Kuala Lumpur is a diverse city representing many different religions and nationalities. Recent government policy has actively promoted unity and cohesion throughout the city; and the country of Malaysia, with the implementation of a programme called 1Malaysia. In this book, the authors investigate the aims of this programme – predominantly to unify the Malaysian society – and how these objectives resonate in the daily spatial practices of the city’s residents. -/- This book argues that elements of urban infrastructure could work (...) as an essential mediator ‘beyond community’, allowing inclusive social structures to be built, despite cultural and religious tensions existing within the city. It builds on the premise of an empirical study which explores the ways in which different communities use the same spaces, supported through the implementation of a theoretical framework which looks at both Western and Islamic conceptualisations of the notion of community. Through the analysis of Kuala Lumpur, this book contributes towards the creation of more inclusive places in multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and multi-religious communities across the world. (shrink)

Referring to basic Weberian notions of rationalization and secularization, I try to find a more accurate sense of the term “secularization”, intending to describe adequately the position of religion in modernity. The result of this query is—or at least should be—a new, original conceptualization of religion as one of finite provinces of meaning within one paramount reality of the life-world, as defined by Alfred Schutz. I proceed by exposing a well known, major oversimplification of the Weberian concept of secularization, very (...) well outlined in Peter Berger’s The sacred canopy, in order to point to the genuine, much more differentiated position of Max Weber in this matter (especially from the period of Foundations of social economic and Economy and society), and, consequently, to return to the roots of Berger’s thought: phenomenological sociology of Alfred Schutz, an attempt to assure the philosophical foundations of Weber’s sociological theory. At a closer glimpse, transformation of religion in the modern process of rationalization does not consist—according to Weber—in eliminating religion and thus depriving society of the religious source of meaning, but in parallel emancipation of many different domains of rationality, including religion itself. Using Schutz’s analysis of the social world as a complex structure of many different final provinces of meaning, I describe religion as such a province and show what does the process of rationalization of this province consist and what it should consist in: a complex, ongoing exchange of cognitive relevances and contents, combined with growing autonomy of many different sub-worlds. Schutz’s theory of symbol, rooted in Edmund Husserl’s description of constitution of complex objects in mono- and polythetic acts of consciousness, moves the analysis to the epistemological level, pointing to a chance of intensifying our cognitive relation to reality through increasing interpenetration of various sub-universes of meaning. (shrink)

According to The Consensus Gentium Argument from the premise: “Everyone believes that God exists” one can conclude that God does exist. In my paper I analyze two ways of defending the claim that somebody’s belief in God is a prima facie reason to believe. Kelly takes the fact of the commonness of the belief in God as a datum to explain and argues that the best explanation has to indicate the truthfulness of the theistic belief. Trinkaus Zagzebski grounds her defence (...) on rationality of epistemic trust in others. In the paper I argue that the second line of reasoning is more promising and I propose its improved version. (shrink)

The cognitive purpose of the research presented in the article is to identify the propensity for pro-social and altruistic behavior among first-year military students in three simulated situations of need for help to other people. It raised the question contained in the main research problem: to what extent do military students at universities tend to behave in a pro-social and altruistic way in situations that pose a threat to the other people’s life and health, and what is the relationship between (...) these behaviors and socialization in the civil environment? At the outset, the hypothesis was adopted that the candidates for professional soldiers show a higher propensity for this type of behavior. For its verification, the population of the first-year military students during their basic training was assumed as a research area. The study covered 246 people selected randomly from among military students in the first year of studies of the command profile of all military specialties and the medical profile. The selection of the research sample based on first-year students during the basic training aimed to identify the impact of environmental factors on the tendency to altruistic and pro-social behavior in two different groups of candidates for professional soldiers. (shrink)

A static, spherically symmetric, and asymptotically flat solution of coupled Einstein-Born-Infeld equations is presented. When the internal mass of the system is zero the resulting space-time is regular and describes static electromagnetic geon.

John L. Schellenberg, autor argumentu z ukrytości, twierdzi, że gdyby Bóg istniał, to nie istnieliby rzetelnie niewierzący. W swej najnowszej książce Jacek Wojtysiak stwierdza, że teista może odwrócić to rozumowanie i stwierdzić, że gdyby Bóg nie istniał, to nie istnieliby rzetelnie wierzący. Dochodzi on nie tylko do wniosku, że wierzący istnieją, lecz jeszcze, że można przypuszczać, iż jest ich znacznie więcej niż niewierzących. Może zatem stwierdzić istnienie wielkiego faktu wiary, wobec którego ateista jest podwójnie bezradny: po pierwsze, nie umie go (...) wyjaśnić, a po drugie – nie jest w stanie przedstawić paralelnego argumentu za ateizmem. W swoim artykule analizuję tę część książki J. Wojtysiaka, która jest poświęcona tym zagadnieniom i dochodzę do wniosku, że ateista jednak znajduje się lepszym położeniu, niż sugeruje to polski filozof. (shrink)

Descriptions of bodies within the literature of the enactive approach to cognitive science exhibit an interesting dialectical tension. On the one hand, a body is considered to be a unity which instantiates an identity, forming an intrinsic basis for value. On the other, a living body is in a reciprocally defining relationship with the environment, and is therefore immersed and entangled with, rather than distinct from, its environment. In this paper I examine this tension, and its implications for the enactive (...) approach, particularly the enactive conceptions of life and bodies. Following the lead of others, I argue that enactive cognitive science can benefit from a deeper reading and integration with extant work on the complexity and multiplicity of the living body within feminist philosophy and feminist science studies. (shrink)

History provides us with instances of various societal and economic changes that with a hindsight are interpreted as either indicating progressive or regressive trends. The present paper attempts to define what represents progress and regress by applying psychological constructs to evaluation of the psychosocial changes. Seven principles of progress are applied as criteria for interpreting various historic events. The primary condition for progress is courage to face adversity or, in the cognitive domain, ambiguity, controversy and “unknown”. An overall model of (...) Challenge-Resilience-Resourcefulness is described as the process through which progress can be achieved. (shrink)

Assuming the importance of Alfred Schutz’s “protosociology” in social theory as a given, the paper tries to explore its philosophical core, treating Schutz’s sociophenomenology as an answer to the most fundamental questions of phenomenology, such as evidence and phenomenological reduction. It analyses Schutz’s point of departure – the problematization of Max Weber’s concept of the meaning of social action and its deepening by means of Henri Bergson’s and Edmund Husserl’s notion of time – and tries to unravel the double structure (...) of consciousness, revealing increasingly its complex temporal character. Brentano’s and Husserl’s double intentionality, seeming to offer a kind of “decent realism” in modern philosophical context, in Schutz turns out to be marked by the profound pastness of reflexive consciousness, reaching the primary stream experience only by means of primary and secondary acts of remembrance, re-effectuated intersubjectively in acts of phantasying about future, thus constituting the very core of meaning, with its reference to external objects. It appears that only analysing this mode of phantasying in reference to its motives that we can solve the conundrum of realism in its modern shape. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Microfinance is often assumed to be an ethically progressive industry, but in recent years it has been the target of much ethical criticism. Microfinance institutions have been accused of using exploitative lending techniques and charging usurious interest rates; and critics even question the ability of microfinance to alleviate poverty. This article reviews recent research on the microfinance sector that addresses these ethical issues. We show how this research is relevant to a number of theoretical issues, such as how to define (...) poverty, how to understand exploitation, and how to balance financial and social goals in commercial organizations. We conclude by identifying a critical agenda for future research. (shrink)

Can we see the expressiveness of other people's gestures, hear the intentions in their voice, see the emotions in their posture? Traditional theories of social cognition still say we cannot because intentions and emotions for them are hidden away inside and we do not have direct access to them. Enactive theories still have no idea because they have so far mainly focused on perception of our physical world. We surmise, however, that the latter hold promise since, in trying to understand (...) cognition, enactive theory focuses on the embodied engagements of a cognizer with his world. In this paper, we attempt an answer for the question What is social perception in an enactive account? In enaction, perception is conceived as a skill, crucially involving action, an ability to work successfully within the set of regularities, or contingencies that characterize a given domain. If this is the case, then social perception should be a social skill. Having thus transformed the question of what social perception is into that of what social skill is, we examine the concept of social contingencies and the manner in which social skills structure—both constrain and empower— social interaction. Some of the implications of our account for how social and physical perception differ, the role of embodiment in social interaction and the distinction between our approach and other social contingency theories are also addressed. (shrink)

Clinical Ethics Consultations are an important tool for physicians in solving difficult cases. They are extremely common in North America and to a lesser extent also present in Europe. However, there is little data on this practice in Poland. We present results of a survey of 521 physicians practising in Poland concerning their opinion on CECs and related practices. We analysed the data looking at such issues as CECs’ perceived availability, use of CECs, and perceived usefulness of such support. Physicians (...) in our study generally encounter hard ethics cases, even—surprisingly—those who do not work in hospitals. Most physicians have no CEC access, and those that do still do not employ CECs. However, physicians perceive this form of support as useful—even more so among actual users of CECs. We compared these findings with similar studies from other European countries and the North America. We point out peculiarities of our results as compared to those in other countries, with some possible explanations. We hope the results may encourage regulatory debate on the need to formally introduce CECs into the Polish healthcare system. (shrink)

Bell’s theorem cannot be proved if complementary measurements have to be represented by random variables which cannot be added or multiplied. One such case occurs if their domains are not identical. The case more directly related to the Einstein–Rosen–Podolsky argument occurs if there exists an ‘element of reality’ but nevertheless addition of complementary results is impossible because they are represented by elements from different arithmetics. A naive mixing of arithmetics leads to contradictions at a much more elementary level than the (...) Clauser–Horne–Shimony–Holt inequality. (shrink)

Newtonian physics is based on Newtonian calculus applied to Newtonian dynamics. New paradigms such as ‘modified Newtonian dynamics’ change the dynamics, but do not alter the calculus. However, calculus is dependent on arithmetic, that is the ways we add and multiply numbers. For example, in special relativity we add and subtract velocities by means of addition β1⊕β2=tanh+tanh-1)\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\beta _1\oplus \beta _2=\tanh \big +\tanh ^{-1}\big )$$\end{document}, although multiplication β1⊙β2=tanh·tanh-1)\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} (...) \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\beta _1\odot \beta _2=\tanh \big \cdot \tanh ^{-1}\big )$$\end{document}, and division β1⊘β2=tanh/tanh-1)\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\beta _1\oslash \beta _2=\tanh \big /\tanh ^{-1}\big )$$\end{document} do not seem to appear in the literature. The map fX=tanh-1\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$f_{\mathbb{X}}=\tanh ^{-1}$$\end{document} defines an isomorphism of the arithmetic in X=\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\mathbb{X}}=$$\end{document} with the standard one in R\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\mathbb{R}}$$\end{document}. The new arithmetic is projective and non-Diophantine in the sense of Burgin, 1977), while ultrarelativistic velocities are super-large in the sense of Kolmogorov, 1961). Velocity of light plays a role of non-Diophantine infinity. The new arithmetic allows us to define the corresponding derivative and integral, and thus a new calculus which is non-Newtonian in the sense of Grossman and Katz. Treating the above example as a paradigm, we ask what can be said about the set X\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\mathbb{X}}$$\end{document} of ‘real numbers’, and the isomorphism fX:X→R\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$f_{{\mathbb{X}}}:{\mathbb{X}}\rightarrow {\mathbb{R}}$$\end{document}, if we assume the standard form of Newtonian mechanics and general relativity but demand agreement with astrophysical observations. It turns out that the observable accelerated expansion of the Universe can be reconstructed with zero cosmological constant if fX≈0.8sinh/\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$f_{\mathbb{X}}\approx 0.8\sinh /$$\end{document}. The resulting non-Newtonian model is exactly equivalent to the standard Newtonian one with ΩΛ=0.7\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\Omega _\Lambda =0.7$$\end{document}, ΩM=0.3\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\Omega _M=0.3$$\end{document}. Asymptotically flat rotation curves are obtained if ‘zero’, the neutral element 0X\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$0_{{\mathbb{X}}}$$\end{document} of addition, is nonzero from the point of view of the standard arithmetic of R\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\mathbb{R}}$$\end{document}. This implies fX-1=0X>0\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$f^{-1}_{{\mathbb{X}}}=0_{{\mathbb{X}}}>0$$\end{document}. The opposition Diophantine versus non-Diophantine, or Newtonian versus non-Newtonian, is an arithmetic analogue of Euclidean versus non-Euclidean in geometry. We do not yet know if the proposed generalization ultimately removes any need of dark matter, but it will certainly change estimates of its parameters. Physics of the dark universe seems to be both geometry and arithmetic. (shrink)

Artykuł podejmuje polemikę z obiegowym rozumieniem tolerancji. Autor podkreśla znaczenie podziału na tolerancję jako postawę i na dyskursy o tolerancji. Następnie, w nawiązaniu i częściowo w dyskusji z koncepcją tolerancji zaproponowaną przez Iję Lazari Pawłowską, przedstawione jest rozróżnienie trzech odmian tolerancji, a także rozróżnienie odpowiednich trzech odmian nietolerancji. Rozważane są również niektóre paradoksy związane z tolerancją oraz ze zwalczaniem nietolerancji.

The Philosophical Underpinnings of Social Constructionist Discourse Analysis Although discourse analysis emerges as a multi-faceted research method reflecting various schools of thought, disciplines and approaches, it is possible to pinpoint some meta-theoretical issues or fundamental assumptions common for most of them. This article aims to investigate different philosophical aspects and theoretical foundations that inform discourse analysis, such as the interplay between epistemological and ontological dimensions or the definition of language itself. Because space does not allow an in-depth discussion of all (...) the theoretical orientations collectively contributing to the development of social constructionist discourse analysis, this paper focuses on poststructuralist, constructivist, and social realist positions, and also attempts to trace the roots of social constructionism in linguistic philosophy, phenomenology, and hermeneutics. Hopefully, this article will provide the opportunity to develop meta-theoretical reflections on discourse analysis, thus striking the balance between the philosophy, methodology and practice. (shrink)

The history of political transformation in Poland is an uninterrupted process of forming identifications along party lines, as well as of the political milieus’ searching, for a response to the question regarding the location of their own subjective space within the wider political sphere. It is worthwhile, when we discuss this, to ask whether the building up of a party’s identity is dictated by ideological and programmatic reasons or whether it is an incidental matter. The values and beliefs concealed in (...) the 80s, when the opposition belonged to the underground, have been permanently inscribed into the Polish political landscape. A group of doctrines which served as a component in the build-up of party identity may be perceived. The religious and national values, as well as the historical and cultural issues, which emerged into the daylight, may be treated as the embryo of certain ideas, which in time, as a result of public debates, have become fundamental determinants of many political parties. (shrink)