Human gait is a complex activity that requires high coordination between the central nervous system, the limb, and the musculoskeletal system. More research is needed to understand the latter coordination's complexity in designing better and more effective rehabilitation strategies for gait disorders. Electroencephalogram and functional near-infrared spectroscopy are among the most used technologies for monitoring brain activities due to portability, non-invasiveness, and relatively low cost compared to others. Fusing EEG and fNIRS is a well-known and established methodology proven to enhance (...) brain–computer interface performance in terms of classification accuracy, number of control commands, and response time. Although there has been significant research exploring hybrid BCI involving both EEG and fNIRS for different types of tasks and human activities, human gait remains still underinvestigated. In this article, we aim to shed light on the recent development in the analysis of human gait using a hybrid EEG-fNIRS-based BCI system. The current review has followed guidelines of preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-Analyses during the data collection and selection phase. In this review, we put a particular focus on the commonly used signal processing and machine learning algorithms, as well as survey the potential applications of gait analysis. We distill some of the critical findings of this survey as follows. First, hardware specifications and experimental paradigms should be carefully considered because of their direct impact on the quality of gait assessment. Second, since both modalities, EEG and fNIRS, are sensitive to motion artifacts, instrumental, and physiological noises, there is a quest for more robust and sophisticated signal processing algorithms. Third, hybrid temporal and spatial features, obtained by virtue of fusing EEG and fNIRS and associated with cortical activation, can help better identify the correlation between brain activation and gait. In conclusion, hBCI system is not yet much explored for the lower limb due to its complexity compared to the higher limb. Existing BCI systems for gait monitoring tend to only focus on one modality. We foresee a vast potential in adopting hBCI in gait analysis. Imminent technical breakthroughs are expected using hybrid EEG-fNIRS-based BCI for gait to control assistive devices and Monitor neuro-plasticity in neuro-rehabilitation. However, although those hybrid systems perform well in a controlled experimental environment when it comes to adopting them as a certified medical device in real-life clinical applications, there is still a long way to go. (shrink)

The Yazidi community is one of the largest minority groups in Iraq, who have suffered the most. They have been subjected to marginalization and trauma for decades, which has not been documented adequately in the past. The study adopted a descriptive exploratory research to collect and investigate historical evidence regarding the marginalization and traumatic experience of the Yazidi minority in Iraq and explore whether the western secularism could be helpful in achieving restorative justice and rehabilitation. Through the study (...) of available data in interdisciplinary sources, an attempt was made to fill the literature gap. The current study perceived whether the western so-called secularism could be effective in bringing reconciliation of the Yazidi minority with the Government of Iraq and the KRG. The study also found out that the Yazidi community does not need a European-style revolutionary and atheistic secularism which does not recognize any social, religious or political affiliation in the name of democratic principles. What the Yazidi community needs is a region specific, US-led political-religious initiative, equipped with principles of non-violence, peaceful coexistence, justice, and accessibility to equal human rights and a shared vision along with the majority of the Iraqi population and recognition by the KRG, failing which the Yezidi will continue to be considering themselves as a separate ethnic group and represent as the failure of western secularism. (shrink)

According to Wiredu, the Akan profess secular esteem rather than religious worship to supra-natural beings, who they perceive in an empirical sense. He backs this up by re-reading what he sees as the Akan general ontology in a way that denies them of the concepts of the supernatural, the transcendental, the mental, the spiritual, and an ontologically distinct mind. At the end of denying the three criteria of worship as well as all of these other concepts which might otherwise be (...) available to the Akan, one might struggle to find any evidence that the Akan even had a religion. I dispute this secular reading, and I more generally demonstrate that the characterizations of the Akan attitude to divinity as non-worshipping, non-supernatural, non-transcendent, and non-spiritual, are either conceptually flawed, factually incorrect, or both. (shrink)

L’argument de base de cet article est que le débat consensuel n’a pas été une notion très significative jusqu’à présent parce que le consensus n’a pas été étudié de manière approfondie en tant que concept et que la délibération n’a pas été étudiée précisément en termes de sa propension à parvenir à un accord commun. En particulier, la délibération et les problèmes qui en découlent n’ont pas été classées en plusieurs niveaux afin d’exposer les différents défis qui se posent lorsque (...) l’on tente de parvenir à un accord et les types d’approches délibératives impliquées dans chaque catégorie. La présente recherche propose une telle catégorisation dans le but de clarifier davantage le débat. (shrink)

In his plea for consensual democracy in Africa, Kwasi Wiredu recommends unanimity about what is to be done, not what ought to be done, or unanimity on action rather than unanimity of values, beliefs and opinion. I caution the use of this procedural instrument by showing that some issues are so value-laden that a group decision cannot be value-neutral. It may sometimes be more productive to entertain value differences to keep them from going underground and becoming dangerous. However, the ability (...) to locate some common interest or ground seems to be crucial for such value confrontation. (shrink)

Preoccupation with multiparty aggregative democracy in Africa has produced superficial forms of political/electoral choice-making by subjects that deepen pre-existing ethnic and primordial cleavages. This is because the principles of the multiparty system presuppose that decision-making through voting should be the result of a mere aggregation of pre-existing, fixed preferences. To this kind of decision-making, I propose deliberative democracy as a supplementary approach. My reason is that deliberation, beyond mere voting, should be central to decisionmaking and that, for a decision to (...) be legitimate, it must be preceded by deliberation, not merely the aggregation of pre-existing fixed preferences. I agree with arguments that when adequate justifications are made for claims/demands/conclusions, deliberation has the potential to have a salutary effect on people’s opinions, transform/evolve preferences, better inform judgments/voting, lead to increasingly ‘common good’ decisions, have moral educative power, place more burden of account-giving on public officers, and furnish subjects/losers/outvoted with justifications for collectively binding decisions. I argue that a deliberative turn in politics in Africa will have a mitigating effect on tribal and money politics. (shrink)

To the question,“what is sports”, or what is a good sports activity or event, I am sure Plato would know what to say, using references to his philosophical division of man into three parts, namely: the appetite soul; the emotional soul and the reasonable soul. Plato would have said that sports comes from the human person and being, and so, for any particular sports to be accorded the accolade of goodness it must have the correspondence of the three constituent parts (...) of man’s true nature. The concept of the soul in Plato is what exploring just as that of Professor Maduabuchi Dukor’s expositions concerning the African philosophical concepts of soul, mind, spirit and body as they affect philosophy of sports and the discipline of physical education. The article will therefore analyze the link between Plato concept of the good sports, Professor Dukor’s ontological ideas about the African core values as they affect the balance, harmony and health both the mind and body of the human being. The central point here is the analytical framework of enquiry which Plato sustained in his Dialogues when he queries people:“what is this?”. By this he wants people to appreciate the fact that when they are in search of truth, they usually have the impression that they have all when, actually, they have only half-baked understanding of issues. It is important therefore to understand the issues involved in the disciplines of physical education, philosophy of sports, ethics and the ontological frame of African philosophy as profiled under Professor Dukor theistic humanism of African philosophy. Centrally, the dialectical link between Plato and Dukor will expose the ethical dimension to sports development since every thing is not wining and money or drugs should not be the ultimate motivation for sports and physical exercises. The exercise of sports should lead to the dual development and balance of both mind and body; the highest being the competition of the soul with itself and not with others in which laurels, gold or money is won or lost. The man who wins is the one, like in the communal spirit of the African ontology, who has conquered over his selfishness and sacrifices for the good of the community. (shrink)

This article examines the conceptual claim that prenatal genetic testing, given the option to abort disabled fetuses, discriminates against the disabled. The claim is examined in the context of both external quality of life judgments and women’s competing interests in and right to reproductive freedom. The conceptual claim to discrimination fails in both contexts if moral standing is not attributed to the fetus.

Prior research has demonstrated that accountants differ from the general population on many personality traits. Understanding accountants’ personality traits is important when these characteristics may impact professional behavior or ability to work with members of the business community. Our study investigates the relationship between Machiavellianism, ethical orientation, anti-intellectualism, and social desirability response bias in Canadian accountants. We find that Canadian accountants score much higher on the Machiavellianism scale than U.S. accountants. Additionally, our results show a significant relationship between Machiavellianism and (...) relativism, idealism, anti-intellectualism, and social desirability response bias. Our results indicate that professional Canadian accountants may not share the same personality characteristics as U.S. accountants. We extend previous research investigating Canadian accountants, by explicitly recognizing the impact of social desirability response bias, and by including anti-intellectualism. (shrink)

Prevailing literature argues that arguing is the only appropriate mode of deliberation. The literature acknowledges bargaining, story telling, and other forms of communication, but is unwilling to describe these as deliberation, properly speaking. The claim is that describing them as such would amount to concept stretching. In this article I argue that arguing exhausts neither the legitimate modes of deliberation nor the modes for effective deliberation. To do this I delineate two basic categories of issues we normally deliberate upon, and (...) demonstrate that arguing is more appropriate for one category, not so appropriate for the other. (shrink)

In this short piece, I argue that Chimakonam’s Ezumezu logic bears methodological significance for African scholarship as a whole. If method rests on logic, and method accounts for the distinction of one knowledge output from another, then the formulation of a system of logic which can creditably be described as African, even if simply in cultural inspiration, would provide for methodological liberation of African scholarship trapped in western knowledge hegemony since colonial times. First, I discuss in simple terms the theory (...) of Ezumezu logic before showing its methodological significance. Keywords: Ezumezu, Logic, Chimakonam, African philosophy, Method. (shrink)

In this interview with curator Cécile Bourne Farrell, artist Jananne Al-Ani discusses her aerial films Shadow Sites I (2010) and Shadow Sites II (2011) and the representation of landscape, from the Middle East to the American south-west, in relation to Kitty Hauser’s book Shadow Sites: Photography, Archaeology, & the British Landscape 1927–1955 (2007) a study on the emergence of aerial archaeology and the role of the sun’s movement in materializing latent histories embedded in the landscape. A French translation of the (...) interview first appeared in issue 59 of the journal Multitudes. (shrink)

Strong emergentists face a quadruple dilemma: accept the physical closure principle and deny strong emergentism, deny the closure principle and court either substance or property dualism, accept substance dualism and kill emergentism by accepting vitalism or accept property dualism and get locked into the fallacy of reconciling upward emergence with downward causation without the help of any external agency. Strong emergentists would most likely choose, and I seek to show that it contains contradictions that kill emergentism nonetheless. This is because (...) emergentists would ultimately have to admit the role of external agency or environmental input regarding upward/downward interaction. But once this happens, there seems no need to discuss emergence, since we are no longer entirely sure that properties alleged as emergent actually emerged from the base properties from which we would say they emerged. (shrink)

There have been two parallel views regarding the role of voting in deliberation. The first is that deliberation before the fabrication of balloting was completely devoid of voting. The second is that voting is, not just part of deliberation, but is standard to deliberation. I argue in this article that neither of these views is correct. Implicit voting has always existed across time and space but only as a last resort in the event of a failure of natural unanimity. What (...) is relatively modern is the establishment of what I call explicit voting, namely, balloting, outside deliberation and often without deliberation. I also distinguish between natural and artificial unanimities, and clarify that artificial unanimities are products of implicit voting. I demonstrate these clarifications with some examples of deliberation. I deploy these clarifications to rid a certain debate of confusion regarding the precise role of voting in consensual deliberation. (shrink)

I examine the conflict and dialogue perspectives to social change. Distinguishing between conflict and aggression, I argue that although conflict of interest is inevitable, it is also inevitable that we use aggression to cleal with our conflicting interests. The conflicting nature of human interests makes at least verbal conflict to be unavoidable, but I distinguish between verbal conflict and verbal aggression. With the help of Aristotle's components of persuasion, I further distinguish benueen verbal conflict approaches such as rational nonaggressive, rational (...) aggressive, and character- or emotion targeted verbal aggression. With insightsfrom the Akan of Ghana, I argue that effective constraints against aggressive behaviour can be built into social policy and, ultimately, culture. Incidentally, a critical but non-aggressive approach to verbal conflict rhymes with an agonistic mode of dialogue that redeems traditionally congenial dialogue from much of its weaknesses. (shrink)

I argue that when conceiving or assessing normative ideas about how we should organize society into the kind of ecosystem we desire, it is unwise to completely ignore empirical conditions. I also demonstrate that when evaluating empirical difficulties attending a social system, it is also unwise to do so in total oblivion to the normative idea or objective informing the establishment of such a system. Each of these assessments I call an under informed single-level analysis. By contrast I advocate a (...) multi-level analysis (by which we evaluate both the normative and empirical dimensions of an idea or a social system) or, at the least, an informed single-level analysis (by which we evaluate either a normative idea or an empirical system with an implicit awareness of the content of the other level). I demonstrate that these models of analysis would never yield the same conclusions as an under informed single-level analysis. For my case studies I focus on the various models of analyses used in the debate about liberal majoritarian and consensus/communal democracies. (shrink)

Building on Seumas Miller’s concept of corruption leads me to conclude that the question of disposition is central to the concept of corruption, which prompts me to consider punishment theories with regard to deterring dispositions to corruption. However, problems with punishment as a stand-alone approach lead me to consider institutional reform recommendations. Although institutional reforms have the weakness of merely engaging corrupt disposition in a hide-and-seek game, I seek to reconcile institutional approaches and moral individualism by suggesting that the former (...) is intended to aid the latter, in the sense that resisting corruption is a question of cost, and the onus is to determine how to reduce this cost. In this regard, prevailing proposals are inept without an enabling environment: public deliberation (comprising publicity and deliberation) is a necessary (though not sufficient) condition for combating corruption, because it (1) compels reason to function at its best, (2) demands rational accountability, and therefore account-giving, (3) increases ‘common-good’ thinking, (4) facilitates the recruitment of responsible institutional role-occupants, and (5) is a self-correcting instrument. (shrink)

Critical history is a philosophy of history that highlights the peculiarity and originality of the epistemology and methodology of Bernard Lonergan in the study of history. It is a method of reading the movement of history, through the Lonerganian creative criticism as well as a critical instrument that can help one rise above diverse forms of oversight and bias while working for progress in a human community. It tries to expound on how one can build personal capacities that work for (...) the advantage of the common good. Its precepts can help one achieve self-transcendence and authenticity which are essential in the making of a creative society. It can inspire and create symbols that link one's experience, imagination, rationality, responsibility and affectivity to authentic lived history. It can arouse an intellectual conversion that brings moral revival and can offer insights that help community planners in proposing proper solutions by identifying the actual drivers of progress, decline and re-covery in a society. Critical history creates an intellectual cultivation of mind and character achieved by insight which helps to build an authentic human person and progressive community. Its critical elements can lead to higher viewpoints that rise above prejudices, and these higher viewpoints can move one to integration to higher values. The result will be an authentic subjectivity and emergence of republic of virtues guided by objectivity and sound ethics. (shrink)

Kwame Nkrumah invokes the doctrine of emergentism in the hope of reconciling theism - a tenacious part of the African worldview - with materialism. However, in this article I seek to show that this reconciliation is not only ultimately unsuccessful, but is actually impossible. Towards this end, I identify weaknesses in what I call the six argumentative pillars of Nkrumah’s theory of emergentism (which he calls “philosophical materialism”), namely, his arguments regarding the origin of the cosmic material, the primary reality (...) of matter, idealism, categorial convertibility, dialectic change, and the self-motion of matter. The article should provide not only alternative perspectives to Nkrumah’s metaphysics, but also highlight some broader metaphysical implications for both strong and weak emergentism. (shrink)

Reflective function is defined as an individual’s ability to understand human behavior in terms of underlying mental states including thoughts, feelings, desires, beliefs, and intentions. More specifically, the capacity of parents to keep their child’s mental states in mind is referred to as parental RF. RF has been linked to adult mental health and parental RF to children’s mental health and development. The gold standard measure of RF is the interview-based Reflective Functioning Scale applied to the Parent Development Interview or (...) Adult Attachment Interview, which while well validated, is time-and labor-intensive to administer. Given the increasing need for reliable, valid, and rapid RF assessment in wide-ranging settings, two alternative measures were considered including the Reflective Function Questionnaire and Parental Reflective Function Questionnaire. We determined the convergent validity of these measures in comparison with the PDI-rated RFS. A sample of mothers and fathers was drawn from a sub-study of the ongoing Alberta Pregnancy Outcomes and Nutrition longitudinal cohort when their children were 42–60 months of age. Pearson correlations and multiple linear regression was conducted, followed by splitting the sample to compute Cohen’s kappas measures of agreement. Two subscales of the PRFQ correlated significantly with the gold standard PDI-rated RFS, providing evidence for convergent validity. As a brief multidimensional measure of parental RF, the PRFQ offers an alternative for measurement of RF in large-scale studies of parental development and child health. (shrink)

: One of the greatest poets of the Victorian period, Robert Browningis taught universally from school through university levels. Given suchmagnitude, the multifaceted poet deserves research attention from variousperspectives. A fascinating aspect of his poetry is that, in spite of his refusal tobe labelled as a Christian, he displays strong faith in God and the afterlife. Hispoetry is steeped in religious connotations that derive heavily from the Bible.There are striking similarities between many concepts preached by Islam andChristianity. It will be (...) interesting to view his poetry from the perspectiveof the former. Islam emphasises its own unique concepts and values to helpits adherents achieve their vision of success. Browning, though acceptingthe central ideas of Christianity, deviates from it conceptually. Given thisbackground, this article attempts to evaluate his notion of faith and its practicefrom Islamic perspectives and discover where the poet’s ideas converge withthose of Islam and where they differ. (shrink)

Owing most probably to Western-style modernization, marriage is increasingly understood to be a business strictly for married couples. However, I argue that this is an error, as many inexperienced couples are left to their own devices, and thereby often fail to utilize marriage to acquire the social competencies that are crucial to wider social responsibilities, including political leadership. The modern atomic conception of marriage is influenced by the Kantinspired Western conception of moral autonomy. Nevertheless, I reject this conception as excessively (...) absolutist, and argue that moral autonomy can be tempered by lack of experience, human desire and circumstantial pressures in life. Many African societies view marriage as a union of societies rather than that of individuals, and I argue that the moral support offered by the extended family and the community at large is ultimately geared to inculcate in the spouses inter-personal and social skills of restraint, prudence, tolerance, constructive criticism and other virtues desperately needed to execute societal responsibilities. (shrink)

This paper dwells on the debate on the question of what is/are responsible for African underdevelopment and, by extension, what will influence African development. The debate currently dwells on how much of development is human and how much is environmental, extraneous and beyond human control. Joseph Agbakoba thinks that development involves both nature and human agency, acknowledges the effect of nature, equally sees philosophy as a critique of worldview and ideology, and African philosophy as saddled with the critique of the (...) African worldview and ideology, which he sees as malfunctioning in the context of the modern African civic society imported from Europe and needs certain adjustments. In other words, he sees development in Africa as not beyond human control. J. Obi Oguejiofor attempts to refute Agbakoba’s claim that worldview has anything to do with the African predicament, and concludes that the African predicament is as a result of geography, biogeography and history, but his advancement of these factors as being solely responsible for the African predicament completely ignores the human agency in development and lands him in determinism raising the question of the very relevance of African philosophy to African development. Conceptual analysis informs the dominant method of the paper. (shrink)

Kwasi Wiredu proposed a democracy by consensus, inspired by the consensual practices of the traditional Akan of Africa. But his presentation of the traditional consensual practices has been criticized for inaccurateness. Helen Lauer embarks on what she sees as cleaning the debate of the misreading of Wiredu’s presentation of traditional consensual practices by his critics. This is commendable. However, we claim that she does not succeed in the task that she set out to do. We argue that her failure partly (...) has to do with her subscribing to a one-sided assessment of such a history, which influenced the manner she evaluated the debate and some of the fallacies that crept into analysis. (shrink)

Kwasi Wiredu has proposed a democracy by consensus as an alternative to the majoritarian model of democracy many African countries inherited from their colonial masters. As part of his proposal, Wiredu made a number of claims about traditional African consensus democracy that appear to be personal conjectures rather than information obtained from proper empirical investigation. These apparent conjectures have led to confusion and disagreements regarding what actually happened in these traditional societies. In this article, I outline the dangers of such (...) an approach to scholarship. I show that Bernard Matolino’s attempt to defend this methodological laxity is not successful. I argue that inaccurate claims can lead to inaccurate values, and to the designing of mistaken social and political systems. (shrink)

This research exposes the connection between economic inequality and racism. The central argument is that racism is predicated on the economic superiority of the racist. The corollary argument is that conceptions of skin colour are consequences rather than causes of racism: racism does not arise because of skin colour, but because different skin colours have become associated with certain economic conditions for a very long period of time in history. The argument is in fact extended to posit that the topography (...) of the racist relationship would be reversed if the economic tables were also reversed. The conclusion is that the relationship between racism and economic inequality is, therefore, more significant than the relationship between racism and skin colour. This conclusion has consequences regarding how races at the receiving end of racism should respond to racism. (shrink)

This research aims to investigate the thematic system of Arabic texts, especially Arabic Sufi texts related to al-Hikam aphorisms. Thematic structure is defined as the set of options relating to ‘information structure’, the linguistic representation of extralinguistic experience and how a Sufi constructs an information structure in al-Hikam aphorisms. In this case, the extralinguistic experience is focused on the Arabic Sufi communities. The first problem of this research, about thematic system in al-Hikam aphorism related to Arabic Sufi communities and Islamic (...) identities, is elaborated comprehensively. The elaboration process can be classified into a number of thematic systems such as unmarked topical, marked topical, interpersonal and textual. The thematic analysis becomes the base foundation to elaborate the construction of Arabic Sufi communities and Islamic identities. A thematic model shows how language users in Arabic Sufi communities encode language from their mental picture of reality. By capturing the al-Hikam aphorism through the thematic system, it can be concluded that communication is pivotal in making Islamic Sufi identities.Contribution: Contextually, this research contributes to the study of cross-language and cross-culture. Language as a reflection of a certain culture can be seen both in terms of the product and the translation process. (shrink)

This article aims to put face to face the positions of Deleuze and Lacan in relation to the theories regarding the idea of the Oedipus complex inherited from Freudian psychoanalysis. This confrontation will become manifest by reviewing the concepts of desire, repression and castration, from the point of view of the subject’s relationship with language. In order to achieve this purpose, we will go through the topological proposals whereby both Deleuze and Lacan render account of that which is housed outside (...) the signifying logic, the paradigmatic axis of which is precisely the Oedipal Logic, thus forging a cutting-edge work in which the materiality of language, its sonority and texture will acquire relevance to rethink the status of the unconscious itself. (shrink)

Having taken note of, and critically analyzed, Professor Maduabuchi Dukor’s epochal work entitled“Theistic Humanism of African philosophy-the great debate on substance and method of philosophy”(2010), I am much encouraged and rationally convinced that he has succeeded in building the core critical and essential foundational pillars of what can safely pass for professional African philosophy, though much remains to be done by way of further research from other scholars. Based upon that conviction and the great prospects that the African philosophy project (...) breakthrough holds for every African philosopher in the global village, I am also motivated to take a closer look at, and carry out a critical exposition of the concept of justice in the context of African cultural values, using the propositions of what he calls the canons of cultural values that are native to African philosophy. These cultural values define African identity and delineateAfrica’s contributions to the advancement of the global ideas of justice, axiology, gender and globalization. The essence and methodology of this article, therefore, will lift the relevant thematic thrusts and arguments made by the erudite Professor of African philosophy to“properly locate African philosophy in the context of globalism, cosmopolitanism, science and what it could contribute to emerging global culture”(Dukor,2010:p.ix). The central point of this critical exposition is that his theistic inspired cultural humanism has enhanced the global understanding of not only justice but feminist rights and the urgent needs for African philosophy to make its contributions towards the emancipation of and empowerment of women both in the continent and globally. The feminist search for justice, according to Dukor, is“the current global pool where the African is needed urgently to intervene”, since“feminism and women liberation has truncated the equilibrium and balance of relations between man and woman. African contribution to this class struggle between man and woman is a neutral one that absorbs the man and woman to their respective natural places in the nature’s womb”. Women’s search for global justice and the struggle to have their human rights recognized as a part of mankind’s gender balancing process would be philosophically enriched by Professor Dukor’s cultural value propositions and canons of justice. (shrink)

Aims To examine the understanding of the ethical dilemmas associated with Big Data and artificial intelligence (AI) among Jordanian medical students, physicians in training, and senior practitioners. Methods We implemented a literature-validated questionnaire to examine the knowledge, attitudes, and practices of the target population during the period between April and August 2023. Themes of ethical debate included privacy breaches, consent, ownership, augmented biases, epistemology, and accountability. Participants’ responses were showcased using descriptive statistics and compared between groups using t-test or ANOVA. (...) Results We included 466 participants. The greater majority of respondents were interns and residents (50.2%), followed by medical students (38.0%). Most participants were affiliated with university institutions (62.4%). In terms of privacy, participants acknowledged that Big Data and AI were susceptible to privacy breaches (39.3%); however, 59.0% found such breaches justifiable under certain conditions. For ethical debacles involving informed consent, 41.6% and 44.6% were aware that obtaining informed consent posed an ethical limitation in Big Data and AI applications and denounced the concept of “broad consent”, respectively. In terms of ownership, 49.6% acknowledged that data cannot be owned yet accepted that institutions could hold a quasi-control of such data (59.0%). Less than 50% of participants were aware of Big Data and AI’s abilities to augment or create new biases in healthcare. Furthermore, participants agreed that researchers, institutions, and legislative bodies were responsible for ensuring the ethical implementation of Big Data and AI. Finally, while demonstrating limited experience with using such technology, participants generally had positive views of the role of Big Data and AI in complementing healthcare. Conclusion Jordanian medical students, physicians in training and senior practitioners have limited awareness of the ethical risks associated with Big Data and AI. Institutions are responsible for raising awareness, especially with the upsurge of such technology. (shrink)

Kwasi Wiredu, arguably the most influential African philosopher, has proposed a democracy by consensus as an alternative to the majoritarian democracy African countries inherited from their colonial masters. His proposal has generated a lot of debates, and these debates have spanned several aspects of his proposal. In this paper, I focus on the debate regarding his attribution of immanence to the practice of consensus in traditional African social relations. Bernard Matolino has recently written an article defending Wiredu's employment of the (...) word immanence in describing the traditional African attitude to social relations. In this article, I find Matolino's defense to be unsustainable. (shrink)