Mystic interpretations of Indian philosophy and religion.

Benchmarking is the major reason for the widespread use of DEA models for efficiency analysis. Determining the closest targets for DMUs, DEA models play a key role in benchmarking their best performance. In fact, these models help develop certain performance enhancement plans that need fewer attempts made by DMUs. Therefore, this study proposes a novel method based on the network DEA to determine the most appropriate target for every stage in addition to benchmarking the DMUs. The proposed model differs from (...) those proposed by other studies in the fact that all DEA models of benchmarking consider input and output values to be linear. However, in real-world problems, many DMU inputs and outputs have nonlinear values, something which was taken into account in the modeling process in this study. The proposed model was employed to benchmark cement factories listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange. (shrink)

The past is not dead. In fact, it’s not even past.(William Faulkner)This article investigates ‘transcultural tendencies’ and ‘transmedial transaction’ between the Sasanian, the last dynasty to rule the Persian plateau, and the Muslims who conquered this land. These transactions and exchanges took place during the seventh century in the Ērānshahr distributing lots of different features, cultures, languages, religions, sciences and artistic achievements by the Persian people and sharing them with Muslim territories from the East to the West. The article also (...) investigates the Shu’ubiyya parties, which were a non-Arab Muslim response to the privileged status of Arabs within them that would later become Sufism. The protest approach travelled in its haptic spaces from ancient Iranian times to the present day, carrying the same habits and cultures, and among protesters characterizes contemporary artists in particular. In my study, I have classified them and decoded their artistic practices. Through this article, I investigate them by looking to contemporary art practices, which contain protest language, and identifying common ground with Sufism ideology. I bring them into the light, through a non-Islamic perspective that carries a lot of truth and spirituality, which I found both Iranian people and the global culture at large need to be reacquainted with. People need to understand how and why this perspective matters in the modern world, as well as the ways in which it is relevant. How does or would it affect the world of Internet, new media, the mix of old and new media in today’s and tomorrow’s cultures? The Sasanian Empire fell to Arab Muslims, and consequently the ‘transcultural tendencies’ took place around the beginning of the seventh century (AD 628) with the death of the last great Sassanid kings of Shahanshah Khusroparviz. I wish to take up the challenge of understanding more of Iranian history at the moment of transition that occurred at the end of the Sassanid epoch. This era (historical–cultural period) can be said to have characterized the beginning of the Islamic period. The question is how did this newborn culture, an outgrowth of this ‘transactive’ movement, spread through contemporary Iranian lifestyle? (shrink)

This article discusses the role of myth in Persian literature and poetry, and how it has affected Sufism and the evolution of its mysticism. Sufism developed in the seventh (3 AH) century solely within the confines of Islamic orthodoxy. The Sufi path began as a protest movement against Islam and the Caliphs, and progressively enriched its many dimensions until the tenth century, when the majority of artists, calligraphers and poets were Sufi. The article will investigate Sufism as an activism movement (...) related to politics, religion and social circumstances, and its collaboration with new media in finding a new, contemporary method of protest in today’s Iran. (shrink)

This paper deals with higher-order vagueness in Williamson's 'logic of clarity'. Its aim is to prove that for 'fixed margin models' (W,d,α ,[ ]) the notion of higher-order vagueness collapses to second-order vagueness. First, it is shown that fixed margin models can be reformulated in terms of similarity structures (W,~). The relation ~ is assumed to be reflexive and symmetric, but not necessarily transitive. Then, it is shown that the structures (W,~) come along with naturally defined maps h and s (...) that define a Galois connection on the power set PW of W. These maps can be used to define two distinct boundary operators bd and BD on W. The main theorem of the paper states that higher-order vagueness with respect to bd collapses to second-order vagueness. This does not hold for BD, the iterations of which behave in quite an erratic way. In contrast, the operator bd defines a variety of tolerance principles that do not fall prey to the sorites paradox and, moreover, do not always satisfy the principles of positive and negative introspection. (shrink)

Im Fokus der Untersuchungen von Fethi Meskini steht die Frage nach Identität und ihren Bedeutungen und Ausdrucksformen vor, während und nach der Revolution. Er behandelt zunächst die Frage, in welchem Sinne und für wen die jüngsten Revolutionen in Tunesien und Ägypten eine »Überraschung« darstellen. Vor diesem Hintergrund setzt er sich kritisch mit den Strukturen des autoritären Staates auseinander und behandelt dabei das Problem der »Eliten«. Er zeigt darüber hinaus, wie die Revolution aus einer produktiven Unzufriedenheit und entgegen einem eingeübten (...) öffentlichen Schweigen unter der Diktatur entstanden ist und inwiefern sie als ein mikrohistorischer Prozess, der zu einer unabwendbaren positiven Verärgerung wird, zu erfassen sei. Er weist ebenfalls auf die wichtigen Kennzeichen und innovativen Ausdrucksformen des Protests der neuen Revolutionen hin. Dabei betont er, dass die Revolutionen vor allem in Tunesien und Ägypten jenseits der unterschiedlichen politischen und religiösen Identitätsentwürfe »lebenswichtig« seien. Sie lösen sich somit von einer autoritären Politik der Identität, wobei die Frage nach der Postrevolution bzw. nach der Demokratie mit bestimmten Schwierigkeiten behaftet bleibt. (shrink)

This essay juxtaposes the death of the moral god in Christian Europe (Nietzsche) with the demise of al-millah or the theologico-political community in Islam. This comparative engagement allows for a local (Arab Muslim) and universal rethinking of, inter alia, faith, freedom, and transcendence beyond terrorism and methodological atheism.

Introduction -- Stout's proto-new-realism -- Situating G.F. Stout -- Stout's doctrine of primary and secondary qualities -- Stout and the Brentano School -- Representative function of presentations -- Sensible space and real space -- Cook Wilson's geometrical counter-example -- Stout's central question -- Ideal constructions -- Ideal constructions in psychology and epistemology -- British new realism : the language of madness -- Stout's criticisms of Alexander -- Alexander's response -- The nature of sensations, images, and other presentations -- What is (...) the metaphysical problem? -- "How can the interpretation which is supplied by the mind be a constituent of the [physical] object?" -- Some general remarks -- British new realism : the language of common-sense -- T.P. Nunn and the new realism -- Nunn and things -- Nunn's postulate -- Russell and Stout on sensible objects -- Russell, sense-data and sensibilia -- The methods of construction -- Russell's constructions and Nunn's postulate -- Constructions, psychology, and the essence of philosophy -- The methods of logical construction -- A mathematical development -- The principle of abstraction. (shrink)

Abstract:The commitment to all things democratic in educational spheres has inspired and generated much contemporary conversation in music education scholarship. Aside from demonstrating the possible discrepancies between what democratic ideals in education pledge to do and how they are materialized in learning situations, at least on the theoretical plane, there has not been strong opposition to, or refutation of the pillars upon which the construct of democracy, political or otherwise, is seated. Informed by Achille Mbembe’s concept of necropolitics, I would (...) like to extend the critique to interrogate (the adjective) “democratic” in education and citizenship discursive practices as a lethal problem. I seek to unravel the violence inherent in the notion of democracy in the field of music education and suggest that a music education based solely on the ideals of democratic participation and engagement risks becoming half of what it purports to do and be. It becomes an effigy. (shrink)

What Russell regarded to be the ‘chief outcome’ of his 1914 Lowell Lectures at Harvard can only be fully appreciated, I argue, if one embeds the outcome back into the ‘classificatory problem’ that many at the time were heavily engaged in. The problem focused on the place and relationships between the newly formed or recently professionalized disciplines such as psychology, Erkenntnistheorie, physics, logic and philosophy. The prime metaphor used in discussions about the classificatory problem by British philosophers was a spatial (...) one, with such motifs as ‘standpoints’, ‘place’ and ‘perspectives’ in the space of knowledge. In fact, Russell’s construction of a perspectival space of six-dimensions was meant precisely to be a timely solution to the widely discussed classificatory problem. (shrink)

This paper examines the interrelations between astronomical images of nebulae and their observation. In particular, using the case of the ‘Great Spiral’ , we follow this nebula beginning with its discovery and first sketch made by the third Earl of Rosse in 1845, to giving an account, using archival sources, of exactly how other images of the same object were produced over the years and stabilized within the record books of the Rosse project. It will be found that a particular (...) ‘procedure’ was employed using ‘working images’ that interacted with descriptions, other images and the telescopic object itself. This stabilized not only some set of standard images of the object, but also a very potent conception of spirality as well, i.e. as a ‘normal form’. Finally, two cases will be contrasted, one being George Bond's application of this spiral conception to the nebula in Orion, and the other Wilhelm Tempel's rejection of the spiral form in M51. (shrink)

Given the fundamental role of emotional intelligence in learning, especially in virtual learning contexts where individuals experience more stress and anxiety, the need to understand and recognize one's own feelings and the mutual feelings of peers has gained more importance. Flow as the ultimate state in harnessing emotions in the service of performance and learning has been introduced as the main reason for one's willingness to perform activities which are connected to no external motivation. In this regard, the present study (...) was conducted to first introduce a new educational program to enhance the EI level in the English as a foreign language online education environment and next to investigate the possibility of raising EFL learners' perceived flow. To achieve these goals, the study recruited a sample of 67 EFL learners who were next divided into experimental and control groups. The experimental group received the EI intervention over 10 weeks and the control group received the ordinary online EFL instruction. Data were collected through EI and flow questionnaires and semi-structured interviews which focused on learners' perception of the EI intervention and signs of enhanced flow. Statistical analysis of the data showed a positive effect of the program on the learners' EI and their perceived flow. The study emphasizes the role of applying positive emotions in making language learners more engaged in online classroom tasks. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:February 19, 2011 (11:48 am) E:\CPBR\RUSSJOUR\TYPE3002\russell 30,2 040 red.wpd russell: the Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies n.s. 30 (winter 2010–11): 155–82 The Bertrand Russell Research Centre, McMaster U. issn 0036-01631; online 1913-8032 eviews AN INTRODUCTION TO THE PROBLEMSz Omar W. Nasim Science Studies / Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (eth) 8092 Zürich, Switzerland [email protected] David Mills Daniel and Megan Daniel. BrieXy: Russell’sz The Problems of Philosophy. London: scm (...) P., 2007. Pp. viii, 131. isbn 978-0-334-04118-4. £7.99. The following book is a part of the SCM BrieXyz series, which already includes such titles as Anselm’s Prosologion and Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling. The series objective is to “enable students and general readers to acquire knowledge and understanding of key texts in philosophy, philosophy of religion, theology and ethics” (p. vii). Each volume is a “short guide” to a particular philosopher ’s ideas through a close reading of a primary text by that philosopher. This review looks at the volume on Bertrand Russell’s The Problems of Philosophy, which is divided by the authors into a few parts, including a section on the “Context”, a “Detailed Summary of Bertrand Russell’s The Problem of Philosophy ”, an overview and a helpful glossary of terms. The “Context” provides a very brief statement about who Russell was, and spends most of its pages summarizing the arguments of Russell’s Problems. The last few pages of this section provide some helpful “Issues to Consider,” which are a list of pertinent questions one may ask of Russell’s Problems, and ends with some further reading. It ought to be noted that the “Context” is not about the history of Russell’s text, nor is it an attempt to relate the latter to Russell’s other works. This is unfortunate, considering Russell’s well-known philosophical development and the rich history surrounding Problems. The volume under review is indeed a problemoriented study of Problems which uncritically rehearses the same embedding of problems that Russell urges, especially in relation to the British empiricist tradition of the early modern period. The main section of the book is the “Detailed Summary” and is itself divided in the same way in which Russell’s Problems is divided; that is, into Wfteen subsections, with exactly the same headings and order. Using a reissued second edi- February 19, 2011 (11:48 am) E:\CPBR\RUSSJOUR\TYPE3002\russell 30,2 040 red.wpd 156 Reviews 1 It has the same pagination as oup’s 1967 edition in the uk.z—zEd. tion of Russell’s Problems by Oxford University Press (2001),1 Daniel and Daniel provide a very close, page-by-page exposition of each chapter of Russell’s Problems. The reading is in fact so close that not only is there nearly the same number of pages dedicated to each chapter as in the original, but just about every sentence teems with scare quotes. This goes for not only technical terms such as “universal”, “sense-data”, “relations”, etc., which remain snared by scare quotes throughout the entire section, but also all sorts of other terms such as “light”, “motion”, “just”, “forgotten”, etc. The rationale for this is given in the introduction and is supposed to “enable the reader to follow each development in the philosopher’s argument” (p. vii). Unlike the terms that are in bold type, which are given some explanation in the glossary, the reviewer Wnds the sheer number of scare quotes distracting and pedagogically confusing, because there is no distinction made between terms central to Russell’s argument and those used only in the construction of a sentence. But even the glossary entries are oddly compiled. While most correspond to the bold-type terms in the Summary, some are terms not found anywhere but in the introduction or the “Context” section. So Sartre, Wittgenstein, McMaster University, and Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation are nowhere to be found in Russell’s original, or in the summary provided by the authorsz—zthey are simply terms used in passing in the introduction or “Context” and without being introduced in bold type. Other... (shrink)

Today we are all familiar with the iconic pictures of the nebulae produced by the Hubble Space Telescope’s digital cameras. But there was a time, before the successful application of photography to the heavens, in which scientists had to rely on handmade drawings of these mysterious phenomena. Observing by Hand sheds entirely new light on the ways in which the production and reception of handdrawn images of the nebulae in the nineteenth century contributed to astronomical observation. Omar W. Nasim (...) investigates hundreds of unpublished observing books and paper records from six nineteenth-century observers of the nebulae: Sir John Herschel; William Parsons, the third Earl of Rosse; William Lassell; Ebenezer Porter Mason; Ernst Wilhelm Leberecht Tempel; and George Phillips Bond. Nasim focuses on the ways in which these observers created and employed their drawings in data-driven procedures, from their choices of artistic materials and techniques to their practices and scientific observation. He examines the ways in which the act of drawing complemented the acts of seeing and knowing, as well as the ways that making pictures was connected to the production of scientific knowledge. An impeccably researched, carefully crafted, and beautifully illustrated piece of historical work, Observing by Hand will delight historians of science, art, and the book, as well as astronomers and philosophers. (shrink)

For this year’s Virtual Issue, our guest editor, Omar W. Nasim, has collected together papers from the Aristotelian Society archives that represent a substantial part of a dispute that contributed to the emergence of analytic philosophy in Britain at the turn of the 20th Century. The dispute was primarily concerned with the problem of the external world – the nature of the sensible objects of perception, and how they relate to physical things and the perceiving subject. The participants in (...) this controversy contested the nature of the appearance-reality distinction, whether it is it is possible for a thing to instantiate contrary sensible qualities at the same place and time, the distinction between presentation and representation, the nature of knowledge by acquaintance, and the nature of sense-data – e.g., whether sense-data are psychical or physical, whether they persist unperceived, and how they give rise to knowledge of the external world. G. E. Moore and Bertrand Russell were significant contributors to these debates, but so too were several philosophers whose names are now less well known: G. F. Stout, G. Dawes Hicks, Abraham Wolf, T. Percy Nunn, and S. Alexander. This Virtual Issue collects together, for the first time, the important contributions made to these debates by all of these figures. In doing so it provides a fascinating insight into the ways in which Russell’s earliest attempts to construct the external world from sense-data were influenced by the ideas and arguments of his immediate contemporaries. Omar W. Nasim’s specially commissioned introduction to the Virtual Issue sets out the historical context of these disputes about the external world, and details the prominent role played by the Aristotelian Society in making them possible. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Complicating, Considering, and Connecting Music Education by Lauren Kapalka RichermeNasim NiknafsLauren Kapalka Richerme, Complicating, Considering, and Connecting Music Education (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2020)Laurern Kapalka Richerme courageously engages with some of the significant concepts of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari in a timely bounded volume, Complicating, Considering, and Connecting Music Education. Through this colossal endeavor, though not the first time a music education scholar deeply explores Deleuzian (...) concepts and theoretical analyses, Richerme provides a fresh perspective on his oeuvre within the field and paves the way for more engaged scholarly exploration on the roles and responsibilities of music education.1Considering the vanity in saying what one sees, as “what we see never resides in what we say,”2 any review of works related to Deleuzian concepts is more of an arborescent endeavor than a rhizomatic one. Consequently, the current review of Richerme’s book may also refute and go against Deleuze and Guattari’s most salient arguments. However, I would like to specifically elaborate on Richerme’s treatment of time; a much welcomed and overlooked aspect of education that Richerme has appositely and strongly delivered. “Music education is not a stagnant ‘what’ but a temporal ‘when’... While the question, ‘What is music education?’ solidifies music education into an immobile identity, asking ‘When is music education?’ emphasizes the differing, individually constructed nature of [End Page 202] educational experiences.”3 Not necessarily an original proposition to treat music education as a process rather than a product, a journey rather than a destination, a meandering rather than walking on a straight line, a desired path rather than a pre-constructed road, Richerme’s angle of this conversation takes on an entirely new path. Rather than solving the problem, as the problem is one’s music education, she elegantly modifies the question: “When is music education?”4 Richerme redirects the reader’s attention from the “spatial turn” in which the field has been engrossed to a temporal one, and from a totalizing music education to a totality of music education:5 “My voice cannot be ‘lost’ or ‘found,’ only silenced or embraced—restrained or encouraged to grow. It will always exist in an uncertain middle, differing day after day.”6Written in eight chapters with two bookending chapters with the same title, “Rhizomatic Journeying,” while the middle chapter re-considers considering and the penultimate chapter discusses the when in music education, Richerme demands the reader to attend to not only the book’s content but the poetic delivery of its prose. One could even recite the sentences and feel the elevation. Richerme’s unique voice is laudable for its humility of approach and candid pronouncements of mistakes made along the way of becoming-toward7 music educator. When reading, I felt I was a fellow traveler crossing paths with her while she shared some of her moments with me. She and I were the Nighthawks of Edward Hopper’s painting. Richerme was there to tell her story and I was there to silently listen; “the story is told and untold. Then retold.”8 And it is in this retelling that I would like to situate this review.This volume is first and foremost an ode to music education. Richerme has a command of the music education literature which manifests itself in the myriad examples she explores. She does not claim to portray novel ideas but crossing paths with other scholars in music education concerning not only Deleuzian concepts but ethical matters of education: “deeming something ‘good for’ is not the same as finding it ‘good’ in the ethical sense.”9 She does not disagree with scholars, perhaps following Deleuzian footsteps, but complements them; an exercise in nuance and scholarly practice not always historically prevalent in the field.However, this practical side of the book that attempts to situate Deleuzian concepts within music education are brought forth at the expense of a deeper level of theoretical analysis of and engagement with their comprehensively theorized concepts such as becoming, striated space, immanence, refrain, and deterritorialization. At times, it feels as though these concepts have been magiccarpeted rather than integrated within music education situations. This volume comes across, marvellously... (shrink)

ArgumentKeeping records has always been an essential part of science. Aside from natural history and the laboratory sciences, no other observational science reflects this activity of record-keeping better than astronomy. Central to this activity, historically speaking, are tools so mundane and common that they are easily overlooked; namely, the notebook and the pencil. One obvious function of these tools is clearly a mnemonic one. However, there are other relevant functions of paperwork that often go unnoticed. Among these, I argue, is (...) the strategic use made of different procedures of record keeping to prolong observational time with a target object. Highlighting this function will help us to appreciate the supporting role played by the notebook and the pencil to extend the observational time spent with a target object. With objects as delicate, faint, and mysterious as the nebulae, the procedures used to record their observations helped nineteenth-century observers overcome the temporal handicaps and limitations of large and clumsy telescopes, mounted in the altazimuth manner. To demonstrate the importance of paper and pencil, I will closely examine the observing books, the drawings found therein, and the telescopes of three nineteenth-century observers of the nebulae: Sir John F. W. Herschel, Lord Rosse, and William Lassell. (shrink)

This paper argues for continuity in purpose and specific results between some hand drawn nebulae, especially those ‘descriptive maps’ by John F. W. Herschel and E. P. Mason in the late 1830s, and the first photographs made of the nebulae in the 1880s. Using H. H. Turners’ explication in 1904 of the three great advantages of astrophotography, the paper concludes that to some extent Herschel’s and Mason’s hand-drawings of the nebulae were meant to achieve the same kinds of results. This (...) is surprising not only because such drawings were conceived and achieved over forty-years earlier, but also because the procedures used in the production of these pictorially and metrically rich images were those directly inspired by cartography, geodesy, and land-surveying. Such drawings provided the standard for what was depicted, expected and aimed at by way of successful representations of the nebulae; standards that seemed to have been used to judge the success of nebular photographs. Being conditions of expectation and possibility for later photography, these drawings were themselves made possible by such techniques of representation and measurement as isolines and triangulation, so fundamental to Imperial and ‘Humboltian science.’Keywords: Ebenezer Porter Mason; Cartography; Draughtsmanship; Observation; Scientific Representation; Philosophy of Scientific Practice. (shrink)

Abstract:In this article, by providing a reading of three songs related to Tehran, created by three Iranian rock musicians, Behzad Khaivchi, Behzad Omrani, and Raam, I investigate a particular form of music education in a city that generates a supplemental narrative to the normative discourse of music education. Through Foucault’s notion of heterotopia, these musicians emerged in an other temporal, spatial, and imaginary space within the pseudo-colonial understanding of the Middle East region. Given the multiple teleological narratives of the region, (...) I seek to investigate the musicianship of selected musicians in this region to understand how they negotiate the often-conflicting narratives of their Middle Eastern home locally and how their musicianship contributes to the greater understanding of music education. More specifically, I challenge the concept of resistance in Iranian music education to counteract the representational politics with which these musicians grapple in their day-to-day music education practices, influenced by the Western media and the normative discourse of music education. (shrink)

Study on Life divine, work on metaphysics and spiritual life by Aurobindo Ghose, 1872-1950.

ObjectiveBulimia nervosa and binge eating disorder are eating disorders characterized by recurrent binge eating episodes. Overlap exists between ED diagnostic groups, with BE episodes presenting one clinical feature that occurs transdiagnostically. Neuroimaging of the responses of those with BN and BED to disorder-specific stimuli, such as food, is not extensively investigated. Furthermore, to our knowledge, there have been no previous published studies examining the neural response of individuals currently experiencing binge eating, to low energy foods. Our objective was to examine (...) the neural responses to both low energy and high energy food images in three emotive categories in BN and BED participants.MethodsNineteen females with BN or BED, comprising the binge eating group, and 19 age-matched healthy control ’s completed thorough clinical assessment prior to functional MRI. Neural response to low energy and high energy foods and non-food images was compared between groups using whole-brain exploratory analyses, from which six regions of interest were then selected: frontal, occipital, temporal, and parietal lobes; insula and cingulate.ResultsIn response to low energy food images, the BEG demonstrated differential neural responses to all three low energy foods categories compared to HCs. Correlational analyses found a significant association between frequency of binge episodes and diminished temporal lobe and greater occipital lobe response. In response to high energy food images, compared to HC’s, the BEG demonstrated significantly decreased neural activity in response to all high energy food images. The HC’s had significantly greater neural activity in the limbic system, occipital lobe, temporal lobe, frontal lobe, and limbic system in response to high energy food images.ConclusionResults in the low energy food condition indicate that binge frequency may be related to increased aberrant neural responding. Furthermore, differences were found between groups in all ROI’s except the insula. The neural response seen in the BEG to disgust food images may indicate disengagement with this particular stimuli. In the high energy food condition, results demonstrate that neural activity in BN and BED patients may decrease in response to high energy foods, suggesting disengagement with foods that may be more consistent with those consumed during a binge eating episode. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Response to Lauren Kapalka Richerme, "The Diversity Bargain and the Discourse Dance of Equitable and Best," Philosophy of Music Education Review 27, no. 2 (Fall, 2019)Nasim NiknafsI was asked to write a response to Lauren Richerme's convincing research on why and how one should distinguish between "equitable educational practices"1 and what she calls following Ellen Berry the "diversity bargain" where equity as the second-best option has always taken (...) a hit from the more dashing diversity. If I may metaphorically put this conversation into a romantic comedy, equity is always the wingperson of color to diversity as the main protagonist; by the end of the show it is the main protagonist who survives the hardship and reaches salvation, be it a long-lost love, an oasis of sorts, or making it to the finish line. The rest of the cast have the function of complementing and highlighting the main actor but never substituting for it; or they are as Homi Bhabha would say, "almost the same but not quite."2 For the sake of filling in the blank of let's-add-more-color-into-it, the genuine conversation over the nuances of equitable practices gets undermined and diffused of its poignancy. And this is what Richerme is arguing against: let us not forget that a more significant challenge than a mere technicolor presence is at play. In that, my response to Richerme's essay would [End Page 215] not be so much of a response but a grand nod, a body gesture, an embedded signal of approval between two human beings born and raised in two different parts of planet earth who after years of diverse and perhaps un-equitable educational access ended up in the same room at the same time. Thus, my nod to Richerme also originated from personal experiences and intimate familiarities with unequitable educational access. Yes, people of color can be assets to their institutions and their corresponding fields who add to the diversity of knowledge creation practices, but it is not people of color's project or responsibility to act as the trophy to alleviate the unhappy conscience of educational malpractice or give a helping hand to the main protagonists for whom the scenario has already been written. Undoubtedly, they can take on that role if they want to, but it is only contingent upon where their desires lie not where they should lie.I strongly agree with Richerme's claim that music classrooms and I would add any classroom and learning environment should be a place and space for "sharing stories and insights"3 to not only learn about the content material whatever it may be but to learn to empathize with one another, understand positive and negative human behaviors toward humans and their environment, and act against discriminatory practices, racial, ethnic, religious, and gender prejudices, and to the point of Richerme's essay, unequitable practices that are insistent in today's political climate on a global scale.At this very juncture I diverge not from Richerme's fine thesis and argumentation, but from the larger issue of the premise of her arguments grounded on Thomas Green's educational framework.4 Green argues that the "rank order of political arguments that can be mustered in support of the [educational] system … [is] roughly as follows": (1) the fundamental or compelling interests of the state; (2) the aggregate of individual or parental interests; (3) societal interests; and (4) educational goods for their own sake."5 Following Green's framework Richerme analyzes contemporary music education initiatives in relation to the differing political strengths of each group of stakeholders: the state, parents, society, and educational goods for their own sake.There is a sense of mistrust in the local and national government implied by Green's framework, reminding one of the cumulative mistrust of the elite by U.S. citizens. Years of neglect, condescension, and lack of attention to the real and tangible needs of people amalgamated into what today one sees as white nationalism, plutocracy, and protectionism across borders. Green wrote his book, Predicting the Behavior of the Educational System, in 1980; historically the world order was increasingly metamorphosing and establishing itself... (shrink)

Efforts to build research capacity and capability in low and middle income countries (LMIC) has progressed over the last three decades, yet it confronts many challenges including issues with communicating or even negotiating across different cultures. Implementing global research requires a broader understanding of community engagement and participatory research approaches. There is a considerable amount of guidance available on community engagement in clinical trials, especially for studies for HIV/aids, even culturally specific codes for recruiting vulnerable populations such as the San (...) or Maori people. However, the same cannot be said for implementing research in global health. In an effort to build on this work, the Pakistan Institute of Living and Learning and University College London in the UK sought to better understand differences in beliefs, values and norms of local communities in Pakistan. In particular, they have sought to help researchers from high income countries (HIC) understand how their values are perceived and understood by the local indigenous researchers in Pakistan. To achieve this end, a group discussion was organised with indigenous researchers at Pakistan Institute of Living and Learning. The discussion will ultimately help inform the development of a cultural protocol for researchers from HIC engaging with communities in LMIC. This discussion revealed five common themes; (1) religious principles and rules, (2) differing concepts of and moral emphasis on autonomy and privacy, (3) importance of respect and trust; (4) cultural differences (etiquette); (5) custom and tradition (gift giving and hospitality). Based on the above themes, we present a preliminary cultural analysis to raise awareness and to prepare researchers from HIC conducting cross cultural research in Pakistan. This is likely to be particularly relevant in collectivistic cultures where social interconnectedness, family and community is valued above individual autonomy and the self is not considered central to moral thinking. In certain cultures, HIC ideas of individual autonomy, the notion of informed consent may be regarded as a collective family decision. In addition, there may still be acceptance of traditional professional roles such as ‘doctor knows best’, while respect and privacy may have very different meanings. (shrink)

The present study aimed to reflect on the predictive role of socio-demographic characteristics (SDCs), moral sensitivity (MS) and moral distress (MD) in nurses’ ageism toward older adults. A total of 145 nurses were recruited to complete the main research instruments, i.e. a Sociodemographic Information Form, the Tool for Evaluating Ageism in Nursing Care of Older People, the Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire and the Moral Distress Scale. The results of the study confirmed that gender and MS could predict nurses’ ageism toward older (...) adults. However, MD was not correlated with ageism. The results of the study could therefore contribute to the development of some strategies to improve nurses’ gerontological nursing knowledge and skills through continuing education. (shrink)

In the years before stars, planets and the nebulae ‘recorded themselves’ by impressing their light on photographic film, astronomers peering through big telescopes were faced with the challenge of recording what they saw, and translating that experience somehow to a permanent communicable medium so others could share in the observations to discern what messages they held about the universe. Since this was prior to the late nineteenth century, few astronomers were affected, mainly because the mainstream goal of the day was (...) to make quantitative measures of the positions and brightnesses of things seen through the eyepiece, using a variety of micrometric devices to record them from readings on dials and scales. But for those who wished to describe and then understand the amorphous dimly shining shapes seen through their telescopes, scattered over the entire sky, numbering in the hundreds in the late eighteenth century and amounting to thousands in the mid nineteenth century, doing so prop .. (shrink)

Cieľom článku je nanovo reflektovať činnosť jednej z najslávnejších ženských filozofiek, Hip­parchie z Maróneie. Naším zámerom je ukázať, prečo sa stala v porovnaní s inými ženami antiky taká významná a v mnohom signifikantná pre ďalší vývoj procesu ženskej eman­cipácie. Hlavným svedectvom je pre nás fragment SSR V I 1 od Diogena Laertského, ktorý kladieme do súvislosti s ďalšími antickými správami o Antisthenovi a raných kynikoch. Dve hlavné témy Diogenovho svedectva sú Kratétova svadba s Hipparchiou a spor Hipparchie s Theodórom. Vo (...) výklade poukazujeme na momenty, v ktorých je filozofická osobnosť Hip­parchie nadčasová a inšpiratívna aj pre súčasnosť. (shrink)

Už dlouho jsme ve filozofii poměrně slušně informováni o tom, co se děje na západ od nás. Tyto informace se však týkají spíše anglofonního světa, už méně německého, který byl po velmi dlouhou dobu naším kulturním partnerem. Popelkou zůstává svět frankofonní – a je to škoda. Mezeru v tomto okruhu se nyní snaží zaplnit Miloš Kratochvíl ze Západočeské univerzity v Plzni svou knihou, jejíž název je uveden v titulu této recenze.

Suočujući se sa suvremenim kulturnim i religijskim pluralizmom, povezanim sa zahtjevima prepoznavanja od manjina u multikulturalnim društvima, niti klasični republikanizam niti liberalizam ne daju nam zadovoljavajuću orijentaciju u oblikovanju političkog obrazovanja prilagođenog tom društvenom kontekstu. Obrazovanje će doprinijeti društvenoj pacifikaciji i socijalnim kompromisima samo ako elaboriramo političko obrazovanje koje uzima u obzir i primjereno odgovara na glavni aktualni politički cilj: zajedničko življenje s našim različitostima. U ovome članku istražuje se sadržaj takovog političkog obrazovanja.

Prvými svedkami a neraz aj intelektuálnymi generátormi procesov, ktoré viedli k ustanoveniu sociálno-politických štruktúr klasických gréckych poleis, sú archaickí ly­rici. Medzi najstarších patrí spartský Tyrtaios (1. pol. 7. st. p. n. l.), ktorý vo svojej elégii (zl. 12) ustanovuje za vrcholnú zdatnosť thúridos alké (zúrivú chrabrosť, rázny odpor). Toto slovné spojenie nachádzame už u Homéra, ktorý ním pomenúva jednu z bojov­níckych aretai. Naším cieľom bude komplexne analyzovať 12. zlomok, preskúmať použitie tohto slovného spojenia u oboch básnikov a odhaliť nový kontext, (...) do ktorého ho zasadzuje Tyrtaios. Pokúsime sa tak postihnúť jeden z počiatkov „nového racionálno-politického poriadku“ a ukázať spôsob, akým lyrika transformuje staré epické hodnoty na nové politické. (shrink)