Over the past 45 years there has been increasing vocal opposition to religious schools, particularly in Western Europe. Only some of this opposition is related to the perception that some religious schools might be excluding the less fortunate. Much of the opposition rests on the conviction that it is no longer tenable to fund and support so many religious schools when the number of persons professing religious belief has sharply declined. This argument, buttressed (...) by the belief that Europe has undergone a profound “secularization,” maintains that religious schools are but an obsolete cultural relic to be discarded in favor of nondenominational alternatives. Relatedly, religious schools are believed to contribute to segregation and “divisiveness”: Rather than maintain a system in which persons are drawn to schools that reflect their own cultural or religious background, children ought to attend the same schools, learning from – and not only about – each other through substantive interaction. Underneath this argument lies a concern with fostering the skills and dispositions necessary for citizenship. It remains unclear, however, whether religious schools are more guilty of segregation than nonreligious schools. Nor is it clear why attending a religious school would make one less capable of cultivating the skills and dispositions necessary for citizenship than nonreligious alternatives. (shrink)

In this article, I make a philosophical case for the state to fund religious schools. Ultimately, I shall argue that the state has an obligation to fund and provide oversight of all schools irrespective of their religious or non-religious character. The education of children is in the public interest and therefore the state must assume its responsibility to its future citizens to ensure that they receive a quality education. Still, while both religious schools (...) and the polity have much to be gained from direct funding, I will show that parents and administrators of these schools may have reasons to be diffident toward the state and its hypothetical interference. While the focus of the paper is primarily on the American educational context, the philosophical questions related to state funding and oversight of religious schools transcend any one national context . (shrink)

In this paper I examine in detail the continued – and curious – popularity of religious schools in an otherwise ‘secular’ twenty-first century Europe. To do this I consider a number of motivations underwriting the decision to place one’s child in a religious school and delineate what are likely the best empirically supported explanations for the continued dominant position of Protestant and Catholic schools. I then argue that institutional racism is an explanatory variable that empirical researchers (...) typically avoid, though it informs both parental assessments of school quality as well as selective mechanisms many mainstream religious schools use to function as domains of exclusion. I then distinguish between religious schools in a dominant position from those serving disadvantaged minorities and argue that the latter are able to play a crucially important function other schools only rarely provide and hence that vulnerable minorities may have reason to value. (shrink)

After Al-Tusi and his effective work- which is called Nasirian Ethics- Islamic Philosophical Ethics emerges a fixed perspective that tips the balance (scale) in favor of otherworldly Eudemonia and considers worldly Eudemonia as rental land which can be abandoned. Ibn Khaldun tries to present a communicative theory; but his work has limited under the main discourse of Islamic Ethics which is fixed in the space and effect of the mentioned balance. As a consequence, after Mulla Sadra and in Esfahan school, (...) the Nasirian though is developed. then the main challenge is that the social development is slowed diminished in favor of individual Eudemonia. But it seems that Tabatabai in his theory (Constructional Perceptions) shows or reconstructs an almost unanimous consensus which tries to find a compromise between temporal (worldly) and eschatological (otherworldly) Eudemonia. In this paper and according to its descriptive- analytic prospect- with memorizing a historical transformation- Tabatabai 's theory is supposed as an alternative for reconstituting of Islamic Philosophical Ethics, which is based on the popular goodness and civil development. (shrink)

In this article we aim to open a new line of debate about religion in public schools by focusing on religious ideals. We begin with an elucidation of the concept ‘religious ideals’ and an explanation of the notion of reasonable pluralism, in order to be able to explore the dangers and positive contributions of religious ideals and their pursuit on a liberal democratic society. We draw our examples of religious ideals from Christianity and Islam, because (...) these religions have most adherents in Western liberal democracies that are the focus of this article. The fifth and most important section ‘‘Reasonable pluralism and the inclusion of religious ideals in public secondary schools’’ provides three arguments for our claim that public schools should include religious ideals, namely that they are important to religious people, that they are conducive for the development of pupils into citizens of a liberal democracy, and that the flourishing of pupils as adults is advanced by encountering religious ideals. We also offer a more practical reason: religious ideals can more easily be included within public education than religious dogmas and rules. (shrink)

Many philosophers argue that religious schools are guilty of indoctrinatory harm. I think they are right to be worried about that. But in this article, I will postulate that there are other harms for many individuals that are more severe outside the religious school. Accordingly the full scope of harm should be taken into account when evaluating the harm that some religious schools may do. Once we do that, I suggest, justice may require that we (...) choose the lesser harm. To simplify matters, I focus my attention on the stigmatic harm done to Muslims, and the role that Islamic schools might be expected to play in mitigating that harm. If the full weight of stigmatic harm is factored into the ethical analysis concerning Islamic schools, then I suggest that there are sufficiently weighty pro tanto reasons for Muslim parents to prefer an Islamic school over the alternatives, notwithstanding the potential indoctrinatory harm. (shrink)

This study aims to examine the Islamic Theological School that was opened in Nicosia back in 1932 to meet the chaplain needs of the Cypriot Muslims. In this context, how the Islamic Theological School was welcomed among the groupings of the period, its physical structure, teaching staff, and students were all addressed within the framework of the education program and the closure process. The "Foundation Files" in the National Archives and Research Department in the TRNC and the newspaper collections of (...) the period and the "British Colonial Documents" in the Archives of the General Directorate of the Foundations of Cyprus are the main sources of our research. Documentation method, which is one of the qualitative research methods, was used in the study. In this context, the documents that could be accessed in the researches related to the subject of the study are examined and described for the objectives of the study. In conjunction with the madrasas in Cyprus becoming dysfunctional until the end of the 1920s, the wrecked Great Madrasah building in Nicosia, which had the purpose of training personnel such as imams, preachers, chaplains and muezzins for the mosques, was demolished and a school called Islamic Theological School was built instead. The opening of the Islamic Theological School led to important debates between the two opposition groups of the time, the Halkçılar and the Evkafçılar. Halkçılar are the group of people who advocate the adoption of the revolutions and reforms of the newly established Turkish Republic also by Turkish Cypriots. For this reason, they strongly criticized the opening of the Islamic Theological School on the grounds that it would cause reactionism and bigotry. On the other hand, the concept of Evkafçılar is used for people who represent tradition and are close to the current British rulers. Evkafçılar advocated the opening of the Islamic Theological School by stating that it was a social need. Accordingly, both groups used the press effectively as a means of conveying their own thoughts. The halkçı group used the newspapers called "Söz" and "Masum Millet" and the evkafçılar group used the newspaper called "Hakikat" as a means to convey their views to the society. In the shadow of the discussions between the two groups, the Islamic Theological School, which was built in 1932 in place of the wrecked Great Madrasah building in the northeast of Selimiye (Hagia Sofia) Mosque in Nicosia, was built as a single-floor building and a gable roof system was used on its roof. Funds were appropriated by Education (Hatib Ahmed Efendi) Foundation for supplying the school's materials such as tables, chairs, cabinets, sofas, and armchairs. In 1932, when the Islamic Theological School began educating, there were only three professors and one teacher in its teaching staff. Hürremzâde Hakkı Efendi, one of the professors, was both the school director and the Fatwa Emin. One of the other professors was an imam and the other one was a fatwa clerk. And Muallim Ahmed Fehim Efendi undertook the duty of imamate. According to the documents examined, the aforementioned faculty members have taught religious and human sciences-oriented courses in the school. As far as we can identify from the documents open to research in the archives, in the years between 1932 and 1950, when the Islamic Theological School was open, a total of 11 students were educated in this school. In the first year of this school, which started education with three students only, students were given a monthly scholarship of 15 shillings. In addition, the students were both able to practice as assistants to muezzins in the mosques during the month of Ramadan and they were also provided with economic support. After graduation, the students were nominated as imams, muezzins and devirhan. The Islamic Theological School was closed in 1950 because there was no student demand. Despite the fact that 11 people received education in 18 years between the school's opening year 1932 and 1950, and the annual reports published by General Directorate of Foundations stated that the Islamic Theological School continued its services satisfactorily under the upervision of its Fatwa Emin, these statements were unrequited in reality. The Islamic Theological School started to serve in the shadow of the debates between the opposition groups of its time. The parties of the discussions are divided into two groups: Halkçılar and Evkafçılar. The first group opposed the opening of the school by claiming that the financial resources of the General Directorate of Foundations would be spent unnecessarily and that the students to be educated would be raised with reactionism and bigoted ideas. The second group, Evkafçılar, approached the issue with a need-centred approach and defended the necessity of a school to educate religious officials. The mentality of the populist group reflects the ideology of the young Turkish Republic and this is clearly seen in their defence mechanisms. Evkafçılar, on the other hand, did not pay the required attention to the Theological School despite their discourses of necessity. As a result, the power struggle of these two groups aiming to hold the leadership of the Turkish Cypriots caused the Theological School to be adversely affected. Very low salaries of religious officials working in existing mosques and low fees being paid to the graduates of the Theological School who were employed in mosques were other factors that reduced the demand for Theological School. As a result, those who saw low-paid religious officials who had difficulty even getting along did not seek education to become religious officials and their families never pointed such way to them. The fact that a very limited number of students attended Theological School did not lead General Directorate of Foundations to alternative solutions. As the Islamic Theological School was not well organized, the issue of religious officials was felt more and more by the muslim people in the following years in Cyprus where many villages do not even have religious officials. (shrink)

The secular character of the Nigerian state should not impede collaboration between the Roman Catholic Schools Management Board and the Government of Cross River State (Nigeria) in the area of religious education. Based on the above claim, this paper is an exercise in content analysis of The Catholic School{\\ial is, the document regulating Catholic principles of education in schools) and Religion and National Values: Primary 1- 5(text on curricular contents of religious education at the primary school (...) level in Nigeria) in view of highlighting its implications for religious education. This work is focused on bringing out some points of convergence and divergence, if any, in these two documents. Content analysis technique is the modus operandi used in this research paper. The research findings of this paper show that Catholic primary schools can adopt the curriculum for religious education but should be weary of some of its doctrinally watered-down contents. (shrink)

In this book I offer a critical, comparative and empirically-informed defense of Islamic schools in the West. To do so I elaborate an idealized philosophy of Islamic education, against which I evaluate the situation in three different Western countries. I examine in detail notions of cultural coherence, the scope of parental authority v. a child's interests, as well as the state's role in regulating religious schools. Further, using Catholic schools as an analogous case, I speculate on (...) the likely future of Western Islamic schools. (shrink)

This chapter aims to lay out a map of the diverse epistemological perspectives within the Islamic theological tradition, in the conceptual framework of contemporary analytic philosophy of religion. In order achieve that goal, it aims to consider epistemological views in light of their historic context, while at the same time seeking to “translate” those broadly medieval perspectives into contemporary philosophical language. In doing so, the chapter offers a succinct overview of the main epistemic trends within the Islamic theological tradition concerning (...) religious epistemology. The chapter is divided into two main sections designated for discussions of differing accounts found in distinct trends of the tradition, namely the Rationalist and Traditionalist trends. The discussion concerning the Rationalist trend focuses on the philosophical-theologians of the dominant Mu’tazilite, Ash’arite, and Maturidite schools. The section on Islamic Traditionalism focuses on the Atharite scripturalism of Ibn Qudāma, and in particular the thought of Ibn Taymiyya. In order to map out these historic positions in light of contemporary religious epistemology, reference is made to a threefold typology of current views in the literature: (1) theistic evidentialism, (2) reformed epistemology, and (3) fideism. As such, the remainder of the chapter will attempt to outline the different approaches toward religious epistemology in the Islamic theological tradition with this threefold typology in mind. (shrink)

This paper examines how stances and understandings pertaining to whether home education is civically legitimate within liberal democratic contexts can depend on how one conceives normative roles of the secular state and the religious neutrality that is commonly associated with it. For the purposes of this paper, home education is understood as a manifestation of an educational philosophy ideologically based on a given conception of the good. -/- Two polar conceptions of secularism, republican and liberal-pluralist, are explored. Republican secularists (...) declare that religious expressions do not belong in the public sphere and justify this exclusion by promoting religious neutrality as an end in itself. But liberal-pluralists claim that religious neutrality is only the means to ensure protection of freedom of conscience and religion, which are moral principles. Each conception is associated with its own stance on whether exemptions or accommodations on account of religious beliefs have special legal standing and thereby warranted. The indeterminate nature of religion and the allegedly biased exclusion of secular beliefs, cited by some when denying religious exemptions, can be overcome by understanding all religious and conscientious beliefs as having equal standing as conceptions of the good. -/- Analysis of court documents from the Uwe Romeike et al asylum case are guided by these understandings, and relationships among themes are explored. -/- In summary, any stance regarding home education may depend on one’s view of secularism, particularly in relation to whether one views religious neutrality as a means to ensure protection of freedom of conscience or an end in itself. (shrink)

According to the Standard Model account of religion, religious concepts tend to conform to “minimally counterintuitive” schemas. Laypeople may, to varying degrees, verbally endorse the abstract doctrines taught by professional theologians. But, outside the Sunday school exam room, the implicit representations that tend to guide people’s everyday thinking, feeling, and behavior are about minimally counterintuitive entities. According to the Standard Model, these implicit representations are the essential thing to be explained by the cognitive science of religion. It is argued (...) here that this theoretical orientation of mainstream CSR misses a whole dimension of religiosity—the acceptance of certain religious authorities, that is, the acceptance of other people’s superior expertise. Average believers tend to accept the authority of religious experts who espouse highly counterintuitive ideas that they understand in a distorted form, if at all.... (shrink)

In this chapter, I elaborate an idealized type of Islamic philosophy of education and epistemology. Next, I examine the crisis that Islamic schools face in Western societies. This will occur on two fronts: (1) an analysis of the relationship (if any) between the philosophy of education, the aspirations of school administration, and the actual character and practice of Islamic schools; and (2) an analysis concerning the meaning of an Islamic curriculum. To the first issue, I argue that there (...) exists a disjuncture between Islamic educational ideals (as expressed by Muslim philosophers of education), the aspirations of school administrators, and the manner in which Islamic schools operate in practice. Concerning the second item, I argue that Islamic schools, notwithstanding their own insistent claims, must struggle to define what an Islamic education entails that is uniquely distinctive to Islamic schools. Finally, I argue that Islamic educators need to encourage open-minded discussions concerning issues on which there is no settled opinion. I illumine this discussion by drawing upon minority Muslim voices that encourage further dialogue and debate. Above all else, this chapter is an attempt to highlight the challenges that Muslim educators in the West face as they aim to reconcile an idealized caricature of Islamic philosophy of education with the on-the-ground needs of Muslim children socialized in a non-Islamic society. (shrink)

This study, which aims to investigate the existence of Islamophobia in European schools, an important part of the social structure, is designed as a phenomenological study. Data were collected through interviews with 36 teachers working in seven different European countries. As a result of the study, Islamophobia has been identified as an unignorable and a major problem in European schools. Moreover, it reveals that the teachers do not have enough knowledge about Islam, but the majority of participants have (...) open or hidden Islamophobic tendencies. In addition, the teachers think that Islamic lifestyles and Muslims are not part of European cultures and that Muslim students should be subjected to intense cultural training. Again, the majority of the participants argue that the fight against Islamophobia can be achieved through prejudice and communication training for teachers. This study is important in that it is a pioneering work in the literature that investigates the entity of Islamophobia among teachers in Europe. (shrink)

This study posits ecological communion as the integration of facilitative learning through community engagements leading to an ecological conversion. Employing the interpretive phenomenological method, it examined how educational institutions in the CICM Philippine Schools’ Network (CICM-PSN) integrate the ecological principles of Pope Francis’ Laudato Si in terms of religious instruction, community engagement, and campus ministry program. Through a semi-structured interview with the participants, the study revealed three themes that illustrate the CICM educational institutions' efforts in bringing the Laudato (...) Si’ teachings to the level of practice and reflection. First, pedagogical integration denotes the challenge of integrating integral ecology in instruction. Second, community engagement shows the effort of the academic community to practice ecological principles through extension programs. Third, ecological conversion aims to internalize the ecological values taught through instruction and practiced through community service. Taken as a unified whole, the three themes mentioned form the Transformative Interpretative Pedagogical Model to consolidate the framework for the CICM-Philippine Schools Network. Furthermore, this model may guide the concrete articulation and application of ecological communion in their religious instruction, community extension and social action programs, and campus ministry activities. (shrink)

In this paper an attempt is made to draw out the contemporary relevance of philosophy in school education of India. It includes some studies done in this field and also reports on philosophy by such agencies like UNESCO & NCERT. Many European countries emphasises on the above said theme. There are lots of work and research done by many philosophers on philosophy for children. Indian values system is different from the West and more important than others. Education has become a (...) tool to achieve efficiency in all walks of human life whether social, political, religious or philosophical. Every nation started developing its own specific set of educational values. For India it is very necessary to increase philosophical thinking study and research. Philosophy could make significant contribution, particularly in relation to children’s moral development because the Indian curriculum currently neglects this aim. A teacher can play an important role in promoting this discussion because a teacher has the capacity to influence students with their thoughts and personality and engages them in these activities. Philosophy needs to be included in the curriculum and have demonstrated cognitive and social gains in children who were explored to philosophy in their schooling. (shrink)

In this article I investigate the extent to which Bhikhu Parekh believes that a person's cultural/religious background must be preserved and whether, by implication, religious schooling is justified by his theory. My discussion will explore—by inference and implication—whether Parekh's carefully crafted multiculturalism, enriched and illuminated by numerous practical insights, is socially tenable. I will also consider whether, by extension, it is justifiable, on his line of reasoning, to cultivate cultural and religious understandings among one's own children. Finally, (...) I will contend that Parekh, notwithstanding his cautious, even‐handed approach, commits several important errors, including conflating the culture of the parents with that of the children and insisting that cultural and religious persons ought to be allowed to defend their views in the public square on religious grounds. (shrink)

The article provides an analysis of the European Court of Human Rights judgments in the case of Lautsi v. Italy (application no. 30814/06), also known as the Italian crucifix case. The applicant claimed that displaying crucifixes in the Italian State-school classrooms attended by her children was contrary to the principle of secularism, by which she wished to bring up her children, and therefore infringed her right to ensure their education and teaching in conformity with her religious and philosophical convictions, (...) and also breached her freedom of conviction and religion, as protected by Article 9 of the Convention. In its judgment of November 3, 2009, the seven-judge Chamber declared that there had been a violation of Article 2 (right to education) of Protocol No. 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights taken together with Article 9 (freedom of thought, conscience, and religion) of the Convention. The judgment was given unanimously and none of the judges appended a separate opinion. The Italian Government asked for the case to be referred to the Grand Chamber by virtue of Article 43 of the Convention. In the judgment of the Grand Chamber, delivered on March 18, 2011, the Court held, by fifteen votes to two (and with separate opinions of six judges), that there had been no violation of Protocol No. 1 and no violation of the Convention itself. The analysis in the article is focused on selected principal factors determining the Court's decision. It shows that the proposal for the Court to recognize secular convictions as those protected by Article 2 of Protocol No. 1 or Article 9 of the Convention has no sufficient basis in the Convention itself and in earlier Court's case-law and, even, may be considered as promotion of religious intolerance, threatening the freedom to publicly manifest a religion or belief, as guaranteed by Article 9 of the Convention. -/- Opracowanie zawiera analizę wyroków Europejskiego Trybunału, które zapadły w sprawie Soile Lautsi (app. 30814/06), zwaną „włoska sprawa krzyża” (Italian Crucifix Case). W sprawie tej skarżąca zarzucała, że okazywanie znaku krzyża w klasach włoskich szkół państwowych, do których uczęszczały jej dzieci, jest sprzeczne z zasadą sekularyzmu, zgodnie z którą chciała ona wychować swoje dzieci i dlatego stanowi naruszenie jej prawa do wychowania i nauczania zgodnego z jej religijnymi i filozoficznymi (moralnymi) przekonaniami, oraz stanowi naruszenie wolności religijnej, gwarantowanej art. 9 Konwencji. W wyroku siedmioosobowej izby ogłoszonym 3 listopada 2009 r. izba uznała naruszenie art. 2 (Prawo do nauki) Protokołu dodatkowego nr 1 do Konwencji o ochronie praw człowieka i podstawowych wolności w powiązaniu z art. 9 (Wolność myśli, sumienia i wyznania) Konwencji. Wyrok zapadł jednomyślnie i żaden z sędziów nie dołączył do wyroku swoich uwag. Rząd Włoch złożył wniosek w trybie przewidzianym art. 43 Konwencji o przekazanie sprawy do Wielkiej Izby. W wyroku Wielkiej Izby ogłoszonym 18 marca 2011 r. Trybunał uznał zdecydowaną większością głosów – 15 za wobec 2 przeciw (sześciu sędziów dołączyło swoje uwagi), że nie doszło do naruszenia ani Protokołu nr 1, ani samej Konwencji. Analizy koncentrują się na wybranych zagadnieniach, kluczowych dla argumentacji Trybunału. Analizy te pokazują, że postulowanie przez izbę uznania za prawo podmiotowe radykalnie pojętej negatywnej wolności religijnej, oraz postulowanie - tak przez izbę, jak i przez Wielką Izbę - ochrony przekonań sekularystycznych jako przekonań chronionych art. 2 Protokołu dodatkowego nr 1 lub art. 9 Konwencji, nie posiada należytego uzasadnienia ani w samej Konwencji, ani w dotychczasowym orzecznictwie Trybunału, a co więcej – może być uznane za propagowanie nietolerancji religijnej, godzącej przede wszystkim chronioną art. 9 Konwencji wolność publicznego uzewnętrzniania przekonań religijnych i filozoficznych. (shrink)

The article examines the peculiarities of the spreading of Buddhism in Ukraine through the prism of modern global trends. The most famous areas, schools, and teachers were chosen for the convenience of the study. It should be noted that not all Buddhist centers have official registration, occupying rather an informal niche. In the example of schools that are registered and continue activities in Ukraine, we note commonalities in the processes of adaptation and dialogue with local cultures. This feature (...) is common to European, American, and Ukrainian Buddhism in all its various forms. The author draws attention to the fact that common trends determine our involvement in global processes and certain problems in the understanding, translations, and formation of unique local forms of Buddhism, which are also part of the process of spreading this teaching, and its religious, and philosophical forms in Ukraine. Among the presented schools of Buddhism in Ukraine, we can mention: Theravada, Zen, and Tibetan schools, which are accordingly classified by famous Buddhist scholars (Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana). Also, teachers with personal traits, who continue active missionary and educational activities deserve special attention. Based on the analysis of the features of the spread of Buddhism in Ukraine, the author of the article claims that, in general, global processes affect the Buddhist Sangha in Ukraine, and therefore the trends common to the West (Western Europe and North America) are also preserved for local schools. Among the noticeable changes are the gradual Ukrainization of Buddhist texts, religious practice, and liturgy, the representation of the main trends and schools that were first assimilated in the West and then continued their journey in post-Soviet countries and the concentration of communities in large cities. With the preservation of the further trends of Buddhism in Ukraine, we can predict a gradual increase in the number of Buddhist centers, mainly in big cities, where there is a need for alternatives to Christian forms of religion or religious philosophy. Ukrainization is also noticeable, albeit very slowly, but the need for Ukrainian-speaking teachers, books, sacred texts, and sermons is growing. We hope that these trends will continue in the future. (shrink)

This study aims to present how a religious education is given in the formal education institutions while Turkish Cypriots are under British administration. In this context, studies were conducted to clarify the issue by using the method of documentation based on the supplied documents from the archives of Turkey and the TRNC and printed works, periodicals and reports. The educational institutions of the Turkish Cypriots continued the tradition that they obtained from the Ottoman Empire under the British administration. During (...) this period, sıbyan schools-primary schools, rushdiyyeh-secondary schools, idadi-high schools and madrasahs constitute the formal education institutions of Turkish Cypriots. Religious education courses were taught in the primary schools of these formal education institutions until the end of the British administration. In secondary and high schools, while religion courses were given for many years, this course was removed from the curriculum after 1942-1943 academic year. The madrasahs, another formal education institution of the period, have lost their effectiveness with the increase of the rushdiyyeh-secondary schools as of the beginning of the 20th century and in the 1920s, all of them were closed except the Peristerona Madrasah. With the death of the teacher of the Peristerona Madrasah in 1940, this madrasah also vanished. (shrink)

Since the formation period, the concept of religion and the basic issues related to religiosity have been among the main subjects that attracted the Sūfīs. As a consequence, Sūfī writers showed great interest in the subject and endeavoured to produce a genuine religious thought. This tradition of religious thought, which was developed by the Sūfīs, also dealt with problems concerning other religious systems, their basic tenets and rituals, as well as the relationship with the members of other (...) religions. In this context, the school of Wahdat al-Wujūd, which is one of the most significant schools of thought that was developed within the context of Sūfī tradition, provided the most original explanations concerning the nature of religion, various religions and belief systems and their relationship with each other. This article aims to examine the main tenets of the Wahdat al-Wujūd school concerning the concept of religion as well as several basic issues related to this concept. Therefore, the definition of religion, the need for religion, the transcendent unity of religions, the reason for the plurality of religions and the concept of wahdat-i ma‘būd are among the topics that are discussed in this article. (shrink)

The article presents a theory of the basis and nature of parents’ rights that appeals to the goods distinctively produced by intimate-but-authoritative relationships between adults and the children they parent. It explores the implications of that theory for questions about parents’ rights to raise their children as members of a religion, with particular attention to the issue of religious schooling. Even if not obstructing the development of their children’s capacity for autonomy, parents exceed the bounds of their legitimate authority (...) in so far as they aim deliberately to influence their children’s religious views. Healthy familial relationships involve some identification of child with parent and require a sphere of spontaneous interaction between parent and child that are in any case likely to influence those views and constitute a standing threat to autonomy. Correcting over-deferential understandings of parents’ rights enables schools better to promote not only children’s autonomy but also other legitimate civic goals. (shrink)

There is a loud and persistent drum beat of support for schools, for citizenship, for diversity and inclusion, and increasingly for labor market readiness with very little critical attention to the assumptions underlying these agendas, let alone to their many internal contradictions. Accordingly, in this book I examine the philosophical, motivational, and practical challenges of education theory, policy, and practice in the twenty-first century. As I proceed, I do not neglect the historical, comparative international context so essential to better (...) understanding where we are, as well as what is attainable in terms of educational justice. I argue that we must constructively critique some of our most cherished beliefs about education if we are to save the hope of real justice from the rhetoric of imagined justice. (shrink)

The present paper tries to answer the question _Is religious education compatible with the purposes of liberal education?_ This work argues that it is possible, and desirable, that democratic states built on liberal ideals include religious education in all schools since increasing the number of options among which the future citizen may choose the conception of the good with which he or she wishes to live is a condition for autonomy as one of its educational purposes. However, (...) the proposal is not based on religious confessional education, which by itself does not satisfy the liberal educational goals, but is redefined from the common noahide principles compatible both religious confessions and non-religious views of morality and citizenship. (shrink)

The data presents an examination of Islamic ethical work behavior of Malay Muslim teachers in Brunei through religiosity and theory of planned behavior. The total number of participants was 370 Bruneian Malay Muslim teachers. The participants were sampled from two different types of school systems being non-religious schools and religious schools, with five schools each. By documenting information of the data, this data article presented the demographic characteristics of participants, and reliability and correlation of measures (...) involved. Analyses of the data can provide insights into determinants and in predicting Islamic ethical work behavior. Furthermore, the data will be useful for researchers and policymakers that are interested in knowing the current situation of religiosity and behavior in the country. It can also be used as references in developing interventions, promoting and facilitating Islamic ethical work behavior in the workplace. (shrink)

Not long after the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, an American citizen was captured by U.S. soldiers on he battlefield carrying a weapon and wearing the dress of a Taliban soldier. Heralded by the news media as the “American Taliban,” he became a spectacle, bound, gagged, naked and blind-folded on a stretcher in a photo taken soon after his capture. The story of how the homeschooled twenty-year-old from a middle-class Northern California family became an enemy combatant in the Afghani desert piqued (...) the popular imagination. After converting to Islam, he went to Yemen, learned Arabic, returned home and then left again to attend a madrassa (or Islamic religious school) before receiving training at an Al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan. Some Americans reacted to the young man’s story with wonder; others with loathing. How did this youth stray from the values that most Americans hold dear? In fact, he did not. Similar to Paul Maud’dib who, at the end of Dune Messiah, wandered into the desert a blind holy man, the American Taliban had acted in accordance with values that most American prize: self-reliance, ingenuity, spirituality and practical know-how. It is widely believed that the Fremen culture derives from their religion, Zensunni , an imaginative blending of Zen Buddhism and Sunni Muslim beliefs. However, a closer look reveals that the Fremen (similar to the American Taliban) were shockingly American in their core values. To demonstrate this, I begin by discussing the weirdness of Dune’s Fremen, their religion, customs and lifestyle. Then, I give a brief summary of American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson’s famous essay “Self-Reliance” followed by a similar treatment of John Dewey’s notion of democracy as a way of life. The essay returns to paint a clearer picture of the American Fremen and their exhilarating though dangerous faith in jihad as a way of life. (shrink)

Imam Hatip schools (religious vocational schools) in Turkey have been taught teaching Arabic for many years. However, the objectives of learning Arabic have not yet been realized. The Education Council of the Ministry of Education prepares educational plans and programs for Arabic lessons in order to increase the quality of Arabic language teaching, the first of these programs was in 1973. This research is a field study carried out in 2016 on how to implement the educational programs (...) prepared in 2011 for Arabic lessons in Imam Hatip schools, and the problems facing the teacher in practical reality. The scope of the research is limited to Tekirdağ Anadolu Religious High School for boys, Süleymanpaşa Anadolu Religious High School for girls, Süleymanpaşa Religious Secondary school, and the teachers working in these schools. The research was based on the views of those educators as to how the educational programmes for Arabic lessons and the problems they faced during their exercise were implemented. The research was formulated through interviews with teachers. The results of the research according to the data received from the teachers were processed in the statistical program SPSS and then converted to frequency values and percentage values. These values were presented in tabular form. As a result of the findings, it was seen that most of the teachers did not read the Arabic lesson teaching program they were practicing, and they were unaware of the program’s vision, approach and goals; and they did not understand the program’s approach, vision, and objectives. Moreover, it was understood that the minds of the teachers were not clear about whether the Arabic language was a foreign language lesson or a religious vocational lesson, that the teaching practices and behaviors of teachers are incompatible with the educational program and they also had one view that the goals of the Arab lesson were largely unfulfilled. After the main results have been revealed and discussed, finally, following the disputed results, some suggestions were made to increase the quality of teaching Arabic such as making Arabic an effective, active and influential element in the lives of students and teachers through various awards and scholarships and the examination of Arabic as a foreign language in the university entrance examinations as an element of motivation and quality. In addition, in order to improve the quality of the Arabic teacher, we have made the Arabic exams as periodic, an increase in salaries according to the teachers’ receivables score, the continuation of in-service trainings, etc. (shrink)

In this book I argue that school integration is not a proxy for educational justice. I demonstrate that the evidence consistently shows the opposite is more typically the case. I then articulate and defend the idea of voluntary separation, which describes the effort to redefine, reclaim and redirect what it means to educate under preexisting conditions of segregation. In doing so, I further demonstrate how voluntary separation is consistent with the liberal democratic requirements of equality and citizenship. The position I (...) defend is not opposed to integration but rather is a justified response to the daily experience of frustration and disappointment with a system that has failed members of marginalized groups for too long. I argue that most voluntary separation experiments in education, far from being motivated by a sense of racial, cultural or religious exclusion, are in fact driven among other things by a desire for a quality education, not to mention community membership and self respect. As such, voluntary separation represents a morally robust pragmatic strategy that is able to answer liberal challenges concerning involuntary stratification, ethnocentrism and democratic deliberation. (shrink)

The paper starts with some textual distinctions concerning the concept of God in the metaphysical framework of two classical schools of Hindu philosophy, Sāṃkhya and Yoga. Then the author focuses on the functional and pedagogical aspects of prayer as well as practical justification of “religious meditation” in both philosophical schools. A special attention is put on the practice called īśvarapraṇidhāna, recommended in Yoga school, which is interpreted by the author as a form of non-theistic devotion. The meaning (...) of the central object of this concentration, that is puruṣa-viśeṣa, is reconsidered in detail. The subject matter is discussed in the wider context of yogic self-discipline that enables a practitioner to overcome ignorance ( avidyā) and the narrowness of egotic perspective (asmitā), recognized in the Hindu darśanas as the root-cause of all suffering or never-fulfilled-satisfaction ( duḥkha). The non-theistic devotion and spiritual pragmatism assumed by the adherents of Sāṃkhya-Yoga redefines the concept of “God” ( īśvara) as primarily an object of meditative practice and a special tool convenient for spiritual pedagogy. (shrink)

................English....................... The purpose of this study is to reveal university students’ perceptions regarding Holy Qur’an through metaphors. The survey group of study consists of 194 participants who were studying in Theology Department and Social Service Department at Gümüşhane University in the 2014-2015 academic terms. Both quantitative and qualitative methods are used together. The study’s data was collected through a form with the phrase “The Holy Qur’an is similar/like…, because...” and some demographical variables. The Content Analysis Technique was used to interpret (...) data. Results of this study determined that 44 different metaphors regarding Holy Qur’an were given by participants. Theme of these metaphors were compiled as 9 categories consisting of directional, life source, explanatory, key, protective, curative, instructive, speech, and other categories. Top metaphors are in the directional, life source and explanatory categories. Key words are metaphor, perception, The Qur’an perception, religious concepts, and religious symbols. Getting data through comprehensive and in-dept analysis can help to have information about concepts of holy books in the human mind. The purpose of this study is to pick out perceptions of university students with regard to the Holy Qur’an through metaphors. For this reason, these questions are searched by researchers: 1) What are the metaphors which used by university students on description of perceptions regarding the Holy Qur’an? 2) How are the metaphors regarding the Holy Qur’an categorized in terms of common characteristics which produced by university students? 3) Are there any links between socio-demographic variables and composed metaphoric categories? One of the qualitative data collection technics, data collecting through metaphors method is used, and is asked open-ended question in the study. Picking up similarities and diversities under thematic topics is quite easy in the method. Therefore, this method has a functional feature in the sociology, psychology and anthropology, and it gives a wealthy and qualified image about matter, phenomenon, event and situation (Yıldırım & Şimşek 2005, 212). The target population of the study consists of students who were taking education at Gümüşhane University. Easily accessible and availability principles pursued in the sample choosing. In the distribution of participants according to the demographical features, females have 61.9 percent (n:120) and males have 38.1 percent (n:74) in terms of gender. Students who graduated from religious vocational high school is 61.3 percent (n:119), and others who from other high schools is 38.7 percent (n:75) in terms of graduated from different high schools. Students in theology department have 68.0 percent (n:132), and students who were educated in the social service department have 32.0 percent (n:62). Research data is gathered through survey form includes “The Holy Qur’an is like/similar to…, because…” sentence and demographical variabilities. Data, gathered from 194 survey forms, is transferred to the Excel and the SPSS program. In an attempt to reliability of study, gathered metaphors is examined by four area expert. Frequencies (f) and percentages (%) is taken into consideration in the process of replacing metaphors to the tables. Data analysis technique is used on the getting relationships and explaining gathered data, while content analysis technique is used on the interpreting of data. The SPSS program is used in the analysis of quantitative data. Obtained data from the surveys and composed categories is associated with descriptive statements in the verses of the Holy Qur’an. In the composed categories demonstrate distribution of produced 44 different metaphors with regard to the Holy Qur’an as 9 categories. According to this, the sample is represented in the categories as 64.4 % (f:125) is in the ‘directional’, 11.3 % (f:22) is in the ‘life source’, 7.7 % (f:15) is in the ‘explanatory’, 3.1 % (f:6) is in the ‘key’, 3.1 % (f:6) is in the ‘protective’, 2.1 % (f:4) is in the ‘curative’, 2.1 % (f:4) is in the ‘instructive’, 2.1 % (f:4) is in the ‘speech’ and 4.1 % (f:8) is in the ‘other’ categories. Distributions of composed categories are represented according to common characteristics as frequencies and percentages in the next tables. In the distribution of produced metaphors in the ‘directional’ category, university students produced 7 different metaphors (f:125). Frequencies of produced metaphors in the category are such that: guide (f:41), advisor (f:25), mentor (f:19), compass (f:16), road map (f:8), route (f:3) and other (f:13). According to the result, it is understood that aspects of guide, advisor, mentor and compass stood mostly out in the category. In the ‘life source’ category, 6 different metaphors (f:22) is developed by participants. Developed metaphors’ frequencies in the category are the following: life (f:4), lifeblood (f:4), weather (f:2), water (f:2), inheritance (f:2) and others (f:7). So, life and lifeblood aspects stood mostly out in the category. In the ‘explanatory’ category, 5 different metaphor (f:15) is developed by participants. Frequencies of produced metaphors in the category are such that: light (f:5), sun (f:3), flashlight (f:2), torch (f:2) and other (f:3). According to the result, it is understood that aspects of light and sun stood mostly out in the category In the ‘protective’ category, 5 different metaphors (f:6) is developed by participants. Frequencies of produced metaphors in the category are such that: saver (f:2), lifeguard (f:1), hereafter-saving (f:1), escapeway (f:1) and branch to catch (f:1). According to the result, it is understood that aspect of saver stood mostly out in the category. In the ‘instructive’ category, 4 different metaphors (f:6) is developed by participants. Frequencies of produced metaphors in the category are such that: reference book (f:1), dictionary (f:1), priceless book (f:1) and life encyclopedia (f:1). In the ‘speech’ category, it is seen that 4 different metaphors (f:6) is developed by participants. Frequencies of produced metaphors in the category are such that: divine message (f:1), speaking truth (f:1), Allah’s dialogue with us (f:1) and final word (f:1). In the ‘key’ category, 3 different metaphors (f:6) is developed by participants. Frequencies of produced metaphors in the category are such that: a key (f:4), the key of heaven (f:1) and the key of salvation (f:1). In the ‘curative’ category, 2 different metaphors (f:4) is developed by participants. Frequencies of produced metaphors in the category are such that: a pill (f:3) and doctor (f:1). In the ‘others’ category, 8 different metaphors (f:8) is developed by participants. Frequencies of produced metaphors in the category are such that: world (f:1), the friend of lonely passenger (f:1), the tree with fruit (f:1), hereafter (f:1), priceless treasure (f:1), miracle (f:1), philosophy (f:1) and mirror (f:1). Participants composed of 44 different metaphors regarding the Holy Qur’an. The metaphors were summed up in the 9 categories as ‘directional’, ‘life source’, ‘explanatory’, ‘key’, ‘protective’, ‘curative’, ‘instructive’, ‘speech’ and ‘other’ To results of the study; guide, advisor, mentor and compass aspects of the Qur’an came into prominence at most in the ‘directional’ category, when life and lifeblood aspects of the Qur’an came into prominence at most in the ‘life source’ category. Light and sunny aspects of the Qur’an came into prominence at most in the ‘explanatory’ category, while saver aspect of the Qur’an came into prominence at most in the ‘protective’ category. Instructive aspect of the Qur’an came into prominence at most in the ‘instructive’ category. Speech aspect of the Qur’an came into prominence at most in the ‘speech’ category, while key aspect of the Qur’an came into prominence at most in the ‘key’ category. Moreover, pill aspect of the Qur’an came into prominence at most in the ‘curative’ category. Whatsoever world, friend of single traveler, tree with fruit, hereafter, priceless treasure, miracle, philosophy and mirror aspects of the Qur’an came into prominence at most in the ‘other’ category. It is inferred that significant relationships between demographic variables and metaphor categories. In terms of major variable; theology students were composed of more metaphor in the ‘explanatory’ and ‘instructive’ categories, while social service students were composed of more metaphor in the ‘life source’ category. In terms of gender variable; females composed of more metaphor in the ‘curative’ and ‘other’ categories, while males composed of more metaphor in the ‘directional category. In terms of graduating high school variable, students who graduated from religious vocational high school composed of more metaphor in the ‘key’ and ‘speech’ categories, when students who graduated from other high school composed of more metaphor in the ‘directional’ category. Whatsoever, in terms of having the Qur’an education in their life status variable, had the Qur’an education in their life students composed of more metaphor in the ‘curative’ and ‘other’ categories, while other group composed of more metaphor in the ‘directional’. Moreover, in terms of perception of subjective religiousness, students who think themselves are ‘religious’ composed of more metaphor in the ‘key’ and ‘other’ categories, while students who think themselves are ‘less religious’ composed of more metaphor in the ‘explanatory’ category. In terms of perception of family religiousness, students who think own family ‘less religious’ composed of more metaphor in the ‘directional’ and ‘life source’ categories, when students who think own family ‘religious’ composed of more metaphor in the ‘key’ category. It can be suggested by the results of this study; perception of the Qur’an can be studied with the different study techniques, or it can be studied in the different research groups with the same technique. Muslims’ perceptions regarding the Holy Qur’an can be examined with intercultural comparative studies. Perceptions regarding the Holy Qur’an can be researched through interviews. Members’ perception regarding holy book that have different religious faith can be comparatively examined. Individuals’ perceptions regarding different religious concepts can be studied through metaphors. .................. Turkish...................Bu araştırmanın amacı üniversite öğrencilerinin Kur’an-ı Kerim’e ilişkin algılarını metaforlar aracılığıyla ortaya çıkarmaktır. Araştırmanın çalışma grubunu, 2014-2015 eğitim öğretim yılında Gümüşhane Üniversitesi İlahiyat Fakültesi ve Sosyal Hizmetler bölümünde öğrenim gören 194 katılımcı oluşturmaktadır. Araştırmada nitel ve nicel yöntemler birlikte kullanılmıştır. Araştırma verileri, “Kur’an-ı Kerim……gibidir, çünkü……” cümlesini ve demografik değişkenleri içeren bir form aracılığıyla toplanmıştır. Verilerin analizi ve yorumlanmasında içerik analizi tekniği kullanılmıştır. Araştırmada Kur’an’a ilişkin 44 farklı metafor geliştirildiği tespit edilmiştir. Bu metaforlardan ‘yönlendirici’, ‘yaşam kaynağı’, ‘açıklayıcı’, ‘anahtar’, ‘koruyucu’, ‘öğretici’, ‘derman’, ‘kelam’ ve ‘diğer’ olmak üzere 9 farklı kategori oluşturulmuştur. Üretilen metaforların ‘yönlendirici’, ‘yaşam kaynağı’ ve ‘açıklayıcı’ kategorilerinde yoğunlaştığı görülmüştür. Demografik değişkenler ile metafor kategorileri arasındaki ilişkiyi ortaya çıkarmak araştırmanın ikincil amaçlarındandır ve bu yönüyle sonuçlar değerlendirildiğinde değişkenler ile kategoriler arasında anlamlı ilişkiler olduğu tespit edilmiştir. Demografik değişkenler ile kategori ilişkisinde fakülte değişkeni açısından ilahiyat öğrencileri ‘açıklayıcı’ ve ‘öğretici’ kategorilerinde daha fazla metafor üretirken sosyal hizmet öğrencileri ‘yaşam kaynağı’ kategorisinde daha fazla metafor üretmiştir. Cinsiyet değişkeni açısından ise kız öğrenciler ‘derman’ ve ‘diğer’ kategorilerinde daha fazla metafor üretirken erkek öğrenciler ‘yönlendirici’ kategorisinde daha fazla metafor üretmiştir. Lise mezuniyeti açısından bakıldığında da İHL’den mezun olanlar ‘anahtar’ ve ‘kelam’ kategorilerinde daha fazla metafor üretirken diğer lise mezunları ‘yönlendirici’ kategorisinde daha fazla metafor üretmiştir. Kur’an Kursu eğitimi alma değişkeni açısından ise Kur’an kursu eğitimi alanlar ‘derman’ ve ‘diğer’ kategorilerinde daha fazla metafor üretirken Kur’an Kursu eğitimi almayanlar ‘yönlendirici’ kategorisinde daha fazla metafor üretmiştir. Ayrıca öznel dindarlık ve aile dindarlık algılarıyla metafor kategorileri arasında da anlamlı ilişkiler elde edilmiştir. (shrink)

Phenomenology is an established school of philosophy, European in origins but now worldwide, which emphasizes experience as a basis for understanding the human condition. That proposition may seem self-evident, although there are competing bases for understanding human existence and how we ought to act. One of the interesting developments in recent philosophical debate has been the interaction between phenomenological and religious thought. Indeed, it is sometimes said that phenomenology is becoming more theological, and theological discourse more phenomenological. This essay (...) attempts to tease out six specific implications of this interaction between phenomenology and religion. (shrink)

This book is at first sight a selection of reviews spanning many years, including some fundamental well-known works and some rare gems of world religions, their spirituality and mysticism, touching on theology, ecology and art; as such, it is useful and interesting in itself, not least because the selection of titles under review follows rigorous criteria. But this collection is also much more than its description implies, for the objective and informative aspect of every chapter is inseparable from an intimate (...) aspect, a recurrent invitation to tread the Path within every path. It is written from first-hand acquaintance and from study, but also from passion and certainty. The concrete and diverse examples shed light on the key to solve the religious puzzle of our times: that is, they delineate an integral framework, that of Perennial Wisdom, the Sophia Perennis as understood in the Traditionalist School, which allows both for religious diversity and for religious unity. The voices of tradition are all, and have to be, different, and yet they are of a compelling unanimity on the essentials. Samuel Bendeck Sotillos draws our attention generously to these voices and this One Voice. (shrink)

Traditionalism-as a school established at 20th century by Rene Guenon, Amanda Coomaraswamy and expanding and developing by figures like Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Martin Lings, and Titus Burckhardt…- assumes human as vicegerent of God which has an important role in the universe. In this point of view Egalitarianism isn’t acceptable because human beings are different in respect of sexuality, emotions, talents and races. Differences between races and societies prove the necessity of religious plurality on one hand, and unity of the (...) Reality above the forms prove “Transcendence Unity of Religion” on the other. (shrink)

Theological synthesis of religious doctrine with evolutionary science is commonly referred to as theistic evolution. The influential Thomistic school of theology has played a complex role in Catholic contributions to this subject. In the present essay I explore this historical legacy and take stock of recent Thomistic contributions to theistic evolution. I also highlight some unresolved issues, particularly those associated with the concept of substantial form. I conclude that theistic evolution within a Thomistic framework is a potentially more promising (...) agenda for Catholic theology than an incorporation of intelligent design and progressive creation. (shrink)

This article goes behind stereotypes of Muslim veiling to ask after the representational structure underlying these images. I examine the public debate leading to the 2004 French law banning conspicuous religious signs in schools and French colonial attitudes to veiling in Algeria, in conjunction with discourses on the veil that have arisen in other western contexts. My argument is that western perceptions and representations of veiled Muslim women are not simply about Muslim women themselves. Rather than representing Muslim (...) women, these images fulfill a different function: they provide the negative mirror in which western constructions of identity and gender can be positively reflected. It is by means of the projection of gender oppression onto Islam, and its naturalization to the bodies of veiled women, that such mirroring takes place. This constitutes, I argue, a form of racialization. Drawing on the work of Fanon, Merleau-Ponty and Alcoff, I offer a phenomenological analysis of this racializing vision. What is at stake is a form of cultural racism that functions in the guise of anti-sexist and feminist liberatory discourse, at once posing a dilemma to feminists and concealing its racializing logic. (shrink)

Software piracy is older than the PC and has been the subject of several studies, which have found it to be a widespread phenomenon in general, and among university students in particular. An earlier study by Cohen and Cornwell from a decade ago is replicated, adding questions about downloading music from the Internet. The survey includes responses from 224 students in entry-level courses at two schools, a nondenominational suburban university and a Catholic urban college with similar student profiles. The (...) study found that there has been few if any changes in student opinions regarding the unauthorized duplication of copy- righted materials. Students generally felt that copying commercial software and downloading music from the Internet was acceptable and found that there was no significant correlation between student attitudes and their school’s religious affiliation or lack thereof. Additionally, the study found that a small but significant percentage of respondents considered the other questionable behaviors as ethically acceptable. Finally, the reasons for these attitudes are discussed as well as what colleges can do to correct the situation. (shrink)

US citizens perceive their society to be one of the most diverse and religiously tolerant in the world today. Yet seemingly intractable religious intolerance and moral conflict abound throughout contemporary US public life - from abortion law battles, same-sex marriage, post-9/11 Islamophobia, public school curriculum controversies, to moral and religious dimensions of the Black Lives Matter and Occupy Wall Street movements, and Tea Party populism. Healthy Conflict in Contemporary American Society develops an approach to democratic discourse and coalition-building (...) across deep moral and religious divisions. Drawing on conflict transformation in peace studies, recent American pragmatist thought, and models of agonistic democracy, Jason Springs argues that, in circumstances riven with conflict between strong religious identities and deep moral and political commitments, productive engagement may depend on thinking creatively about how to constructively utilize conflict and intolerance. The result is an approach oriented by the recognition of conflict as a constituent and life-giving feature of social and political relationships. (shrink)

Een veelgehoorde kritiek op islamitische scholen is dat kinderen er worden geïndoctrineerd en dat dit in strijd is met het doel van onderwijs in een democratische samenleving. Dit artikel onderzoekt de principiële vraag of ouders ervoor zouden kunnen kiezen om hun kind naar een school te sturen waar hij of zij geïndoctrineerd wordt, bijvoorbeeld omdat zij denken dat het kind op een religieuze school minder kans loopt te worden gestigmatiseerd. Daarnaast wordt bekeken of het waarschijnlijk is dat kinderen op islamitische (...) scholen in Nederland daadwerkelijk geïndoctrineerd worden. (shrink)

The Bhagavad Gītā has inspired more interpretive controversy than any other religious scripture in India’s history. The Gītā, a philosophical and spiritual poem of approximately seven hundred verses, is part of the ancient Sanskrit epic, the Mahābhārata. In the Gītā, the Lord Kṛṣṇa, who appears in the form of a charioteer, imparts spiritual teachings to the warrior Arjuna and convinces him to fight in a just war that entails the slaughter of many of Arjuna’s own relatives and loved ones. (...) Śaṅkara, the great eighth-century champion of the Advaita school of philosophy, wrote the first extant commentary on the Gītā. In this commentary, Śaṅkara interpreted the Gītā strictly in accordance with Advaita.. (shrink)

This book tells the story of modern ethics, namely the story of a discourse that, after the Renaissance, went through a methodological revolution giving birth to Grotius’s and Pufendorf’s new science of natural law, leaving room for two centuries of explorations of the possible developments and implications of this new paradigm, up to the crisis of the Eighties of the eighteenth century, a crisis that carried a kind of mitosis, the act of birth of both basic paradigms of the two (...) following centuries: Kantian ethics and utilitarianism. The new science of natural law carried a fresh start for ethics, resulting from a mixture of the Old and the New. It was, as suggested by Schneewind, an attempt at rescuing the content of Scholastic and Stoic doctrines on a new methodological basis. The former was the claim of existence of objective and universal moral laws; the latter was the self-aware attempt at justifying a minimal kernel of such laws facing skeptical doubt. What Bentham and Kant did was precisely carrying this strategy further on, even if restructuring it each of them around one out of two alternative basic claims. The nineteenth- and twentieth-century critics of the Enlightenment attacked both not on their alleged failure in carrying out their own projects, but precisely on having adopted Grotius’s and Pufendorf’s project. What counter-enlightenment has been unable to spell out is which alternative project could be carried out facing the modern condition of pluralism, while on the contrary, if we takes a closer look at developments in twentieth-century ethics or at on-going discussions on practical issues, we might feel inclined to believe that Grotius’s and Pufendorf’s project is as up-to-date as ever. -/- Table of Contents -/- Preface I. Fathers of the Reformation and Schoolmen 1.1. Luther: passive justice and the good deeds; 1.2. Calvin: voluntarism and predestination; 1.3. Baroque Scholasticism; 1.4. Casuistry and Institutiones morales -/- II Neo-Platonists, neo-Stoics, neo-Sceptics 2.1. Aristotelian, neo-Platonic, neo-Epicurean and neo-Cynic Humanists; 2.2. Oeconomica and the art of living; 2.3. Neo-Stoics; 2.4. Neo-Sceptics; 2.5. Moralistic literature -/- III Neo-Augustinians 3.l. The Jansenists on natura lapsa, sufficient grace, pure love; 3.2. Nicole on the impossibility of self-knowledge; 3.3. Nicole on self-love and charity; 3.4. Nicole against civic virtue, for Christian civility; 3.5. Malebranche on general laws and necessary evil; 3.6. Malebranche on Neo-Augustinianism and Platonism. -/- IV Grotius, Pufendorf and the new moral science 4.1. Grotius against Aristotle and the sceptics; 4.2. Mersenne and Gassendi; 4.3. Descartes on ethics as the last branch of philosophy’s tree; 4.4. Hobbes on scepticism and the new moral science; 4.5. Spinoza on the new moral science as a descriptive science;4.6. Locke on voluntarism and probabilism; 4.7. Pufendorf on natural law as an exact science; 4.8. Pufendorf on physical and moral entities; 10. Pufendorf on self-preservation -/- V The empiricist version of the new moral science: from Cumberland to Paley 5.1. Cumberland against Hobbesian voluntarism; 5.2. Cumberland and theological consequentialism; 5.3. Cumberland on universal benevolence and self-love; 5.4. Shaftesbury on the moral sense; 5.5. Hutcheson on natural law and moral faculties; 5.6. Gay, Brown, Paley and theological consequentialism. -/- VI The rationalist version of the new moral science: from Cudworth to Price 6.1. The Cambridge Platonists; 6.2. Shaftesbury on the moral sense; 6.3. Butler and a third way between voluntarism and scepticism; 6.4. Price and the rational character of moral truths; -/- VII Leibniz’s compromise between the new moral science and Aristotelianism 1.Leibniz against voluntarism; 2.Leibniz against the division between the physical and the moral good; 3.Leibniz on la place d’autrui and theological consequentialism; 4.Thomasius, Wolff, Crusius -/- VIII French eighteenth-century philosophers without the new moral science 8.1. The genealogy of our ideas of virtue and vice; 8.2. Maupertuis and moral arithmetic 8.3. The philosophes and the harmony of interests; 8.4. Rousseau on corruption, self-love, and virtue; 8.5. Sade on the merits of vice -/- IX Experimental moral science: Hume and Adam Smith 9.1. Mandeville’s paradox; 9.2. Hutcheson on the law of nature and moral faculties; 9.3. Hume on experimental moral philosophy and the intermediate principles; 9.4. Hume’s Law; 9.5. Hume on the fellow-feeling; 9.6. Hume on natural and artificial virtues and disinterested pleasure for utility; 9.7. Adam Smith’s anti-realist metaethics; 9.8. Adam Smith on self-deception and the paradox of happiness; 9.9. Adam Smith on sympathy and the impartial spectator; 9.10. Adam Smith on the twofold criterion for moral judgement and its paradox; 9.11. Reid on the refutation of scepticism and the self-evidence of duty -/- X Kantian ethics 10.1. Kantian metaethics: moral epistemology; 10.2. Kantian metaethics: moral ontology; 10.3. Kantian metaethics: moral psychology; 10.4. Kantian normative ethics; 10.5. Kant on the impracticability of applied ethics; 10.6. Kantian moral anthropology; 10.7. Civilisation and moralisation; 10.8. Theology on a moral basis and the origins of evil; 10.9. Fichte and the transformation of theoretical philosophy into practical philosophy XI Bentham and utilitarianism 11.1. Bentham’s linguistic theory; 11.2. Bentham’s moral ontology, psychology, and theory of action; 11.3. The principle of greatest happiness; 11.4. The critique of religious ethics; 11.5. The new morality; 11.6. Interest and duty; 11.7. Virtues; 11.8. Private ethics and legislation -/- XII Followers of the Enlightenment: liberal Judaism and Liberal Theology 12.1. Mendelssohn; 12.2. Salomon Maimon; 12.3. Haskalā and liberal Judaism; 12.4. Liberal Theology. -/- XIII Counter-Enlighteners 13.1.Romanticism and the fulfilment of individuality as the Summum Bonum; 13.2. Hegel on history as the making of liberty; 13.3. Hegel on the unhappy consciousness and the beautiful soul; 13.4. Hegel on Morality and Sittlichkeit; 13.5. Marx on ideology, alienation, and praxis; 13.6. Schopenhauer on compassion; 13.7. Kierkegaard on faith beyond ethics. -/- XIV Followers of the Enlightenment: intuitionists and utilitarian 14.1 Whewell‘s criticism of utilitarianism; 14.2 Whewell on morality and the philosophy of morality; 14.3 Whewell on the Supreme Norm; 14.4 Whewell on the conflict between duties; 14.5 Mill and the proof of the principle of utility; 14.6 Mill’s eudemonistic utilitarianism; 14.7 Mill on rules -/- XV Followers of the Enlightenment: neo-Kantians and positivists 15.1. French spiritualism; 15.2. Neo-Kantians: the Marburg school; 15.3. Neo-Kantians: the Marburg school; 15.4. Comte’s positivism and the invention of altruism; 15.5. Social Darwinism; 15.6. Wundt and an ethic of humankind -/- XVI Post-enlighteners: Sidgwick 16.1. Criticism of intuitionism; 16.2. On ethical egoism; 16.3. Criticism of utilitarianism -/- XVII Post-enlighteners: Durkheim 17.1. Sociology as physics of customs; 17.2. Morality as physics of customs and as practical science; 17.3. On Kantian ethics and utilitarianism; 17.4. The variability of moralities;17.5. Social solidarity as end and justification of morality; 17.6. Secular morality as “sociodicy”; XVIII Post-enlighteners: Nietzsche 18.1. On the Dionysian; 18.2. On the deconstruction of the world of values 18.3 On the twofold genealogy of moralities; 18.4. On ascetics and nihilism; 18.5. Normative ethics of self-fulfilment -/- Bibliography / Index of names / Index of concepts -/- . (shrink)

Richard Peters argued for a general education based largely on the study of truth-seeking subjects for its own sake. His arguments have long been acknowledged as problematic. There are also difficulties with Paul Hirst's arguments for a liberal education, which in part overlap with Peters'. Where justification fails, can historical explanation illuminate? Peters was influenced by the prevailing idea that a secondary education should be based on traditional, largely knowledge-orientated subjects, pursued for intrinsic as well as practical ends. Does history (...) reveal good reasons for this view? The view itself has roots going back to the 16th century and the educational tradition of radical Protestantism. Religious arguments to do with restoring the image of an omniscient God in man made good sense, within their own terms, of an encyclopaedic approach to education. As these faded in prominence after 1800, old curricular patterns persisted in the drive for ‘middle-class schools’, and new, less plausible justifications grew in salience. These were based first on faculty psychology and later on the psychology of individual differences. The essay relates the views of Peters and Hirst to these historical arguments, asking how far their writings show traces of the religious argument mentioned, and how their views on education and the development of mind relate to the psychological arguments. (shrink)

RÉSUMÉ: Cet article étudie deux contextes français dans lesquels les voiles musulmans sont devenus hypervisibles: le débat public qui a mené à la loi française de 2004 interdisant les signes religieux ostensibles dans les écoles publiques, et le projet colonial français de dévoiler les femmes algériennes. Je montre comment le concept de « l’oppression de genre » s’est naturalisé au voile musulman d’une telle manière qu’il justifie les normes de féminités occidentales et cache le mécanisme par lequel les femmes musulmanes (...) sont racialisées. C’est ainsi que le voile devient le point de mire d’un racisme culturel qui se présente comme libérant les femmes musulmanes, un racisme qui semble poser un dilemme au féminisme. -/- // ABSTRACT: This paper examines two French contexts in which Muslim veils have become hypervisible as centres of contention: the public debate that led to the recent French law banning conspicuous religious signs in public schools and the French colonial project to unveil Algerian women. I ask how the concept of gender oppression comes to be naturalized to the Muslim veil in such a way as to simultaneously justify Western norms of femininity and hide the process by which Muslim women are racialized. It is in this way, I argue, that the “veil” becomes the focal point for a form of cultural racism that presents itself as saving Muslim women, and that it can be construed to pose a dilemma to feminism. (shrink)

In his new book, Knowledge: The Philosophical Quest in History, Steve Fuller returns to core themes of his program of social epistemology that he first outlined in his 1988 book, Social Epistemology. He develops a new, unorthodox theology and philosophy building upon his testimony in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District in defense of intelligent design, leading to a call for maximal human experimentation. Beginning from the theological premise rooted in the Abrahamic religious tradition that we are created in (...) the image of God, Fuller argues that the spark of the divine within us distinguishes us from animals. I argue that Fuller’s recent work takes us away from key insights of his original work. In contrast, I advocate for a program of social epistemology rooted in evolutionary science rather than intelligent design, emphasize a precautionary and ecological approach rather than a proactionary approach that favors risky human experimentation, and attend to our material and sociological embeddedness rather than a transhumanist repudiation of the body. (shrink)

Everyone will agree that education ought to prepare young people to lead a meaningful life, but there are different ways in which this notion can be understood. A religious interpretation has to be distinguished from the secular one on which this paper focuses. Meaningfulness in this non-religious sense is a necessary condition of a life of well-being, having to do with the nesting of one’s reasons for action within increasingly pervasive structures of activity and attachment. Sometimes a life (...) can seem meaningless when it is not so in fact. In more extreme cases it may in fact be to some extent meaningless. Equipping young people for a meaningful life is a worthwhile, but not all-important educational aim. Educators should help them not only to see their lives as meaningful but also to lead lives that <are> meaningful. This involves continuous engagement in the nesting of reasons mentioned above. Where autonomy is also an aim, temperamental attunement to possible options – rather than exposure to all possible options – and time to explore them are important considerations. Questions arise here both about social justice and about whether current school curriculum and timetabling arrangements help or hinder pupils in living a meaningful life. (shrink)

A short presentation of Buddhist moral doctrines according to its distinct schools.

A crucial socio-political challenge for our age is how to rede!ne or extend group membership in such a way that it adequately responds to phenomena related to globalization like the prevalence of migration, the transformation of family and social networks, and changes in the position of the nation state. Two centuries ago Immanuel Kant assumed that international connectedness between humans would inevitably lead to the realization of world citizen rights. Nonetheless, globalization does not just foster cosmopolitanism but simultaneously yields the (...) development of new group boundaries. Group membership is indeed a fundamental issue in political processes, for: “the primary good that we distribute to one another is membership in some human community” – it is within the political community that power is being shared and, if possible, held back from non-members. In sum, it is appropriate to consider group membership a fundamental ingredient of politics and political theory. How group boundaries are drawn is then of only secondary importance. Indeed, Schmitt famously declared that “[e]very religious, moral, economic, ethical, or other antithesis transforms into a political one if it is suffciently strong to group human beings e#ectively according to friend and enemy”. Even though Schmitt’s idea of politics as being constituted by such antithetical groupings is debatable, it is plausible to consider politics among other things as a way of handling intergroup di#erences. Obviously, some of the group-constituting factors are more easily discernable from one’s appearance than others, like race, ethnicity, or gender. As a result, factors like skin color or sexual orientation sometimes carry much political weight even though individuals would rather con!ne these to their private lives and individual identity. Given the potential tension between the political reality of particular groupmembership defnitions and the – individual and political – struggles against those definitions and corresponding attitudes, citizenship and civic behavior becomes a complex issue. As Kymlicka points out, it implies for citizens an additional obligation to non-discrimination regarding those groups: “[t]his extension of non-discrimination from government to civil society is not just a shift in the scale of liberal norms, it also involves a radical extension in the obligations of liberal citizenship”. Unfortunately, empirical research suggests that political intolerance towards other groups “may be the more natural and ‘easy’ position to hold”. Indeed, since development of a virtue of civility or decency regarding other groups is not easy, as it often runs against deeply engrained stereotypes and prejudices, political care for matters like education is justified. Separate schools, for example, may erode children’s motivation to act as citizens, erode their capacity for it and!nally diminish their opportunities to experience transcending their particular group membership and behave as decent citizens. This chapter outlines a possible explanation for such consequences. That explanation will be found to be interdisciplinary in nature, combining insights from political theory and cognitive neuroscience. In doing so, it does not focus on collective action, even though that is a usual focus for political studies. For example, results pertaining to collective political action have demonstrated that the relation between attitudes and overt voting behavior or political participation is not as direct and strong as was hoped for. Several conditions, including the individual’s experiences, self-interest, and relevant social norms, turned out to interfere in the link between his or her attitude and behavior. Important as collective action is, this chapter is concerned with direct interaction between agents and the in$uence of group membership on such interaction – in particular joint action. Although politics does include many forms of action that require no such physical interaction, such physical interaction between individuals remains fundamental to politics – this is the reason why separate schooling may eventually undermine the citizenship of its isolated pupils. This chapter will focus on joint action, de!ned as: “any form of social interaction whereby two or more individuals coordinate their actions in space and time to bring about a change in the environment”. Cognitive neuroscienti!c evidence demonstrates that for such joint action to succeed, the agents have to integrate the actions and expected actions of the other person in their own action plans at several levels of speci!city. Although neuroscienti!c research is necessarily limited to simple forms of action, this concurs with a philosophical analysis of joint action, which I will discuss below. (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)

During the early modern age, the teaching of philosophy pivots on the systematic manual which replaces the traditional ‘commentarium’ also in the schools run by the religious orders of the Catholic Church. When confronted with the rise and diffusion of the new philosophy and of the new science, the authors of philosophical manuals basically follow three different directions: beside the defenders of the Aristotelian-Scholastic tradition and the enthusiastic innovators, there emerges a third conspicuous orientation, which tries to take (...) a middle course and draws inspiration from the ‘philosophia eclectica’ understood as a path independent of the various philosophical schools. At the same time, the historic-philosophical perspective starts to be introduced into the systematic manual of philosophy, to the extent that it becomes an autonomous treatment with respect to the manual itself. (shrink)

Psychology of religion tries to understand the cause-effect relationships of religious experiences and religious consciousness so as to be able to predict behaviors. It aims to study the religious consciousness with investigations in religious behavior patterns. -/- The major systems of psychology are: structuralism, functionalism, behaviorism, psychoanalysis, and Gestalt School of Psychology. Obviously, each system has its own way of understanding religious consciousness.