My article analyses the political power of the utopian imaginary through the concepts of actuality, potentiality and possibility. Tracing the tensions of a critical model of utopia as both a form of thought and a form of the sensible, it links Louis Marin's concept of the utopic imaginary as a common sensorium that is reconfigured through the play of a mobile figure with Jacques Rancière's formulation of the partition of the sensible. Studying the critical reception of Melville's Bartleby in Deleuze, (...) Rancière and Agamben, it proposes that the space of literary potentiality, where the past could not have been or retains its possibility to be otherwise, where the actual can not be and the potential and the possible have a right to be and exist, forms the spatio-temporal configuration of the utopian imaginary of literature. Potentiality offers a key to understanding the politics of the ontology constructed by aesthetics. (shrink)

Nishida Kitarō is considered by many as the most important 20th century Japanese philosopher for his ability to employ modern concepts and terminologies, and use them to construct a unique system carrying a distinctly East Asian flavour. In this system, the notion of nothingness plays a fundamental part both in terms of epistemology and ontology. While this conceptual choice was also inspired by Buddhist sources, Nishida also drew on the theoretical philosophy of Hermann Cohen to elaborate, how nothingness could function (...) as both the guarantor of unity and generator of plurality. Close analysis, however, shows that Nishida’s appropriation of Cohen’s concept of the me on as a necessary feature in the „logic of pure knowledge“ sheds the constraints carefully put in place by Cohen. As becomes evident in a comparison between both thinker’s analysis of sensation, Nishida’s unrestricted use of Cohen’s terms collapses precisely those distinctions that give sensation its meaning in the rational assessment of reality. This leaves Nishida’s concept of reality without the critical potential to distinguish between different kinds of normativity and their inter-subjective validity. Nothingness, as Nishida uses the term, is not a logical concept, but functions as an aesthetic symbol invoking sublime ideas of a perfect reality that is one and whole, and at the same time rich and diverse.Nishida Kitarō gilt vielfach als der bedeutendste japanische Philosoph des 20. Jahrhunderts, wenn nicht generell. Zu dieser Einschätzung trug seine Fähigkeit bei, Konzepte und Terminologien der modernen Philosophie aufzugreifen und in ein eigenes System einzubauen, das gleichwohl einen besonderen, ostasiatischen Charakter hatte, auf den er sich auch explizit bezog. Fundamental für dieses System wie für seine Apostrophierung als genuin „östlich“ war die zentrale Rolle, die er dem Nichts sowohl in logischer als auch in ontologischer Hinsicht zusprach. In der Ausarbeitung dieser systematischen Funktion machte sich Nishida Überlegungen von Hermann Cohen zur Logik der reinen Erkenntnis zueigen, die er ausweitete und aus dem Gebiet der wissenschaftlichen Erkenntnis auf andere Formen menschlichen Weltzugangs übertrug. Die genauere Analyse zeigt, dass die Inanspruchnahme Cohens problematisch ist, weil Nishida zentrale Unterscheidungen Cohens überspielt. Das Nichts, bei Cohen ein notwendiger Umweg zur Sicherung „reiner“ Begriffe, wird bei Nishida zum Quell begrifflicher Unterscheidung selbst. Die Folgen dieser Hypertrophie des Nichts zeigen sich besonders in der Behandlung der Empfindung, die bei Cohen der bloßen Anzeige des Daseins dient, bei Nishida aber sowohl Dasein als auch Realität begründen soll. Nishidas Begriff von Wirklichkeit ermangelt daher einer fundamentalen kritischen Unterscheidung und bleibt letztlich leer, was jedoch durch den durch Übernahme von systemfremden Theoriestücken geschickt erzeugten Schein einer Fülle von Wirklichkeitsbezügen verdeckt wird. Im Kern ist Nishidas Umgang mit Begriffen ästhetisch. Er bildet mit ihnen keine nachvollziehbaren Theorien, sondern erzeugt gerade mit dem Nichtsbegriff den erhabenen Schein umfassender und lebendig-vielfältiger Einheit – ein Schein, der vielleicht inspirierend wirkt, sich aber theoretisch nicht zu bewähren vermag. (shrink)

Concepts of Philosophy challenges received conceptions of philosophy by way of critical engagement with Chinese and Japanese sources. Built on philologically sound readings of specific texts, the book lifts the discussion on the concept of philosophy to a global plane.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of critical approaches to questions in qualitative research. Written using examples from actual research and course work, this volume helps students and researchers learn to interrogate and inquire against the grain. For use by anyone doing qualitative research in Education, _Critical Approaches to Questions in Qualitative Research_ teaches that questions are tools for decision making in the research process. With exercises, sample questions, and outlines for planning research, this volume teaches readers to ask questions (...) that confront prevailing assumptions leading to an analysis, dismantling and uncovering of omissions and invisiblities. (shrink)

_Concepts of Philosophy_ challenges received conceptions of philosophy by way of critical engagement with Chinese and Japanese sources. Built on philologically sound readings of specific texts, the book lifts the discussion on the concept of philosophy to a global plane.

_Concepts of Philosophy_ challenges received conceptions of philosophy by way of critical engagement with Chinese and Japanese sources. Built on philologically sound readings of specific texts, the book lifts the discussion on the concept of philosophy to a global plane.

_Concepts of Philosophy_ challenges received conceptions of philosophy by way of critical engagement with Chinese and Japanese sources. Built on philologically sound readings of specific texts, the book lifts the discussion on the concept of philosophy to a global plane.

This introductory chapter reviews the history of the reception of philosophy from Asia and the Islamic World in Western philosophy and argues in favor of conceptualizing philosophy from a more globally informed point of view.

Literary works across cultures are never written in a vacuum. They depict the reality of the society where they are set. With the societal obligation of the writers to serve as righters, especially in Africa, this study attempts a pragmatic inquiry of the state of the Nigerian society as implicitly and artistically painted in Remi Raji’s poetry collection, A Harvest of Laughters. The known literature on Remi Raji’s A Harvest of Laughters have analysed the collection mainly from literary and ideological (...) perspectives. Attention has not been given to the collection from a pragmatic perspective, hence the intervention of this study. Drawing insights from Jacob Mey’s Pragmatic Acts Theory, the study analyses the pragmatic imports in the collection with fourteen randomly selected excerpts across different segments of the collection constituting the data. Data was purposively selected from different poems in the collection. The findings show that the two major discursive issues in the text are the depiction of the government as cruel and the portrayal of the citizenry as victims. The former was conveyed through the practs of oppressing, embezzling and deceiving, while the latter was revealed through the practs of suffering and hoping. The study concludes that pragmatics is a valuable tool in the demystification of texts. (shrink)

On theory of knowledge from Islamic perspective related to Ismaʼil R. Al-Faruqi, a Palestinian American philosopher.

Rwanda witnessed devastating conflicts leading to genocidal attacks in 1994 with active participation of the police in the pogrom. Various reports implicated the police in high-handedness, torture, extra judicial killings, intimidation, rape, and other heinous crimes during the conflicts. The police force was reformed for optimal performance. This paper examines the impact of the post-conflict reconstruction of the police on internal security management in Rwanda. Findings from the study, which relied on secondary data, are that reform impacted positively on the (...) performance of the police, sharpening its skills in crime detection and prevention and leading to improved security for lives and property in Rwanda. Over-reliance on dwindling external sources and dysfunctional equipment still undermines maximum performance by the police. There should be adequate provision of advanced security devices and better funding of the police for the optimal discharge of their constitutional mandates of securing lives and property in Rwanda. (shrink)

صدر عن المركز العربي للأبحاث ودراسة السياسات كتاب زهير قوتال "المفهوم الفلسفي عند جيل دولوز"، الذي ينظر فيه إلى جيل دولوز بصفته فيلسوفًا شديد الفضول، يهتم بكل ما يشكله حاضره وينتجه عصره؛ إذ وجه جلّ فكره نحو القبض على مساحة حدْثية مرآوية، طاويًا سحر كتابته لتجاوز الأماكن الفارغة من المعنى. وقع الاختيار على المفهوم الفلسفي عنده لأنه أكثر الفلاسفة اشتغالًا على المفاهيم الفلسفية، من خلال حواراته مع كبار الفلاسفة.

Les Prolegomenes a la Philosophie de Platon sont un manuel d'ecole neoplatonicien. Il s'inspire d'un modele dont Proclus a du etre l'auteur, mais l'origine de ce texte est presque surement alexandrine et doit dater de la premiere moitie du Vle siecle. Cette oeuvre est essentielle pour comprendre comment etait diffuse l'enseignement platonicien, et pour mieux saisir le mouvement des idees de l'Antiquite finissante. Dans une importante introduction, L. O. Westerink a retrace l'histoire de l'ecole d'Alexandrie et celle du genre litteraire (...) de ces introductions a Platon et a Aristote. (shrink)

Modern scholars have been concerned with the hostility shown to Alexander by the Hellenistic schools of philosophy. Two literary portraits have been distinguished, the Peripatetic and the Stoic, the former deriving from Theophrastus' book on Callisthenes, or starting with this work the Peripatetics worked out a theory of and applied it to Alexander, in order to belittle his achievements. It was a case of giving sophisticated expression to the kind of crude resentment expressed by Demades.

The locus classicus for Plutarch's own views on his methods is in the Alexander He has begun by asking for the indulgence of his readers if they do not find all the exploits of Alexander and Caesar recounted by the biographer or if they discover him not reporting some famous incident in detail (); and he goes on to compare his own search for evidence which will indicate the kind of soul, with the activity of the painter, who, in order (...) to create a likeness, concentrates on the eyes and pays little attention to the other parts. Commentators and critics have been right to take this as a key text for the purpose of understanding Plutarch's attitude towards his biographical work; nevertheless there are other passages in the Lives where we can at least glimpse his attitude to his subject, and we can only see the Alexander-remarks in correct perspective if we take these other passages into account. I propose therefore, starting with the Alexander, to see how far these critical remarks apply to Plutarch's theory and practice elsewhere in the Lives. (shrink)

According to the Ars Amatoria the notorious rape took place on the occasion of a primitive dramatic entertainment staged in a theatre, in which the seats and furnishings were also primitive. There is no time for a description of the arts of the performers—a tibicen and a ludius—before the Romans, impatient for action, receive their signal from Romulus. Nor is there any mention of a god in whose honour the entertainment had been provided.

Catalog of the collection of the Madamkhand Museum of Art, named after the wife of Batzhargalyn Batbai︠a︡r, businessman and member of the Mongolian Khural.