotes student independence, offering a promising avenue for educational advancement in Indonesia. Employing a Mixed Methods approach, data from three secondary schools were collected via cluster random (...) sampling, encompassing interviews, observations, expert assessments, and questionnaires. Analysis reveals the model’s effectiveness in improving mathematical communication skills, underscoring its relevance to Indonesian educational practices. Practical implications for teachers emphasize the integration of cultural aspects and student autonomy in mathematics education, thereby contributing to the advancement of educational literature through Indonesian innovation and cultural adaptation in pedagogical frameworks. (shrink)

This book examines all verses of the Quran involving knowledge related concepts. It begins with the argument that an analysis of the Quranic concept of ignorance points to epistemic virtues that can pave our way towards gaining knowledge and/or understanding. It deals with the Quranic concepts of perceptual, rational, and revelatory knowledge as well as understanding and wisdom in the light of recent discussions in Western analytic epistemology. It also argues that the relevant Quranic verses seem to involve concept of (...) an epistemic conscience whose proper exercise can yield knowledge or understanding. While not overlooking the Quranic emphasis on revelation as a source of knowledge, the book draws our attention to a remarkable overlap between some strains of contemporary virtue epistemology and Quranic approach to knowledge. It shows that the Quranic verses suggest a progressive sequence from propositional knowledge to understanding to wisdom. (shrink)

Vedic Voices: Intimate Narratives of a Living Andhra Tradition. By David M. Knipe. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015. Pp. xxii + 340, illus. $35.

In a response to critiques of his On the Postcolony in a 2006 African Identities article, Achille Mbembe declared that the book was written at a time when the study of Africa was caught in a dramatic analytical gridlock. Traditional critical frameworks and discourses on the condition of postcolonial Africa seemed inadequate and ineffectual. Marxian analysis of colonization and its consequences is specifically isolated as one such impotent tool of critical analysis. As an alternative to these “failed” traditional paradigms, Mbembe (...) launches into a deconstructive experimental hermeneutic that leads him to the explication of colonial alterity in libidinal, representational and semiotically analogous language, as exhibited in On the Postcolony. This article challenges the efficacy of this post-structuralist semiotics and phenomenological extrapolations as the proposed way out of his perceived “cul-de-sac” in African postcolonial self-imagination. In particular, his dismissal of Marxian theory is turned... (shrink)

This study was an attempt to investigate the nature of metaphor by doing a cross-cultural comparison of metaphor in 2 typologically different languages-English and Persian. For this purpose, animal metaphors were taken for comparison. The "GREAT CHAIN OF BEING" metaphor (Lakoff & Turner, 1989), along with the principle of metaphorical highlighting (Kovecses, 2002), were used as a framework in comparing different aspects of animal metaphors as interpreted by native speakers of the 2 languages. The results showed that although animal metaphors (...) in English and Persian are similar to a certain extent, many aspects of them are culture-specific. The similarities and differences among 44 animal metaphors in these 2 languages are shown and some possible explanations are put forward. (shrink)