Liberia’s protracted civil conflict was sustained for a period of fourteen years, killing approximately 250,000 Liberians and displacing half of the population. Liberia’s war, like othe...

Taking its cue from the renewed interest in theology among Marxist and politically radical philosophers or thinkers, this study inquires into the reasons for this interest in theology focusing on the British literary theorist Terry Eagleton and the Slovenian philosopher and psychoanalyst Slavoj Žižek as two contemporary prominent Marxist thinkers.

Science is widely regarded as the most reliable epistemic source of providing knowledge about the world. Policymakers intend to make purposeful changes in the world. The practice of policymakers relying on scientific experts to make informed decisions about which policies to implement is called Evidence Based Policymaking. This thesis provides a perspective from the philosophy of science in order to discuss the justifiability of Evidence Based Policymaking (EBP) with respect to broadly democratic and liberal values. Justifying EBP with broadly democratic (...) and liberal values entails that the practices of EBP promote, or at least are in harmony with, values such as democratic governance and enhancement of people’s freedom and autonomy. Identifying the conditions under which practices of EBP meet such desiderata minimally requires an understanding of how sciences and scientific experts are instrumental in realizing the public’s values, needs, interests, and pursuit of freedom. In order to approach this project, the thesis adopts a philosophical perspective to conceptualize how sciences are supposed to be guided by or promote society’s values, needs, and interests. Specifically, it adopts a perspective from the philosophy of science that focuses on the relationship between science and (societal) values. The kind of philosophy of science perspective on “values in science” that this thesis adopts has two overarching pursuits relevant for the project of the thesis. Firstly, it seeks to inform the debates about which values and non-epistemic considerations are supposed to inform scientific research. For instance, it discusses the proper sources/owners of the non-epistemic desiderata that inform scientific research and the proper social mechanisms to identify these non-epistemic desiderata (e.g. Kourany, 2010; Kitcher, 2011). Second, it offers theories of the non-epistemic values’ proper roles in scientific reasoning and research that specify how their involvement in science does not unduly compromise the epistemic pursuits of science. The values-in-science perspective thereby seeks to balance the instrumental value of science (i.e., its use to pursue certain societal projects and values) with its epistemic authority (i.e., its objectivity, non-dogmatism, and reliability). The thesis advances an understanding of EBP from the perspective of the values in science by addressing issues that come to the fore when EBP is acknowledged as a value-laden practice of informed decision-making. (shrink)

Modernizmle birlikte Batı'nın değişen insan, dünya, evren ve Tanrı algısı, şüphesiz Batı ile sınırlı kalmamış, hemen hemen bütün dünyayı etkilemiştir. Maddeye şekil verme hünerini ileri derecede geliştiren ve bunu kullanarak dünyanın geri kalan önemli bir kısmını ya bizzat veya nüfuz alanı oluşturarak egemenliği altına alan ve dünya coğrafyasında önemli değişiklikler meydana getiren Batı'nın bu faaliyetleri, ondan etkilenen diğer kültürlerin kendi din, ahlak, gelenek ve adetlerinden şüphe etmesine sebep olmuştur. Batı'nın üzerimizdeki askeri faaliyetlerinin ve belki Batı'ya olan coğrafi yakınlığımızın, bu etkinin (...) bizde daha fazla hissedilmesinin kaynağı olduğu söylenebilir. Bu çerçevede, fikir dünyamızda son yüzyılda seyreden bir hareketlilikten ve buna bağlı olarak meydana gelen önemli değişikliklerden söz etmek mümkündür. Kendi kültür, ahlak, din, örf, adet, gelenek, kısacası medeniyet anlayışımızı, yeni paradigmaya uydurma gayreti, aydınlarımızın çoğunun seçtiği yol olmuştur. Bununla birlikte Batı'dan teknolojinin, teknolojiyi oluşturan bilginin ve bilgi yönteminin alınmasının şart olduğunu, ancak kadim kültürün korunması gerektiğini savunan aydınlarımız da az değildir. İşte bunlardan biri de son yüzyılda, kültürümüz ve kültürümüzü meydana getiren bilgi dallarıyla ilgili birçok eser kaleme almış olan Ömer Nasuhi Bilmen'dir. Bir toplumu, diğerlerinden ayıran en önemli faktörlerden biri de etik kurallar konusundaki tercihlerdir. Bilmen, belki de bunu fark ettiği için, etik konusuna çok fazla önem vermiş, bu konudaki değişime karşı çıkmış ve kadim ahlak sisteminin korunması gerektiğini var gücüyle savunmuştur. Bu kitap ise, Bilmen'in bu konudaki düşüncelerini ele almakta ve irdelemektedir. (shrink)

The promotion of conservation agriculture for smallholders in sub-Saharan Africa is subject to ongoing scholarly and public debate regarding the evidence-base and the agenda-setting power of involved stakeholders. We undertake a political analysis of CA in Zambia that combines a qualitative case study of a flagship CA initiative with a quantitative analysis of a nationally representative dataset on agricultural practices. This analysis moves from an investigation of the knowledge politics to a study of how the political agendas of the actors (...) involved are shaping agrarian practices. From its initial focus on CA as soil conservation and sustainable agriculture, the framing of the initiative has evolved to accommodate shifting trends in the policy arena. In tandem with the increased focus on climate adaptation, we see an increased emphasis on private sector-led modernisation. The initiative has shifted its target group from the poorest smallholders to prospective commercial farmers, and has forged connections between its farmer-to-farmer extension network and private input suppliers and service providers. The link between CA and input intensification is reflected in national statistics as a significantly higher usage of herbicides, pesticides and mineral fertilizer on fields under CA tillage compared to other fields. We argue that the environmental and participation agendas are used to buttress CA as an environmentally and socially sustainable agricultural development strategy, while the prevailing practice is the result of a common vision for a private sector-led agricultural development shared between the implementing organisation, the donor and international organisations promoting a new green revolution in Africa. (shrink)

This paper traces the tenuous relationship of prestige television, the culture industry and blackness. The opening section aims to get a hold on what is meant by prestige television. We review literature that introduces and problematizes the intuitive arguments of prestige television’s elevated status as high art and ultimately conclude with a sociopolitical argument that minimises the distinction between form and content in order to emphasise and show the hierarchy inherent in the culture industry based on legitimacy. The second section (...) introduces the idea of blackness to the conversation of prestige television by analysing the final scene of The Sopranos – a cut to the black screen – as not merely the event that officially inaugurates prestige television, but as an event that also announces the possible escape from its parameters of legitimacy. To do the latter we reflect upon “Black Bieber” as a figure of illegitimate blackness in Donald Glover’s Atlanta. In the third and concluding sections of the paper, we continue our elaboration of the uniqueness of blackness by putting into conversation Fred Moten’s conception of fugitive blackness with Theodor Adorno’s aesthetic theory. In the conclusion, we show how blackness challenges the totalizing aspect of the culture industry, totalizing aspect of the culture industry, pointing us towards something altogether new, after black(ness). (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:How We Keep Caring While Walking Through Our PainOla Ziara and Rachel CoghlanAuthor Dedication. To my dear brother Omar Ziara, a bright doctor, entrepreneur, and community advocate who was killed in an Israeli bombing in November 2023.May your soul rest in peace and may your memory remain alive in our hearts. May your unborn child grow up to become the wonderful man that you were. Forever loved by all.Palestinian-American (...) poet, Suheir Hammad, writes:Occupation means that every day you die, and the world watches in silence. As if your death was nothing, as if you were a stone falling in the earth, water falling over water.And if you face all of this death and indifference and keep your humanity, and your love and your dignity and you refuse to surrender to their terror, then you know something of the courage that is Palestine.I am a doctor from the Gaza Strip in Palestine. I live through acute war and protracted occupation. I work under missiles and through scant resources. I experience risks and dangers and face abominable choices made from nightmares. I know heartbreaking death.As doctors here, we fear, suffer, cry, and grieve alongside our patients and their families. This is my story of how we continue to care.Summer 2014 A Fifty-Two-Day War: How To Stay And How To Keep Them SafeThe huge bombardment strikes close to the hospital, scattering glass and rubble. It brings an abrupt end to my rare, quiet pause for coffee. Are the babies hit? We sprint to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, our full attention only on those infants, hastily checking every crib. My thoughts are frenzied. What if the next missile strikes us? Will I be able to rescue them? Will I have time to carry their tiny bodies outside through wreckage and fire? How will I choose who to save, and who to leave behind? Could I choose? Will I even be able to think lucidly, act logically for those babies if the fire consumes us? We stay.Somewhere, a house razed to the ground, a mother and her children dead. This time, our babies are safe.Summer 2014 A Fifty-Two-Day War: How To Cast Off Danger And How To Find ConsolationA missile shatters our neighbour’s roof. I am about to leave home for my evening shift. I check on my shaking mum; she is okay, not hurt at least. I ring the senior doctor. I am sorry. I am coming. I will be a little late. Two further missiles hit, wiping out the next-door building completely. No, do not send an ambulance for me. It is too dangerous. I will come [End Page 153] alone. Trembling through the dust and darkness, I leave on foot to reach those babies. I must compose myself. We are needed there to bring calm, to keep caring.And we gamble our lives to seek distraction and comfort for ourselves. We find solace through unbearable pain in our caring.Winter, Spring, Autumn, Summer, Any Day: How To Question Purpose And How To Feel HelplessIt is an ordinary night shift in ‘quiet’ times. Tonight, all the beds are occupied. All the ventilators are taken, forcing life into small, sick faces. At dawn, the phone call comes. A new baby struggling to breathe is on his way. I call around. No more beds to take him here or anywhere. No more ventilators—here or anywhere. Bring him here. We will care for him.He is in a very bad way. He needs immediate life-saving care. We take turns manually ventilating him, working to the hissing rhythm of the Ambu Bag1—inflating, deflating, inflating. Our arms ache. We keep pumping the bag. Do not stop. The moment when the morning shift arrives is our moment of salvage. We can go home. We have made it through the night without medicines, machines, disposables, or enough manpower, our arms throbbing. We have kept him alive.But he is so fragile, the system is fragile, we are fragile. Dare I even ask—is it worth it? Is it worth a baby surviving the... (shrink)

In this article, I discuss the question of the hybridity of the religious and the secular through the example of the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek and his psychoanalytically inspired notion of the undead. The undead is Žižek's rendering of the Freudian death drive, and as the undead is instantiated in the popular culture cliché of the zombies, we need to look no further than to George A. Romero's classic zombie movie Night of the Living Dead from 1968. Thus, this article (...) proceeds in three steps: first, I trace the concept of the death drive from Freud to Žižek, supplemented, for their theological importance, by two contemporary philosophers, Jonathan Lear and Eric Santner. Second, I discuss the zombie in contemporary popular culture, with a focus on Romero's movies, and whether such cinematic representations can function as a kind of cultural critique. In conclusion, I return to the question of theology by showing what Žižek means by theology and contrasting as well as comparing his philosophy to Augustine's anthropology. Despite Žižek's atheistic confession and his dismissal of all pre‐modern philosophy and theology, I show that Augustine's anthropology is structurally similar to Žižek's, thus suggesting that the relationship is more complex than Žižek allows. Both are united in rejecting any superficial and transparent understanding of self, and become, consequently, an example of the ambiguous relationship between religion and secularity in contemporary times. (shrink)

Everyday teaching involves emotional and relational irrationalities, and these aspects of pedagogical sensitivity and sense are critical for beginning teachers as they develop their practice. The complex elements of what it means to teach are often impossible to grasp from an instrumental approach to teacher education, which emphasizes subject matter knowledge and practical behavioral know-how. Increased educational standardisation and a new teacher training paradigm in Sweden have resulted in positioning future teachers as responsible only for communicating official school knowledge and (...) assessing their learning process. This narrowed understanding of teachers’ practice requires another perspective of teaching to be articulated. This article explores the internships of beginning teachers from a phenomenological perspective, drawing on storytelling in teacher education as a way to reveal student teachers’ lived experiences. These beginning teachers are learning professional ways of being, which reveal the complexities of teaching, and their accounts have the potential to counter the dominance of neoliberalism in education. (shrink)

In this article I analyse some of the reasons for a recent, resurgent interest in religion and theology by political philosophers and relate this interest to an inherent instability in modernity itself. In the first part I describe the landscape of current political philosophy with a particular emphasis on radical philosophers. In the second part I describe how the liberal distinction between religion and politics generates a theological instability due to the effective disappearance of the social embodiment of religion within (...) modernity. In the third part I draw some conclusions regarding the challenges the new post-secular condition presents to theology. (shrink)

Previous research showed that accumulations of capital following stationary interest rates are underestimated by human judges. Hyperbolic discounting was suggested as a descriptive and explanatory model for this phenomenon. First, we investigated judged accumulated capital after a period of annual growth and decline. The degree of underestimation increased with accumulated growth and the results supported hyperbolic discounting as a descriptive model on the group level. However, the hyperbolic model did not apply to the data for one third of the participants. (...) Second, we investigated how investment decisions were related to capital accumulation before the investments and to judgments of the possible outcomes of the future investments. To our surprise, the participants’ judgments of expected future accumulated capital did not add predictive power to predictions based on whether there was growth or decline before the investment decision. Unfortunately this strategy leads to suboptimal investment decisions. (shrink)

Consistency of choice is a fundamental and recurring theme in decision theory, social choice theory, behavioral economics, and psychological sciences. The purpose of this paper is to study the consistency of choice independent of the particular decision model at hand. Consistency is viewed as an inherently logical concept that is fundamentally void of connotation and is thus disentangled from traditional rationality or consistency conditions imposed on decision models. The proposed formalization of consistency takes two forms: internal consistency, which refers to (...) the property that a choice model does not generate contradictory statements; and semantic consistency, which refers to the idea that a theory’s predictions are valid with respect to some observed data. In addressing semantic consistency, the relationship between theory and data is analyzed in terms of so-called duality mappings, which allow a passage between the two universes in a way that consistency is preserved. The formalization of consistency concepts relies on adapting the revealed preference theory to the context-dependent setting. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of the proposed framework and how it relates to classical revealed preference theory and other formalizations of the relationship between the theory and reality of choice. (shrink)

Drawing upon the work of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, in particular their writing on Franz Kafka, this article stakes out the ground for a creative critical writing practice beyond the confines of literature. Exploring the notion of writing in relation to affect constellations, what causes one to write, and expressions without content, how one begins to write, the argument put forth is that in rethinking the distinction Deleuze and Guattari tend to make between artistic practice and philosophical thought, a (...) space is opened up for transversal lines that may cross between these fields in practices that are creative and critical and involve what Deleuze and Guattari refer to as aesthetic figures as well as conceptual personae. These practices, it is argued, provide a potential link between aesthetics, on the one hand, and ethics and politics, on the other. (shrink)

Pathways to Contemporary Islam: New Trends in Critical Engagement highlights that the current tensions in Islam and the Muslim world are the result of historical dynamics as opposed to an alleged incompatibility between religious tradition and modernity. The emphasis on pathways indicates that critical engagement and contestation have always been intrinsic to the history of Islam. The aim of the book is to elaborate the contemporary pathways and analyse the trends that contest the Islamic intellectual tradition, the relationship between religion (...) and politics, and the individual and collective practice of religion. The collection of essays analyses the current efforts of critical re-engagement with the Islamic intellectual tradition and underlines the historical diversity of Islamic orthodoxies that led to the establishment of various pathways in the practice and role of religion in Muslim societies. (shrink)

In this paper, I wish to problematize Slavoj Žižek’s use of the apocalyptic tradition in his political philosophy, especially focusing on the consequences it has for his understanding of hope. Especially, I find his strong emphasis on the disjunction between the state before and after the radical event implies a radical discontinuity between the present state and the state of emancipation, that the possibility falls away of any kind of criteria for a useful distinction between authentic and inauthentic events. Such (...) a lack of a more developed hermeneutics of discernment opens up for a potential ‘decisionism’ in Žižek’s work despite itself; decisionism in the sense of the evental decision itself provides the criteria for what counts as a legitimate emancipation rather than any preconceived criteria. (shrink)

Laura Hassan. Ash‘arism Encounters Avicennism: Sayf al-Dīn al-Āmidī on Creation.

This book offers a case study of children and young people in Groruddalen, Norway, as they live, study and work within the contexts of their families, educational institutions and informal activities. Examining learning as a life-wide concept, the study reveals how 'learning identities' are forged through complex interplays between young people and their communities, and how these identities translate and transfer across different locations and learning contexts. The authors also explore how diverse immigrant populations integrate and conceptualize their education as (...) a key route to personal meaning and future productivity. In highlighting the relationships between education, literacy and identity within a sociocultural context, this book is at the cutting edge of discussions about what matters as children learn. (shrink)

This research aims to determine what is meant by the terms Praise and thanksgiving the difference between them, and the relationship that brings them together in the light of Arabic dictionaries and the Holy Qur’an. This research also aims to show the extent to which the relationship between praise and thanksgiving has been affected by the transition from the limited linguistic framework to the horizons of the Holy Qur’an. This research is based on a combination of induction, analysis and conclusion. (...) Among the most important findings of the research are the following: First- Praise and thanksgiving are not synonymous linguistically or idiomatically. Second- The relationship between Praise and thanksgiving in linguistic dictionaries is about generality and particularity relationship; and it is the same in the Holy Qur’an, but that relationship has revolved in linguistic dictionaries in a limited horizon. However, when I studied the difference from Quranic perspective, I found a wider range of differences, not limited by time or place and the aspects of that relationship multiplied. Third- Praise is for the blessings He has bestowed upon us, and for the attributes of perfection with which He has been characterized. As for thanksgiving, it is only for the blessing. (shrink)

This research aims to determine what is meant by the terms Praise and thanksgiving the difference between them, and the relationship that brings them together in the light of Arabic dictionaries and the Holy Qur’an. This research also aims to show the extent to which the relationship between praise and thanksgiving has been affected by the transition from the limited linguistic framework to the horizons of the Holy Qur’an. This research is based on a combination of induction, analysis and conclusion. (...) Among the most important findings of the research are the following: First- Praise and thanksgiving are not synonymous linguistically or idiomatically. Second- The relationship between Praise and thanksgiving in linguistic dictionaries is about generality and particularity relationship; and it is the same in the Holy Qur’an, but that relationship has revolved in linguistic dictionaries in a limited horizon. However, when I studied the difference from Quranic perspective, I found a wider range of differences, not limited by time or place and the aspects of that relationship multiplied. Third- Praise (to Allah Almighty) is for the blessings He has bestowed upon us, and for the attributes of perfection with which He has been characterized. As for thanksgiving, it is only for the blessing. (shrink)

This paper consists of two parts and has two aims. The first is to elaborate on the historical-philosophical background of Cantor’s notions of infinity in the context of Spinoza’s influence on him. To achieve this aim, in the first part I compare Spinoza’s and Cantor’s conceptions of actual infinity along with their mathematical implications. Explaining the metaphysical, conceptual, and methodological aspects of Cantor’s expansion of the orthodox finitist conception of number of his time, I discuss how he adopts Spinoza’s motifs (...) to overcome the challenges on his way to proposing his transfinite infinites. To achieve the second aim, i.e., to investigate the philosophical foundations of Cantor’s transfinite infinites, I follow a three-step outline analyzing Cantor’s three principles along with their metaphysical and epistemological-linguistic aspects. I analyze the strengths and weak sides of Lakoff and Núñez’s Basic Metaphor of Infinity and Pantsar’s Process → Object Metaphor, then compare their interpretations with mine. I conclude that the metaphors can be improved when their source domains are limited to the target domains they apply to and when supported by a thorough analysis of the historical-philosophical background of their target domains. (shrink)

What drives us to make decisions? Future-Minded explores the psychological processes of agency and control. If you've ever wondered why we think of coincidences as matters of fate rather than the result of the laws of probability, this book provides the answer. From memory and reasoning to our experiences of causality and consciousness, it unpicks the mechanisms we use on a daily basis to help us predict, plan for and attempt to control the future. Future-Minded - Features a wealth of (...) real world examples to help you engage with this fast-developing area. - Provides clear analysis of psychological experiments and their findings to explain the evidence behind the theory. Thought-provoking and highly topical, Future-Minded is fascinating reading for psychology students studying cognition or consciousness, and for anyone interested in understanding how we try to determine the future. (shrink)

In this article the authors would like to present a history of the Turkish feminist movement. The roots of the feminist movement go back to the last decades of Ottoman Empire in Turkey when westernisation had started to take place. During the firts decade of the Republic many steps were taken to enable women to get involved in public, political and professional life and to encourage more equality in family matters. Women’s emancipation became a significant symbol of modernity. Kemalist reforms (...) attemted to create a new woman who could take place in public sphere with the men. During the 1970’s the movement of women almost disappeared in nationalist and socialist movements. After the military intervention in 1980 new female actors started to present new demands and change the nature of feminist movement in Turkey. (shrink)