The purpose of the study was to find out the adequacy of upper basic Social Studies curriculum content for sustainable development in Nigeria as assessed by Social Studies teachers. 306 Social Studies teachers from 341 upper basic schools in Kwara State participated in the study. A researcher-designed questionnaire was used to collect data that were analysed using descriptive statistics and chi-square. The results showed that the content of upper basic Social Studies was not adequate, as assessed by teachers. It was (...) also revealed that teachers’ assessment was significantly influenced by teaching experience, qualification and school type. However, the research showed that gender did not significantly influence Social Studies teachers’ assessment. Based on the findings, it was suggested that upper basic Social Studies curriculum should be reviewed and taught so as to ensure sustainable development in Nigeria. (shrink)

Rejecting judicial supremacy in constitutional interpretation, this paper argues that understanding the interpretation of constitutions to be a solely legal and judicial undertaking excludes citizens from such activity. The paper proffers a two-pronged classification of analyses of constitutional interpretation. Implicit accounts discuss interpretation without reflecting on whether such activity can or should be performed by non-judicial institutions as well. Explicit accounts ask whether interpretation of constitutions is a matter to be dealt with by courts and answer affirmatively. I criticise both (...) camps. Implicit accounts fail to explain why constitutional interpretation is purely judicial in character. Explicit accounts do not provide enough reasons why the judiciary is allegedly the ideal institution to give constitutions meaning with final authority, both in instrumental and normative terms. The paper closes by suggesting avenues for future research. (shrink)

Por medio del rechazo a la supremacía judicial en la interpretación constitucional, este artículo argumenta que entender la interpretación de una constitución como un práctica estrictamente legal y judicial, excluye a la ciudadanía de dicha actividad. El artículo ofrece una clasificación de análisis de interpretación constitucional. Primero, las tesis implícitas discuten sobre la interpretación sin reflexionar sobre si dicha actividad puede ser también llevada a cabo por instituciones no judiciales. Segundo, las tesis explícitas cuestionan si la interpretación constitucional es un (...) asunto que ha de ser tratado por los tribunales, y responden afirmativamente. Crítico ambos grupos de argumentos. Las tesis implícitas no explican porqué la interpretación constitucional es de naturaleza puramente judicial. Las tesis explícitas no justifican suficientemente por qué la judicatura es la institución ideal para dotar de significado final a la constitución de manera autoritativa, tanto en términos instrumentales como normativos. Finalizo sugiriendo caminos para investigaciones futuras. (shrink)

We undertake the comparison between Ludwig von Bertalanffy's General Systems Theory and Alexandr Bodganov's Tektology as two theories proposing a holistic interpretation of reality and claiming to solve problems which are unsolvable via conventional philosophic and scientific theories and methodologies. Basic misunderstandings by some Soviet authors regarding the nature of these theories — especially in the case of Tektology — are pointed out. The comparison is made in what concerns the general origins and purposes of the theories, their approaches to (...) the problem of organization, their treatment of mathematics and their understanding of the cybernetic concept of regulation.We contend that Tektologycontains — some 15 years earlier — all the basic concepts which will be later developed by the General Theory of Systems. As we shall see, Tektology is the ultimate expansion of any theory of systems. This fact is widely ignored in contemporary specialized literature. (shrink)

We undertake the comparison between Ludwig von Bertalanffy's General Systems Theory and Alexandr Bogdanov's Tektology as two theories proposing a holistic interpretation of reality and claiming to solve problems which are unsolvable via conventional philosophic and scientific theories and methodologies. Basic misunderstandings by some Soviet authors regarding the nature of these theories -- especially in the case of Tektology -- are pointed out. The comparison is made in what concerns the general origins and purposes of the theories, their approaches to (...) the problem of organization, their treatment of mathematics and their understanding of the cybernetic concept of regulation. We contend that Tektology contains -- some 15 years earlier -- all the basic concepts which will be later developed by the General Theory of Systems. As we shall see, Tektology is the ultimate expansion of any theory of systems. This fact is widely ignored in contemporary specialized literature. We finally contend that both Tektology and the General Systems Theory are a sign of the times. A holistic secular monism is a respectable alternative to the failure of contemporary science and philosophy in guiding the life of men, in providing a raison d'être for human existence. However, we do not explore the soundness of this alternative. (shrink)

Rejecting judicial supremacy in constitutional interpretation, this paper argues that understanding the interpretation of constitutions to be a solely legal and judicial undertaking excludes citizens from such activity. The paper proffers a two-pronged classification of analyses of constitutional interpretation. Implicit accounts discuss interpretation without reflecting on whether such activity can or should be performed by non-judicial institutions as well. Explicit accounts ask whether interpretation of constitutions is a matter to be dealt with by courts and answer affirmatively. I criticise both (...) camps. Implicit accounts fail to explain why constitutional interpretation is purely judicial in character. Explicit accounts do not provide enough reasons why the judiciary is allegedly the ideal institution to give constitutions meaning with final authority, both in instrumental and normative terms. The paper closes by suggesting avenues for future research. (shrink)

Several lines of evidence suggest that children born via Cesarean section are at greater risk for adverse health outcomes including allergies, asthma and obesity. Vaginal seeding is a medical procedure in which infants born by C-section are swabbed immediately after birth with vaginal secretions from the mother. This procedure has been proposed as a way to transfer the mother's vaginal microbiome to the child, thereby restoring the natural exposure that occurs during vaginal birth that is interrupted in the case of (...) babies born via C-section. Preliminary evidence indicates partial restoration of microbes. However, there is insufficient evidence to determine the health benefits of the procedure. Several studies, including trial, are currently underway. At the same time, in the clinic setting, doctors are increasingly being asked to by expectant mothers to have their babies seeded. This article reports on the current research on this procedure and the issues it raises for regulators, researchers, physicians, and patients. (shrink)

Il mio scopo in questo articolo è mettere d'accordo l'analisi sulle questioni antropologiche e metafisiche di E. Husserl ed E. Stein. Per realizzare questo compito è necessario spiegare il significato del metodo fenomenologico, prima di tutto in Husserl e poi in E. Stein, mettendo in luce la novità del suo approccio della conoscenza dell'essere umano, del mondo e di Dio. Il saggio è suddiviso in quattro parti; due sono dedicate all'investigazione dell'essere umano di Husserl e Stein e due allo sviluppo (...) dei loro temi metafisici. Leggendo il primo topico scopriamo una significante connessione tra i due pensatori; leggendo il secondo, notiamo che è possibile trovare un approccio metafisico della realtà persino in Husserl ed um originale sviluppo dei temi nell'analisi della Stein, collegandoli con la filosofia e la teologia medievale. (shrink)

En esta contribución mía en ocasión de los cien años de la adhesión de Edith Stein a la Iglesia católica, deseo volver a proponer extractos de mi último libro que le he dedicado a ella: Assonanze e dissonanze. Dal Diario di Edith Stein (Mimesis, Milán, 2021), en el que vuelvo a recorrer toda su existencia humana e intelectual, imaginando haber encontrado un diario suyo, que en realidad he reconstruido partiendo de su historia de una familia judía, su epistolario, en particular (...) el que sostiene con Roman Ingarden y de sus obras. Ya que el libro ha sido escrito durante el periodo de la pandemia en la que en Italia estuvimos obligados a permanecer en casa desde marzo hasta mayo de 2020, entrelacé mi diario de esos largos días con el de Edith Stein. Muestro aquí algunas páginas extraídas del capítulo V dedicado a su conversión y muestro paralelamente su camino espiritual e intelectual: qué sucedía en su alma y cómo eso se reflejaba en sus libros, en particular, el «escrito secreto» sobre la religión, Libertad y gracia, y su Introducción a la filosofía. (shrink)

Etymologies are often entertaining, but it is not always obvious what they mean. Take the case of Old Frankish *sal, meaning a single-roomed dwelling. The word was taken over by speakers of Vulgar Latin as sala, and by 1100 CE it had become a word of Anglo-Norman French, since in The Song of Roland it crops up as sale, meaning the living area of a castle. Some time later, it wandered into Italian. Renaissance architects wanted to make a new word (...) for the increasingly grandiose spaces they were designing, so they added an augmentative suffix, producing salone. In the seventeenth century, French translations of Italian works on architecture reproduced the new term, only dropping the final e so as to keep the masculine gender of the Italian. French salon came into English in the early eighteenth century, initially as a word for a large and lofty room; but as French speakers applied it more and more to social functions occurring in such spaces, English speakers did so too. Then came a fork: a phonological adaptation produced saloon, which drifted off as a fully naturalized word of English toward hotels, carriages, bars, and cars; but salon persisted nonetheless. By retaining the stress pattern and marginally nasal final vowel of its source language, the doublet has remained in use as a xenism—a word of English understood to be not English, but understood in English all the same.How many such words are there? Hundreds, maybe thousands. Coupé, du jour, fuselage, pizza, paparazzi, sauerkraut, Zeitgeist—all signal their foreignness either by nonstandard pronunciation of written consonants (s, g, j, z), the presence of foreign diacritics, or irregular tonic stress. These are the kinds of loanwords that Scholar calls “émigrés,” but he gives us not thousands or hundreds or even a dozen of them: his chapters deal only with four: à la mode, ennui, naïveté, and caprice. The histories of these words do not really teach us any more about the cultural, social, and political relations between England and France than do saloon and salon, which is not much at all, or any other set of loanwords that retain phonetic or orthographic signs of foreignness. Scholar nonetheless does his level best to put his favored four at the heart of early modern English culture. Lengthy accounts of a play by Dryden, a famous work of Schiller's, an essay by Raymond Williams, Caribbean notions of creolization, and a John le Carré novel, learned though they all may be, do not really make the argument more persuasive, or even clear. By the end of this beautifully produced and floridly written book, the reader (or at least this reader) is not quite sure what it was really about. The very title of Émigrés repurposes a xenism which in regular usage is associated with high social status (we never talk of émigré workers, for example), thus exhibiting what I suppose the whole field ought to demonstrate: the ways in which new, hard, or nonnative words are always used to establish pecking orders between speakers, between their interlocutors and between their worlds. In Bourdieusian terms: not to make distinctions, but to create distinction. (shrink)

The problem of God is tackled by E. Husserl and can be found in some passages of his phenomenological analysis. Though he is interested more to perform his method of research than to discuss that particular topic, it is possible to pinpoint that for him teo-logy -in the sense of the rational way to deal with the problem of the Absolute- is linked up with teleo-logy. As in Kant's speculation, but more under the influence of Leibnitz and Fichte, in Husserl's (...) inquiry we find that the finality of natural processes and the ultimate meaning of human being's behavior compelles us to admit an absolute aim and a goal of all things. And that can be nothing else than God. (shrink)

This article discusses a relationship between the philosophical praxis of Ọ̀rúnmìlà and aesthetics of Èjìgbèdè Ẹ̀kú (i.e., the costume of the living and the costume of the dead) in Saworoidẹ (dir. Túndé Kèlání’s, 1999). I construct the Yorùbá/Ọ̀rúnmìlà philosophical method of Èjìgbèdè Ẹ̀kú in the contemporary Nigerian narrative film as case study of how contemporary African filmmakers, like their oral artiste counterparts, continue to articulate their inherited traditions via cinematic storytelling. In doing that I draw on what I call the (...) Ọ̀rúnmìliàn “parable of Eégún” (masquerade) to establish what I designate the philosophical/therapeutic questions of Èjìgbèdè Ẹ̀kú; and thus, argue that Èjìgbèdè Ẹ̀kú gives “presence to non-presence” so that the living/present can dialogue with the dead/past as a way of healing, re-moralizing, and/or decolonizing the living through cinematic storytelling. I conclude that Ọ̀rúnmìliàn film does not solely rekindle, and teach us, a valuable aesthetic practice of self-reflection or self-reevaluation but also decolonize and de-westernize film-philosophy. (shrink)

O presente artigo apresenta um panorama da filosofia da religião, indicando suas distintas vertentes, salientando de modo especial a filosofia “teologal” de Xavier Zubiri (1898-1983), com seu conceito de “religação”, no intuito de responder à questão de se a religiosidade é uma dimensão constitutiva da pessoa humana.

In queste pagine è delineata la vicenda esistenziale e intellettuale di Edith Stein. Donna straordinaria, è stata capace di racchiudere nella sua persona molte "possibili" vite. Le ha realizzate come ebrea e cattolica, fenomenologa e filosofa cristiana, docente e monaca carmelitana, agnostica e santa. Si tratta di un processo vitale dagli apparenti salti qualitativi, i quali si volgono all'ascolto di un medesimo nucleo identitario. Questa viva "formazione di sé" ha condotto Edith Stein a una "donazione di sé", culminata nell'Olocausto. Il (...) Diario di Edith si sovrappone ai pensieri di Angela Ales Bello, in veste di narratrice d'eccezione. Con la sentita partecipazione della narratrice, e insieme mantenendo il distacco critico della studiosa, viene scoperta la storia di un'anima. Le emozioni e le conquiste intellettuali trovano una sintesi grazie al peculiare approccio ai "fenomeni" che Edith Stein aveva appreso alla scuola di Edmund Husserl, di Tommaso d'Aquino e di Teresa D'Avila. Sintesi mirabile di pensatori che "si danno la mano" al di là dello spazio e del tempo--Front flap. (shrink)

My aim in this paper is to deal with E. Husserl’s and E. Stein’s analyses on the anthropological and metaphysical questions. To perform this task it is necessary to explain the meaning of the phenomenological method, first of all in Husserl and then in E. Stein, underscoring the novelty of their approach to the knowledge of human being, world and God. The essay is divided in four parts; two are dedicated to Husserl’s and Stein’s investigation on the human being and (...) two to their development of metaphysical themes. Regarding the first topic we discover a significant connection between the two thinkers, regarding the second one we notice that it is possible to find a metaphysical approach to reality even in Husserl and an original development of the theme in Stein’s analysis linked up with the medieval philosophy and theology. (shrink)

O trabalho busca comparar as noções tomasianas de “abstração” e “ser”, e as noções zubirianas de “intelecção senciente” e “realidade”, articulando, também, as noções de “participação” e “religação”.

Segundo Xavier Zubiri, a pessoa humana está “religada” a Deus, isto é, sua realidade está constituída “em” Deus, e para o Cristianismo este ser “em” Deus é ser “como” Deus, é “deiformidade”. O presente artigo irá estudar a relação entre tal conceito e os conceitos de graça santificante e de “deificação”, este último presente no primeiro escrito teológico zubiriano, bem como a conexão desta relação com o conceitos teológicos clássico de “natureza” e “sobrenaturalidade”, cujo conteúdo seria recusado por Zubiri, e (...) a adequação de tais noções ao Magistério católico. (shrink)

El trabajo adopta como marco general la ética de la alteridad de E. Levinas, desde la que intenta explorar la mala respuesta que los estados receptores dan a los otros, los emigrantes ilegalizados. La hipótesis en juego apunta a una contradicción radical interna la ética política de esos estados. Por un lado, adoptan la ética liberal que subyace a los derechos humanos universales pero, por el otro, se identifican con la ética realista comunitarista que defiende los intereses de sus ciudadanos (...) y legitima el no reconocimiento de la ciudadanía de los emigrantes ilegalizados. En segundo lugar el trabajo trata de contextualizar esta situación en un marco histórico y filosófico más amplio y llega a la colonización europea moderna que inspira, en el plano filosófico, la legitimación hegeliana de la esclavización colonialista de los otros y, en consecuencia, del racismo implícito en ella. Esta “ética” racista y esclavista resurge con la llegada de los emigrantes a Europa no forma de neorracismo. Frente a ella y a su legitimación hegeliana se levanta la ética de la alteridad en figuras como Charles Taylor y, sobre todo, Levinas que, paradójicamente, se distancian de individualismo abstracto y posesivo del igualitarismo liberal. (shrink)

Resenha dos Escritos políticos de Santo Tomás de Aquino, publicados pela Editora Vozes, que trazem dois textos fundamentais para a compreensão da questão política no Aquinate: as “Questões sobre a lei na Suma Teológica” e o Do reino ou do governo dos príncipes ao rei de Chipre.

El presente artículo revisa las etapas por las que transitó el Estado chileno a partir de la década de 1930, particularmente en relación a las mutaciones del rol que desempeñó en la conducción de la economía nacional, y el impacto de aquellos cambios en la vinculación entre partidos políticos y sociedad, o en un sentido más amplio, entre Estado y nación. Observamos dos etapas claramente diferenciadas, la primera caracterizada por la constitución del Estado en pieza clave del modelo de desarrollo (...) económico e importante organizador de la sociedad, tarea -esta última- propiciada por la acción mediadora de los partidos políticos, los cuales establecieron profundos lazos con diversas organizaciones sociales, permitiendo la canalización de demandas y la distribución de beneficios. La segunda etapa, que se empieza a desarrollar a partir del quiebre democrático de 1973, muestra el repliegue del Estado y la imposición del mercado como eje central del modelo económico y como principal mecanismo de distribución de bienes y servicios. El retorno a la democracia -en 1990- estuvo marcado por esta realidad “mercado-céntrica” y por la nueva estructura institucional ideada durante la dictadura militar, lo que moldeó la reestructuración de sistema de partidos y obligó a cambiar las estrategias de interacción entre partidos políticos y sociedad, privilegiándose el marketing político y la utilización de medios de comunicación masivos por sobre la relación directa con las disminuidas organizaciones sociales. Esta revisión histórica puede ayudar a entender la actual crisis de representación y participación que se observa en Chile. (shrink)

Avec les nouvelles technologies de l’information, la condition urbaine s’est métamorphosée : la ville et l’idée de survivance participent de l’imaginaire urbain reflété par les medias. Cette perception de l’urbain sous une logique spatio-temporelle « cinématographique » est une redéfinition du flâneur où l’imagination sort de la saturation des illusions modernes en nous forçant vers des moments d’extase morbide : une hallucination sédative qui est vécue à travers d’une telle intensité qui finit par questionner notre sens de la ville via (...) une nouvelle appréciation du corps. (shrink)

People more frequently select norm-violating factors, relative to norm- conforming ones, as the cause of some outcome. Until recently, this abnormal-selection effect has been studied using retrospective vignette-based paradigms. We use a novel set of video stimuli to investigate this effect for prospective causal judgments—i.e., judgments about the cause of some future outcome. Four experiments show that people more frequently select norm- violating factors, relative to norm-conforming ones, as the cause of some future outcome. We show that the abnormal-selection effects (...) are not primarily explained by the perception of agency (Experiment 4). We discuss these results in relation to recent efforts to model causal judgment. (shrink)

El ser en su riqueza se expresa en el lenguaje que emana también del ser. El lenguaje emergió de su olvido en la filosofía griega, gracias a las ideas cristianas de encarnación y trinidad que le hicieron más justicia. El mayor milagro del lenguaje no estriba en que la palabra aparezca en su ser externo, sino en el hecho de que lo que emerge y se manifiesta sea siempre palabra. La vuelta de Gadamer al final de Verdad y método, en (...) torno a la evidencia de que el ser de lo bello consiste en presentarse, ilustra la estructura universal del ser mismo. Apalabrar a lo que es el ser mismo. Lo que determina y hace posible la interpretación es el presentarse del ser de lo que es. Being in its richness expresses itself in language, which itself emanates from Being. Language emerged from its oblivion in Greek philosophy thanks to the Christian ideas of incarnation and trinity, which did it more justice. Language's greatest miracle does not rest on the fact that the word appears in its external being, but on the fact that that which emerges and manifests itself is always word. Gadamer's turn at the end of Truth and Method, regarding the evidence according to which beauty's being consists of presenting itself, illustrates the universal structure of Being itself. Bespeaking what is Being itself. What determines and make possible interpretation is the presentation itself of the being of what is. (shrink)