Throughout the biological and biomedical sciences there is a growing need for, prescriptive ‘minimum information’ (MI) checklists specifying the key information to include when reporting experimental results are beginning to find favor with experimentalists, analysts, publishers and funders alike. Such checklists aim to ensure that methods, data, analyses and results are described to a level sufficient to support the unambiguous interpretation, sophisticated search, reanalysis and experimental corroboration and reuse of data sets, facilitating the extraction of maximum value from data sets (...) them. However, such ‘minimum information’ MI checklists are usually developed independently by groups working within representatives of particular biologically- or technologically-delineated domains. Consequently, an overview of the full range of checklists can be difficult to establish without intensive searching, and even tracking thetheir individual evolution of single checklists may be a non-trivial exercise. Checklists are also inevitably partially redundant when measured one against another, and where they overlap is far from straightforward. Furthermore, conflicts in scope and arbitrary decisions on wording and sub-structuring make integration difficult. This presents inhibit their use in combination. Overall, these issues present significant difficulties for the users of checklists, especially those in areas such as systems biology, who routinely combine information from multiple biological domains and technology platforms. To address all of the above, we present MIBBI (Minimum Information for Biological and Biomedical Investigations); a web-based communal resource for such checklists, designed to act as a ‘one-stop shop’ for those exploring the range of extant checklist projects, and to foster collaborative, integrative development and ultimately promote gradual integration of checklists. (shrink)

This chapter seeks clarification into how Marion understands “desire,” especially in The Erotic Phenomenon. Philosophies of “objectivity” have lost sight of love and its uniquely supporting evidences, and desire plays a number of roles in restoring to love the “dignity of a concept,” in its contribution to forming selfhood and “individualization,” and in its establishing the paradoxical bases of the erotic reduction and “eroticization.” Since he claims in La Rigueur des Choses that “The Erotic Phenomenon logically completes the phenomenology of (...) the gift and the saturated phenomenon,” it is necessary to conceive of how and to what degree. The erotic reduction demands that one bracket oneself and return to the Ursprung of intuition by asking the important question “can I be the first to love?” This chapter initiates an application of these findings on the manifold of desire back onto Marion’s understanding of “the gift” and his phenomenology of givenness. How might the erotic reduction and the reduction to givenness interrelate? Might love and desire be modes or “capacities” of alteration of one’s experience within intuition? Desire, which is conceived in relation to “lack” as a resource, provides a kind of “negative assurance” that allows the adonné to access an affirmation of love. (shrink)

Although Eugen Fink often reflected upon the role religion, these reflections are yet to be addressed in secondary literature in any substantive sense. For Fink, religion is to be understood in relation to “play,” which is a metaphor for how the world presents itself. Religion is a non-repetitive, and entirely creative endeavor or “symbol” that is not achieved through work and toil, or through evaluation or power, but rather, through his idea of play and “cult” as the imaginative distanciation from (...) a predictable lifeworld. This paper describes Fink’s understanding of religion and its most relevant aspects found in Spiel als Weltsymbol. The paper is organized into five sections—1: An introduction to his phenomenological approach in general, and description of the role of “play”; 2: investigations into the relation between play and world; 3: a description of his phenomenology of religion; 4: engagements in the idea of cult-play and the sacred sphere, and 5: reflection on his idea of the play of God. (shrink)

Taking a critical perspective more political than that usually adopted by classicists, John Alvis demonstrates in this study that the Iliad, Odyssey and Aeneid each present a distinct political teaching regarding human ends and the form of civil society most conducive to the realization of those ends. Referring to the mysterious "plan of Zeus" announced in the opening lines of the Iliad but never explained, Alvis argues that both Homer's Zeus and Virgil's Jupiter guide their heroes to embody (...) principles of natural justice that in turn found political constitutions. The Political Plan of Zeus represents the first comprehensive theory of the meaning of Zeus's providence in both Homeric poems, a new interpretation of the muse in Homer, and the first attempt to compare the Aeneid with Platonic-Aristotelian teaching on the nature of man and the problem of empire. This book will be of interest to upper-level undergraduates and scholars of politics, philosophy, and the classics. (shrink)

If there is such a ‘post-secular’ milieu, mindset, or thesis, it will need to furnish its own interpretation of the ‘world’ in ways distinct from those championed by the secular. Indeed an essential aspect of the ‘secular’ is how it has interpreted the ‘world’ as the ‘space, time, and age’ in which things come into presence clearly, neutrally, and obviously. This paper interprets and compares some of Heidegger’s and Henry’s specific engagements with the theme of ‘world’, and how each thinker (...) claims the world itself is presentable as a phenomenon, namely, via disclosive moods and the self-revelation of life. Since the world can appear, and its phenomenality can be presented, an inquiry into the specific, inconspicuous means by which the experiences of the world’s neutrality, clarity, and obviousness might yield phenomenological description. What presents itself as neutral is precisely what demands attention by merit of its hiddenness. (shrink)

In Heidegger’s last seminar, which was in Zähringen in 1973, he introduces what he called a “phenomenology of the inconspicuous”. Despite scholars’ occasional references to this “approach” over the last 40 years, this approach of Heidegger’s has gone largely under investigated in secondary literature. This article introduces three different, although not necessarily conflicting ways in which these sparse references to inconspicuousness can be interpreted: The a priori of appearance can never be brought to manifestation, and the unscheinbar is interwoven with (...) the scheinbar as an active characteristic or form of “hiddenness”, therefore making inconspicuousness inherent within all phenomenology. Or, there is now a particular step or reduction within phenomenology that involves one’s being attuned to the various modes of potential hiddenness, of which “inconspicuousness” is a particular character trait. Or there are particular, unique, and specific phenomena that give themselves “inconspicuously,” and there is also thus a corresponding, particular phenomenology in which one must engage in order to gain some kind of access to these specific things’ phenomenal strata. This paper introduces Heidegger’s “phenomenology of the inconspicuous” most especially in his last seminar in Zähringen in 1973, engages related references to unscheinbar in his 1942/1943 Seminar on Parmenides, and then puts forward an interpretation of what these somewhat ambiguous references could mean when contextualized according to Heidegger’s overall interests. This essay brings these references to light, and puts forward a proposal as to what kind of phenomenology Heidegger was–somewhat inconspicuously–referring. (shrink)

Some of the most powerful persons today are those most successful at convincing others they have the greatest claim to victimhood. This new, socio-political shift marks the rise of what recently has been called “victimhood culture.” This article addresses how certain Christian theological views on God’s wrath, along with differing appropriations of the church’s collective victimhood both have played significant roles in generating a “culture war of victimhood”—a mode of conflict in which individuals and parties fight for the status of (...) being the most socially oppressed and marginalized, especially for the purpose of gaining power. To better understand this collective intentionality of victimhood, the article provides a multidisciplinary exploration into recent works in sociology of religion, anthropology, and historical theology. (shrink)

How we use our own victimhood and that of others has been changing in recent years. Today it may be used to decry an injustice of violence, to garner attention to our causes, to command a unique moral and ecclesial authority, or even to gain advantage over other groups. The many possible uses of victimhood lead us to study phenomenologically its influence upon our human condition, considering especially its cultural manifestations, and religious underpinnings. The contributions investigate the topic through four (...) sections: 1) Blame, Liability, Ressentiment, 2) Christianity, Atonement, Scapegoating, 3) Trauma, Survivor Guilt, Exile, and 4) Culture, Globalization Media. (shrink)

In this collection, the question “Must we cross the Rubicon?” is central. However, rather than simply opposing or subscribing to Falque’s position, the individual chapters of this book interrogate and critically reflect on the relationship between theology and philosophy, offering novel perspectives and redrawing the outlines of their borderlands.

This article argues that Max Scheler’s conception of “religious acts” and his criticisms of types of “difference” help rethink the relevance of discernment and decision making, especially today, in an age in which we are faced with an unprecedented range of "options" in nearly every area of social lives. After elucidating Scheler’s engagements with religion in On the Eternal in Man, his work is then applied to rethinking more deeply the four steps of Christian discernment developed by the 5th century (...) Mystic, John Cassian. Since Scheler’s work offers detailed and passionate depictions of the religious relevance of "values", it is an untapped resource for expanding upon Cassian’s still relevant work on discernment; an expansion that is necessary in order to demonstrate the often overlooked importance of discernment. This article concludes by employing the work of these two thinkers to show how discernment can help “sort-out,” like good "money changers", the differences between 1) finite values and supreme values, 2) an authentic and inauthentic doctrine of God 3) true differences and superficial differences, and 4) the social imaginaries of theomorphism and anthropomorphism. (shrink)

At least for Schleiermacher, religion is life in immediate feeling. Whether or not we agree with him, immediacy can be understood as one essential aspect of feeling that makes feeling congenial as the means by which we tend to express the source of religious experience. Yet in general, immediacy is difficult to define and qualify. Is there a hope for immediacy in seeking “to be delivered from contingency”? Is immediacy expressed in the instantaneity of how qualities of things are given (...) in a “total interpenetration”? Or are “immediacy and mediation” always inseparable, thus leaving any “opposition between them to be a nullity”??[i] Might immediacy entail a threat to faith through the absolutizing of the relative? And finally, would not the absolute insistence upon mediation morph it into a new form of immediacy? It is against the backdrop of these questions that this paper investigates the constellation of roles immediacy might play in religious experience, and it does so through building upon the claims of Jean-Yves Lacoste and Anthony Steinbock in regards to religion. For Lacoste, “feeling” is not an adequate means by which we should give expression to religion, in part because it leaves religion responsive to an all too volitional and intentional account. Lacoste also prefers to conceive relation with the Absolute/God not as an experience, but as a non-experience. Whereas for Steinbock, even though emotions all to often are conceptualized according to sentimentality and solipsism, he undertakes to reveal that they in fact have an inherent inter-personal/Personal or Moral intelligibility. The paper builds up to the final claims that immediacy is a temporal expression of the unconditioned, yet that it is precisely this temporal element in relation to the Absolute that complicates the mediation/immediacy interaction. (shrink)

This research has focussed on child welfare services and wellbeing among residents of residential child care centers. A well designed interview schedule and a wellbeing scale were used as instruments. The purposive sampling technique was used from the target population and 115 respondents were taken as sample size. Analysis of the data was made on the basis of descriptive analysis and Cross- tabulation. Results reveal that two third of respondents were male. It has also found that majority of respondents reported (...) positively regarding staff behavior, living arrangements, nutrition status, arrangements of education and health condition. Moreover, almost half of the children have moderate and one forth estimated high level of wellbeing. A plethora of children desired to live in these institutions because they fulfil their basic needs. Majority of residents of Kashana, Anjumane-e-Khaliqia were belonged to rural areas and SOS Village residents were residents of urban community. Most of Kashana residents had both parents alive whereas in other child care centers majority were orphans. No significant variation was observed regarding levels of satisfaction in these three institutions. Hence, these institutions play a vital role in upbringing, child welfare services and wellbeing of orphans and vulnerable. (shrink)

The aim of the present study was to explore the prevalence and predictors of mental health problems among elderly. Self Reporting Questionnaire was used as tool of data collection from 624 elderly aged 60+ using multistage sampling technique. Logistic regression analysis was performed to identify factors associated with mental health problems. Results indicated a pervasive prevalence of mental health problems among elderly in Central Punjab. Logistic regression analysis reported that various independent factors, including financial dependency, educational status, undesirable events of (...) life, undermining the sense of control, elderly abuse, feelings of discomfort at home, behavior of family, age and gender of elderly were significantly linked with mental health problems of Pakistani elderly population. These notably linked variables were instigated as the major risk factors of mental health problems. These findings also pointed out that the respondents who were monetarily dependent and did not have any source for familial support were two times more likely to report mental health problems than those who had finances. It means that the financial dependency dominates other risk factors. (shrink)

This essay demonstrates Ricoeur’s explication of the various roles religion can play especially in regards to acts of collective violence, and also how his conceptions take us beyond the traditional dichotomies of religion as necessarily violent, or necessarily peaceful. It focuses on three essays where his most formidable reflections on religion and violence can be found: “Religion and Symbolic Violence”, “Power and Violence”, and “State and Violence”. First, the essay hermeneutically describes the intricate relationship between violence and religion within these (...) three essays, pointing to three perils of religion especially regarding communities, the figure of the magistrate within some religiously motivated political revolutions, and the danger of ecclesiastical orders demonstrating not only authority but also forms of domination. The essay then phenomenologically ties these three threads together, demonstrating a way of understanding both the promises and perils of religion as it relates to violence, both in the work of Ricoeur and beyond it. (shrink)

Sacrifice, solidarity, and social decadence were essential themes not only for Patočka's philosophical work, but also for his personal life. In the "Varna Lectures" sacrifice is characterized uniquely as the privation of a clear telos, as counter-escapist, and as sutured to a comportment of finite life that is non-causal and non-purposive. In his Heretical Essays a similar hope is expressed to extract meaningfulness from use-value, and to deploy a Socratic and Christian "Care for the Soul" that can counteract the decadences (...) of our age. These interests and developments of the practice and notion of sacrifice point to Patočka's double-hereticism, both of the post-industrial age of technological advancement, and of what had become the unthought-through of the Christian tradition. In both senses, his theory of sacrifice is not unlike that of St. Paul, who saw the necessity of counter-acting the decadence and pompousness of the Corinthians by calling them to become "scum of the earth." This helps reveal how sacrifice presumes, in general, an operative notion of waste, and this paper seeks to lend further understanding to the relation between solidarity and sacrifice by developing, from out of Patočka's own work, precisely how waste figures prominently in such a relation. Waste may be refused by merit of being deemed to have no value; waste can mark a layer of expenditure of using "something up" in a way that overlooks its societal surplus; and waste could depict whatever is, like a wasteland, uncultivable and barren. Waste then is employed in the essay as a heuristic tool for understanding how the normalization of the relation between solidarity and sacrifice is in need of being inverted, and how this inversion has consequences also for how solidarity can be considered in relation to atonement. (shrink)

This volume is a collection of essays by various contributors in honor of the late Laurence Berns, Richard Hammond Elliot Tutor Emeritus at St. John's College, Annapolis. The essays address the literary, political, theological, and philosophical themes of his life's work as a scholar, teacher, and constant companion of the "great books.".

This article underscores the need for entrepreneurship research in extreme contexts to conceptualize the idiosyncrasies of the geopolitical dynamics under which entrepreneurs operate, and to consider the ethical implications emanating thereof. Undertaking such a task will illuminate the contextual challenges that local entrepreneurs must routinely placate, or otherwise navigate, to survive. Drawing on rich qualitative data from the Occupied Palestinian Territory of the West Bank, this paper demonstrates one avenue by which to capture the nuances of an extreme context in (...) relation to its effects on the entrepreneurial process. Specifically, it shows how data collected at myriad institutional sites—from actors that are not only directly, but also tangentially, connected to entrepreneurship in the local market—can effectively unveil the vicissitudes of the extreme context. This article further contends that a comprehensive and a holistic understanding of the extreme context will move toward revealing the nature of political embeddedness of entrepreneurs in their institutionally unstable environment—a concern that is especially conspicuous in geopolitical areas that would qualify as being extreme. (shrink)

This book is a collection of secondary essays on America's most important philosophic thinkers—statesmen, judges, writers, educators, and activists—from the colonial period to the present. Each essay is a comprehensive introduction to the thought of a noted American on the fundamental meaning of the American regime.

The primary purpose of this study was to explore the indirect effect of intrinsic religiosity and extrinsic religiosity on ethical intention through ethical judgment. A review of the literature shows the need for more research at the intersection of religiosity and ethics, especially in non-Western, highly religious contexts. This research, therefore, addresses the research question: Do intrinsic religiosity and extrinsic religiosity indirectly impact ethical intention through influencing the ethical judgment of management professionals? Data were gathered from members of the Management (...) Association of Pakistan through a questionnaire. Pearson correlation results show the overall trend between the constructs of interest. Multiple regression results show that both intrinsic religiosity and extrinsic religiosity are significant positive predictors of ethical judgment. Ethical judgment was also found to be a significant, positive predictor of ethical intention. The main contribution of the study is evidence that ethical judgment acts as a mediator between religiosity and ethical intention in a non-Western highly religious context. This research also found that intrinsic religiosity impacts ethical intention directly as well as indirectly through ethical judgment, but extrinsic religiosity influences ethical intention only through its effect on ethical judgment. We discuss our results along with practical and research implications, and limitations of this research are highlighted to guide future research. (shrink)