This article engages with the question of land in South Africa based on the jubilee notion, from a decolonial theological perspective. It shifts the focus from debating the merits of ‘expropriation of land without compensation’ towards assessing the relations of power that determine and legitimate what constitutes the human relationship to the land. It argues that disruption in eco-relationality wrought by colonial-apartheid is a foundational factor of the land struggles in post-apartheid South Africa. In order to promote land justice, there (...) is a need to liberate the land from apartheid through reclaiming African and Christian notions of land as belonging to God. (shrink)

In this article the author argues that indigenous Bemba women of Zambia used their culture of symbolic communication for marital sex agency. African women are often portrayed as not having agency and negotiating power when it comes to sex whether in marital or casual relationships. However, through imbusa teachings, Bemba women of Zambia had the negotiating power and agency over their sexual desires using indigenous beads as a marital communication tool before Christianity, interaction with various cultures, and colonial activity infiltrated (...) the institution of imbusa. Missionaries were consistently and insistently invading the space of imbusa claiming the need to be made aware of what was being taught. Missionaries claimed that they wanted to prepare a manual for new arriving priests so that they would include Christianity to the teachings in order to teach the Bemba women Christian ways of marriage. As a result, much of the indigenous imbusa teaching was portrayed as demonic and Bemba women needed to disregard them in order to be Christian married women. Using symbolic interactionism, this article will demonstrate the teachings of imbusa that gave Bemba women agency to express and negotiate their sexual desires in marriage. Bemba women had a ritual of hanging beads on the wall or placing them on the bed at certain times in their marriage. For instance, when they were menstruating, they hung red beads which was to communicate that they were not available for sexual relations.Contribution: This article contributes to the African indigenous cultural understandings and positions held by indigenous women prior to their interactions with diverse cultures and religious views. Contemporary indigenous women can leverage some positive feminist approaches from within the culture. (shrink)

This article explores the nexus of themes of sexual desire, gender and prayer in the Bemba mythology of creation. Approached from Sarah Coakley’s theology of participation in the divine desire, the article utilizes email technique to collect data from African scholars both women and men with an intention to find out their perspectives on the nexus of the entangled themes above as embodied within the widespread Bemba mythology. The second objective was to understand the ways in which these three themes (...) are intersected in the mythology and demonstrate how the contemporary African Christian search for gender and sexual desire justice might be linked to a gendered prayer. The findings show that gendered prayer could be a place of sexual desire and gender healing and justice for women. (shrink)

This long-awaited book replaces Hughes and Cresswell's two classic studies of modal logic: _An Introduction to Modal Logic_ and _A Companion to Modal Logic_. _A New Introduction to Modal Logic_ is an entirely new work, completely re-written by the authors. They have incorporated all the new developments that have taken place since 1968 in both modal propositional logic and modal predicate logic, without sacrificing tha clarity of exposition and approachability that were essential features of their earlier works. The book takes (...) readers from the most basic systems of modal propositional logic right up to systems of modal predicate with identity. It covers both technical developments such as completeness and incompleteness, and finite and infinite models, and their philosophical applications, especially in the area of modal predicate logic. (shrink)

' I heartily recommend it to any philosopher of language interested in the issues. [] Logicians, of course, will want to savour the whole thing.' Australian Journal of Philosophy, 71:3 (1993).

Context: Referring to a recent proposition by Kauffman about the “fundamental nature of circularity in cybernetics and in scientific work in general,” I try to advance this insight with the help of system scientific concepts and a computational model. Problem: Often circularity seems to be taken as a metaphor that does not provide a firm epistemological base that fosters analysis. Method: The methodology builds on mathematics, computer-based modeling, and reasoning. Results: By building on conceptual suggestions for grasping the micro-macro difference (...) of complex systems in terms of computational power, circularity can be conceived of as an emerging macro-level phenomenon. Implications: I show that the seemingly irritating - and traditionally evaded - concept of circularity is a fundamental and ubiquitous phenomenon in complex systems that can be grasped on a firm physical basis open to computational analysis. The proposal could support constructivist reasoning and help to eventually bridge the disconcerting gap between the humanities and natural sciences. Constructivist content: Circularity is a fundamental principle in the conception of second-order cybernetics and in particular in the observation of observing systems, as suggested by von Foerster. Trying to set it up on a firm analytical basis could advance the constructivist approach and further support it in becoming the contemporary scientific epistemology it deserves to be. (shrink)

"Neuroscience and Philosophy" begins with an excerpt from "Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience," in which Maxwell Bennett and Peter Hacker question the ...

In this concluding chapter Dentith presents a synthesis of the views on offer, arguing that the various philosophical, sociological and psychology theses defended in this section point towards a necessary reorientation of the literature, one which requires we purge public discourse of the pejorative aspects of the terms ‘conspiracy theory’ and ‘conspiracy theorist’ and, rather, engage with conspiracy theories as theories (like we do with theories in the Sciences and the Social Sciences) appraising them on their particular merits. Not just (...) that, but there is even room in our discourse to celebrate and promote conspiracy theorising (as we do theorising in other domains) given the need to be ever vigilant with respect to the existence of conspiracies in our polities. Sometimes, Dentith argues, that even requires that we treat some on-the-face-of-it ridiculous conspiracy theories seriously and ask how and who should investigate them. (shrink)

There is a perplexing transition in Dr. Reza Davari's thought, when he problematizes the relation between Iranian and Western history/cultures, on which this paper is focusing. The interperative objective is to clarify this transition on the basis of the implicit relation between the two most fundamental concepts in his earlier and later thought respectively westernization and underdevelopment. Although, by this transition, the level of discussion transits from an ontologico-philosophical to an intellectualist one. So, there are two different levels of problematization (...) in his thought which differ deeply. Therefore, we are not just dealing with the substitution of fundamental concepts, but with different problematizations and different levels of discussion. Obviously, there will be new problems arising which are not just concerning with the justification of the transition but with the problematization of westernization itself. Finally, it's been concluded that in order to clarify these new problems, we should step back to the level of philosophical discussion, and first of all to the clarification of the I-not-I relation which has been neglected thoroughly in the whole project. (shrink)

Scholars who deal with Heidegger’s philosophy often remark the scarcity of his references to phenomenological reduction as a means to grant access to the point of view of the being-in-the-world of the Dasein, the central theme of his early philosophy. Also the role of phenomenological reduction in Heidegger’s philosophy makes problem, as he criticizes Husserl for making of reduction a mere tool to reveal a pure, timeless and extra-worldly conscience – an untenable claim, according to Heidegger, for Dasein’s being-in-the-world, as (...) his most original way of being, can never be put out of play by any reduction. The role of transcendental reduction in Heidegger’s phenomenology is the theme of the present paper. (shrink)

The Search for the Legacy of the USPHS Syphilis Study at Tuskegee is a collection of essays from experts in a variety of fields seeking to redefine the legacy of the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Study. The essayists place the legacy of the study within the evolution of racial and ethnic relations in the United States. Contributors include two leading historians on the study, two former United States Surgeons General, and other prominent scholars from a wide range of fields.

Descartes' methodical doubt is being criticized by naïve realists and others who don't find doubt as a good starting point for metaphysical thought, however, the philosophical achievements of his method have been absorbed in all later philosophies. The objective of this paper is to demonstrate how an inevitable question concerning the foundation of Descartes' mathesis universalis, which led him to investigate this foundation by applying this very method in Metaphysics, has finally enabled him to discover his most important philosophical principle, (...) i.e., the necessary relation between being and reason in the identity of the "I". To demonstrate this, after summarizing the fundamental ideas of mathesis uneversalis, and showing the inner necessity of introducing the methodical doubt to fortify these ideas, the decisive role of metaphysical doubt as the third step of the methodical doubt, and malicious demon as its second phase would be highighted. It would also become clear that the metaphysical doubt has a great importance as a turning point from different aspects: as a knot that ties mathesis universalis with its underlying Metaphysics; as a bridge from within the psychological "I" to the metaphysical "I". (shrink)

The first comprehensive introduction to cover the entire span of Kierkegaard’s authorship. Explores how the two strands of his writing—religious discourses and pseudonymous literary creations—influenced each other Accompanies the reader chronologically through all the philosopher’s major works, and integrates his writing into his biography Employs a unique “how to” approach to help the reader discover individual texts on their own and to help them closely examine Kierkegaard’s language Presents the literary strategies employed in Kierkegaard’s work to give the reader insight (...) into subtext. (shrink)

The attention schema theory explains how a biological, information processing machine can claim to have consciousness, and how, by introspection (by assessing its internal data), it cannot determine that it is a machine whose claims are based on computations. The theory directly addresses Chalmers' meta-problem of consciousness, the problem of why we think we have a difficult-to-explain consciousness in the first place.

Legendary director, actor, author, and provocateur Werner Herzog has incalculably influenced contemporary cinema for decades. This essay collection by professional philosophers and film theorists from around the globe offers a diversity of perspectives on how the thinking behind the camera is revealed in the action Herzog captures in front of it.

L’émergence d’un capitalisme financier et décentralisé questionne le schéma traditionnel de la lutte de classes tout en brouillant les traits d’un « ennemi » commun contre lequel il faudrait lutter. Le mouvement devient ainsi un atout essentiel de l’économie tandis que se fait jour un peu partout un enfermement progressif des populations, enfermement qui se traduit aussi par une vraie difficulté à concevoir des modes de vie alternatifs au niveau de l’imaginaire. Nous présentons ainsi quelques réflexions sur les avantage stratégiques (...) existants à fuir à travers des exemples philosophiques, sociologiques et contemporains, dans l’objectif de tracer les contours théoriques d’un contre-pouvoir efficace au néolibéralisme. (shrink)

Based on detailed descriptions of human–machine ensembles, this article explores how humans and machines work together to see specific things and unsee others, and how they come to co-configure one another. For seeing is not an automated function; whether one is a human or a machine, vision is gradually enskilled and mutually co-constituted. The analysis intersects three different ways of human–machine seeing to shed further light on the workings of each one: an airport, where facial recognition algorithms collaborate with border (...) guards to grant passage to particular travellers and not to others; a luggage-scanning system, where potential security threats are assessed by a complex of X-rays and human intro-spection; and a hospital operating room, where human–machinic surgical robots find their way and operate on the insides of human bodies, touching only by seeing. In these examples, human and machine ways of seeing merge together, seeing in particular apparatuses of material, political, organisational, economic and fleshy components. The article analyses the practical work of human–machinic collaboration and explores how the different material and social constituents, not necessarily always working from the same agenda, come to configure what can be seen and sensed and what cannot. (shrink)

Formulation of the problem. The clock of antiquity "to our era" is full of values in the occurrence of the pre-Ukrainian religious culture. Therefore, there is a need to manifest the foundations of the Divine. Analysis of recent research and publications. Ukrainian religious scholars, while actualizing the national scientific heritage, see the continuation of their culture in the cultures of other peoples.The purpose of this publication is seen in the search for possible guidelines for determining the essence of the Divine (...) as a certain experiencing equilibrium in human condition. (shrink)

“You Have Seen Their Faces”: Gisèle Freund, Walter Benjamin and Margaret Bourke-White as Headhunters of the Thirties -/- Abstract This paper concentrates on one work by each of three authors: Walter Benjamin’s Deutsche Menschen (Germans), an anthology of twenty-five 18th and 19th century German personal letters; Margaret Bourke-White and Erskine Caldwell’s You Have Seen Their Faces; and Gisèle Freund’s collection of photographic portraits of writers and artists, compiled between 1936 and 1939. The purpose of this paper is to compare the (...) politics of representation of these three figures and to examine the challenge they addressed to the dominant iconography of the 1930s. At the heart of each one’s work was a desire to bring about a shift in contemporary cultural politics by reimagining the body politic. Benjamin’s and Freund’s aim was to displace the monumentalizing, distancing, ‘heroic’ forms of fascist art and writing. They construct and project an intimate, or ‘domestic’ image of humanism as a form of social practice, past and present. Bourke-White’s aim was to bring to visibility an America concealed beneath the glossy homogenized images of white American advertising. All three authors aligned themselves with a documentary tradition that believed that representation should function as a constructed record of the traces of lived experience. Driven by a need to expose the other side’s deliberate falsifications of experience, they saw their own constructed fictions as ways of ‘documenting,’ and then perhaps transforming, an experiential world of ‘facts,’ bodies, and ‘truths.’ -/- Working Paper 3:15 European Society and Culture Research Group. Center for German and European Studies, University of California at Berkeley. April 1994 37pp. -/- M. Kay Flavell Critical Theory, University of California at Davis . (shrink)