The philosophy of metaReality and, in particular, ideas of transcendence can ‘underlabour’ for the re-enchantment of Islamic praxis, ethics and law by helping to uncover in a systematic, non-arbitrary way the spiritual objectives inherent in the basic beliefs, practices and obligations of Islam. The commonly accepted elements of the Islamic legal pathway, such as the obligation of marriage, far from being inhibiting, can help humans access the dialectical pulse of freedom and the emancipatory meaning inherent tendentially in human relationships. Thus, (...) the Islamic Shari'a, underlaboured by the philosophy of metaReality, rather than a symbol of legal backwardness and inflexibility, can be conducive once again to greater personal ontological wholeness and collective human flourishing. (shrink)

The field of mathematics education has been fashioned by a diversity of theoretical and philosophical perspectives. The purpose of this study is to add to this field an analysis of the philosophical position of critical realism. To achieve this objective, the study addresses the following questions: what does critical realism have to offer mathematics education? How may critical realism underlabour for this discipline? In addressing these questions, the study provides an overview of the basic theories and the possible weak points (...) of and arguments against critical realism and realism in general. It then draws upon the notion of a dialectical phenomenology to provide a sequence of Achilles' heel critiques of some of the perspectives that constitute broadly the theoretical landscape of mathematics education research. This critique proceeds with an analysis of didactically oriented empiricism, hermeneutics, pragmatism, postmodernism, traditionally recognized forms of constructivism, traditionally recognized theories of activity, and ethnomathematics. The last section summarizes the implications of philosophical underlabouring for a more beneficial science of mathematics education. (shrink)

Although there are several conceptions of organizational moral learning (OML), there is a need for more empirical studies. This study aims to provide illustrations of the dynamism of organizational moral learning by spiritual hearts (OML-SH), where OML and organizational immoral learning (OIL) are coupled antagonistically. Two OML-SH initiatives (i.e., the Quality Control Circle program and 100-hour training record system) within Brunei’s public sector are scrutinized to illustrate the dynamic process of OML-SH, spanning individual, group, and organizational levels. From the two (...) exploratory case studies, the purifying mechanism was coined to capture the laminated interplay between the spiritual hearts, group understanding, leadership, organizational intention, structure, culture, and resources to drive OML. In contrast, the corrupting mechanism was also coined as the opposite force to drive toward OIL. From the study, leadership and organizational learning repositories were seen to play essential roles in the purification of the spiritual heart (i.e., individual moral development). Additionally, the spiritually diseased hearts occupying the two extremes of OML and OIL were seen to experience moral ambivalence, which was also not captured in previous studies. The paper concludes with suggestions to manage moral ambivalence for more positive outcomes, drive OML further and impede OIL simultaneously. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article proposes a theoretical framework for thinking systematically about Muslim males’ involvement in criminality, derived from the philosophy of critical realism. This theoretical framework is deployed to explore primary data from life story interviews with 17 Muslim male offenders in a way that explains the role of structural and cultural factors, as well as individual agency, in participants’ involvement in crime at a range of ‘emergent’ ontological levels. As well as factors in common with offending by young males (...) generally, such as absent role models at home, experiences of socio-economic marginalization, the presence of hypermasculine hegemonic masculinities on the street and an inadequate experience of school, ‘unserious’ religion and ‘religious’ justifications for involvement in crime are factored into the ontology of the male Muslim offender as rendering some young Muslim males particularly vulnerable to offending. (shrink)

Learning and development are often linked in the organization studies literature. To understand the dynamics of organizational moral development, this paper utilizes the notion of organizational moral learning (OML). It is explored using three perspectives: organizational learning, Islamic and critical realist perspectives. The perspectives are then synthesized together to form a single framework, called the OML by ‘spiritual hearts’ framework. At the centre of the framework is the spiritual heart, the seat of profound understanding and moral consciousness. The heart plays (...) a central role in organizational moral development, especially with regard to its potential to be ‘purified’ and corrupted. Two extreme parameters then are created: on one side is the ‘purified hearts’ with high moral consciousness contributing towards OML, and on the other is the ‘corrupted hearts’ with high immoral consciousness contributing towards organizational immoral learning. Between the two extremes are the ‘diseased hearts’, possessing a mixture of moral and immoral consciousness to various degrees, and have the potentials to contribute to both moral and immoral developments. The paper further suggests strategies to facilitate OML and simultaneously inhibits organizational immoral learning. (shrink)