Prostitution in Kenya is increasing at a very alarming rate and is posing a danger to the society both morally and economically. Efforts to help female sex workers exit prostitution are categorized by the deficiency appropriate interventions among female sex workers (FSWS). Therefore, the current study sought to determine the relationship between the attitude of female sex workers (FSW) towards provision of care and the intention to exit street level prostitution. The study adopted a descriptive correlational study using a mixed (...) approach. This study targeted all the FSW in the Central Business District of Eldoret town and the counselors who deal with a significant number of them. The study used census sampling method. The snowball technique was used to get the respondents up to maturation point. This study utilized questionnaires and interview schedule to get relevant data from the respondents. Experts in the Department of Counselling Psychology and the researcher’s supervisors assisted in ensuring that the instruments are valid. To test for reliability of the instruments, the Cronbach Alpha coefficient was used. Cronbach Alpha coefficient of 0.784 was obtained and used after pilot study. The study used SPSS version 23 software to aid in the analysis of both descriptive and inferential statistics. The inferential statistics used was Pearson product-moment correlation. The interview guides were categorized in themes and analyzed using content analysis. The findings of the study showed that there was a statistically significant relationship between FSWs towards provision of Care and Intention Exit Street Level Prostitution (r=0.113 and p=0.043). It was recommended that the stakeholders should also encourage the FSWs to form support groups that may come up with income generating activities so that they may be occupied and in the process exit prostitution.Regarding areas for further studies, the study recommends a more consultative and comprehensive study on the attitudes of FSW towards the intention of Female sex workers in Eldoret Town that involve, County AIDS and STI Coordinator, non-governmental institutions in Eldoret Town. (shrink)

Academics have increasingly used video and other electronic methods to collect data and capture reflections from participants. But, until recently, it’s been less common to use film as way of disseminating the results of research. That’s beginning to change. Film can be a powerful way to share research findings with a broad audience. This is particularly true when academics are combining) the traditions of ethnography, documentary filmmaking, and storytelling. -/- Film and cinema are increasingly being used in environmental humanities to (...) complement – or challenge – text-based research. The filmmakers in the arts, sciences and humanities see potential in using the moving images within political philosophy, environmental politics, postcolonial studies, human geography, urban ecology, postcolonial studies, design and literature. An example of this is the film One Table Two Elephants. It is a cinematic ethnography created by two Swedish researchers and filmmakers Jacob von Heland and Henrik Ernstson. Based on years of research in Cape Town, it was filmed in 2015 as part of a longer-term research and film-project . The documentary deals with race, nature and knowledge politics in Cape Town as part of the ways of knowing urban ecologies research project. -/- . (shrink)

The theories of Locke, Hume and Kant dominate contemporary philosophical discourse on property rights. This is particularly true of applied ethics, where they are used to settle issues from biotech patents to managerial obligations. Within these theories, however, the usual criticisms of private property aren’t even as much as intelligible. Locke, Hume and Kant, I argue, develop claims about property on a model economy that I call “Frontier Town.” They and contemporary authors then apply these claims to capitalist economies. (...) There are two problems with this application: First, we’ll be considering the wrong kind of property: The only property in Frontier Town are means of life. Critics, however, object to property in concentrated capital because they associate only this kind of property with economic coercion and political power. Second, the two economies differ in central features, so that very different claims about empirical consequences and hence about fairness and merit will be plausible for each. This second problem, I argue, is a consequence of the first. I conclude that Frontier Town theories are more likely to distort than to illuminate property issues in capitalist economies. (shrink)

Mental representations remain the central posits of psychology after many decades of scrutiny. However, there is no consensus about the representational format(s) of biological cognition. This paper provides a survey of evidence from computational cognitive psychology, perceptual psychology, developmental psychology, comparative psychology, and social psychology, and concludes that one type of format that routinely crops up is the language-of-thought (LoT). We outline six core properties of LoTs: (i) discrete constituents; (ii) role-filler independence; (iii) predicate–argument structure; (iv) logical operators; (v) inferential (...) promiscuity; and (vi) abstract content. These properties cluster together throughout cognitive science. Bayesian computational modeling, compositional features of object perception, complex infant and animal reasoning, and automatic, intuitive cognition in adults all implicate LoT-like structures. Instead of regarding LoT as a relic of the previous century, researchers in cognitive science and philosophy-of-mind must take seriously the explanatory breadth of LoT-based architectures. We grant that the mind may harbor many formats and architectures, including iconic and associative structures as well as deep-neural-network-like architectures. However, as computational/representational approaches to the mind continue to advance, classical compositional symbolic structures – that is, LoTs – only prove more flexible and well-supported over time. (shrink)

This paper uses the evolutionary frame provided by the Victorian jurist Henry Sumner Maine to describe the process by which trust can be seen as the product of a gradual development that starts with small-scale communities and later allows market exchanges to develop themselves. I also argue, using the work of Elinor Ostrom (1990), that trust emerges first within small-scale communities, where first- and second-degree collective action problems need to be resolved. The development of a social disposition to trust is (...) closely linked with an institutional context that encourages individuals to take the externalities of their actions into account. This is made possible by customary mechanisms, as the development of social trust at this stage cannot rely on a mighty “Leviathan”. Therefore, this paper questions the claim that social trust is the product of market exchanges. Market exchanges might favor the further growth of social trust, hands in hands with the right institutional frame. However, this growth is not just the transposition of a previously acquired disposition to trust. The work of Henry Sumner Maine interestingly underlines the importance of the co-development of institutions and trust, from its origin in small communities to its expansion to market exchanges. Both Ostrom’s and Maine’s perspectives underline the fact that trust and trustworthiness are complementary and question a-rational perspectives on trust. This paper also elaborates on the claim, coming from the literature on contract law, that focusing on sanctioning mechanisms can be highly counterproductive. (shrink)

We are increasingly exposed to polarized media sources, with clear evidence that individuals choose those sources closest to their existing views. We also have a tradition of open face-to-face group discussion in town meetings, for example. There are a range of current proposals to revive the role of group meetings in democratic decision-making. Here, we build a simulation that instantiates aspects of reinforcement theory in a model of competing social influences. What can we expect in the interaction of polarized (...) media with group interaction along the lines of town meetings? Some surprises are evident from a computational model that includes both. Deliberative group discussion can be expected to produce opinion convergence. That convergence may not, however, be a cure for extreme views polarized at opposite ends of the opinion spectrum. In a large class of cases, we show that adding the influence of group meetings in an environment of self-selected media produces not a moderate central consensus but opinion convergence at one of the extremes defined by polarized media. (shrink)

This essay examines the implications Wikipedia holds for theories of deliberative democracy. It argues that while similar in some respects, the mode of interaction within Wikipedia represents a distinctive form of “collaborative editing” that departs from many of the qualities traditionally associated with face-to-face deliberation. This online mode of interaction overcomes many of the problems that distort face-to-face deliberations. By mitigating problems that arise in deliberative practice, such as “group polarization” and “hidden profiles,” the wiki model often realizes the epistemic (...) and procedural aspirations of deliberative democracy. These virtues of the Wikipedia model should not, however, lead to the simple conclusion that it ought to replace traditional face-to-face deliberation. Instead, this essay argues that the collaborative editing process found within Wikipedia ought to be viewed as a promising supplement to traditional deliberation. These two modes of communication ought to be viewed in Madisonian terms – as distinctive forms of interaction that check and balance the vices of one another. When combined, the wiki model promotes the virtues of inclusion and accuracy at large scales, while the face-to-face model excels in conditions of localism and promotes the virtues of solidarity and social capital. (shrink)

The paper uses two historical examples, public health (1840-1880) and town planning (1945-1975) in Britain, to analyse the challenges faced by goal-driven research, an increasingly important trend in science policy, as exemplified by the prominence of calls for addressing Grand Challenges. Two key points are argued. (1) Given that the aim of research addressing social or global problems is to contribute to improving things, this research should include all the steps necessary to bring science and technology to fruition. This (...) need is captured by the idea of practical integration, which brings this type of research under the umbrella of collective practical reason rather than under the aegis of science. Achieving practical integration is difficult for many reasons: the complexity of social needs, the plurality of values at stake, the limitation of our knowledge, the elusive nature of the skills needed to deal with uncertainty, incomplete information and asymmetries of power. Nevertheless, drawing from the lessons of the case studies, it is argued that (2) practical integration needs a proper balance between values, institutions and knowledge: i.e. a combination of mutual support and mutual limitation. Pursuing such a balance provides a flexible strategy for approximating practical integration. (shrink)

Following Darcy’s concession in 1901, Britain began oil exploration in the southwest of Iran. In 1908, economic oil was discovered, and the Anglo- Persian Oil Company (APOC) was established. This company from its establishment was under the influence of the British Government, to extend that, Britain became its major shareholder in 1917 which continued until the nationalization of Iran’s oil in 1951. In the meantime, the concession and following agreements prepared an almost autonomous status for the company. Generally, Iran had (...) never been a British colony, however; this status had evidence of colonialism and let the company build the artificial environment in Iran’s southwestern, based on its attitudes and values, as well as hierarchical structure, racial-class segregation, and closed society, which experts consider it as a type of social engineering. According to this, the building formed by the company could manifest the upstream ideas, specifically in towns that were completely shaped by it. Therefore, Masjed Soleyman and Abadan, the two main company towns of the British-owned Anglo-Persian Oil Company, which were quite isolated from other parts of Iran, could be suitable platforms for displaying the company’s attitudes and values. Therefore, this research by interpretive-historical methodology, based on both primary and secondary sources from desk research and archival research, investigates the manifestation of the company’s attitudes and values in its quiet a half-century (1901-1951) building in Masjed Soleyman and Abadan, in five periods. These periods were shaped based on the most important happens including periods of exploration (1901-1908), formation (1908-1917), primary development (1917-1933), secondary development (1933-1939), and leading to the nationalization of oil (1939- 1951). In the first period, there is no evidence of architecture or urbanism, in the second and third periods, architecture, specifically bungalows appeared company values and in the fourth and fifth periods, urbanism especially, garden cities represented company values. (shrink)

The study investigated the impact of parental income on students' academic performance in secondary schools in Kitswamba and Rugendabara-Kikongo town councils in Kasese District. A cross-sectional research design was used, with data collected from 286 students and five head teachers. The findings showed that family income significantly influenced students' academic performance. The findings have implications for parents, teachers, policymakers, and administrators in the education sector, emphasizing the importance of parental income in determining academic success.

The present paper is an attempt at examining the value configuration and the socio-demographical profiles of the local political elites in four countries of East-Central Europe: Romania, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, and Poland. The treatment is a comparative one, predominantly descriptive and exploratory, and employs, as a research method, the case-study, being a quite circumscribed endeavor. The cases focus on the members of the Municipal/Local Council in four towns similar in terms of demography and developmental strategies (i.e. small-to-medium sized communities (...) of around 35,000 inhabitants, with economies largely based on food industry and commercial activities): Tecuci (Galați county, Romania), Česká Lípa (Liberec region, Czech Republic), Targovishte (Targovishte province, Bulgaria), and Oleśnica (Lower Silesia province, Poland). Hypothesizing that the local elites of the former Sovietized Erurope tend to differ in outlook, priorities, and value attainment, as compared to their Western counterparts, the paper considers the former’s attitudes and perspectives in regard to seven values: a series of values customarily connected with the concept of ‘democracy’ (i.e. citizen participation, political conflict, gradual change, economic equality), state intervention in economy, decentralization and increased local autonomy, cultural-geographical self-identification. The study uses, as well, five models of value attainment in what concerns the ‘ideal portrait’ of the local councilor (Putnam 1976): ethical, pragmatic, technocratic, political, and gender. According to the results of a study applying a standard written questionnaire among the local councilors of the three communities in the period December 2010-February 2013, the paper distinguishes among three corresponding types of local elites: (1) ‘predominantly elitistic,’ (2) ‘democratic elitist,’ and (3) ‘predominantly democratic,’ following two types of explanation accounting for the differences among the four cases: the legacy of the defunct regime and the degree of administrative decentralization. (shrink)

Using incoming revenues and the associated costs that underpin the concept of breakeven analysis, this article investigates the business survival strategies of immigrant-own-businesses in the context of African immigrants in the Cape Town Metropolitan Area of South Africa, and proposes a framework for the start-up survival of these businesses. The study was designed within the quantitative and qualitative research paradigms. A triangulation of three methods was utilised to collect and analyze the data. The research revealed that African immigrant entrepreneurs (...) face a range of challenges when starting their businesses and again as they try to grow or stay afloat. Furthermore, the study indicated that African immigrants rely more on certain entrepreneurial attributes as they seek innovative solutions to the problems that they encounter relating to business. As a business survival strategy, these immigrants develop a number of unconventional initiatives aimed at increasing sales revenue while minimising cost. (shrink)

The town of Aksum is historically the richest tourist destination in Ethiopia. Thus, it is known for its cultural tourist attractions i.e. archaeological, religious and historical attractions. The objective of this study is to assess the supplies of micro and small scale enterprises to the tourism industry in the town. A qualitative research design was pursued in this study. Data were collected from primary and secondary sources. Interviews were conducted with purposely selected subjects as the main instrument of (...) primary data collection. In addition, field visits were conducted to observe the sites and take pictures. Both published and unpublished secondary sources were used, particularly for the literature review. Participants of this study were selected from the tourism and hotel industry, the Small Scale Enterprises Agency, micro and small scale enterprises, the Culture and Tourism Agency and other government offices. The Ethiopian Sustainable Tourism Development Project (ESTDP) was also consulted to assess the involvement of micro and small scale enterprises in the tourism sector. The findings indicate that micro and small scale enterprises have been divided into the five main economic sectors including agriculture, manufacturing, construction, trade and service sectors. The Ethiopian Sustainable Tourism Development Project has supported the enterprises in working with the tourism industry. The government’s role in organizing and supporting the enterprises however, seems to be weak. Some of the enterprises produce and sell their products to tourism institutions involved as frontline suppliers to the tourists. However, the enterprises are not well-organized and not strong enough to supply the required quantity and quality. Moreover, some of the enterprises don’t have any link with the tourism sector. The policy implications from this study indicate that local government in collaboration with private sectors and voluntary donors should support the local small enterprises to increase their capacity and improve their supplies. (shrink)

The present proposal is an approach to the vision, cosmogony and philosophy of the Totonacapan people, and particularly with the inhabitants of the Totonacapan region in Veracruz Mexico, a town whose wisdom is manifested to this day, in the conservation of customs and traditions , as well as the hierarchy of collective desire that seeks health, well-being and peace in the region, are guides in the evolution of their cultural processes, where a closeness, respectful and deep with Mother Nature (...) stands out. This wisdom by the Council of Elders, transmitted to the new generations, by the Supreme Council of Totonacapan who seek share the basis to understand and conceive the current world, from the ancestral vision and cosmogony to identify their space, thought, spirituality and in the building your social context. In the Totonacapan region, the first pre-hispanic population concentrations were located around 1259 to 1311. Already by the year 1450, there is a record of incursions and the conquest of Totonaca territory, by the Mexica, establishing a relationship of domain and subordination. As a result of the presence of "Mexica" in the Totonaco territory, there was an imposition of customs and language, since in some areas they begin to speak in Nahuatl, resulting in the presence of a bilingualism (Nahuatl-Totonac) , situation that persists, until the encounter with the Spaniards in the year of 1519. At present, the Totonacapan region includes the area that extends from the Cazones River to the north, to the towns of Gutiérrez Zamora and Tecolutla, in the State of Veracruz in Mexico. 2 The importance of the document is that it constitutes an invitation to deepen and understand the vision of the inhabitants of Totonacapan, in the construction of their social context and their connection with nature, as part of an ancient culture, which creates and recreates their vision, in the search for the feeling of belonging and as an inheritance of the children of thunder (Tajin), as well as the need to preserve the benefits that nature itself offers them, seeking a peaceful and harmonious coexistence, in the social and environmental environment. However, the preservation of its history, tradition and philosophy of life, contrast with public policy strategies, particularly in the social sphere, and which are aimed at achieving economic development in the fight against multidimensional poverty and marginalization, all Once they have not incorporated into them, the feeling and living of the relationship between individual and nature, as the guiding axis, of the philosophy of the Totonacapan people. What is sustainability for the people of Totonacapan? What is social justice in the search for sustainability? And what is your concept of justice in sustainability and human development? From the vision and philosophy of the people of Totonacapan, as part of the history and tradition of the children of thunder "Tajin" and in whose worldview, he is responsible for regulating the rain, climate and life of the people of the region. How does the people of Totonacapan live and live in the face of the maelstrom of actions that, from public policy, that seek human development? How do you adjust, your way of life and how do you adapt to the requirements, which from the perspective of justice, are required to contribute to the objectives of the 2030 development agenda? This document is an effort to learn and recognize one of the most important millenary cultures in Mexico, in the construction of a more inclusive vision of the social development of the Totonacapan people, which invites us to reflect on the direction and scope of this response. (shrink)

One central aspect of a healthy democracy is the practice of democratic dissent. For the first time in many years, dissent is being widely practiced in town hall meetings and on street corners across the United States. Despite this presence, dissent is often suppressed or omitted in the prescribed, tested, hidden, and external curriculum of US schools. This article calls for a realignment of these aspects of curriculum with both a guiding vision of ideal democracy and a realistic interpretation (...) of democracy as it is currently invoked in order to maximize this historic moment and work toward more robust democracy as a whole. This article will define dissent, show why it matters for healthy democracy, describe its role in the conscious social reproduction of citizens, reveal implications of the current more consensus-oriented forms of democracy portrayed in US schools, and call for new work on consensus and dissent in schools given changes in the present environment. (shrink)

Attacks on migrant and refugee entrepreneurs and their properties by South African rivals and ordinary citizens have become a common phenomenon throughout the country, including the city of Cape Town. Business robberies often result in deaths or serious injuries. The Somali Community Board has noted that over 400 Somali refugees, many of them informal traders, were murdered in South Africa between early 2002 and mid-2010. The police are frequently accused by migrants of fomenting or turning a blind eye to (...) xenophobic attacks on their businesses. Meanwhile, the government refuses to acknowledge the existence of xenophobia or the xenophobic rhetoric in many of these attacks, claiming instead that they are simply the actions of criminal elements. Photographs published in the media of the looting of migrant stores do not tend to feature hardened criminals, but ordinary citizens including children in school uniform. -/- Migrant businesses are portrayed by officials, citizens and the media as having a negative impact on the South African economy and undermining the livelihoods of South Africans. The prevalence of such perceptions helps to explain growing xenophobic sentiment against migrants and refugees. Contrary to these popular perceptions, an emerging literature on migrant entrepreneurship is beginning to demonstrate the positive economic contributions of migrants and refugees to the country. This report examines the nature of informal migrant and refugee entrepreneurship in Cape Town and whether or not the negative stereotypes have any validity. It also seeks to examine what economic contributions migrants and refugees make to the local economy. -/- The report is based on the research conducted by the Growing Informal Cities project, a partnership between SAMP/IMRC, the African Centre for Cities at the University of Cape Town, the Gauteng City-Region Observatory (GCRO) and Eduardo Mondlane University in Maputo. A questionnaire was administered to a sample of 518 migrant owners of microenterprises, which had to meet three basic criteria for inclusion: (a) owned by a non-South African; (b) in operation for at least two years; and (c) unregistered with the South African Revenue Services (SARS). Although migrant entrepreneurs are located in most areas of the city, certain areas have particular concentrations of migrant-owned businesses. "e questionnaires were administered in four such areas: Imizamo Yethu, Philippi, Bellville, and Cape Town CBD. Thirty in-depth interviews were also conducted with selected owners of informal micro-enterprises. Two focus group discussions were held in the Cape Town CBD and Philippi respectively. Fifteen key informant interviews were held with various stakeholders in Cape Town to understand the operation and constraints faced by migrants operating in the city’s informal economy. -/- The major findings of the personal profile of the migrant and refugee entrepreneurs were as follows: -/- • The entrepreneurs came from over 20 different countries of which Zimbabwe, Somalia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Nigeria, Malawi, Ethiopia and Cameroon were the most prominent. Just over a third were from other countries in the SADC. The prominence of Zimbabwean entrepreneurs in the Cape Town informal economy is not surprising, given the events in that country over the past decade and a half and resultant mass migration to South Africa. A total of 57% of the entrepreneurs were from other African countries, especially the DRC, Somalia, Nigeria and Ethiopia. "e majority of migrants from these countries (except Nigeria) came to South Africa as refugees. -/- • A third of the entrepreneurs had refugee permits. Of these, nearly 60% came from only three countries: the DRC, Ethiopia and Somalia. A further 31% held asylum-seeker permits. Of these, 32% were Zimbabwean while another 30% came from DRC, Ethiopia and Somalia. Nearly 12% had permanent residence permits while 8% were holders of work permits. Only 7% of the respondents indicated that they did not have official documentation to stay in South Africa. Thus, the majority of migrant entrepreneurs have forced migrants who are entitled to human rights protection under international and South African refugee law. • Very few of the entrepreneurs entered South Africa before 1994. Only 8% arrived in the immediate post-apartheid years. While another 20% came in the period 2000to 2004, the vast majority (70%) came during the last decade. As many as 44% arrived between 2005 and 2009 and a further 27% thereafter. Migration from Zimbabwe, in particular, escalated between 2005 and 2009 as the country plunged deeper into crisis. • Despite the perception that unemployment at home is a driver of migration to South Africa, only 14% of the entrepreneurs were unemployed immediately before leaving for South Africa. Another 19% were students. Twenty-six percent were working in the informal economy in their home countries. -/- .......INCOMPLETE..... (shrink)

Given the fact that numerous challenges prohibit African immigrants from availing financial capital for the purpose of starting a business in South Africa, this paper sets out to investigate whether those that succeeded experienced a significant increment in their financial capital three or more years after startup. This paper was designed within the quantitative and qualitative research paradigms. A triangulation of three methods was utilised to collect and analyze the data. From a quantitative perspective, the survey questionnaire was utilised. To (...) complement the quantitative approach, personal interviews and focus groups were utilised as the methods within the qualitative approach paradigm. The primary data collection instrument used was the survey questionnaire which was complemented by personal interviews and focus group debates. The results revealed that the majority (71.1%), of African immigrants, had an estimated start-up financial capital in the range of R 1 000 and R 5 000, which tended to vary across the different ethnic groups studied. After three or more years, the estimated financial capital of the majority (39.3%) of the respondents moved to a new range of R 50 001 - R 100 000. Noting a disparity in capital growth exhibited by the different ethnic groups, it was found that all the Ethiopians who started with a capital within the range of R1 000-R5 000 moved into a new capital range (R50 001-R100 000) three or more years after business start-up. Although, the absolute migration in terms of capital demonstrated by the Ethiopian is not in the highest capital range, they were nonetheless the only country that experienced this phenomenal growth. In terms of occupying the highest capital range (R250 001- R500 000) 11.1% of Cameroonians moved into that range followed by 7.4% of Somalians. Using an increase in financial capital (generated by ploughing back profits) as a proxy for growth, we were able to prove that these African immigrant-owned businesses grow and the rate of growth varied across the different ethnic groups studied. (shrink)

Drawing a sample of 135 successful African immigrant-owned businesses, this paper sets out to investigate how their owners acquired the necessary capital for start-up and growth thereafter. The paper was designed within the quantitative and qualitative research paradigms, in which a triangulation of three methods was utilised to collect and analyze the data. The paper revealed that although African immigrants are characteristically at a disadvantage when it comes to accessing capital from formal financial institutions, this does not stop them from (...) pursuing entrepreneurial activities. At the start-up stage, they typically resort to personal savings, business credit, family credit, and loans from informal financial institutions. According to the ability to raise capital, we found that a varying range of start-up capital was utilised, which tended to vary across the different ethnic groups studied. Once started, we found that the sources of additional finance available to these immigrants did not change significantly. They conventionally turned to friends, co-ethnics and self-help financial associations to ‘feed’ their need for further funding. (shrink)

Critical reflections concerning 4 cities: Amsterdam, Paris, New York, Los Angeles; 4 periods respectively: the twenties, the thirties, the seventies, the nineties. 'To open the city' debate, functionalism and town planning, postmodern city & architecture, public spaces, urban dwellers.

The author discusses the relationship between art and the body, as exemplified by the similarities and differences in the works of: two Japanese artists, Matsui Chie (b. 1960) and Higashikage Tomohiro (b. 1978); and the Polish artist, Mirosław Bałka (b. 1958). These examples are referred to in the context of a unique project recently conducted in Japan — the Tatsuno Art Project 2013. Held with the support of the Agency for Cultural Affairs of Japan, the project aims to present contemporary (...) art to people from across Japan and around the globe, and to capitalize on the region’s unique cultural heritage, creating opportunities for people to communicate with local residents and making Tatsuno a more dynamic and popular place to visit. This paper considers various connections between art and the body by focusing on a selection of works included in the Tatsuno Art Project 2013: Arts and Memories. Known in past centuries as the ‘little Kyoto’ of Harima Province, Tatsuno is an atmospheric old castle town. It is mild and relatively warm all year round, with the climate of the nearby Seto Inland Sea region, said to be similar to that of the Mediterranean. Thanks to the support of numerous people, the organizers were able to hold the 2013 event which represented the culmination of their efforts over the past few years, being the largest ever in terms of scale with nine invited artists, eleven other participating artists, and one contemporary musician, for a total of 21 creators contributing works. With new spaces added to create a total of 16 venues, the community‑wide project truly achieved its goal of presenting the ‘historic castle town as a museum’. The project curators were also able to strengthen Tatsuno’s international ties by inviting artists from France and Poland to take part, as well as Japanese artists residing in the UK and Spain. (shrink)

Cities and towns are expanding and thriving as a result of urbanization, which also significantly changes the local climate. One of the most significant phenomena associated with urbanization is the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect. This phenomenon is increasingly being studied worldwide. The paper aims to investigate the UHI phenomenon in the metropolitan area of Tirana, Albania. It analyses the impact of the UHI on four specific locations in Tirana, its causes and mitigation measures, as well as variations in surface (...) temperature, CO2 emissions, and relative humidity. The regions are measured and observed using a specific instrument such as the Testo 435. Considering the mean surface temperature variations between urban and rural regions ranging from 28.4°C to 33.7 °C, CO2 emissions from 302.9 ppm to 416.2 ppm, and relative humidity from 34.1% to 41.2%, it is found that the UHI impact in Tirana is significant. The lack of green spaces, high building density, urban patterns, building materials used, transport, and energy use are the main contributors to the UHI in central Tirana. Increasing green spaces, using reflective materials, and promoting sustainable urban design are some of the mitigation techniques suggested to reduce the UHI effect in Tirana. (shrink)

In 1601 certain Jesuits in Alcalá de Henares defended the following thesis: «It is not by faith that we confess that this man, for example, Clement VIII, is Pope.» During 1602 this fact became known in Rome and the Pope urged that the Spanish Inquisition imprison these Jesuits. To defend themselves, they alleged that the thesis was not unusual among scholars, indicating the names of several authors who defended it, among them, the eminent professor emeritus of Salamanca Domingo Báñez. However, (...) he convened an academic act in Valladolid on July 2, 1602 to show that his position was not such. Shortly thereafter, the Jesuits held another event in the same town to challenge the thesis of their coreligionists, underscoring their opposition even more than Báñez. New, partly unknown material on the subject is copied in these pages: the letters from the nuncio to the head of the Vatican State, with annotations written by the Pope, and a letter from the King of Spain to his ambassador; the complete text of the theses defended by Báñez and by the Jesuits in July 1602, as well as two unpublished letters from Báñez on the occasion of his act, one to the master general of his Order and the other to the Pope. (shrink)

In the heart of southeast Texas, an industrial powerhouse often referred to as the 'Golden Triangle', the oil refineries and petrochemical plants stand as stalwart testaments to the region's economic evolution. Interestingly, before the discovery of oil at Spindletop, the lumber and cattle industries powered this region's economy. A profound shift occurred when the Lucas Gusher, a fountain of oil spurting thousands of feet into the air, struck the lands of Spindletop Hill on January 10, 1901. This remarkable discovery of (...) the Spindletop oilfield on a slat dome formation south of Beaumont, Texas, marked the birth of the modern petroleum industry and fundamentally transformed the region's geopolitical, economic, and cultural landscapes. People from all over the country relocated to Gladys City and Beaumont in search of work and new opportunities, creating a boomtown as the town's population swelled from 10,000 to 50,000. The newfound urbanization brought by the oil industry transformed the town and the surrounding areas, creating a ripple effect across the region that would be felt for generations to come. The surge in oil-driven economic activity transmuted the region into a vibrant nexus of commerce, with the oil industry emerging as a critical architect of growth and advancement. This newfound affluence incited by the petroleum sector ushered in an era of economic diversification, laying the groundwork for industrialization’s further evolution. The Spindletop Oil Fields not only underscored the United States’ ascent as the foremost petroleum-producing nation but also signaled the nation’s initiation into the Petroleum Age. It was Spindletop that solidified its position as America’s first significant oil field, becoming an enduring symbol of its industrial might. By 1985, over 153,000,000 barrels of oil had been produced and extracted from the Spindletop oil fields, underscoring the magnitude of this extraordinary resource. (shrink)

In having an experience one is aware of having it. Having an experience requires some form of access to one's own state, which distinguishes phenomenally conscious mental states from other kinds of mental states. Until very recently, Higher-Order (HO) theories were the only game in town aiming at offering a full-fledged account of this form of awareness within the analytical tradition. Independently of any objections that HO theories face, First/Same-Order (F/SO) theorists need to offer an account of such access (...) to become a plausible alternative. My aim in this paper is twofold. In the first place, I wish to widen the logical space of the discussion among theories of consciousness by offering a distinction, orthogonal to that between F/SO and HO theories, between what I will call 'Self-Involving' (SI) and 'Mental-State-Involving' (MSI) theories and argue in favor of the former one. In the second place, I will present the basics of a characterization of such a Self-Involving theory in Same-Order terms. (shrink)

This volume aimed to highlight narrative identities of European cities or city neighbourhoods that have been overlooked, such as mid-sized cities. These cities are neither small towns nor metropolises, cities that are now unveiling their appeal or specificity. The present special issue thus covers a range of representations of cities. The articles investigate more systematically how different texts deal with various cities from different experiential and fictional perspectives. The issue covers the geographical scope across Europe, from east to west or (...) vice versa, as well as a range of different works of national literature(s), but with a clear emphasis on mid-sized European cities that have until now been deemed as lesser-known, secondary, peripheral, ‘other’ cities that are in the focus of the research of the COST project Writing Urban Places. New Narratives of the European City, within which this journal issue is being published. (shrink)

How should we understand the notion of moral objectivity? Metaethical positions that vindicate morality’s objective appearance are often associated with moral realism. On a realist construal, moral objectivity is understood in terms of mind-, stance-, or attitude-independence. But realism is not the only game in town for moral objectivists. On an antirealist construal, morality’s objective features are understood in virtue of our attitudes. In this paper I aim to develop this antirealist construal of moral objectivity in further detail, and (...) to make its metaphysical commitments explicit. I do so by building on Sharon Street’s version of “Humean Constructivism”. Instead of the realist notion of attitude-independence, the antirealist account of moral objectivity that I articulate centres on the notion of standpoint-invariance. While constructivists have been criticized for compromising on the issue of moral objectivity, I make a preliminary case for the thesis that, armed with the notion of standpoint-invariance, constructivists have resources to vindicate an account of objectivity with just the right strength, given the commitments of ordinary moral thought and practice. In support of this thesis I highlight recent experimental findings about folk moral objectivism. Empirical observations about the nature of moral discourse have traditionally been taken to give prima facie support to moral realism. I argue, by contrast, that from what we can tell from our current experimental understanding, antirealists can capture the commitments of ordinary discourse at least as well as realists can. (shrink)

Representationalists hold that perceptual experience is a conscious representational state with content, something which is accurate or inaccurate in certain conditions. The most common version of Representationalism takes perceptual content to be singular in the object-place and otherwise consisting of attribution of properties (Singularism/Attributionism). Schellenberg has recently developed a version on which perceptual content is singular even in the property-place in containing a de re mode of presentation of a property-instance (Particularism). In this paper, I show that Particularism faces a (...) version of the problem of the Unity of Perceptual Content. Namely, its supporters haven’t told us how objects can be bound together with property-instances into a content such that it represents them and has accuracy-conditions. Furthermore, I argue that Particularists face an in-principle obstacle in solving it. In contrast, Attributionists can solve the problem and that establishes their view as the only game in town. (shrink)

This piece is a comment on Quilty-Dunn, Jake, Nicolas Porot, and Eric Mandelbaum. 2023. “The Best Game in Town: The Reemergence of the Language-of-Thought Hypothesis across the Cognitive Sciences.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 46: e261. -/- The target article signal boosts important ongoing work across the cognitive sciences. However, its theoretical claims, generative value, and purported contributions are – where not simply restatements of arguments extensively explored elsewhere – imprecise, noncommittal, and underdeveloped to a degree that makes them difficult (...) to evaluate. The article's apparent force results from engaging with straw rather than steel opponents. (shrink)

There is an internal connection between ecclesiology, the teaching about the Church that we call academic ecclesiology, and mission, which is the inner heart of the Church and becomes visible through different practices. For the Orthodox Church involved in the ecumenical movement, there is a struggle to balance ecclesiology (theology) with ecumenical mission and dialogue (practice) in a divided Christian world. Nevertheless, the recent Synod of Crete (June 2016) addressed some important elements of this struggle. I have in mind, for (...) example, the act to accept the historical name of other non-Orthodox Christian Churches and Confessions that are not in communion with it. Also, this is the first Synod of the Orthodox Churches in modern times at which ecumenical dialogue, especially in the World Council of Churches, is officially affirmed. Because of mission dialogue has to continue, “if we wish never to ‘put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ’ (1 Cor 9:12).” The present paper highlights those statements of the Holy and Great Council which have direct relevance for discussing the relation of ecclesiology and mission. I assert that we should understand firstly the document Relations of the Orthodox Church with the Rest of the of the Christian World and only then reflect upon The Mission of the Orthodox Church in Today’s World (MOCT). Furthermore, I will make some references to the other texts which were central for this conference: The Cape Town Commitment (CTC), Together Towards Life (TTL) and Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (EG). I conclude by exposing briefly my reflections after reading these mission documents and by formulating some agenda points for further work in theology of mission. (shrink)

The best arguments for a nation-state’s right to exclude unwanted outsiders actually condemn nation-level regimes of restriction. Two argumentative steps lead to this conclusion. The first points out that the best arguments for exclusion generalize: if they show that nation-states have the right to exclude, they perform the same service for a great many towns, cities, subnational states, and provinces. The second step constructs a dilemma. The right to exclude is important enough to justify the suffering of would-be immigrants, or (...) it is not. If it is, the right to exclude is very important indeed–would-be immigrants often suffer grievously. But nation-level regimes would then be a serious moral problem: they would deprive a great many municipalities of a right that matters a great deal. Turning to the dilemma’s second horn, if the right to exclude is not important enough to justify the suffering of would-be immigrants, nation-level regimes are straightforwardly immoral. Either way, we arrive at this paper’s central thesis: the best arguments for a nation-states right to exclude actually condemn nation-level regimes of exclusion. (shrink)

History has left a territory composed of two municipalitics, whose shape is unique, belonging partly to the Netherlands and partly to Belgium. Earlier both parts belonged to the former Duchy of Brabant, a tenitory that is now split up into the Dutch province of Noord-Brabant (including Baarle-Nassau) and thc Belgian provinces of Antwerp (which includes Baarle-Hertog), Vlaams Brabant, Brussels, and Brabant-Wallon. People are quite comfortable with this situation, even though it raises many complicated and difficult problems that even the most (...) brilliant jurists are puzzled. Baarle-Hertog is called on older Belgian maps Barle-Duc (Hertog = Duke, fr: duc) and must not be confused with the prefectoral town of Bar-le-Duc, Meuse, France. (shrink)

"No, your honor. I didn't know who or what he was when I first came across the book -- they don't exactly love him in the synagogue, if you've read the story of his life. I found it in a junkyard in a nearby town, paid a kopek, and left cursing myself for wasting money hard to come by. Later I read through a few pages and kept on going as though there were a whirlwind at my back. As (...) I say, I didn't understand every word but when you're dealing with such ideas you feel as though you were taking a witch's ride. After that I wasn't the same man. That's in a manner of speaking, of course, because I've changed little since my youth.". The speaker is Yakov Bok, the unlikely hero of Bernard Malamud's The Fixer. At this point, early in the novel, Yakov speaks truthfully when he says that he has changed little since his youth. But over the next two and a half years (the time-period covered in the novel), he will undergo profound change and impressive moral growth. He suffers; he learns; he grows. Spinoza's name and ideas appear again and again at crucial moments in the course of the hero's moral development. Yakov Bok's verbal account of Spinoza's ideas is often comically primitive, but his understanding far outstrips his ability to articulate. By the end of the novel, his sufferings have led him to a deep grasp of certain of Spinoza's ethical and political doctrines. (shrink)

We investigate the morphosyntax of qualitative binominal constructions (QBCs) in a Southern Italo-Romance language from the Apulian town of San Marco in Lamis. QBCs are complex noun phrases like ‘a jewelN1 of a villageN2’, appearing here prepositionally (with the preposition də, ‘of’, allowing definites, indefinites, and demonstratives) and non-prepositionally (only allowing definites with definite articles and not proper names). We propose that in the latter, a categorial match in the determiner layer, which we call ‘match D’, relates N1 and (...) N2. N1 is embedded as a noun, allowing for: 1) the recursive DP strategy of non-prepositional genitives, and 2) the extension of this mechanism to QBCs. This leads to the impossibility of syntactic extraction, which we connect to the concept of phase. With non-denominal N1s, N1’s article is treated as a head-agreeing adjectival linker, forming a constituent with the modifier but agreeing with the head. A phrase is interpreted as a QBC if N1 and N2 share the same number features and if the features of N1 do not allow for it to be interpreted as the possessum of N2 . We also discuss external agreement with the construction, presenting data supporting the relevance of the [+HUMAN] feature for agreement relations. (forthcoming, Italian Journal of Linguistics). (shrink)

‘Eruv’ is a Hebrew word meaning literally ‘mixture’ or ‘mingling’. An eruv is an urban region demarcated within a larger urban region by means of a boundary made up of telephone wires or similar markers. Through the creation of the eruv, the smaller region is turned symbolically (halachically = according to Jewish law) into a private domain. So long as they remain within the boundaries of the eruv, Orthodox Jews may engage in activities that would otherwise be prohibited on the (...) Sabbath, such as pushing prams or wheelchairs, or carrying walking sticks. There are eruvim in many towns and university campuses throughout the world. There are five eruvim in Chicago, five in Brooklyn, twenty three in Queens and Long Island, and at least three in Manhattan. The US Supreme Court is (like most other major US Federal Government buildings) located within the eruv of Washington DC. In many cases, not all of those living within or near the area of an actual or proposed eruv will themselves be Orthodox Jews, and this has sometimes led to protests against eruv creation. It is such protests which triggered the writing of this essay. (shrink)

Mobile phones are part of a major growth industry in so-called Third World countries. As in other places, the use of this technology changes communication behaviour. The influence of these changes on indigenous social structures was investigated with a mixed-type questionnaire that targeted parameters such as: in-group vs. out-group communication, involvement with dominant industrial culture and the use of financial resources. Data was collected from indigenous representatives at the United Nations, as well as in Africa from subjects of various cultural (...) backgrounds, and from a control group in Berlin. The results reflect widespread use of mobile phones among indigenous persons, having a segregating effect within the indigenous community, but also enhancing ingroup communication and especially the use of the indigenous language. Mobile phones also facilitate moves from village to town, with the opportunity of frequently communicating with other in-group members. (shrink)

As the philosophy of policing shifts from a traditional to a community-based approach, its implementation needs to be assessed. The study determined the program implementation of community-oriented policing in the town of Dumingag Zamboanga del Sur and its effectiveness in crime reduction from 2014 to 2018. The study employed a descriptive-survey method with the questionnaire-checklist as the main instrument used in gathering the data and information. The survey questionnaire underwent an evaluation process by field expert and tested using Cronbach’s (...) alpha. Weighted Arithmetic Mean, Percentage and ANOVA were the statistical tools used in the data analyses. The participants were PNP, residents, and Barangay Officials of Dumingag, Zamboanga del Sur. The results showed that PNP and Barangay officials perceived that the extent of community- oriented policing in Dumingag was implemented without lapses. However, residents rated that the implementation has minimal lapses. The study also revealed that there was a reduction of crimes committed for the past five years of the implementation. The result shows a significant difference among the perceived extent of implementation of the three groups of respondents. (shrink)

Dâwûd al-Qarisî (Dâvûd al-Karsî) was a versatile and prolific 18th century Ottoman scholar who studied in İstanbul and Egypt and then taught for long years in various centers of learning like Egypt, Cyprus, Karaman, and İstanbul. He held high esteem for Mehmed Efendi of Birgi (Imâm Birgivî/Birgili, d.1573), out of respect for whom, towards the end of his life, Karsî, like Birgivî, occupied himself with teaching in the town of Birgi, where he died in 1756 and was buried next (...) to Birgivî. Better known for his following works on Arabic language and rhetoric and on the prophetic traditions (hadith): Sharḥu uṣûli’l-ḥadîth li’l-Birgivî; Sharḥu’l-Ḳaṣîdati’n-nûniyya (two commentaries, in Arabic and Turkish); Şarḥu’l-Emsileti’l-mukhtalifa fi’ṣ-ṣarf (two commentaries, in Arabic and Turkish); Sharḥu’l-Binâʾ; Sharḥu’l-ʿAvâmil; and Sharḥu İzhâri’l-asrâr, Karsî has actually composed textbooks in quite different fields. Hence the hundreds of manuscript copies of his works in world libraries. Many of his works were also recurrently printed in the Ottoman period. One of the neglected aspects of Karsî is his identity as a logician. Although he authored ambitious and potent works in the field of logic, this aspect of him has not been subject to modern studies. Even his bibliography has not been established so far (with scattered manuscript copies of his works and incomplete catalogue entries). This article primarily and in a long research based on manuscript copies and bibliographic sources, identifies twelve works on logic that Karsî has authored. We have clarified the works that are frequently mistaken for each other, and, especially, have definitively established his authorship of a voluminous commentary on al-Kâtibî’s al-Shamsiyya, of which commentary a second manuscript copy has been identified and described together with the other copy. Next is handled his most famous work of logic, the Sharhu Îsâghûcî, which constitutes an important and assertive ring in the tradition of commentaries on Îsâghûcî. We describe in detail the nine manuscript copies of this work that have been identified in various libraries. The critical text of Karsî’s Sharhu Îsâghûcî, whose composition was finished on 5 March 1745, has been prepared based on the following four manuscripts: (1) MS Kayseri Raşid Efendi Kütüphanesi, No. 857, ff.1v-3v, dated 1746, that is, only one year after the composition of the work; (2) MS Bursa İnebey Yazma Eser Kütüphanesi, Genel, No.794B, ff.96v-114v, dated 1755; (3) MS Millet Kütüphanesi, Ali Emiri Efendi Arapça, No. 1752, ff.48v-58r, dated 1760; (4) MS Beyazıt Yazma Eser Kütüphanesi, Beyazıt, No. 3129, ff.41v-55v, dated 8 March 1772. While preparing the critical text, we have applied the Center for Islamic Studies (İslam Araştırmaları Merkezi, İSAM)’s method of optional text choice. The critical text is preceded by a content analysis. Karsî is well aware of the preceding tradition of commentary on Îsâghûcî, and has composed his own commentary as a ‘simile’ or alternative to the commentary by Mollâ Fanârî which was famous and current in his own day. Karsî’s statement “the commentary in one day and one night” is a reference to Mollâ Fanârî who had stated that he started writing his commentary in the morning and finished it by the evening. Karsî, who spent long years in the Egyptian scholarly and cultural basin, adopted the religious-sciences-centered ‘instrumentalist’ understanding of logic that was dominant in the Egypt-Maghrib region. Therefore, no matter how famous they were, he criticized those theoretical, long, and detailed works of logic which mingled with philosophy; and defended and favored authoring functional and cogent logic texts that were beneficial, in terms of religious sciences, to the seekers of knowledge and the scholars. Therefore, in a manner not frequently encountered in other texts of its kind, he refers to the writings and views of Muhammad b. Yûsuf al-Sanûsî (d.1490), the great representative of this logical school in the Egyptian-Maghrib region. Where there is divergence between the views of the ‘earlier scholars’ (mutaqaddimûn) like Ibn Sînâ and his followers and the ‘later scholars’ (muta’akhkhirûn), i.e., post-Fakhr al-dîn al-Râzî logicians, Karsî is careful to distance himself from partisanship, preferring sometimes the views of the earliers, other times those of the laters. For instance, on the eight conditions proposed for the realization of contradiction, he finds truth to be with al-Fârâbî, who proposed “unity in the predicative attribution” as the single condition for the realization of contradiction. Similarly, on the subject matter of Logic, he tried to reconcile the mutaqaddimûn’s notion of ‘second intelligibles’ with the muta’akhkhirûn’s notion of ‘apprehensional and declarational knowledge,’ suggesting that not much difference exists between the two, on the grounds that both notions are limited to the aspect of ‘known things that lead to the knowledge of unknown things.’ Karsî asserts that established and commonly used metaphors have, according to the verifying scholars, signification by correspondence (dalâlat al-mutâbaqah), adding also that it should not be ignored that such metaphors may change from society to society and from time to time. Karsî also endorses the earlier scholars’ position concerning the impossibility of quiddity (mâhiyya) being composed of two co-extensive parts, and emphasizes that credit should not be given to later scholars’ position who see it possible. According to the verifying scholars (muhaqqîqûn), it is possible to make definition (hadd) by mentioning only difference (fasl), in which case it becomes an imperfect definition (hadd nâqis). He is of the opinion that the definition of the proposition (qadiyya) in al-Taftâzânî’s Tahdhîb is clearer and more complete: “a proposition is an expression that bears the possibility of being true or false”. He states that in the division of proposition according to quantity what is taken into consideration is the subject (mawdû‘) in categorical propositions, and the temporal aspect of the antecedent (muqaddam) in hypothetical propositions. As for the unquantified, indefinite proposition (qadiyya muhmalah), Karsî assumes that if it is not about the problems of the sciences, then it is virtually/potentially a particular proposition (qadiyya juz’iyyah); but if it is about the problems of the sciences, then it is virtually/potentially a universal proposition (qadiyya kulliyyah). This being the general rule about the ambiguous (muhmal) propositions, he nevertheless contends that, because its subject (mawdû‘) is negated, it is preferable to consider a negative ambiguous (sâliba muhmalah) proposition like “human (insân) is not standing” to be a virtually/potentially universal negative (sâliba kulliyyâh) proposition. He states that a disjunctive hypothetical proposition (shartiyya al-munfasila) that is composed of more than two parts/units is only seemingly so, and that in reality it cannot be composed of more than two units. Syllogism (qiyâs), according to Karsî, is the ultimate purpose (al-maqsad al-aqsâ) and the most valuable subject-matter of the science of Logic. For him, the entire range of topics that are handled before this one are only prolegomena to it. This approach of Karsî clearly reveals how much the ‘demonstration (burhân)-centered’ approach of the founding figures of the Muslim tradition of logic like al-Fârâbî and Ibn Sînâ has changed. al-Abharî, in his Îsâghûjî makes no mention of ‘conversion by contradiction’ (‘aks al-naqîd). Therefore, Karsî, too, in his commentary, does not touch upon the issue. However, in his Îsâghûjî al-jadîd Karsî does handle the conversion by contradiction and its rules. Following the method of Îsâghûjî, in his commentary Karsî shortly touches on the four figures (shakl) of conjuctive syllogism (qiyâs iqtirânî) and their conditions, after which he passes to the first figure (shakl), which is considered ‘the balance of the sciences’ (mi‘yâr al-‘ulûm), explaining the four moods (darb) of it. In his Îsâghûjî al-jadîd, however, Karsî handles all the four figures (shakl) with all their related moods (darb), where he speaks of fife moods (darb) of the fourth figure (shakl). The topic of ‘modal propositions’ (al-muwajjahât) and of ‘modal syllogism’ (al-mukhtalitât), both of which do not take place in the Îsâghûjî, are not mentioned by Karsî as well, either in his commentary on Îsâghûjî or in his Îsâghûjî al-jadîd. Karsî proposes that the certainties (yaqîniyyât), of which demonstration (burhân) is made, have seven, not six, divisions. After mentioning (1) axioms/first principles (awwaliyyât), (2) observata/sensuals (mushâhadât), (3) experta/empiricals (mujarrabât), (4) acumenalia (hadthiyyât), (5) testata (mutawâtirât), and (6) instictives (fitriyyât), that is, all the ‘propositions accompanied by their demonstrations,’ Karsî states that these six divisions, which do not need research and reflection (nazar), are called badîhiyyât (self-evidents), and constitute the foundations (usûl) of certainties (yaqîniyyât). As the seventh division he mentions (7) the nazariyyât (theoreticals), which are known via the badîhiyyât, end up in them, and therefore convey certainty (yaqîn). For Karsî, the nazariyyât/theoreticals, which constitute the seventh division of yaqîniyyât/certainties, are too numerous, and constitute the branches (far‘) of yaqîniyyât. Every time the concept of ‘Mughâlata’ (sophistry) comes forth in the traditional sections on the five arts usually appended to logic works, Karsî often gives examples from what he sees as extreme sûfî sayings, lamenting that these expressions are so widespread and held in esteem. He sometimes criticizes these expressions. However, it is observed that he does not reject tasawwuf in toto, but excludes from his criticism the mystical views and approaches of the truth-abiding (ahl al-haqq), shârî‘â-observant (mutasharri‘) leading sufis who have reached to the highest level of karâmah. (shrink)

This article outlines an integrally informed model for addictionon treatment and recover that is being pioneered and developed at Tabankulu Secondary Addiction Recovery Center in Cape Town, South Africa. Tabankulu is the world’s first inpatient Addictionon treatment center to implement an integrally informed treatment model. The Integrated Recovery model is a comprehensive, balanced, multi-phased, and multi-disciplinary approach to the treatment of and recovery from addiction. Its philosophy is derived from integrang a 12 Step abstinence-based methodology, mindfulness-based interventions, positive psychology, (...) and Integral Theory. The case is made that addictionon treatment facilities, therapists working with this population, and recovering addicts will become more proficient, effective, and consequently have higher success rates by becoming integrally informed. (shrink)

Are science and religion compatible when it comes to understanding cosmology (the origin of the universe), biology (the origin of life and of the human species), ethics, and the human mind (minds, brains, souls, and free will)? Do science and religion occupy non-overlapping magisteria? Is Intelligent Design a scientific theory? How do the various faith traditions view the relationship between science and religion? What, if any, are the limits of scientific explanation? What are the most important open questions, problems, or (...) challenges confronting the relationship between science and religion, and what are the prospects for progress? These and other questions are explored in Science and Religion: 5 Questions--a collection of thirty-three interviews based on 5 questions presented to some of the world's most influential and prominent philosophers, scientists, theologians, apologists, and atheists. Contributions by Simon Blackburn, Susan Blackmore, Sean Carroll, William Lane Craig, William Dembski, Daniel C. Dennett, George F.R. Ellis, Owen Flanagan, Owen Gingerich, Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, John F. Haught, Muzaffar Iqbal, Lawrence Krauss, Colin McGinn, Alister McGrath, Mary Midgley, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Timothy O'Connor, Massimo Pigliucci, John Polkinghorne, James Randi, Alex Rosenberg, Michael Ruse, Robert John Russell, John Searle, Michael Shermer, Victor J. Stenger, Robert Thurman, Michael Tooley, Charles Townes, Peter van Inwagen, Keith Ward, Rabbi David Wolpe. (shrink)

Abstract – This study aimed primarily to determine the effectiveness of crime prevention strategies implemented by the Salug Valley Philippine National Police (PNP) in terms of Police Integrated Patrol System, Barangay Peacekeeping Operation, Anti-Criminality Operation, Integrated Area Community Public Safety services, Bantay Turista and School Safety Project as evaluated by 120 inhabitants and 138 PNP officers from four Municipalities of Salug Valley Zamboanga del Sur. Stratified random sampling was utilized in determining the respondents. Index crime rate were correlated with the (...) crime prevention strategies of the PNP in town of Salug Valley. A descriptive method of research was applied in this study utilizing self-made questionnaire. The data collected were analyzed using the main statistical tools like frequency count, percentage, mean computation, Kruskal Wallis Analysis of Variance and simple correlation. Findings of the study revealed that the crime prevention strategies in four (4) municipalities were “much effective” to include Integrated Patrol System, Barangay Peace Keeping Operations, Anti-Criminality Operations, Integrated Area Community Public Safety Services, Bantay Turista and School Safety Project in connection to the responses of 158 participants. There is a significant relationship between crime prevention strategies employed and index crime rate. (shrink)

Once known as the city of silk, Suzhou 苏州 has become the centre of wedding dress production, selling paradise on earth for one day, including copies of the last royal wedding dress, out of shops at the foot of mythic Tiger Hill. Suzhou is also the host of what is known as the Silicon Valley of the East. It has attracted millions of migrants searching for a better future; millions of tourists visit every year to experience the past, strolling through (...) the gardens and courtyards of its Old Town. The contrasts could hardly be more apparent. Slow time, and fast time, and the time of the in-between, are woven into the city’s complex spatial fabric. This is a conversation by eight authors in eight frames on a city that connects them. (shrink)

The current and the next issues of “Spazio Filosofico”, both devoted to Festival (Festival I and II respectively), are dedicated to Ugo Perone on the occasion of his 70th birthday. Perone’s friends and colleagues have chosen to celebrate his birthday in a philosophical way, namely, with a reflection on the concept of festival/holiday [festa] and its meaning for us today. Thrifty spirits might object that a journal issue is like a gift – one is enough. Are these not times of (...) economic crisis? There is no real festival, however, without a Zugabe: without an addition, an encore, or a supplement. Hence, two issues, both devoted to a single concept. The choice of the theme has not been accidental – the concept of “festival/holiday” plays in fact an important role in Perone’s thought. In an essay that is often quoted in various contributions to the two issues, Perone understands the pair of concepts “ultimate/penultimate,” which has been discussed by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in terms of “holidays/everydayness.” For Bonhoeffer, God is present not where human abilities fail but rather “at the center of the village.” Likewise, for Perone, the square, which is the “symbol for the holiday time,” is the center of town. It is even, “at the same time, the center of town and its interruption.” . (shrink)

Jeanette Edwards did fieldwork in the English town of Bacup. Why do fieldwork there? She writes that she is often asked this, whereas the question is unlikely to be asked of an anthropologist who does fieldwork in Papua New Guinea, because it is “axiomatically” an acceptable place for fieldwork. I present two responses to Edwards’ thinking, one of which concerns an asymmetry in how “skeptics” present their questions.

June 2022 A Revolutionary New Metaphysics, Based on Consciousness, and a Call to All Philosophers We are in a unique moment of our history unlike any previous moment ever. Virtually all human economies are based on the destruction of the Earth, and we are now at a place in our history where we can foresee if we continue on as we are, our own extinction. As I write, the planet is in deep trouble, heat, fires, great storms, and record flooding, (...) weather patterns drastic everywhere. Capitalism has been so successful in supplying us with an endless array of consumer items, that we have never noticed there is a cost. But there is a cost, the cost is the very life of the Earth herself, and now the day of reckoning is here. Days of reckoning are most often days of rath. But I am hoping that this is a day of major Awakening over the entire planet. We have caused a crisis so great for the Earth we can hardly get our minds around it. But I am proposing that deeply embedded in the crisis are ideas, about who and what the Earth is, Ourselves, and what we are here for. I am proposing that this is a call to all philosophy and philosophers to rethink ourselves from the ground up. The human race has never gotten the Earth right and now we must, for the Earth is the true foundation for civilization. We are in deep trouble with the Earth, and it owes to the fact that the great male thinkers never got the Earth right, they could never make the connection between the life of mind and the life of the Earth. I am proposing that deeply embedded in the crisis we are in are ideas. And that in fact the planet is in the grip of a false metaphysics, and scientific image of nature that really comes most recently from Descartes. His conviction that matter, and with it the Earth, are simply the weighable, the measurable the extended in space and time, utterly devoid of any inner life of mind thoughts or Consciousness. This view of matter and the Earth goes back to the very dawn of thought, Descartes is just its most recent and comprehensive version of things. This view of matter is really a false metaphysics that dominates most of the modern world and underpins the whole scientific image of nature itself. I am proposing this is a false metaphysics and offering a new version of things based on Consciousness. If there is a single idea fueling and driving the destruction of the planet, it is the conviction that the Earth is something without Consciousness. When you intend to ravage and savage the planet, turn it into consumer items to be converted into money in the bank, first pretend that all of the bright beings in the natural world are devoid of Consciousness, just “things” you do not have to have any conscious about destroying them. I am proposing that this term Consciousness, that has appeared as term and a problem for modern science, is the key to getting ourselves right with the Earth. I propose this new theory for science will ramify into every other disciplines as well, and the ways we think just about everything. This old paradigm based on a false theory of matter, has run its course, it has brought us to the brink of our own extinction. We need new ideas, and we need them now. You will find my recent work in the Scientific God Journal under the title: Consciousness as the Organizing Principle, and a very complete version of my arguments for this term Consciousness, along with radical reinterpretation of modern science itself, on the Galileo Commission site. It is a radical moment for all of the thinkers among us, take this as my small contribution to rethinking ourselves in new terms, based on my understanding that the true basis for the whole of Being, the Universe, the Cosmos, and with them Ourselves, is this term Consciousness. And unpack it. And I predict that with this term Consciousness every intractable human problem in both science and the modern world will go down like a line of dominos before it. And so, here are a few new ideas I would offer you. These are the times of the Reappearance of the Feminine, a great Awakening as of Springtime after a long dark and lonely Winter. We are leaving behind us an old civilization based on male dominance, fear lies and control, now in decay, disease, and death disintegrating all around us. We are moving into a whole new civilization based on Love and Truth. A new civilization requires new basic terms values and first principles. And so, I return to Descartes. 1. Just over 300 years ago a young man travelling with the army found himself stranded in a foreign town in a bare room lit by a candle with nothing to do but think. And in a couple of nights Descartes laid the entire thought foundations for modern science and most of the modern world. It isn’t clear that modern philosophers with their funding sources of grants, their graduate students, their reputation and all the perks and privileges of academia can do any better. Descartes claimed there are just two principles in the Universe, Matter and Mind. God was pure mind; human beings were mind and matter. And we are the only ones on the planet with mind. Everything else all of the bright array of beings who share the planet with us are simply matter. And matter? The weighable the measurable the extended in space and time utterly devoid of any inner life of thoughts, feelings, or Consciousness This classification was a boon for developing science. Scientists did not have to worry about any inner life in nature, ideas or Consciousness, they could just set about weighing and measuring, as they have until the present day. But it was a disaster for the Earth. Earth was once worshiped as a Goddess. With Descartes she became almost overnight “things.” Simply commodities and resources, an endless of supply of consumer items, to be turned into money in the bank. And now Descartes concept of matter is up for us. If there is a single idea that is enabling and driving the destruction of the Earth, it is the conviction that Earth is something without Consciousness. This whole scientific image of nature as something devoid of Consciousness is driving the destruction of the Earth, and driving us all insane, and it needs to change. Ever since Descartes formulated Dualism, scientists and philosophers have been trying to get rid of it. They have done this by attempting to make matter the fundamental term of reality, and to explain mind or Consciousness in terms of matter. And now, Consciousness has emerged as term and a problem for modern science. 2. The prevailing Universe picture has been mainly based on the belief that Consciousness appears only at the end of evolution in ourselves and some of the higher animals when matter attains “a certain state of complexity” and it is produced by neurons in the brain. But Consciousness is nothing real in itself, the neurons are doing the work, Consciousness is simply a byproduct of neural activity. As William James summed up this position, not his: Consciousness is to the brain as a shadow to the runner, it runs beside him but never influences his stride. And so, the great problem of neuroscience: How do neurons produce Consciousness? So far, no one has been able to say how. All we have is parallelism. Two processes are running in parallel a train of neural events and a train of Consciousness events. And so, which one is primary? The face of neuroscience and much of the modern world is that the neural events are what is really real, Consciousness is secondary. The conviction that Consciousness is something produced by neurons is so deeply held and has been so for so long, that it seems like an obvious fact. It is in fact an assumption and a theory, and it could all well be the other way around. The scientific image of nature as something devoid of Consciousness is now up for us. It has enabled the destruction of the Earth, and we are now at a unique place in our own evolution where we can foresee if we continue on as we are, our own extinction. And so, there are the best reasons for rethinking Descartes concepts of matter. Scientists and philosophers have been trying to escape dualism by making matter the fundamental term. And now, this has not worked. In a nutshell: The mind body problem, the “hard problem of Consciousness” ---how do neurons in the brain, atoms and molecules give rise to ideas thoughts and feelings and who what and where is the “I” who sees them? And then, the near-death experience. I remind you of the truth of the near-death experience. The body in the bed is brain dead eeg flat, but the patient, pure Consciousness is hovering at the ceiling watching the doctors work over the body below, able to read dials he could not have seen from the bed, sometimes able to events in the corridor beyond the room, all subsequently confirmed by the doctors. Evidence as good as it gets that the patient really was out of his body. And so, the patient is able to see without eyes, hear without ears and to think and remember without a brain. There is not a single scientific principle that can account for this. And I am proposing that the near-death experience is a threshold and a key for a much deeper understanding of the Universe. These three problems are so hard they cannot be solved by present scientific principles and therefore call all present principles and ways of thought into question. When your axioms cannot account for the data, it is time to drop them and find better fundamental terms. We have not been able to solve the problems of Consciousness with the assumption that matter is the most basic and fundamental term. And so, if Cartesian dualism is to be overcome at all, we need to try it the other way around. 3. We are in the position of Copernicus. Remember Copernicus? He was making his calculations on the assumption that the Earth was the center of the Universe until they became so unwieldy that he decided to try it all the other way around. To make the sun the center, the Earth revolving around it. And lo, all of his data fell neatly into place. I am proposing a whole new Universe picture. Evolution makes us continuous with every other being, Consciousness would not be in us if it were not in them also, and then, in the atoms and molecules and cells that make up living beings. I propose to make Consciousness the most basic term and see what follows. I am in fact, proposing a new Copernican Revolution, that Consciousness is the true basis for the Universe and the right fundamental term, for science itself all other disciplines as well, and the whole of the modern world. And I predict that every intractable problem in science or the modern world, will go down like a line of dominos before it. In a nutshell: Consciousness and not matter is “first and fundamental” in the Universe, it is there from the very “Beginning” everything has it and all of the true causalities, the explanatory principles belong to it. Not to matter. What then is matter? All matter is an Appearance of something much more real, Consciousness. All matter is an expression of Consciousness, even the least little bit of matter contains Consciousness, and is an expression of Consciousness. And so, we revise the scientific image of nature. Science at present is two termed, matter/energy. It needs to become three termed: Matter/energy/Consciousness, with the recognition that all of the basic principles, the true causalities of events, and of the Universe belong to Consciousness. And now physics. To accommodate this new Universe picture physics needs to alter just one term, energy. All energy contains Consciousness, that idea alone will change our world forever. The animals the trees the plants are just as conscious as we are, as is the Earth herself, a continuum of many forms of Consciousness of which our own is one. The Earth consists of interacting and intersecting forms of Consciousness, Consciousness within Consciousness within Consciousness within Consciousness. A remarkable work has just appeared entitled “Beyond Words What Animals Feel and Think.” Describing in detail how like ourselves all of the animals are. And the more we can see how like us everything else really is, the harder it will be for us to do them all in, in the interest of turning them into consumer items. And so, here is a new principle of understanding, that entails completely new forms of explanation, and a whole new Universe picture to be spelled out in terms of Consciousness and its various properties. This is a Universe that is aware awake and Enspirited throughout. And so, there is only one principle, not two. And so, how does Consciousness work? There is “no mind/body problem.” My Consciousness is aligning the Consciousness of neurons in the brain, that aligns the Consciousness of all other cells in the body, that aligns the Consciousness of molecules and atoms themselves. Mainly from the top down, but also interactive, and not reduction to the purely physical forces. 4. And so, here is a radical new Universe picture, and with it a new way to think about the Universe itself, the Earth, Ourselves, and Spirit. It requires a complete revision of both of the terms of modern science itself. The problem of the modern world owes in deep measure to Descartes concept of matter as something devoid of interior life. But he is only the most powerful and simple expression of a whole tradition of thought that predates him, that goes back to the very dawn of thought itself. It owes to the conviction of both Plato and Aristotle that the Earth was something devoid of reason, or mind, and therefore something to be held in complete contempt. We are emerging from a civilization based on contempt for the Earth, and down the road, it will become contempt for the body, sex, women, the Native people, and people of color everywhere. And so, this entire tradition is now up for us, it has brought us to the brink of our own extinction, and we need to get beyond it. I am proposing that this term Consciousness is the way out. The missing piece of the puzzle and the idea whose time has come. And it will enable us to move into a completely new civilization based on respect for the Earth, women, sex, people of color, that honors everyone and has a place for all. Revolutions in science occur when new data show up that cannot be accounted for by existing paradigms (Thomas Kuhns: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions). Consciousness, and all the properties and problems of Consciousness are just such data, and they compel a new scientific revolution. But we are a scientific age. A new Copernican revolution in science is such as revolution everywhere. And Consciousness is the key to getting every other reality at all levels and depths right as well. It will enable us finally to get the Earth right, get ourselves right with the Earth, and with one another. Archimedes: Give me a place to stand, and I will move the world. I am proposing a new synthesis among our fundamental terms in which this term Consciousness is the new lynchpin. And so, I return once more to Descartes. Descartes in the Mediations was a dualist, they were two realities interacting in the pineal gland mind and body. But Descartes age was high on “Cartesianisms,” on Descartes concept of matter. Animals were simply cleverly wired machines (Hobbes called them automata). Rumor had it that Descartes followers went about kicking dogs reasoning that their howls were not due to any feelings of pain, but simply the wiring of the machine. We have been doing this to the Earth ever since, and now the Earth is not going to stand for it any longer. It is time we all woke up. There is no matter in Descartes sense of it, or in Plato and Aristotle’s sense of it. This old concept of matter is embedded in all of the crisis and catastrophes---fires, drought, pandemics, over population, the disintegrating economies, our ways of life, capitalism and consumerism themselves. All matter is Enspirited, contains Consciousness, and is an expression of Consciousness. Now I tell you something about Descartes you may not know. In the Mediations was a dualist, there are minds and bodies. But by the end of his life, he knew the truth. Descartes guided his whole life by these vivid dreams, and toward the end of his life he had this dream: He saw the Universe as a giant machine and in the heart of the machine propelling the whole, was Consciousness. And so, out of the shades and shadows and into the light of day. Here is a renewed and a new science, a new cosmology. And with it, a revolutionary new metaphysics. The whole of the modern world is in the grip of a false metaphysics, based on Descartes theory of matter. Here is a new, and finally true metaphysics based on the single term, Consciousness. 5. And in all my works, I spell out this new metaphysics based on Consciousness, and what it means for how we think about virtually everything: The Universe, the Earth, Ourselves, and Spirit. Of who, what and where Spirit is, that we may connect with Spirit everywhere. There is only one term for the Universe, and not two, this single term Consciousness, that manifests itself in two modes: Consciousness in Form, Consciousness Formless. And so, here is a sketch of what this new term Consciousness really means. For four great aspects of the real, four new cornerstones for a whole new civilization on Earth, based on Love and Truth. A. For the Universe: New causalities, all matter is an expression of Consciousness, awake and aware, Enspirited throughout, which has a place for the causalities of love ideas intent plan and purpose, what Aristotle called final causality, that for the sake of which. And it has a place for subjectivity, the greatest mystery in the whole of the Universe, knowable only in ourselves, but there in everything else as well, bedrock in the chain of causalities. The buck stops here. Here are two very different Universe pictures. The Cartesian Universe consists of things, pushed, and pulled around by the physical forces that function blind. The true Universe consists of selves and not things. Selves at least in ourselves, are organized and focused about an I, an I am, or a sense of self in everything, ever other being dear to itself. Just one aspect of subjectivity. And so, it is Consciousness all the way down, and subjectivity all the way down. Science proceeds on the basis of the negligible of what it can leave out as unimportant. Subjectivity is the ultimate animating principle of the Universe. What Descartes really did was to strip from nature what is most essential about it, its animating principle Consciousness. And so, we come out of a long history of “clunk.” The great male thinkers have killed creation. First in concepts and now in the lived life. And so, after centuries of fruitless search, not all of it in vain, finally, and just in time the true basic principle for the Universe has shown up in virtually all disciplines, this term Consciousness. B. And so, the Earth: What does this term Consciousness really mean for the Earth? It means that all of the bright array of beings around us have Consciousness. And the more we can realize how like us they are, the harder it will be to do them all in. Is this what it really means to be “made in the image of Spirit?” To destroy ever other living being? The god of Genesis is a creator god who has created billions and billions of living forms. Man, taking himself to be made in the image of Spirit has destroyed virtually all of it. The Earth is not things, not commodities and resources, not an endless array of consumer goods. The Earth consists of conscious living spiritual beings like ourselves, who need to be honored and respected, nurtured and cared for, to be Loved. And if the human race can finally pull it off and bring Love here and start helping the Earth rather than destroying her, even our vast numbers now at 8 billion, may not matter. Deeply embedded in the modern world is a false cosmology based on the hitherto useful but ultimately false metaphysics of Descartes. In particular it owes to Descartes concepts of matter, and of the Earth, as something devoid of Consciousness. And now this concept is up for us. If there is a single idea enabling and driving the destruction of the planet, it is the conviction that the Earth is something devoid of Consciousness. And we all have a vested interest in keeping this false concept in place. When you intend to ravage and savage the Earth, to turn it into consumer items, and money in the bank, first pretend she has no Consciousness that way we need not have any conscious about it. We are in deep trouble with the planet. Virtually all human economies are based on the destruction of the Earth, and we are now at a place in our history where we can foresee if we continue on as we are, our own extinction. And so, here are a few new guiding principles for the planet, based on Consciousness. Consciousness has field properties. The Earth is Consciousness throughout, connected and interconnected throughout, intersecting and interacting fields of Consciousness of which our own is one. To harm one is to harm all. Only this understanding of the Earth can set our destructive technologies, and capitalism, their goals, and their limits. The real problem with capitalism, and with civilization itself is it has no true understanding of the Earth, all the exquisite networks and webworks that connect all beings with one another. Nor it is about to admit that the Earth is our “life support system,” reason gone insane in the modern world. We are destroying our life support system, capitalism is the full expression of the human death wish in the modern world, and it needs to change. And now, let the barriers between ourselves and all other beings go down. C. And so, Ourselves. This new Universe picture based on Consciousness opens into and has a place for new concepts of human identity. In particular, it has a place for reincarnation, a process whereby one Consciousness dons’ bodies again and again and lays them down. This is a process wholly impossible on materialistic theories. This new view of things puts a higher perspective on Freudian determinism, which is a partial knowing in a greater account. We are something more than the victims of genes drives and childhood. We are immortally eternal evolving spiritual beings who take on a cycle of earthly lives in order to achieve certain goals and abilities, and then, our earthly cycle complete, we depart the Earth plane for other areas of the Universe physical or purely spiritual, to continue our evolution elsewhere. The scientific evidence for reincarnation is increasing on all sides, see for example the work of Michael Newton, a mainstream scientist forced to confront the fact of reincarnation. A completely new reincarnational picture is now emerging everywhere. We choose our parents for abilities we could acquire through them. We all come here with reasons for being here, and we all have free will, an original property of Consciousness, and we work out our issues accordingly. We all come here with the same reason for being here. It is to experience the Earth plane and human society at all levels and depths, in every social role, every climate, both sexes male and female and in all races. We are all here to acquire a deep understanding of the Earth plane with all its challenges and all of its present problems. We are not here to devour and consume the Earth, but to honor her for the learning experience she makes available for us. And so, reincarnation is the great equalizer, the fundamental basis for any bill of rights. Many of the problems of the modern world owe to the fact that reincarnation has not been taught in the West. Reincarnation was the center piece of Jesus teachings. It was banned by a fourth century council that decided the populous could best be controlled through fear. They edited all mention of reincarnation from the scriptures, and inserted fear terms instead, a judgmental god, and so on. If reincarnation had been taught, there would have been no suppression of women, but the gift of both sexes would have been honored and developed. And there would have been no reason for contempt for people of color because who they are, we have been or will be. There is no reason to look down on anyone when we know that our own identity includes membership in theirs. The truth of reincarnation needs to be the foundation for getting ourselves right with the Earth, and with one another. D. And so, Spirit. This new Universe picture, based on Consciousness, has a place for Spirit as simply Infinite Consciousness. All universes all worlds are formed out of this Consciousness, divine and sacred throughout. And Spirit is everywhere in the Earth and can be connected everywhere. And the Native North American people had things right. Everything has its own Spirit, and without contradiction is also an expression of Spirit. And what I am really doing in terms of concepts of modern science is presenting the Native North American version of the Real. And this new Universe picture has a place for the essential insight of all religions almost smothered by church tradition: Love. Not an emotion but a great Oneness, that can be found everywhere, even in a busy city street. But especially in the Earth, that is levels and depths of Oneness everywhere. And so, for the first time in their long and bitter antagonistic history, science and religion now share a common base with this term Spirit, the lynchpin in a new conceptual framework. And I offer an interpretation of where we are in our history, this present moment of historical grace, and these tumultuous times in which we live, the return of the Goddess and the Divine Feminine, the Reappearance of the Feminine in history, the Advent of Women, this great Awakening, as of Springtime after a long dark Winter, the Awakening, the Second Coming. And so, stay tuned! (shrink)

Jeanette Edwards tells us that she is often asked about why she did fieldwork in the English town of Bacup, whereas she has not heard anthropologists who did fieldwork in Papua New Guinea asked why there. She commits herself to a certain explanation for this: potential inquirers assume that non-Western societies are legitimate objects of study for social anthropology but this is not assumed for Western societies. I propose another explanation: it is not about the legitimacy of the object (...) of study, rather “your” levels of commitment. Would you do that for anthropology? (shrink)

Festival is a performative dimension of cultural praxis that strengthens bonds of cohesion in society. Festivals are also an integral part of religious praxis. They have the potentiality of bringing its adherents and non-adherents together thus creating and sustaining social communion among them. This reality of sustaining social communion confirms an important function of religion in society with particular reference to its social integrative effects. Therefore, this article assesses how religious festival, Christmas, fosters social integration among Igbos in Nigeria. On (...) a related note, many Igbos, see Christmas festival as unique occasion for them to visit their communities; attend meetings of their associations and/or town unions and consolidate family ties. These are opportunities for building social integrations, otherwise denoted as social communion in this research. This work makes use of critical analysis of relevant texts and questionnaire survey methods as means of gathering materials and data for this research. In view of understanding how Christmas festival aids social communion among the Igbo ethnic group, the theories of structural functionalism, social capital and social integration are being utilised as theoretical frameworks for this study. Finally, this study avers that religious festival cements social communion between the Igbos in Calabar Metropolis and their ancestral communities. (shrink)

In 1601 certain Jesuits in Alcalá de Henares defended the following thesis: "It is not by faith that we confess that this man, for example, Clement VIII, is Pope." During 1602 this fact became known in Rome and the Pope urged that the Spanish Inquisition imprison these Jesuits. To defend themselves, they alleged that the thesis was not unusual among scholars, indicating the names of several authors who defended it, among them, the eminent professor emeritus of Salamanca Domingo Báñez. However, (...) he convened an academic act in Valladolid on July 2, 1602 to show that his position was not such. Shortly thereafter, the Jesuits held another event in the same town to challenge the thesis of their coreligionists, underscoring their opposition even more than Báñez. New, partly unknown material on the subject is copied in these pages: the letters from the nuncio to the head of the Vatican State, with annotations written by the Pope, and a letter from the King of Spain to his ambassador; the complete text of the theses defended by Báñez and by the Jesuits in July 1602, as well as two unpublished letters from Báñez on the occasion of his act, one to the master general of his Order and the other to the Pope. (shrink)

Core-periphery imbalances and regional disparities figure prominently on the agenda of several disciplines, which result from their enormous impact on economic and social development around the world. In sociology, international relations, and economics, this concept is crucial in explanations of economic exchange. There are few countries that play a dominant role in world trade, while most countries have a secondary or even a tertiary position in world trade. Moreover, when we are discussing global, continental, regional, and national economies, we can (...) present regions and even smaller territorial units which have higher wages than some underdeveloped areas within the same larger area in focus. Such regional inequalities and injustices are the main themes of the core-periphery model, which focuses on tendencies of economic activities to concentrate around some pivotal points. It seeks to explain the spatial inequalities or imbalances observable on all levels or scales by highlighting the role of horizontal and vertical relations between various entities from the level of towns and cities to the global scale. The existence of a core-periphery structure implies that in the spatial dimension, the socioeconomic development is usually uneven. From such a geographical perspective, the regions known as the "core" are advanced in various areas, while other regions described as the "periphery" serve as a social, economic, and political backstages, backyards, and supply sources or - in some cases - are even subject to degradation and decline. Furthermore, the level of development has a negative correlation with distance from the core. The economies of the states that have gone through various stages of development at the earliest and with the fastest pace have become wealthy core regions and growth poles. Those countries and regions where these processes have been slower become or remain the poor periphery. (shrink)