In the context of European integration, the great French Christian philosopher Jacques Maritain and his influence on the European project in the mid-20th century are mentioned very rarely. This paper seeks to shed some light on his somehow hidden role in this context, especially given the central role of freedom of conscience within the personalist philosophical heritage to which Maritain belonged and the political philosophy he shaped, which had a key impact on the European project and its basic documents. Freedom (...) of conscience is seen here as the cornerstone of all human freedoms despite all the risks and complications that this entails. In all conflicts between the State and the conscience, it is necessary and desirable to always go in favour of the conscience or at least to lean towards political solutions that respect or at least do not despise the conscience of the person. Whenever we face seemingly unsolvable problems in such conflicts, dialogue and negotiation should always be chosen instead of violence and imposition. (shrink)

In this paper, we argue that there are more kinds of relative clause constructions between the linguistic heaven and earth than are dreamed of in the classical lore, which distinguishes just restrictive relative clauses and appositives. We start with degree relatives. Degree, or amount, relatives show restrictions in the relativizers they allow, in the determiners that can combine with them, and in their stacking possibilities. To account for these facts, we propose an analysis with two central, and novel, features: First, (...) we argue that the standard notion of degree (a number on a measuring scale) needs to be replaced by a notion of structured degree, which keeps track of the object measured. Second, we argue that at the CP-level of degree relatives an operation of (degree) maximalization takes place. We show that the observed facts concerning degree relatives follow from these assumptions. We then broaden the discussion to other relative clause constructions. We propose that the operation of maximalization takes place in relative clauses when the head noun is semantically interpreted CP-internally, while syntactically the CP is part of a DP that also contains CP-external material. Based on this, we argue that degree relatives form part of a linguistically coherent class of relative clause constructions -- we call them maximalizing relatives -- which all show restrictions similar to those observed for degree relatives, and which differ semantically (and often also syntactically) both from restrictive relative clauses and from appositives. We discuss free relatives, internally-headed relatives, and correlatives. (shrink)

Some Generalizations of Categorical Grammars Emmon Bach 0. INTRODUCTION The last decade of work in syntax has seen a marked demotion in the importance of ...

For ages, natural disasters, war and disease have been part of life, sharing themes of not only adversity, fear and death, but also hope. The year 2020 brought a new threat in the form of coronavirus disease 2019, which challenged what humankind understood of all they knew and believed. The significant difference today is the role of the media in sharing news and opinions on this disease that threatens not only lives, but also spiritual well-being. In this study, we focus (...) on people’s religious views on the origin and meaning of this invisible threat to establish how this pandemic impacts on people’s belief systems. The 20th century was marked by a shift whereby actions and events are intellectualised to rationalise cause and effect, and the philosophical theodicies are regarded to limit our critical reasoning. This study, however, shows that COVID-19 reactivates this debate in that it surpasses logic and rational thinking. Data are collected by means of comments, discussions and opinions shared on numerous social media platforms. During times of adversity, the same rhetorical ‘who’ and ‘why’ questions are asked and in this regard, theodicy as a philosophical framework informs this study. Applying a narrative inquiry, data are interpreted and three themes are identified, namely COVID-19 is an act God, COVID-19 has nothing to do with God and God remains in control amidst a devastating pandemic. The sample for this study is random and the medium used allows for representativity in terms of age group, gender, race, religious affiliation of South Africa, but not limited to this country.Contribution: This article provides insight into renewed debates on religious views on pandemics and suffering in the context of COVID-19. It contributes to an understanding of different perceptions on the origin of this disease, how people make sense and find meaning in being part of a global discourse. (shrink)

This paper gives an analysis of the Chinese distributivity marker dou 'all', which can occur not only with definite plural NPs but also with NPs whose determiner is a quantifier word such as mei 'every' or dabufen-de 'most'. Besides normal distributive predicates, it can also occur with certain types of collective predicates. The difficulties of giving a compositional interpretation to constructions of these kinds are discussed in detail. I show that we can solve those difficulties if we treat dou as (...) a generalized distributivity marker in the sense of Schwarzschild (1991, 1996), which distributes over the members of a plurality cover. Apart from the above topic, which is more narrowly a semantics topic, this paper also discusses some syntax-semantics interface issues related to the distribution of dou's associates. (shrink)

Real Social Science presents a new, hands-on approach to social inquiry. The theoretical and methodological ideas behind the book, inspired by Aristotelian phronesis, represent an original perspective within the social sciences, and this volume gives readers for the first time a set of studies exemplifying what applied phronesis looks like in practice. The reflexive analysis of values and power gives new meaning to the impact of research on policy and practice. Real Social Science is a major step forward in a (...) novel and thriving field of research. This book will benefit scholars, researchers and students who want to make a difference in practice, not just in the academy. Its message will make it essential reading for students and academics across the social sciences. (shrink)

The article purports to examine the risk to cultural identity amongst an Indian community in South Africa using a single case study methodology. A case study approach was followed, using the qualitative research methodology, whereby not only the how, but also adding focus on the thoughts, feelings, perceptions, experiences and motivations that people have underlie their behaviour. The year 1960 marked the 100th anniversary of the arrival of the Indians to the Colony of Natal, hence the study considers the period (...) 1895 to 1960. Identifying with a particular culture allows members of that community to experience feelings of belonging and security. Moving across continents, Indian indentured sugar plantation labourers came to the Colony of Natal from 1860 until 1911 bringing with them their cultural identity. The risk to cultural identity is a significant contributor to an individual’s well-being. Cultural identity may be viewed as a sense of belonging based on one’s ancestry, rituals, religion, traditions, values and even language. When they were transported during the concurrent time of colonisation and indenture, they became displaced and thus an emotional threat to their well-being, belonging and security was created and simultaneously experienced. This threat compromised their cultural identity. This risk to cultural identity is investigated in the narrative of an Indian female national matriarch, Mrs Takurine Mahesh Singh who arrived in the Colony in 1895 and passed away in 1959. A risk to cultural identity existed, but the Indian community in South Africa did not experience deculturalisation. They were able to practise their ancestral culture without losing their identity. This is one of the findings and it concludes the abstract.Contribution: The study of identity, identity diffusion, identity loss is a very important aspect to study, especially for displaced communities who suffer not only alienation from their mother country, but also losing contact and cultures as a result of displacement. This article provides insight on the risk to cultural identity in Natal between 1895 and 1960. In terms of the findings, cultural identity is an important contributor to well-being. Identifying with a particular culture gave the matriarch a feeling of belonging and security. It also provides access to social and other networks which provide support and shared strength, values and aspirations. Although a product of oral history, for this research, the article could not be supported by other historical materials in an attempt at balancing the views as scholars have not explored the widowed Indian nationals who have remained in the Colony after indenture. This article should not be viewed simplistically as a retelling of Mrs Singh’s life story, but rather a narrative based on reflective memories that pieced together her departure from India under the political system of indenture, living and surviving as a widow under harsh laws and having multiple identities. The narrative oral history approach combined with a qualitative research methodology does not focus on analysis and interpretation but rather brings to the fore, the opportunity for further exploratory studies where the question ‘why’ will be answered. (shrink)

This book attempts to understand regret, an emotion that bridges the actual and the possible, the past and present. Through a wealth of sources it takes up questions of the meaning of regret and how it differs from similar experiences such as remorse and guilt; what sorts of things people most often regret; and the roots of regret in circumstances and in who we are. It takes issue with the view common both in this culture and in leading theories of (...) decision that regret is irrational and dysfunctional - specifying the surprising benefits of regret, its great and good sense. (shrink)

Since the early 20th century, bioethics in South Africa has moved through several stages, responding to the same forces and developments as elsewhere, for example in the United Kingdom and United States. In addition, some unique developments in South Africa, for example the death of Steve Biko, the HIV/AIDS pandemic, and a peaceful transition to democracy with increased focus on human rights have given bioethics in South Africa its own dimension. Bioethics in South Africa reflects the general concerns of the (...) field elsewhere, but it also stands at the intersection of the concerns of both developed and developing worlds. Thus, issues such as resource allocation, HIV/AIDS, and medical research take on an urgency and character that reflect South Africa's particular historical, geographical, and social conditions. (shrink)

Classical work on Jaina ethics and philosophy; includes Gujarati translation and interpretation.

Conflict adaptation reflects the increase in cognitive control after previous conflict between task-relevant and task-irrelevant information. Tonic arousal elicited by emotional words e...

In this paper I propose and formalize a theory of the mass-count distinction in which the denotations of count nouns are built from non-overlapping generators, while the denotations of mass nouns are built from overlapping generators. Counting is counting of generators, and it will follow that counting is only correct on count denotations.I will show that the theory allows two kinds of mass nouns: mess mass nouns with denotations built from overlapping minimal generators, and neat mass nouns with denotations built (...) from overlapping generators, where the overlap is not located in the minimal generators. Prototypical mass nouns like meat and mud are of the first kind. I will argue that mass nouns like furniture and kitchenware are of the second type.I will discuss several phenomena—all involving one way or the other explicitly or implicitly individual classifiers like stuks in Dutch—that show that both distinctions mass/count and mess/neat are linguistically robust. I will show in particular that nouns like kitchenware pattern in various ways like count nouns, and not like mess mass nouns, and that these ways naturally involve the neat structure of their denotation. I will also show that they are real mass nouns: they can involve measures in the way mess mass nouns can and count nouns cannot.I will discuss grinding interpretations of count nouns, here rebaptized fission interpretations, and argue that these interpretations differ in crucial ways from the interpretations of lexical mass nouns. The paper will end with a foundational problem raised by fission interpretations, and in the course of this, atomless interpretation domains will re-enter the scene through the back door. (shrink)

Volunteering in Ukraine is becoming an increasingly popular phenomenon that occupies an important place in the life of society. Many people choose volunteering as a way to help people in difficult life circumstances, as well as to develop their own personality and engage in active civic participation. As a significant social phenomenon, volunteering has its own ideological foundations that define its core values and principles. Volunteering is based on the desire to help people and nature regardless of their status, nationality, (...) religion, or political beliefs. The purpose of the study. The current study examines the ideological foundations of volunteering in Ukraine in wartime and their significance for volunteering, to study the practical experience of volunteers in Ukraine in 2014-2023, and to examine the peculiarities of the legal regulation of volunteering in Ukraine in wartime. Methods. Achieving the goal and objectives of the study was made possible by using a set of interrelated modern general scientific and special methods and approaches. The systematic approach made it possible to study volunteering as a holistic set of elements in the totality of the connections between them. Through the use of the method of systematization, the author provides a review of the legal framework for volunteering, factor analysis is used to determine the factors influencing the relationship between the state and society in the field of volunteering, and system analysis is used to assess the state of relations between the state and society in Ukraine at this stage through its quantitative indicators.Results. According to the study “Volunteer Movement in Ukraine”, prepared by GfK Ukraine on behalf of the UN in Ukraine, Ukrainian citizens pay great attention to the volunteer movement in the development of social processes: 62% recognize the role of volunteers in the changes in the last year; 85% believe that the volunteer movement helps strengthen peace; 81% tend to consider the volunteer movement an essential component of civil society. Regarding the legal regulation of volunteer activities in Ukraine, the Law of Ukraine “On Volunteer Activity” of April 19, 2011, No. 3236-VI was adopted in April 2011. The Law of Ukraine of 15.08.2022 No. 2519-IX On Amendments to the Law of Ukraine “On Volunteer Activity” on Support of Volunteer Activity regulates social relations related to volunteer activity in Ukraine. Discussion. One of the key principles of volunteering in Ukraine is selflessness and the ability to work in extreme conditions. Volunteers often work in difficult and dangerous conditions that require a high level of professionalism and skills. For many volunteers, the Ukrainian revolution of 2013-2014 and the events in eastern Ukraine were turning points that forced them to change their attitude to their own lives and start helping others. Ukrainian volunteers are an example of community and state cooperation that contributes to ensuring security and helping victims. They have shown that volunteering can be an effective tool in the fight against war and its consequences. Many volunteer organizations provided free medical care, took on the responsibility of supplying the military with necessary items and military equipment, organized the evacuation of people from the war zone, and provided psychological support to the military and their families. Conclusions.Volunteering in Ukraine is not a new phenomenon, but the war with Russia has become a catalyst for its development. This is a great example of how crises can encourage people to act together and interact to achieve a common goal. Volunteerism in Ukraine demonstrates the importance of spiritual unity and cooperation in difficult times, and is one of the most striking examples of civil society in action. The ideological principles of volunteering in Ukraine include non-profitability, openness, spirituality, and humanism, transparency and openness, security, and cooperation with government agencies and the military. The volunteer movement in Ukraine, especially in times of war, is an important factor in ensuring security and helping victims. Involvement of different groups of the population in volunteer activities, as well as cooperation with state and international structures, are important to ensure the effectiveness and success of volunteer activities. (shrink)

This article reports on interviews conducted with 11 women at the Thohoyandou Victim Empowerment Programme, a centre located in Sibasa, Thohoyandou, in the Limpopo province of South Africa. The centre provides support and advocacy to female survivors of domestic violence. The participants were victims of gender-based violence and the study aimed at exploring the spiritual experiences of women assaulted by their partners. Interviews were conducted over 4 days and were held on the TVEP premises. This article discusses how women of (...) faith found meaning and support through their religious beliefs when experiencing violence in intimate spaces. Furthermore, the article drew insights from spiritual perceptions held by women that make them feel safer and assist them to find ways to cope with violence in intimate relationships. However, the study found that women prayed for divine intervention and change in their families and for God to help their husbands by removing all evil spirits from their lives. It was found that apart from prayer, the women do not have any other spiritual resources to combat gender-based violence. The authors suggest the deconstruction of harmful religious discourses towards healing religious discourses as a type of ‘intervention’ in the lives of the interviewees.Contribution: The article contributes towards understanding the harmful impact of religious discourses on the lives of women who are vulnerable towards domestic violence. Religious discourses that are either harmful or healing are here identified through the stories of women who have been violated in their intimate relationships, thus contributing to the body of knowledge in gender studies and to religious and social sciences in general. (shrink)

On the concept of Mokṣa in contemporary Indic philosophy.

Offender populations experience their incarceration through different lenses and often as a spiritual journey of suffering. During 2017 and 2018 a study was conducted by the authors with 30 men serving long-term sentences in Correctional Centre A, Zonderwater Management Area in the Gauteng province of South Africa. Following interviews and focus group sessions, the authors report on participants’ representations on how their constructed views of God assist them to find meaning in suffering while incarcerated. Narrative inquiry as a philosophical framework (...) was applied, which presupposes equality between the researcher and the participant, the unmediated representation of words as data, the researcher as auto-ethnographer and respectful submission to subjectivity. Participants’ views of God are thematised according to sets of God-images, firstly, as identified by Van der Ven in his book God Reinvented?, adapted by the authors to suit the contents of the participants’ God talk. Secondly, the ‘God-images in Africa’ were applied. The participants’ constructed God-images are divided into two categories: images that feed on the binary between divine and human and images that function in the dialogical spaces between divine and human where the incarcerated have internalised an external God. Binary images of God are presented by the apathetic God, retributive God, controlling God and the purifying God. However, a significant number of participants expressed their belief in God through the dialogical image of the compassionate God, and the suffering God as co-sufferer. The role of Africanness in constructing these God-images constitutes a special point of inquiry in this article, as reflected in the images of God defined by God the Great Ancestor and Divine Spirit, and God with whom a mystical union is formed. (shrink)

The aging of the two brothers in the “twins paradox” is analyzed through the space-time evolution of the densities that correspond to their internal complex structure. Taking into account their relative motion, it is shown that the traveling brother evolves over a shorter interval of time than his twin, which makes him younger than his brother.

Ghazzālī; 1058-1111; Ibn Taymīyah, Aḥmad ibn ʻAbd al-Ḥalīm, 1263-1328; criticism and interpretation; Islam; doctrines.

With the rapid development of society and the dramatic change of environment, previous career counseling focusing on personal choice has been difficult to meet individuals’ needs. It is very meaningful and valuable to introduce the ideology of Life Design Counseling. In this mini review, we introduce and analyze the theory and methodology of LDC. This review puts forward challenges in the field of LDC, including the lack of attention to clients from multiple backgrounds and professional counselors, the lack of diversified (...) methods in the intervention process, and the lack of diversified research. The theoretical research, practical research, and the integration of theory and practice of LDC still need to be further concerned by researchers. (shrink)

In the first part of this article, Africanity as a concept within research methodology is explored in the dialogical spaces between the binaries of racial identity and group identity, indigenous and traditional values, post-colonialism and post-racialism, blackness and African, as well as eliminativist and conservationalist. In the second part, the research carried out in two townships in the eMakhazeni Local Municipality in Mpumalanga, South Africa's most eastern province, is described in terms of parameters and process. The townships involved are Sakhelwe (...) in Dullstroom-Emnotweni and Emthonjeni in Machadodorp-eNktokozweni. The research focuses on interviews with young people between the ages of 18 and 24 on the potential of faith-based organisations to assist them in moving from the 'margins' of society to positions of social cohesion. The third and main part of the article, is dedicated to lessons learnt and experience acquired when research is carried out in a rural area from an Africanity perspective. This entails, inter alia to be sensitive towards power relations in research; respecting indigenous values within group identities; not predefining the youth, using indigenous definitions of 'agency' and 'marginalisation'; to engage in observation rather than interpretation; and to decolonise the research process when regarding interpretation as an act of colonisation. (shrink)

Why do we compare nations? How do we compare nations? What are the 'big issues' in comparative politics? _Issues and Methods in Comparative Politics_ provides students with the answers to these fundamental questions. It is an accessible and user-friendly text which explores the strategies of comparative research in political science. This book has been designed to make a complex subject easy and accessible to students. Features of this textbook include: * briefing boxes located throughout which explain key concepts and ideas (...) * suggestions for further reading at the end of each chapter * a glossary of terms. (shrink)

In a post-apartheid South Africa, the value of reflective memories and their impact on community history gives credibility to their relationship with personal struggles such as disability, be it physical or political. Shaped by South African Indian heritage, an isolated individualised case of a second-generation descendant’s ability–disability experience is researched and narrated in this article. The respondent, Dr Kasturi Varley is a woman of the South African Indian community, who was born almost 101 years after the first shipload of Indian (...) indentured labourers arrived in the then Colony of Natal. Her memories shed light on a unique Indo-African-European experience. Her indentured paternal grandfather arrived in the African continent in August 1900. Her reflective memories and shared experiences of various episodes of the ability–disability paradigm add to the body of knowledge of the Indian indentured labour system that already exists and partially fills up the prevalent gaps in the research on this topic. Her story is unique in that she worked wheelchair-bound at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, Austria and subsequently settled in the United Kingdom. This study applied a qualitative research methodology.Contribution: This article provides insight on reflective memories within the domain of social memory and contributes to an understanding of the historiography of the descendants of Indian indentured labourers in South Africa. In 2020, this community commemorated the 160th anniversary of the arrival of the labourers to the Colony of Natal. (shrink)