CHAPTER 1 Knowledge What the Muslim woman needs to know Etiquette and conditions of seeking knowledge...

al-Kindī. - al-Fārābī. - Ibn Sīnā. - Ibn Khaldūn.

1. Introducción a la ciencia del derecho natural.

Richard Nisbett's The Geography of Thought is one of several recent works that have highlighted purported differences in thinking patterns between East Asians and Westerners on the basis of empirical research. This has implications for teaching and for other issues such as cultural integration. Based on a framework consisting of three distinct notions of rationality, this paper argues that some of the differences alleged by Nisbett are either not real or exaggerated, and that his geography of thought fails to provide (...) an adequate account of thinking styles across cultures. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications for teaching and learning critical thinking that can be drawn from the framework developed. (shrink)

This study explores the possibilities of identification and belonging in a socio-religious space that contains multiple communal boundaries. It is based on narrated accounts of White Christian German women living in Berlin, Germany, who have converted to Islam. Their shared cultural background with other White German women, their new Islamic religion, and, for some, their intermarriage affiliation with Muslims, position these women in a complex relation to the multiple communities within this space. This intersectional positioning opens up possibilities for constructing, (...) negotiating and articulating religious, cultural, and gender identification and belonging. This study aims to investigate how these women construct notions of gender, Islam and Muslimness, and how they position themselves in relation to communal boundaries of identification and belonging. It also explores the sense they make of their positionings, and how these are expressed in their daily lives. To this end, the research describes their encounters in the spheres of the community and the family. The research aims to contribute to an enhanced understanding of gutes Leben, the human flourishing, of White German women who have converted to Islam. (shrink)

The structure of pluralist arguments -- The inadequacy of multiculturalism -- The incompatibility of subsidiarity -- Associative democracy and the corporatist temptation -- Two conceptions of sovereignty -- A positivist pluralism? -- Law as intelligibility -- Pluralist authority -- This unity of life and action -- The personality of associations -- Property, personality, and public justification -- The spectre of intractability.

Standard accounts of shame characterize shame as an emotion of global negative self-assessment, in which an individual necessarily accepts or assents to a global negative self-evaluation. According to non-standard accounts of shame, experiences of shame need not involve a global negative self-assessment. I argue here in favor of non-standard accounts of shame over standard accounts. First, I begin with a detailed discussion of standard accounts of shame, focusing primarily on Gabriele Taylor’s (1985) standard account. Second, I illustrate how Adrian Piper’s (...) ([1992] 1996) experience of groundless shame can be portrayed as 1) both a rational and an irrational experience of shame, in accordance with Taylor’s account as a paradigm model of standard accounts of shame, and 2) as a rational experience of shame when taken in its own right as a legitimate, rational account of shame. Third, without denying that some experiences of shame either are or can be irrational experiences of shame, I elucidate how standard accounts of shame can act as mechanisms of epistemic injustice, and in doing so can transmute the righteous indignation of the marginalized by recasting them as shameful experiences (i.e., by recasting them as experiences of the righteous shame of the marginalized). (shrink)