Studies in the History and Culture of the Middle East are published as supplement to Der Islam founded in 1910 by Carl Heinrich Becker, an early practitioner of the modern study of Islam. Following Becker's lead, the mission of the series is the study of past societies of the Middle East, their belief systems, and their underlying social and economic relations, from the Iberian Peninsula to Central Asia, and from the Ukrainian steppes to the highlands of Yemen. Publications in the (...) series draw on the philological groundwork generated by the literary tradition, but in their aim to cover the entire spectrum of the historically oriented humanities and social sciences, also utilize textual sources as well as archival, material, and archaeological evidence. Its editors are Stefan Heidemann (Universit t Hamburg, editor-in-chief), Gottfried Hagen (University of Michigan), Andreas Kaplony (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universit t M nchen), and Rudi Matthee (University of Delaware). (shrink)

Light upon Light: Essays in Islamic Thought and History in Honor of Gerhard Bowering brings together studies that explore the richness of Islamic intellectual life in the pre-modern period. Leading scholars around the world present nineteen studies that explore diverse areas of Islamic Studies, in honor of a renowned scholar and teacher: Professor Dr. Gerhard Bowering (Yale University). The volume includes contributions in four main areas: (1) Quran and Early Islam; (2) Sufism, Shiism, and Esotericism; (3) Philosophy; (4) (...) Literature and Culture. These areas reflect the enormous breadth of Professor Bowering's contributions to the field over a lifetime of scholarship, teaching, and mentoring. Contributors: Hussein Ali Abdulsater, Mushegh Asatryan, Shahzad Bashir, Jonathan Brockopp, Yousef Casewit, Jamal Elias, Janis Esots, Li Guo, Matthew Ingalls, Tariq Jaffer, Mareike Koertner, Joseph Lumbard, Matthew Melvin-Koushki, Mahan Mirza, Bilal Orfali, Gabriel Reynolds, Nada Saab, Amina Steinfels & Alexander Treiger. (shrink)

A concise and authoritative introduction to Islamic political ideas In sixteen concise chapters on key topics, this book provides a rich, authoritative, and up-to-date introduction to Islamic political thought from the birth of Islam to today, presenting essential background and context for understanding contemporary politics in the Islamic world and beyond. Selected from the acclaimed Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought, and focusing on the origins, development, and contemporary importance of Islamic political ideas and related subjects, each chapter offers a (...) sophisticated yet accessible introduction to its topic. Written by leading specialists and incorporating the latest scholarship, the alphabetically arranged chapters cover the topics of authority, the caliphate, fundamentalism, government, jihad, knowledge, minorities, modernity, Muhammad, pluralism and tolerance, the Qur'an, revival and reform, shariʿa (sacred law), traditional political thought, ‘ulama' (religious scholars), and women. Read separately or together, these chapters provide an indispensable resource for students, journalists, policymakers, and anyone else seeking an informed perspective on the complex intersection of Islam and politics. The contributors are Gerhard Bowering, Ayesha S. Chaudhry, Patricia Crone, Roxanne Euben, Yohanan Friedmann, Paul L. Heck, Roy Jackson, Wadad Kadi, John Kelsay, Gudrun Krämer, Ebrahim Moosa, Armando Salvatore, Aram A. Shahin, Emad El-Din Shahin, Devin J. Stewart, SherAli Tareen, and Muhammad Qasim Zaman. A new afterword discusses the essays in relation to contemporary political developments. (shrink)

Critical Rationalism has become an influential philosophy in many areas including a great number of scientific disciplines. Yet only few studies have been devoted to the role of the philosophy of Sir Karl Popper in the vast field of education. This volume undertakes to fill this gap. Leading scholars in the educational science and in the philosophy of education have critically written for this volume in an attempt to elaborate Popper's methodological and socio-political views and confront them with a globally (...) relevant spectrum of scientific objectives and cultural values. Among the topics discussed are moral values, education for freedom and its consequences for the student, and the critical attitude in political education. Attention is also paid to the historiography of this significant philosophical movement. Regarding pedagogical research, the empirical paradigm, the falsificatory approach to educational research, the complex relationship between educational theory and practice as well as the problem of value-neutrality in educational science are objects of critical analysis. (shrink)

One of Edmund Husserl's theoretical priorities throughout his philosophical career was to understand the nature of perceptual experience. His analyses of perceptual experience had a profound impact on subsequent thinkers in the phenomenological tradition, such as Aron Gurwitsch and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Naturally, his account of perception remains a topic of discussion among Husserl scholars. Despite the attention it has received over many decades, Husserl interpreters diverge considerably in how they understand his views and their relation to current debates in the (...) philosophy of perception. A case in point is Husserl's view on the relation between veridical perceptual experience and hallucination, which I will... (shrink)

This article is the second one in a series dealing with mental health ethics in Cuba. It reports on ethical dilemmas, resources and limitations to their resolution, and recommendations for action. The data, obtained through individual interviews and focus groups with 28 professionals, indicate that Cubans experience dilemmas related to the interests of clients, their personal interests, and the interest of the state. These conflicts are related to power differentials among clients and professionals, professionals from various disciplines, and professionals and (...) organizational authorities. Resources to solve ethical dilemmas include government support, ethics committees, and collegial dialogue. Limitations include minimal training in ethics, lack of safe space to discuss professional disagreements, and little tolerance for criticism. Recommendations to address ethical dilemmas include better training, implementation of a code of ethics, and provision of safe space to discuss ethical dilemmas. The findings are discussed in light of the role of power in applied ethics. (shrink)

English summary: This volume contains controversial views and discussions on the purpose, function, analysis and justification of value judgments and norms in the social sciences and humanities.

While classical phenomenology, as represented by Edmund Husserl’s work, resists certain forms of representationalism about perception, I argue that in its theory of horizons, it posits representations in the sense of content-bearing vehicles. As part of a phenomenological theory, this means that on the Husserlian view such representations are part of the phenomenal character of perceptual experience. I believe that, although the intuitions supporting this idea are correct, it is a mistake to maintain that there are such representations defining the (...) phenomenal character of low-level perception. What these representations are called on to explain, i.e., the phenomenal character of perceiving objects in their full presence, can be more parsimoniously explained by appealing to certain affective states or affect schemas that shape the intentional directedness of low-level perceptual experience and define its phenomenal character in a non-representational way. This revision of the Husserlian view, it is shown, also helps us understand the normative character of perception. (shrink)

Understanding the social context of clinical ethics is vital for making ethical discourse central in professional practice and for preventing harm. In this paper we present findings about clinical ethics from in depth interviews and consultation with 7 members of a hospital social work department. Workers gave different accounts of ethical dilemmas and resources for ethical decision making than did their managers, whereas workers and managers agreed on core-guiding ethical principles and on ideal situations for ethical discourse. We discuss the (...) research team's initial interpretations, the relevance of the extant ethics literature to organizational structures and dynamics, and alternative perspectives on clinical ethics. (shrink)

Implicit memory refers to a change in task performance due to an earlier experience that is not consciously remembered. The topic of implicit memory has been studied from two quite different perspectives for the past 20 years. On the one hand, researchers interested in memory have set out to characterize the memory system underlying implicit memory, and see how they relate to those underlying other forms of memory. The alternative framework has considered implicit memory as a by-product of perceptual, conceptual, (...) or motor systems that learn. That is, on this view the systems that support implicit memory are heavily constrained by pressures other than memory per se. Both approaches have yielded results that have been valuable in helping us to understand the nature of implicit memory, but studied somewhat in isolation and with little collaboration. This volume is unique in explicitly contrasting these approaches, bringing together world class scientists from both camps in an attempt to forge a new approach to understanding one of the most exciting and important issues in psychology and neuroscience. Written for postgraduate students and researchers in cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience, this is a book that will have an important influence on the direction that future research in this field takes. (shrink)

Walt Bower - Rethinking Durkheim and His Tradition - Journal of the History of Philosophy 44:2 Journal of the History of Philosophy 44.2 323-324 Warren Schmaus. Rethinking Durkheim and His Tradition. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Pp.xii + 195. Cloth, $65.00. Warren Schmaus has offered a compelling and sophisticated reinterpretation of Émile Durkheim's sociology of knowledge in the context of the eclectic spiritualist philosophical tradition dominant during the Third French Republic. More specifically, the primary purpose of the book is (...) to examine how Durkheim's categories of understanding developed out of the way Kant was interpreted by nineteenth-century academic philosophy in France. The debate between Kantian apriorist and Humean empiricist accounts of the theory of the categories is the main epistemological dilemma for.. (shrink)

Hume said that to have a memory image of some individual, x, is to perceive a ‘faint copy’ of some prior perception of x. This classical view of memory images includes three distinct claims: Images and percepts are mental entities which serve as objects for a ‘direct’ or ‘non-inferential’ perception. A memory image of some individual, x, shares numerous properties with some prior perception of x.

Although agriculture in Australia is very productive, the current food supply systems in Australia fail to deliver healthy diets to all Australians and fail to protect the natural resources on which they depend. The operation of the food systems creates ‘collateral damage’ to the natural environment including biodiversity loss. In coming decades, Australia’s food supply systems will be increasingly challenged by resource price inflation and climate change. Australia exports more than half of its current agricultural production. Government and business are (...) aiming to substantially increase production to bolster exports. This will increase pressure on agricultural resources and exacerbate ‘collateral’ damage to the environment. The Australian public have a deep and ongoing interest in a very wide range of issues associated with the food systems including the environment, health and sustainability. Food is something we require in order to live and a good diet is something we have to have to be healthy. For health over a life-time we need food security. However, we also require a range of other material goods and social arrangements in order to develop and flourish as human beings. And we need these other things to be secure over a life-time. Food is therefore one security among a range of other securities we need in order to flourish. The paper outlines a number of approaches, as examples, that help to identify what these other goods and arrangements might be. The approaches mentioned in this paper include human rights, national securities, human needs, authentic happiness, capabilities, sustainability and environmental ethics. The different approaches provide a way of evaluating the current situation and indicating a direction for change within the food systems that will address the problems. However, changing large systems such as those involved in food supply is difficult because inertias and vested interests make the current food supply systems resilient to change. The paper suggests that one of the first and ongoing tasks is to develop an understanding of the situation from a comprehensive social–ecological systems perspective. The paper also suggests that a practical leverage point for system change is restructuring the flow of information on the health, natural resources and biodiversity loss issues related to the food supply systems. (shrink)