Manipur and Tripura are two important integral states of North east India with a long glorious history of its own. Both the states maintained cordial relationship from the very early period despite regular intervals of conflicts. Marriage alliances between the royal families of Manipur and Tripura were common phenomena which began from remote antiquity and continued till 20th century. The instance of first marriage alliance occurred during the reign of Tripura king Taidakshin, the 43rd Raja. However, the most notable (...) cases of matrimonial alliances between Manipur and Tripura started towards the end of 18th century. The distinctive feature in the marriages was that the Rajas of Tripura married not only Manipuri princesses but also many Manipuri girls belonging to plebeian family. The marriage alliances not only brought cordial relations between the two kingdoms but also there was cultural assimilation. The tradition of marrying Manipuri girls were even followed by many noblemen of the Tripura royal family. Tripura also witnessed various public welfare works that was contributed by the Manipuri Maharanis. Thus, we find that the Tripura royal house was filled with descendants from the Manipuri queens. This article focuses on providing a chronological historical account of the matrimonial alliances that occurred in the royal families of Manipur and Tripura during the period of monarchies. It also highlights the basic causes behind the arrangement of the marriages and also the cultural amalgamation between the two states. (shrink)

Agro-ecological innovations aim at promoting sustainable agricultural practices that have long term benefits. However, farmers rarely adopt beneficial innovations in agro-ecology despite expressing an understanding of the benefits and a desire to do so. It has been argued that the farmers lack sufficient knowledge to implement complex innovations. We believe that in many cases such knowledge is necessary, but is ultimately insufficient for complex innovation adoption. We argue that in addition to knowledge and a desire to adopt an innovation, many (...) farmers require a collaborative relation with an ally. We call this method the Alliance Approach to innovation. This approach is modeled after the therapeutic Alliance Approach at work in cognitive and behavioral sciences. We argue that using the Alliance Approach will not only prove effective in helping farmers adopt complex agro-ecology innovations, but also a better fit for the human centered development of capability approach human development, as it is likely to enhance both the well-being and agency of the farmers. (shrink)

This paper proposes to argue that ecological justice that is rooted in an ecocentric approach to nature is the key to achieving integral human development which goes beyond ‘development that is only worth our while’. Ecological justice is achievable if there is a clear understanding of relations at two distinct levels - one, the relation among humans and another between the entire human community and other elements of the ecosystem. These relations are the basis of the alliances that we (...) form to address issues of integral human development. The focus of the paper is the second kind of alliance that is based on an understanding of the relation between the human and the non-human realm. However, an ‘alliance’ is normally formed between partners with equal standing. Is there a sense in which both humans and the non-human world can be considered to be ‘equal partners in an alliance? The paper considers how one might establish this by examining diverse philosophical viewpoints that have addressed the issue of the treatment of non-human animals for anthropocentric ends. It discusses whether equality between parties is necessary for the formation of an alliance drawing extensively from ethical theories and examples from the world. From rights approach, recipients of justice, to care ethics, several theories offer guidance to support what would constitute a ‘humane’ approach to non-human animals. While these approaches crucially pin the broad perspective, they have not explicitly considered the role of an alliance between humans and non-human animals in achieving a basic level of wellbeing for the latter. Taking cues from the different kinds of ‘ruling over’ from Stuart Gray’s understanding of the relation between humans and non-human nature, the paper seeks to establish that an alliance between humans and the non-human realm is possible even without committing to their equal status and this could form the basis of ecological justice and well-being. (shrink)

What effects are produced in an encounter between what Gilles Deleuze calls Spinoza’s ‘practical philosophy’ and abolition? Closely following Deleuze’s account of Spinoza, this essay moves from the reifying and weakening punitive moralism of carceral state thought towards a joyful materialist abolitionist ethic. It starts with the three theses for which, Deleuze argues, Spinoza was denounced in his own lifetime: materialism (devaluation of consciousness), immoralism (devaluation of all values) and atheism (devaluation of the sad passions). From these three, it derives (...) three parallel abolitionist theses: (1) Spinozan materialism undermines the reifications of carceral state thought; (2) Spinozan ethics undermines the punitivism of the carceral state; and (3) Spinozan joy is inversely proportional to the power of the carceral state. While Spinoza’s corpus may not give us an adequate account of the complex dynamics of the carceral state and racial capitalism today, this essay argues that in the infinite streams of the Ethics we nonetheless find some vital strategies through which we might compose an anomalous alliance between this condemned philosopher and abolition. (shrink)

The approach to the study the role of strategic alliances in the conditions of digital business transformations has been further developed in the article. In the course of a critical analysis of the content of scientific publications of modern scientists who studied the behavior, peculiarities of activity and the meaning of strategic alliances, it was established that the role of strategic alliances in the conditions of digital transformations does not disappear, but brings new advantages, requiring the maximization (...) of returns from more dynamic partnership relations, which requires more in-depth study of such benefits. Dynamics analysis of the number of concluded agreements in the field of strategic partnership in the period of 2014-2023 demonstrates their increase starting from 2017, which led to the activation of digital business transformations. In the course of research, it was determined that the role of strategic alliances in the conditions of digital business transformations is to ensure strategic flexibility under the conditions of continuity of digital transformations, improve competitive positions on the market, increase their innovativeness and efficiency, improve organizational stability and the ability of companies to learn, create opportunities for obtaining synergistic effect. It develops the ability of companies to proactively manage changes, contributes to the joint solution of strategic tasks and goals of partner companies, provides significantly greater opportunities for the development of innovative processes through the development and implementation of new methods and forms of work, new solutions in economic sectors, innovations in management, contributes to survival in market competitive environment and is an important competitive imperative to ensure overall long-term digital transformation. (shrink)

The purpose of the article is to reveal the scientific approach that substantiates the impact of the creation of strategic alliances (SA) on the digital transformation of business and the development of their innovative power based on identified success factors. The aim was achieved using the following methods: abstract logic and typification (for classification of SA's success factors), generalization (to determine the peculiarities of SA's influence on their innovation development), analytical and ranking method (to determine the relationship between the (...) dynamics creating of SA and the degree of acceleration of digital transformation), expert evaluation (to determine the degree of influence of SA success factors by business areas). Implementing a business-integrated approach to understanding digital transformation will accelerate implementation of innovation and organizational change, identifies future prospects for market, customer and business relationships, highlighting the importance of researching the factors that ensure their success. An alternative vision of SA’s success factors is suggested, which are determined by the possibilities the organization of partnerships and organizational culture, integration of business sectors, compatibility of management goals, external relevance, obtaining synergies. Innovation is considered by the authors as an integration factor that reconciles all groups of SA success factors, giving them the necessary focus to solve business problems. The results of the study show that the creation of SA has a significant impact on accelerating and changes priority of digital transformation of business areas involved in strategic partnerships, and the impact of SA on the development of their innovation power is crucial. (shrink)

In this paper I explore Phyllis Rooney’s 2003 chapter, “Feminist Epistemology and Naturalized Epistemology: An Uneasy Alliance,” taking guidance from her critique of naturalized epistemology in pursuing my own analysis of another uneasy alliance: that between feminist epistemology and social epistemology. Investigating some of the background assumptions at work in prominent conceptions of social epistemology, I consider recent analyses of "epistemic bubbles" to ask how closely such analyses are aligned with ongoing research in feminist epistemology. I argue that critical feminist (...) insights in political philosophy are called for here, especially those that focus on multiple politically salient relationships and also emphasize practices of personal transformation as inseparably bound up with broader movements for social transformation. Insofar as feminist epistemology continues to carry another world in its heart, I argue that it will continue to rest uneasily with any effort to align it with—let alone subsume it within—the still emerging field of social epistemology. (shrink)

The paper examines Heidegger's notions of truth and knowledge in the context of Locke's theory of same. It argues that when Heidegger's expositions of "primordial truth" and knowledge as a "retainment of assertion" are analyzed in their Beings, new and improved definitions emerge which support Locke's ideas of truth and knowledge. It shows that Heidegger's primordial truth is the process which uncovers Locke's propositional truth and on which any knowledge must be based. Wherefrom, to solve the problem of what knowledge (...) is and how one defines it, one must start with Heidegger's conceptions of truth and knowledge. (shrink)

The development of a professional identity is particularly interesting for those occupations that have a troubled emergence. The hinterland between science and technology accommodates many such ‘in-between’ subjects, which appear to have distinct attributes. Some of these specialisms disappear in the face of culturally stronger occupations. Others endure, their technical expertise becoming appropriated or mutated to serve the needs of different professional groups. This chapter is concerned with one extreme of these interstitial specialisms. Chemical engineering – a subject that by (...) its very name is between the science of chemistry and the technology of engineering – did eventually become a profession, in at least some countries. It had a relatively easy time becoming established in America in the first third of this century, but chemical engineering remained largely unrecognised in Germany until the 1960s, and has attracted a smaller professional community there. In Britain, the chemical engineering profession has evinced distinct transitions over a period of a century. It emerged to become an influential contributor to western economies and one of the ‘big four’ engineering professions (along with civil, mechanical and electrical engineering) after the second world war, due in large part to the unmindful aid of an influential, if capricious, sponsor: the state. Yet chemical engineers had a long and troubled history of contestation with other professions. Because of this, the British case is particularly appropriate for examining the continual re-casting of the professional identity in response to external and internal pressures. (shrink)

This article offers an interpretation of the intellectual and political origins of modern law in the nineteenth century and its consequences for contemporary legal thought. Social theoretical analyses of law and legal thought tend to emphasize rupture and change. Histories of legal thought tend to draw a picture of strife between different schools of jurisprudence. Such analyses and histories fail to account for the extent to which present legal thought is the continuation of a jurisprudential settlement that occurred in the (...) nineteenth century. That settlement tamed the will of the masses under the influence of authoritative legal thought, conceptions of political morality, and a general sense of social evolution. The principal mechanism of the settlement was a compact between legal rationalism and historicism to which popular will acceded. After a period of polarization around the time of the American and French revolutions, nineteenth century legal rationalism came to see historical events as the outcome of the cunning operation of reason in the world, and legal historicism came to appeal to the rationalizations of legal reason in order to endow historical matter with both conceptual stability and intellectual authority. Popular will bought into both. Modern law and the main schools of legal thought have remained, ever since, bound to this convergence of reason and history in the face of will. Modern law is therefore as much about continuity as it is about rupture; as much about unity as it is about strife. (shrink)

I set the stage for Socrates and Aristophanes’ alliance by beginning with Hegel’s question, what is the object of art?, in the context of his analysis of ancient Greek “art-religion.” Hegel traces the shifting object of art through a variety of artistic practices before arriving at comedy, which he identifies as the last stage of Greek aesthetic life. He finally asks, what is the object of comedy? Unlike other artistic practices that are positively defined by their created object or creative (...) activity, ancient comedy appears to be purely destructive, terminating anything that might be traditionally recognizable as an object of art. Hegel points to Aristophanes and Socrates as representing two sides of the defacement of the object of art-religion as such. Moving beyond Hegel, I turn to Aristophanes and Plato to consider how in the performative destruction of the object of aesthetic and philo- sophical reflection, something slips into being that may be identified as the phantom form of the Subject. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to explore the benefits and challenges of strategic alliances among higher education institutions in Zambia. Literature on alliances is explicit and highlights the benefits of alliances as well as the challenges. The study was qualitative in nature utilizing purposive sampling. It was a case study focusing on the existing strategic alliances among three universities situated in the capital of Zambia: University of Zambia, University of Africa and Cavendish University. Sixty participants, (...) 20 from each participating university were purposively selected to represent a rich demographic mix in terms of gender, level of education and experience. These were selected based on their knowledge and experience working in universities as well as their strategic positions in their universities. Data were qualitatively analysed using thematic analysis. Three major themes namely benefits of strategic alliances to universities, challenges faced by strategic alliances among universities and mechanisms to manage such challenges were identified and discussed. It was concluded that strategic alliances among universities benefited the Zambian higher education market better than competition. Challenges identified such as lack of commitment to the strategic alliances could easily lead to their failure and therefore appropriate strategies such as ensuring that contracts offered to staff clearly stipulated the boundaries of staff rights are needed to mitigate such failure. (shrink)

Background: Liver cancer is one of the malignant tumors worldwide, while the prevention and control situation is grim at present, and the diffusion of its early screening technology still faces some challenges. This study aims to investigate the influencing mechanism of perceived ease of use, organizational support mechanism, and industry competitive pressure on hepatic early screening technologies use by physicians, so as to promote the wider use of corresponding technologies. -/- Methods: Under the theoretical guidance of technology-organization-environment framework and mindsponge (...) theory, this study took hepatic contrast-enhanced ultrasound as an example, and conducted a cross-sectional questionnaire by randomly selecting physicians from Fujian and Jiangxi provinces in China with a high and low incidence of liver cancer, respectively. Structural equation modeling was used to determine the correlation among perceived ease of use, organizational support mechanism, and industry competitive pressure, as well as their impact on the physicians’ behavior toward contrast-enhanced ultrasound use. -/- Results: The hypothesis model fits well with the data (χ2/df = 1.863, GFI = 0.937, AGFI = 0.908, RMSEA = 0.054, NFI = 0.959, IFI = 0.980, CFI = 0.980). Under technology-organization-environment framework, the perceived ease of use (β = 0.171, p < 0.05), organizational support mechanism (β = 0.423, p < 0.01), industry competitive pressure (β = 0.159, p < 0.05) significantly influenced physicians’ use of hepatic contrast-enhanced ultrasound. Besides, perceived ease of use and organizational support mechanism (β = 0.216, p < 0.01), perceived ease of use and industry competitive pressure (β = 0.671, p < 0.01), organizational support mechanism and industry competitive pressure (β = 0.330, p < 0.01) were all associated significantly. -/- Conclusion: From the lens of information processing (mindsponge theory) and technology-organization-environment framework, this study clarified the social and psychological influencing mechanism of perceived ease of use, organizational support mechanism, and industry competitive pressure on physicians’ use of hepatic contrast-enhanced ultrasound. The results will directly propose recommendations for expanding hepatic contrast-enhanced ultrasound utilization and indirectly promoting other appropriate and effective health technologies diffusion within the integrated health system. (shrink)

The alliance between Appalachian churches and the coal industry has brought Appalachia to its knees. For over two centuries, Appalachian ministers and priests have pressured their congregants to sell land, manipulate papal documents, exploit church properties for personal gain, and frame incomplete economic data regarding the coal industry with sound theological arguments. In response to this institutional corruption favoring the coal industry, a new theory of Appalachian liberation theology needs development to break the coal-church alliance. Through examining papal documents, theological (...) work by Michael Iafrate and the Catholic Committee of Appalachia, and jobs and economic data from agencies like the Appalachian Research Commission and Energy Futures Initiative, liberation theologians can begin to chart the first contours of Appalachian liberation theology. Such a theology involves the exaltation of the local church, grassroots change, support for green energy, and the empowering of youth voices through granting them positions that enable institutional change. (shrink)

An alliance of established experts on critical care, Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC), has published two protocols for treatment of COVID-19. The first one, methylprednisolone, ascorbic acid, thiamine, and heparin (MATH+), is intended for hospital and intensive care unit treatment of pulmonary phases of the disease. It is based on affordable, commonly available components: anti-inflammatory corticosteroids (methylprednisolone, "M"), high-dose vitamin C infusion (ascorbic acid, "A"), vitamin B1 (thiamine, "T"), anticoagulant heparin ("H"), antiparasitic agent ivermectin, and supplemental components ("+") (...) including melatonin, vitamin D, elemental zinc, and magnesium. -/- The MATH+ protocol has received scarce attention due to the World Health Organization (WHO) advising against the use of corticosteroids in the beginning of the pandemic. In addition, randomized controlled clinical trials were required as a condition for adoption of the protocol. As the hospital mortality rate of MATH+ treated patients was approximately a quarter of the rate of patients receiving a standard of care, the authors of the protocol considered performing such trials unethical. Other parties have later performed clinical trials with corticosteroids and anticoagulants, which has led to a more widespread adoption of these components. -/- In October 2020, ivermectin was upgraded from an optional component to an essential component of the protocol. According to the authors, ivermectin is considered the first agent effective for both prophylaxis (prevention) of COVID-19 and for treatment of all phases of COVID-19 including outpatient treatment of the early symptomatic phase. Therefore, at the end of October 2020, a separate ivermectin-based I-MASK+ protocol for prophylaxis and early outpatient treatment of COVID-19 was published. (shrink)

The research aims to identify the trends of Palestinian higher educational institutions in Gaza Strip as learning organizations from the perspective of senior management in the Palestinian universities in Gaza Strip. The researchers used descriptive analytical approach and used the questionnaire as a tool for information gathering. The questionnaires were distributed to senior management in the Palestinian universities. The study population reached (344) employees in senior management is dispersed over (3) Palestinian universities. A stratified random sample of (182) employees from (...) the Palestinian universities was selected and the recovery rate was (69.2%). Statistical analysis (SPSS) program was used for analysis and processing the data. The study found the following results: There is an agreement about: the importance of the focus of "organizational structure" with an average approval, the importance of "technological infrastructure" axis with high approval, and the importance of "strategic" with an average approval. The results concluded that the study sample agree on the importance of "organizational dimension" highly. The results showed that the sample believe that the "strategic leadership" level in the universities got medium-approval. There is a fair level agreement about the axis of interest "teams / committees". There is an agreement about the importance of the "human dimension" moderately. The results showed that the sample is highly agreed about the importance of focus of the "knowledge management", and the focus of the "continuing education". They agreed weakly to somewhat about the importance of the focus of "scientific research", moderately agree about the importance of the center of "institutional culture", agree moderately on the importance of "cognitive dimension". The results showed that the sample largely agree on the importance of the focus of "strategic partnerships and alliances". They agree highly on the axis "keep up with the labor market" and on the focus of the importance of "technology incubators". The results showed that the sample moderately agree about the importance of the theme on "consulting and training", the importance of the focus of "social responsibility", and the focus of the "Community dimension". The study found a group of recommendations including: there is a need to provide suitable environment that achieve learning organizations. There is a need to develop the technological infrastructure (hardware, software, networks, databases, and human skills) because of the great advantages that they offer. The universities need to adopt knowledge management in the academic and administrative departments because knowledge is the core of the work of these departments. The establishment of technology incubators in universities to adopt outstanding university research projects, to protect, to supports, and to market them; furthermore, to develop the capabilities and skills of employees in the field of information technology. (shrink)

A cosmological principle, because it was the first to be created, Exu presents itself as the creative protomatter, whose expansive and unfinished character makes possible the appearanceof all other creations. He is the animating principle of existence and in everything there isExu. The crossroads is its space-time and this fact would explain why “black culture is acrossroads culture”. But, incarnated in Afro-diasporic practices in the Atlantic bands, Exunot only vigorously maintains his multifaceted power, showing that colonial redemption didnot obtain the (...) expected result, but also shows that its everyday meanings in the African BlackDiaspora here in the Americas they are the result of battles, negotiations, authoritarianism,power regimes, violence, transgressions, silencing and alliances experienced in the colonialdynamic, as Luiz Rufno reminds us in his book Pedagogia das Encruzilhadas (2019). (shrink)

The precarious rights of senior citizens, especially those who are highly educated and who are expected to counsel and guide the younger generations, has stimulated the creation internationally of advocacy associations and opinion leader groups. The strength of these groups, however, varies from country to country. In some countries, they are supported and are the focus of intense interest; in others, they are practically ignored. For this is reason we believe that the creation of a network of all these associations (...) is essential. The proposed network would act as a support for the already-existing policies of the United Nations’ High Commission for Human Rights, of independent experts, and of the Global Alliance for the Rights of Older People. All three have long ago recommended the creation of a recognized instrument for uniting presently scattered efforts. The proposed network, therefore, will seek to promote the international exchange of relevant expertise, and it will reinforce the commitments and actions that single countries are currently taking to meet these objectives. For example, informative public events can be organised to promote particular support initiatives and to provide an opportunity for new members of the network to be presented. The network will promote health for senior citizens, disease prevention, senior mobility, safe free time for seniors, alimentary education, protection against new risks and dangers, as well as equity in the services necessary for seniors to adopt new information and communication technologies. In the case of retired academic members, the network will promote equality with respect to continuing use of digital technologies (particularly email), continuing access to research libraries, and the guaranteed ability for seniors to fund their own research programs and to deliver free seminars. (shrink)

El concepto de familia a lo largo de la historia ha sido estructurado y entendido desde diversas ópticas y perspectivas, configuradas especialmente a partir de los enfoques filosóficos, políticos, religiosos y sociales de cada época. Como señala Morales Gómez (2015), la familia, “es la institución histórica y jurídica de más profundo arraigo a lo largo de las distintas etapas de la civilización y su origen se remonta a los albores de la humanidad” (p. 129), pero, a pesar de ser una (...) institución como tal no se gesta a través de la norma, ya que su existencia es de carácter natural, y, lo que fundamenta y promueve la protección de su permanencia son sus fines intrínsecos. Las reflexiones desarrolladas en la época medieval y en los primeros siglos del cristianismo por grandes pensadores como san Agustín y Santo Tomás, cuyos aportes contribuyeron significativamente en la construcción de un modelo de familia basado en la sacramentalidad matrimonial, la educación en la fe y la formación en virtudes cristianas, cobran especial importancia en este recorrido. (shrink)

The birth of a new science is long, drawn out, and often fairly messy. Comparative psychology has its roots in Darwin’s Descent of Man, was fertilized in academic psychology departments, and has branched across the universities into departments of biology, anthropology, primatology, zoology, and philosophy. Both the insights and the failings of comparative psychology are making their way into contemporary discussions of artificial intelligence and machine learning (Chollett 2019; Lapuschkin et al. 2019; Watson 2019). It is the right time to (...) turn a philosophical lens onto the methodologies of comparative psychology. That is the aim of this Element. -/- Comparative psychology is the umbrella covering the different ways scientists study animal mind and behavior. Comparative psychologists study animal behavior and mentality, including the mechanisms and inner states that allow crows to form hooks, vervet monkeys to give warnings, crabs to make trade-off decisions, and humans to use language. While focus is on the similarities and differences between different species, capacities are often studied in terms of their evolutionary history, development, and current ecological or cultural context. What this entails is that comparative psychologists have a range of different kinds of training, different areas of expertise, and different research questions. One comparative cognition researcher compares children and dogs on causal reasoning abilities (Daphna Buchsbaum), another looks at memory in corvids (Nicola Clayton). An animal behaviorist examines raccoon territories in a city (Suzanne MacDonald). One anthropologist looks at war in wild chimpanzees (John Mitani), another looks at how innovations are adopted in capu- chin monkeys (Susan Perry). One ethologist looks at play in wolves (Marc Bekoff), and another looks at deception in birds (Carolyn Ristau). One biologist looks at male alliances in dolphins (Richard Connor), and another examines economic game performance in apes and monkeys (Sarah Brosnan). An animal welfare scientist studies the effect of enrichment on mink (Georgia Mason). A learning theorist looks at gambling in pigeons (Thomas Zentall). A zoologist studies social learning in bees (Lars Chittka). It is not easy to guess in which department you’ll find a comparative psychologist. -/- This Element aims to examine the methods of comparative psychology, which remains especially concerned about how to study animal minds and behavior without falling prey to fuzzy thinking. Animals can be cute, so humans are often intrinsically drawn to them; and this love of animals is sometimes taken to be at odds with being a careful scientist. The methods of comparative psychology reflect this worry with their special emphases on avoiding bias and on avoiding developing warm relationships with animal subjects. The first two sections analyze three textbooks to examine what young scientists are taught. Section 1 investigates three methodological principles students are taught to follow: Anti-anthropomorphism, Morgan’s Canon, and Anti-anthropocentrism. I argue that the first two principles should be discarded, and that developing relationships with animals should no longer be discouraged, as relationships promote understanding. Building on this critique, in Section 2 I challenge the common prohibition against including animal consciousness in comparative psychology by arguing that it does not harm the science, but promotes it. Setting aside the special prohibitions for comparative psychology, in Section 3 I examine how the quest for objectivity in comparative psychology introduces its own bias and argue that the different disciplines of comparative psychology will introduce different biases; the best scientists can do is identify the sources of bias. The quest to eliminate all bias is a misguided one. Section 4 applies these issues to recent debates in ape cognition research between scientists who work in the field and those who work in the lab, and suggests best practices for integrating knowledge from both sources. -/- I have had the opportunity to work with a number of comparative psychologists in a variety of contexts, including a stint at Lou Herman’s dolphin communication lab in the 1990s, collaborative studies with Peter Verbeek on the child’s theory of mind at the University of Minnesota’s Institute for Child Development, conducting research on orangutan pantomime communication with Anne Russon at her field sites in Borneo, research on rat social learning with Noam Miller at Wilfrid Laurier University, and co-teaching a field course in dolphin communication with Kathleen Dudzinski. As a philosopher of science who has been in the field and in the lab, I have a perspective from which to compare the comparative psychologists. This Element is my attempt to synthesize almost thirty years of experience and thinking about how to study animal minds. (shrink)

It remains controversial whether touch is a truly spatial sense or not. Many philosophers suggest that, if touch is indeed spatial, it is only through its alliances with exploratory movement, and with proprioception. Here we develop the notion that a minimal yet important form of spatial perception may occur in purely passive touch. We do this by showing that the array of tactile receptive fields in the skin, and appropriately relayed to the cortex, may contain the same basic informational (...) building blocks that a creature navigating around its environment uses to build up a perception of space. We illustrate this point with preliminary evidence that perception of spatiotemporal patterns on the human skin shows some of the same features as spatial navigation in animals. We argue (a) that the receptor array defines a ‘tactile field’, (b) that this field exists in a minimal form in ‘skin space’, logically prior to any transformation into bodily or external spatial coordinates, and (c) that this field supports tactile perception without integration of concurrent proprioceptive or motor information. The basic cognitive elements of space perception may begin at lower levels of neural and perceptual organisation than previously thought. (shrink)

This article presents the problem of the family from the Christian perspective and its role in the postmodern society, but also the most serious problems affecting its functionality. As social form, the family is the environment of existence and training ordained by God for man. It has been instituted since the beginning of the creation of the first people, yet by Christ, by the Holy Mystery of Marriage, has been sanctified the union of love between a man and a woman. (...) As time has gone by, under the impulse of the fundamental freedoms and rights specific of man, recognized especially by the modern society, serious abnormalities have appeared, affecting the integrity of the family, such as: sexual immorality as plague of the matrimonial life, divorce, abortion, the so-called “families” of same-sex people. The contemporary man adheres without due consideration to all these, without taking into account their consequences. Certainly, the Christian Orthodox norms bring along with their application the remedy as well, namely life in Christ, which means full humanization. (shrink)

Solidarity within a group facing adversity exemplifies certain human goods, some instrumental to the goal of mitigating the adversity, some non-instrumental, such as trust, loyalty, and mutual concern. Group identity, shared experience, and shared political commitments are three distinct but often-conflated bases of racial group solidarity. Solidarity groups built around political commitments include members of more than one identity group, even when the political focus is primarily on the justice-related interests of only one identity group (such as African Americans). A (...) solidarity group is more than a mere political coalition or alliance. Two other forms of political- commitment solidarity groups are ones devoted to racial justice more generally, and social justice even more generally. Racially plural political solidarity groups realize values beyond the afore-mentioned solidaristic ones, in meeting the challenges of different races working together. (shrink)

In a recent contribution to this journal Paolo Gerbaudo has argued that an ‘elective affinity’ exists between social media and populism. The present article expands on Gerbaudo’s argument and examines various dimensions of this affinity in further detail. It argues that it is helpful to conceptually reframe the proposed affinity in terms of affordances. Four affordances are identified which make the social media ecology relatively favourable to both-right as well as left-wing populism, compared to the pre-social media ecology. These affordances (...) are neither stable nor uniquely fixed: they change in concordance with ongoing technological developments and in response to political events. Even though these dynamics can be quick-moving, a fairly stable alliance of interests between social media and populism seems to have emerged over the last decade. This raises the plausibility that as long as the current social media ecology persists, populist tendencies will remain prevalent in politics. (shrink)

This chapter explores the possibility of an alliance between Deleuze’s philosophy and feminist philosophy with respect to ethics. I begin by specifying some of the general points of convergence between Deleuzian ethics and feminist ethics. In the second section, I turn away from feminist ethics in particular to consider feminist engagement with Deleuze’s (and Deleuze and Guattari’s) work; in this section of the paper, I describe the central criticisms of Deleuze offered by feminist philosophers and point out the aspects of (...) his thought that have been valuable for feminist theorizing. In order to respond to what I take to be the overarching concern feminists have about Deleuze’s philosophy, the third section develops a proposal for a Deleuzian conception of ethics that is able to do (much of) what feminists require of an ethical theory. (shrink)

Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw ends her landmark essay “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color” with a normative claim about coalitions. She suggests that we should reconceptualize identity groups as “in fact coalitions,” or at least as “potential coalitions waiting to be formed.” In this essay, I explore this largely overlooked claim by combining philosophical analysis with archival research I conducted at the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Historical Society Archive in San Francisco about Somos Hermanas, (...) the solidarity project of the Alliance Against Women’s Oppression, based in the San Francisco Women’s Building (1984–90). I extend my analysis into the present by drawing on the oral history and published works of Carmen Vázquez, a key organizer in both Somos Hermanas and the Women’s Building. I argue that conceptualizing identities as in fact coalitions—as complex, internally heterogeneous unities constituted by their internal differences and dissonances and by internal as well as external relations of power—enables us to organize effective political coalitions that cross existing identity categories and to pursue a liberatory politics of interconnection. (shrink)

Ontologies formally represent reality in a way that limits ambiguity and facilitates automated reasoning and data fusion, but is often daunting to the non-technical user. Thus, many researchers have endeavored to hide the formal syntax and semantics of ontologies behind the constructs of Controlled Natural Languages (CNLs), which retain the formal properties of ontologies while simultaneously presenting that information in a comprehensible natural language format. In this paper, we build upon previous work in this field by evaluating prospects of implementing (...) International Technology Alliance Controlled English (ITACE) as a middleware for ontology editing. We also discuss at length a prototype of a natural language conversational interface application designed to facilitate ontology editing via the formulation of CNL constructs. (shrink)

Nang masakop ng Estados Unidos ang Pilipinas, dumating sa bansa ang isa pang uri ng Kristiyanismo na iba sa bitbit ng mga Espanyol-ang Protestantismo (na nagsimulang isilang noong ika-16 na dantaon sa Europa sa pamumuno nina Luther, Calvin, at Zwingli). Salaysay ni T. Valentino Sitoy (1989, iii, 7-11), 1899 unang dumating ang mga misyonerong Protestante sa Pilipinas, na kinabibilangan ng mga Presbyterian, Baptist, at Methodist. Kalaunan ay sinundan ito ng pagdating ng mga Episcopalian, Seventh-Day Adventist, United Brethren, Disciples, Christian and (...) Missionary Alliance, at iba pa. Ilan sa mga ito ay nagsama-sama upang mabuo ang Evangelical Union. Hinati nila ang Pilipinas sa iba't ibang probinsya ng mission fields (tulad ng ginawa dati ng mga Heswita, Rekoletos, Augustino, Pransiskano, at Dominikano), upang hindi sila magkaagawan sa populasyon na babahaginan ng ebanghelyo. (shrink)

The focus of Australia-US relations is most often on mutual security and economic ties. But it is also important to acknowledge the significant role that educational linkages and exchanges have played in furthering the bond between the two countries.

In the monograph Philosophy and Psychedelics: Frameworks for Exceptional Experience, Hauskeller raises the important subject of individualization and alienation in psychedelic psychotherapy. Under the prevailing conditions of neoliberalism, Hauskeller contends that psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy appropriates Indigenous knowledges in an oppressive fashion, may be instrumentalised to the ends of productivity gain and symptom suppression, and may be utilised to mask societal systems of alienation. Whilst offering a valuable socio-political critique of psychedelics' clinical uptake, we suggest that Hauskeller's view does not adequately acknowledge (...) the ways in which psychedelics offer a challenge to the Western reductive bio-medical understanding of healing and wellbeing. It is contended herein that Indigenous knowledges, in alliance with a range of emerging sciences, offer both an engagement with ethnomedicines in a less harmfully appropriative fashion, and a renewed understanding of the means by which psychedelics achieve therapeutic change. With this understanding, what becomes apparent are the potential ways in which psychedelic medical usage may produce positive feedback upon the oppressive systems in which we are embedded. That is, transpersonal experience through encounters with the ineffable may offer a revisioning of Western psychology and cognitive science. Indeed, if psychedelics are approached with an understanding of the actual means by which they produce therapeutic outcomes—changing mental representations of the self, or self-insight derived through non-ordinary states of consciousness—then psychedelic psychotherapy offers a reimagining of psychiatric nosology, challenging conventional understandings of both pathology and wellbeing through an overturning of specified and discrete deficit models of psychopathology. This may provide both a critique of the prevailing categories used to describe madness and an expansion of our understanding of the mind-body relation, as well as an increased recognition of positive psychology grounded in cross-cultural contemplative traditions. This provides an implicit challenge to the pharmaceutical industrial-complex and its profit motives; and the corresponding neoliberalist, globalising tendencies which Hauskeller seeks to address. -/- . (shrink)

With the early success of the deep ecology movement in attracting adherents and with the increasing threat of a global ecological catastrophe, one would have expected this movement to have triumphed. We should be in the process of radically transforming society to create a harmonious relationship between humans and the rest of nature. Instead, deep ecology has been marginalized. What has triumphed instead is an alliance of managerialism, transnational corporations and neo-liberalism committed to replacing communities with markets and transforming every (...) facet of nature and society into means for increasing the profitability of corporations and expanding GDP. This outcome is here explained by the failure of deep ecologists to understand the ideological, political and economic forces driving ecological destruction, and thereby what is required to overcome these. To regain the initiative, it is argued, it will be necessary to recover the whole project of the Radical Enlightenment upholding the Renaissance quest for liberty that was subverted by the scientific materialism and possessive individualism of the Moderate Enlightenment. Not only will it be necessary to transform science to develop a comprehensive alternative conception of nature and humanity and its destiny, it will be necessary to revive and develop the institutions of the Radical Enlightenment to subordinate markets to democratically organized communities at multiple levels, as communities of communities committed to augmenting the life of these communities, including the life of ecological communities. Doing so will involve reformulating the grand narrative of emancipation as a dialogic, polyphonic grand narrative to orient individuals, organizations and nations to create a global ecological civilization. -/- . (shrink)

The mental health crisis and loneliness epidemic have sparked a growing interest in leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) and chatbots as a potential solution. This report examines the benefits and risks of incorporating chatbots in mental health treatment. AI is used for mental health diagnosis and treatment decision-making and to train therapists on virtual patients. Chatbots are employed as always-available intermediaries with therapists, flagging symptoms for human intervention. But chatbots are also sold as stand-alone virtual therapists or as friends and lovers. (...) There is evidence that these uses of AI and chatbots can provide better quality service, improve accessibility, and lower costs. The systems can reduce the stigma and shame of sharing their problems and leverage a mass of biometric and behavioral data to supplement self-reports. As the systems' intelligence rapidly improves, they will need to be rigorously tested for the accuracy and precision of their diagnoses and the quality of their interactions with patients. As chatbots become indistinguishable from humans and leverage their superhuman capacity to detect affect and draw on knowledge of a patient’s life, patients will be drawn to attribute personality to and relationship with the chatbot. Consequently, it will be essential to study what the “therapeutic alliance” with an actual human counselor provides and the risks of patients attributing such a relationship to a one-sided or “parasocial” relationship. (shrink)

One of the most widely debated and influential implications of the "demise" of positivism was the realization, now a commonplace, that philosophy of science must be firmly grounded in an understanding of the history of science, and/or of contemporary scientific practice. While the nature of this alliance is still a matter of uneasy negotiation, the principle that philosophical analysis must engage "real" science has transformed philosophical practice in innumerable ways. This short paper is the introduction to a symposium presented at (...) the 1994 PSA Biennial meetings that focused attention on recent developments at the interface between various disciplinary science studies fields. It brought together two philosophers who explore the implications of sociological and historical contextualization for philosophical studies of science, Brian Baigrie and Joseph Rouse; and a sociologist and historian, Andy Pickering and Betty Smocovitis, whose work raises philosophical questions about the sciences and about science studies. Each argued for ways of reconceptualizing our subject domains, our purposes, and our conventional strategies of inquiry that promise much richer understanding of the sciences, but necessarily challenge discipline-specific traditions of science studies quite profoundly. If there is a common theme to be discerned in these discussions it is that, in the spirit of Rouse's recommendations, science studies should be understood to be an essentially open ended and dynamic enterprise, like the sciences they study. (shrink)

Ronald Dworkin and Richard Rorty are sometimes thought to be diametrically opposed philosophers, particularly in their approach to foundational questions in moral thought. Dworkin is a champion of truth and objectivity in morality. Rorty, by contrast, is a great pragmatist who subscribed to a deflated vision of truth and unambiguously renounced objectivity, in favor of what he called “solidarity”. If their stated -isms and alliances were not evidence enough of discord, they also criticized one another in print, particularly on (...) these foundational, or metaethical, questions. The point of this chapter is to show that things are not what they seem: Rorty and Dworkin largely agree on metaethics. The difference between them is largely a difference in emphasis. (shrink)

Sayyid Sadr al-din Mohammad Dashtaki Shirazi is the inventor of the division of composition into unified composition and composition by join. With this division, Dashtaki has expressed a new theory about the composition of the material object from first matter and form, as well as the composition of man from soul and body, and considers these compositions as an alliance and unification, not simply the parts joining to each other. In this paper, we will present Dashtaki’s arguments on the theory (...) of unified composition. We will also examine three objections to this theory and responses to them. Finally, we will examine the background of this theory in Bahmanyar's phrases. Dashtaki believes that when the components in the compound have a real plurality, i.e. each one exists separately from the other, a composition by join is created, such as the composition of a house from numerous clays. But if the components in the compound are united and none of them are separate from the others and exists actually, the resulting composition will be an alliance and union. He believes that in the unified composition, every component is identical to any other component and is identical to the whole. Accordingly, Reza is a unique being, both human and writer. In order to achieve a composition, a plurality is needed and in order to form a single composition, there must be plural components related to each other. An important question is that, principally how is a composition possible, if unified composition comes to existence only when the components are made united with each other and with the whole? In other words, unified composition is not possible, because the first condition of the acquisition of the composition, i.e., the plurality of the constituent components, is not satisfied. Dashtaki strives to express a difference between the components in the union compound. He believes that the conditions of the realization and the survival of the components are different, and that is enough for them to be different. In Dashtaki's point of view, in the unified composition the components are analytical, not being separate and plural, in reality. In other words, the components do not have actual and "in-the-world" plurality, which means that it is our intellect that separates them and looks at them as independent objects. Therefore, unity and identity are in-the-world and plurality and discernibility are analytical and in the mind. Dashtaki's first argument for his theory in general is as follows: the three major material objects (solid, plant and animal) are undoubtedly real compounds. But in these compositions, components exist potentially, and in a unified composition, components do not exist actually. Therefore, these objects are unified compounds. The second argument is that the accuracy of predication implies unity. In the unified composition, the components are identical with the whole, and therefore, the components can be predicated to the composition. In Dashtaki's view, if A is predicated to B, then it could be concluded that they are identical and unified. The first objection to this theory is that the unity is incompatible with causality. From the perspective of the Peripatetics, form is the cause of the matter, and this is incompatible with the union of the two. Dashtaki states that in case of causality, there is no need for cause and effect to be two different and discernible entities, but a single entity may be from one aspect the cause and, from another, the effect. In other words, the foresaid causality is analytical causality. When mind analyses something, and then finds analytical components, it can see between those analytical and intellectual components, causality, and find some of them as the cause of the others. The second objection is the incorrectness of the unity in compounds with components not being similar. only in the compounds having similar parts, one can accept the unity of matter and form. For example, in compounds such as horses, it is not possible to accept the union of matter and form, because in horses, there are components with different natures, such as bones, flesh and nerves. Unity of These parts with each other and with the whole is not plausible. Dashtaki’s respond is that the horse is also a natural unit and has no actual plurality. Components having similar or different natures does not make any difference. According to the theory of unified composition, the horse's components are united with the horse's form and have only analytical plurality. Horse’s components are just analytical components, not actual, independent ones. The third objection is the incompatibility of the actual existence of components with their unity. But Dashtaki maintains that a unique actual personal entity cannot have actual plural components. He states that compounds such as horses exist objectively, but objective and real existing is divided into two kinds: dependent existence, and independent existence as a single real thing. Therefore, the two characteristics of "being a component" and "being independent" are incompatible and do not come together in a real being. Dashtaki has also quoted phrases from Bahmanyar to confirm his point of view. Bahmanyar says that the properties of an animal belong to the whole and compound, not to each component. For example, it is a horse that feels, not its bone or brain, as the eye is also a compound, but seeing is the work of the eye, not the work of any of its components. Therefore, the animal, which is something compound, has characteristics that none of its components have. So the animal is something over and above its components. Bahmanyar thinks the components in the animal are potential. Then he states a general rule: any compound in which unity is real, its components do potentially exist. Therefore, Bahmanyar considers the body parts of the living organism as a potential being and generally believes that the components of any compound that have true unity are potential. The potentiality of the components in a real compound does not that mean that the components are destroyed and a new thing is produced. The components are also available, but they do not have the effects they had separately before the composition comes into existence. In other words, the components have found a unique identity together and therefore have a new effect.. It seems that Bahmanyar has expressed the same idea that Dashtaki is looking for in the theory of unified composition. Therefore, it can be said that before Dashtaki, Bahmanyar has come up with the thought of a unity. Of course, Bahmanyar has not explained much about this, and Dashtaki is the first who has organized and completed this idea as a philosophical theory. (shrink)

In this paper I analyze constitution embodiment, a particular conception of embodiment. Proponents of constitution embodiment claim that the body is a condition of the constitution of entities. Constitution embodiment is popular with phenomenologically-inspired Embodied Cognition, including research projects such as Enactivism and Radical Embodied Cognitive Science. Unfortunately, PEC’s use of constitution embodiment is neither clear nor coherent; in particular, PEC uses the concept of constitution embodiment so that a major inconsistency is entailed. PEC conceives of the body in a (...) transcendental sense as a condition of the constitution of entities, and, in an ontic sense, as a scientifically describable entity. Yet, a condition of the constitution of entities cannot be itself an entity—rather, it is the very condition of the possibility of an entity. This inconsistency entails further problems, among them PEC’s misguided focus on the location of the embodied mind. In order to correct these mistakes, I develop a conception of constitution embodiment based on the work of Heidegger, Husserl and to a lesser degree Merleau-Ponty. This has two purposes. First, it provides the conceptual groundwork to secure the status of PEC as a consistent and coherent research project and to clarify PEC’s conception of the relationship between phenomenology and the sciences. In that spirit, my approach provides further guidelines for fruitful research alliances between PEC and other research programs such as Grounded Cognition and identifies current research alliances, such as those with Radical Enactivism, as undesirable. Second, my account provides an elaborate concept of constitution embodiment that can function as the basis for more sophisticated work in the future. (shrink)

Environmentalism has been a part of the ideological landscape of liberal societies for nearly three decades. Classical liberals have not yet succeeded, however, in articulating a coherent response that would be relevant to politically active environmentalists, as well as to liberals receptive to postmodern ideas. Robert C. Paehlke argues that, conservative liberals being in fact hostile to environmental thinking, moderate progressivism and environmentalism should enter into a close alliance. This paper challenges both assertions. Admittedly, not all currents within contemporary conservative (...) liberalism could play a part in the development of a neoliberal environmentalist movement. One current, however, the skeptical tradition, whose origin can be traced back to the Scottish Englightenment, is remarkably well suited to this task. Progressivism, on the other hand, could end up smothering the environmental movement under the weight of its own certainties. (shrink)

Distributed Cognition and Integrational Linguistics have much in common. Both approaches see communicative activity and intelligent behaviour in general as strongly con- text-dependent and action-oriented, and brains as permeated by history. But there is some ten- sion between the two frameworks on three important issues. The majority of theorists of distributed cognition want to maintain some notions of mental representation and computa- tion, and to seek generalizations and patterns in the various ways in which creatures like us couple with technologies, (...) media, and other agents; many also want to offer explanations at subpersonal levels which may undercut the autonomy of personal-level accounts. In contrast, dominant views in integrational linguistics reject all invocation of representation, resist the explanatory search for similarity across contexts and moments, and see linguistics as a lay dis- cipline which should not offer explanations in terms alien to ordinary agents. On each of these issues, I argue that integrationists could move closer to the distributed cognition frame- work without losing the most important aspects of their view: integrationist criticisms of mainstream or classical theories can be respected while alliances with revised cognitivist views about representation, context, and explanation are developed. Ó 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. (shrink)

James Hansen, the world’s leading climate scientist, argues that global climate destabilization could totally destroy the conditions for life on Earth, and further, that politicians are not taking effective action. Instead, they are using their power to cripple science. This situation is explained in this paper as the outcome of the successful alliance between a global class of predators and people who must be recognized as idiots taking over the institutions of government, research and education and transforming governments into governments (...) of occupation. The predators are either indifferent to the suffering they will cause, or have an agenda to use the effects of global warming to cull the world’s human population. In either case, their views are legitimated by social Darwinism. By revealing their true nature, this alliance has exposed a rift in the civilization of modernity, revealing the suppressed tradition and trajectory of the Radical Enlightenment. With its roots in the Renaissance, the Radical Enlightenment is opposed to reductionist materialism and committed to truth, liberty, justice and democracy. To revive the grand narrative of the Radical Enlightenment it will be necessary to reemplot this grand narrative as a project for creating an Ecological Civilization. This will be a civilization based on process metaphysics and a fusion of science and the humanities in human ecology. The goal projected by this narrative should be to save life on Earth from this alliance of predators and idiots. (shrink)

Cosmopolis A Review of Cosmopolitics -/- 2015/3-4 -/- Editorial Dominique de Courcelles & Paul Ghils -/- This issue addresses the general concept of “spirituality” as it appears in various cultural contexts and timeframes, through contrasting ideological views. Without necessarily going back to artistic and religious remains of primitive men, which unquestionably show pursuits beyond the biophysical dimension and illustrate practices seeking to unveil the hidden significance of life and death, the following papers deal with a number of interpretations covering a (...) wide field extending from belief to theory, from emotions to concepts, from the wisdom of personal experience to the most sophisticated doctrines. Spirit and spirituality are indeed many-faceted notions. They may refer to the intricate world of the interacting spirits which inhabit living beings in animistic traditions, without excluding a “grand force” linking human beings within a dynamic whole on which their very existence rely . They also bear upon more atomistic and either/or approaches of Western philosophy, which have become embodied in Cartesian dualism against a monotheist background, to the point of freezing the essence of individuals and culminating in the extreme individualism that characterizes our contemporaries. However, this equally refers to the opposite conception of materialism, across times and cultures, from ancient India and Greece (Cārvāka, originally known as Lokāyata, or some Buddhist doctrines for the former, Democritus or Lucretius for the latter) to more contemporary materialistic schools, whether modern or postmodern. -/- The following papers look at the contrasting forms of the philosophy and spirit of the human factor set into a whole, with no artificial disjoint between the psychical and the physical levels, as Wittgenstein put it: “And how can a body have a soul?”. This approach is not unrelated to the notion of anthropocene examined in a recent issue of Cosmopolis, with provides another comprehensive framework open to a spiritual life emerging from the very environment that generated it. -/- *** The first section of this issue was edited by Dominique de Courcelles, director at the National French Research Centre (CNRS), whom we wish to thank for collecting relevant studies relating to the religious and political questions, with a view to focusing on the war of ideas inevitably waged behind images, concepts and perceptions, taking an asymmetrical approach. To the extent that they are mindful of global/local interactions and include representations, opinions and beliefs, such disciplines as philosophy, philology, history and social sciences can provide useful studies accounting for new practices in geopolitics and a fair diplomacy. -/- In her introduction, Dominique de Courcelles first poses the question of how the religious and political spheres interrelate, with their corresponding religious demands and humanistic values. She then suggests that the right question today may be breaking with the philosophy of human rights concerned with the defense of human beings against the hazards of arbitrary politics or the instrumental use of religion, in favour of a fair philosophy of humankind, a new humanism. This would consist in recognizing a common loyalty of all towards one interhuman, not only interstate community, to protect it from both the autonomy demanded by individuals and the instrumental use of minorities. -/- Considering the fact of diversity, so important today in terms of both politics and religion, Abdelhai Azarkan looks at the conditions under which tolerance could obtain the double status of right and duty. He revisits to two philosophers, John Locke and Voltaire, who thought about it from the historical reality of religious wars. The former made tolerance into a right, basing his analysis on the political-legal level, while the latter saw tolerance as a duty, from an analysis based on ethical-political criteria. -/- Mathieu Guidère examines what he calls semantic denominationalism, a term which implies religious attributes and identities, whichever national loyalties or personal belonging they may have at the same time. Since the early 2000s, thie phenomenon has expanded tremendously, compounded by the “war on terror” and the over media-oriented terrorist actions. Denominational expressions act as formal names for ordinary and high-profile players in domestic and foreign policies of democratic states. These systems reveal a receding secularization, while the powerful comeback of religious identities signals the failure of nation-states and the weakening of the humanist spirit. -/- Barbara De Poli retraces the history of a contemporary jihadism claiming its Islamic essence and asserting the truth of genuine coranic principles via the war on infidels, with a view to restoring the Caliphate. After defining the term jihad, she shows that even if this contemporary jiadism is spreading in the Muslim world, it radically departs from Islamic law and the received use of the term jihad, in so far as it is rooted in the early radical thinking of Islamic ideologues in the 20th century, starting with with Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood. This current has been fueled by by international conflicts since the outbreak of the war in Afghanistan, in which the so-called Western countries bear a major responsibility. -/- Abderrazak Sayadi starts from the Tunisian experience to ask the question of humanist values and democracy within the relationships between the religious and political spheres. As a historian of religion, he is brought to demystify certain islamic principles and to paying attention to the reform of law, seeing the separation of religion and politics as a precondition to a successful democratic gamble and the establishment of a renewed humanism. -/- Dominique de Courcelles reminds us that getting a better knowledge of narrations and words makes it possible to better understand how logical and rhetorical thinking works for those who wage an asymetriccal war, re-enchanting and mystifying the world to better take control. As soon as 1932, an exchange of letters between Einstein and Freud made it clear that, in order to free man from fatality and war, education understood as culture was fundamental. Such illustrations as the exécution of Oussama ben Laden and the Caliph’s speech in Mossoul show that a premiminary analysis of images and words is essential to a fair diplomacy conducted by people from civil society, whose culture and wisdom allow justice and force to speak together and better resist war. -/- Marcel Boisard thinks that on the day the guns fall silent, exhausted by war, we will not return to the state borders that have prevailed for a century as an outcome of the Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916. It is time to prepare the “day after”, which will be a huge challenge. To this end, a summit of Middle-East nations is urgently needed to globally decide the fate of those peoples. On the condition that we know who the enemy is and accept to name it, to understand the history of the countries, groups and alliances, and to question any false or self-interested sense of certainty. -/- *** In the second section, Paul Schafer provides the author’s experiences to explain how culture, from the artistic to the biological, has the power to to open the doors to spirituality, from the inner self to the global environment. He asks himself whether a relative permanence of spirituality can arise from the specific moments that characterize it. Laurent Ledoux synthesizes the conclusion of a symposium held on 22 January 2015 on the links between philosophy and management, on the basis of the spiritual dimension conceived as “natural” and the answers it may suggest to the issues that face the organizations in a “contemporaniversal” world. Jacques Rifflet makes that question in a secular perspective, based on the wellsprings of personal commitment before it can be caught by any religious creed or scientific theory. In this sense spirituality, in alliance with reason, both inspires human consciousness and illuminates its destiny. Sami Aldeeb asks himself whether Islam can be reconciled with human rights. Caught between the belief in an absolute and final Word descended from the sky, and evidence showing that any religion is the creation of a given culture and a society situated in time and space, the Makkan and … contexts et médinois call for differentiated, if not opposite answers and exegeses. Bernard Carmona provides the outline of a dialogical framework, which is known to be a feature of debates between the various philosophical schools of classical India, exemplified here by the transdisciplinary perspective of debates within a Buddhist context. *** The articles not focused on the previous topic include a study by Landry Signé on China’s strategy, competing with the United States to control African resources. The author deals with the specific case of China’s rapprochement with Southern Sudan since Sudan was broken up. In the last paper, Goran Fejić and Rada Iveković, return to the essential role that women should play, and comments upon the role of some international legal instruments related in particular to the elimination of all forms of discrimination. The perspective is transnational and transethnic and is based on secular criteria, as regards nation-building and more generally society-building. Considering the persistence of widespread violence, whether in times of armed conflict or in times of peace, the question remains whether it is possible to fully implement rights and justice instruments. (shrink)

Despite its short historical moment in the sun, behaviorism has become something akin to a theoria non grata, a position that dare not be explicitly endorsed. The reasons for this are complex, of course, and they include sociological factors which we cannot consider here, but to put it briefly: many have doubted the ambition to establish law-like relationships between mental states and behavior that dispense with any sort of mentalistic or intentional idiom, judging that explanations of intelligent behavior require reference (...) to qualia and/or mental events. Today, when behaviorism is discussed at all, it is usually in a negative manner, either as an attempt to discredit an opponent’s view via a reductio, or by enabling a position to distinguish its identity and positive claims by reference to what it is (allegedly) not. In this paper, however, we argue that the ghost of behaviorism is present in influential, contemporary work in the field of embodied and enactive cognition, and even in aspects of the phenomenological tradition that these theorists draw on. Rather than take this to be a problem for these views as some have, we argue that once the behaviorist dimensions are clarified and distinguished from the straw-man version of the view, it is in fact an asset, one which will help with task of setting forth a scientifically reputable version of enactivism and/or philosophical behaviorism that is nonetheless not brain-centric but behavior-centric. While this is a bit like “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” strategy, as Shaun Gallagher notes (2019), with the shared enemy of behaviorism and enactivism being classical Cartesian views and/or orthodox cognitivism in its various guises, the task of this paper is to render this alliance philosophically plausible. Doi: 10.1007/s11229-019-02432-1. (shrink)

This special issue, which includes papers first presented at two workshops on ‘Memory, Mind, and Media’ in Sydney on November 29–30 and December 2–3, 2004, showcases some of the best interdisciplinary work in philosophy and psychology by memory researchers in Australasia (and by one expatriate Australian, Robert Wilson of the University of Alberta). The papers address memory in many contexts: in dance and under hypnosis, in social groups and with siblings, in early childhood and in the laboratory. Memory is taken (...) as a test case for evaluating the optimistic vision of a new kind of cognitive science defended by Andy Clark. Clark (2001:154) argues: Much of what matters about human intelligence is hidden not in the brain, nor in the technology, but in the complex and iterated interactions and collaborations between the two ... The study of these interaction spaces is not easy, and depends both on new multidisciplinary alliances and new forms of modelling and analysis. The pay-off, however, could be spectacular: nothing less than a new kind of cognitive scientific collaboration involving neuroscience, physiology, and social, cultural, and technological studies in about equal measure. So the central motivation is to investigate critically how well the case of memory would fit the extended mind’ thesis put forward by Clark and Chalmers (Clark and Chalmers 1998; Clark 1997, 2006)—according to which mental states and processes can spread across the.. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 61.3 (2000) 453-471 [Access article in PDF] Liberty, Authority, and Trust in Burke's Idea of Empire Richard Bourke When Edmund Burke first embarked upon a parliamentary career, British political life was in the process of adapting to a series of critical reorientations in both the dynamics of party affiliation and the direction of imperial policy. During the period of the Seven Years' War, (...) a reconstituted militia became a focus for patriotic enthusiasm, uniting national sentiment against France and effectively eradicating the remnants of Jacobite rhetoric and aspiration. Traditional opposition between Tory and Whig became irrelevant, while Court and Country jointly came to the support of the Pitt-Newcastle ministry. However, in due course the Old Corps disintegrated as George III succeeded to the throne with the promise of an end to factional strife and the beginning of a patriotic alliance in government. But while competing ideologies and interests on the domestic political scene were undergoing comprehensive realignment, the pursuit of a blue-water policy in tandem with strategic continental campaigns brought Britain's struggle against France into North America, the Caribbean, and India. Trade continued to expand into Asia and West Africa, but the principles of commercial advantage were continually brought into open conflict with the exigencies of war. The division of power in Europe became embroiled in a substantial redivision of empire, and by 1763 British territorial expansion had reached its zenith.When Burke was appointed private secretary to the Marquis of Rockingham, with the national debt standing at an all time high and the demands of imperial defense unlikely to diminish, the politics of empire called for urgent attention from all sections of the political establishment. In particular the Rockinghamites, adopting a posture of aloofness from venality and petty interest, were obliged to advance policies for imperial government on the solid basis of political principle. 1 Coming into parliament as a member for Wendover in the wake of [End Page 453] Grenville's Stamp Act, at a time when the East India Company was assuming control of the revenue in Bengal, Burke set about formulating a doctrine of imperial sovereignty which would be serviceable to the party either in power or in opposition and which would be adequate to the complex reality of detached and extensive empire. The immediate reception of that inquiry, both in Britain and on the Continent, into the fraught world of post-Revolutionary political debate has had the long-term effect of distorting the order of emphasis in terms of which his career as a whole ought properly to be understood.The vigorous elaboration, in opposition to the Jacobin experiment in France, of the conditions under which moderate government could be exercised within the context of an absolute sovereignty was expressed in terms which had originally been invoked as part of a sustained attempt to reconcile civility with empire. As we shall see, that attempt involved a process of delicate coordination by means of which the interests of freedom would be brought into harmony with the demands of public power. In that sense the effort to make liberty and authority mutually responsible can be said to constitute the core ambition of Burke's political rhetoric. In this context responsibility defines the optimally beneficial relation between government and people on the one hand and national sovereignty and the extended empire on the other. This article outlines the practical and theoretical exploration of those relations within the frame of Burke's intervention in the world of eighteenth-century political discourse.Burke was of course well placed in 1765 to evolve a theory of imperial government that was at once ideologically compelling and politically viable. In his capacity as secretary to William Gerard Hamilton in the early 1760s he had already examined the corruption of legitimate empire as represented by the introduction of penal legislation into Ireland after 1694. The Tracts Relating to Popery Laws set out to convict the Irish Parliament in Dublin of flagrant misrule. A subordinate legislature within the empire is charged with having employed... (shrink)

Alongwith the major organ of the doctrinal operations, the Permanent Resolution Act, this research presented a situation review article on the Doctrine of the Chittagong Peace Process in Bangladesh with few global strikeable issues. Unarmed surviving Parbatya Chittagong nation of Buddhists population in Bangladesh has not yet been able to form their government since 1997 to 2023, so it has been assumed that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina & Awami League Government of Bangladesh (ALGOB) cheated to weaponless freedom fighters Buddhists people (...) by taking their weapons through the Chittagong Hill Tracts Peace Accord 1997 that was signed between Bangladesh and Chittagong HillTracts in order to a Commonwealth of Independence of Autonomy Government, Formation of Legislative Assembly House and Parliament Building Construction, which is also the last official initiative of the Parbatya Peace Process in the Chinese Belt and Road. Following the theater of war between the US-led NATO—Ukraine alliance and the Russian Federation, the 3rd World War situations intended to expand between Bangladesh and Myanmar. This doctrinal paper has been presented through codification of situations of the post-seizure war-fighting battles surviving cold and silent conflicts in Parbatya, Chittagong Hill Tracts, in order to deliver the seized nation onto a free pathway. (shrink)

Generosity is not best understood as an alliance of forces, necessary for mortal beings with limited time and skills. Sociability as generosity exceeds the realm of need and follows directly from our strength of character [fortitudo] because it expresses a positive power to overcome anti-social passions, such as hatred, envy, and the desire for revenge. Spinoza asserts that generous souls resist and overwhelm hostile forces and debilitating affects with wisdom, foresight, and love. The sociability yielded by generosity, then, is not (...) just a form of cooperation we need to survive and produce leisure for study and contemplation. Generosity is not a mere means but a positive expression of freedom, because it is the activity through which a strong soul (and body) transforms enemies into friends. It is not an expression of lack, but of an acquired power that infuses one’s social milieu with empowering love and joy, creating agreements in nature and power where they did not previously exist. Attention to generosity reveals not only that there are social virtues proper to Spinoza’s understanding of freedom but that freedom itself is, by necessity, social. (shrink)

The objective of this article is to analyze the relationships between theories of strategic design and participatory design, in multiple commercial alliances between local entrepreneurs from different sectors and their integrated application in the urban context. Various authors have dealt with these strategic issues in isolation and less frequently have addressed them from the entrepreneurial experience. A review of the specific literature allows us to account for the main concepts involved in this approach. The case being analyzed refers to (...) a fitness-related venture in the city of La Plata, which articulated, together with other local actors, a collaborative strategy that led to the application of a superior business model for its sector. In addition, he capitalized on his role as an influencer on the social network Instagram, as a way to enhance the project’s comprehensiveness. The topics that are addressed synthesize the key concepts that allow us to interpret the praxis relieved. And from them, create a model that can be applied in other markets and territories to promote young local development. And in this way, different actors, complementary products and services serve to jointly promote a co-productive and self-managed culture. (shrink)

The challenge posed by legal indeterminacy to legal legitimacy has generally been considered from points of view internal to the law and its application. But what becomes of legal legitimacy when the legal status of a given norm is itself a matter of contestation? This article, the first extended scholarly treatment of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA)’s new definition of antisemitism, pursues this question by examining recent applications of the IHRA definition within the UK following its adoption by the (...) British government in 2016. Instead of focusing on this definition’s substantive content, I show how the document reaches beyond its self-described status as a “non-legally binding working definition” and comes to function as what I call a quasi-law, in which capacity it exercises the de facto authority of the law, without having acquired legal legitimacy. Broadly, this work elucidates the role of speech codes in restricting freedom of expression within liberal states. (shrink)