This work is an attempt to contribute on the perennial question, how community life should be organized for human beings to achieve their basic aspirations of development? Drawing from the thoughts of Dewey and Nussbaum, this work offers democracy as a superior form of social organization. Democracy is superior not because it serves the interest of the majority but because of the values promoted by democracy which include but not limited to freedom, equality, interaction and deliberation. However, given that Dewey's (...) and Nussbaum's understanding of democracy is rooted in the American experience, the question is, is their proposition that community life be reconstructed along the line of democracy not a tool for cultural domination and hegemony? Though the values and principles of democracy must have been thought out at a particular time, in a certain historical context, it does not mean they cannot be applied to other cultures. They are valid for all peoples and cultures because they are necessary for living a life that has worth and autonomy. Then again, for Dewey and Nussbaum, though every culture has the potential for democratization, it is education that facilitates it. This work proposes liberal education because it is the kind of education that leads to the emergence of reasonable and responsible subjects. In a democracy, where reasonableness and responsibility are the defining attributes of the individual, the model of citizenship that emerges will likely be richer and broader. (shrink)

The concept of Christian Philosophy is not new in the history of philosophy. However, since the mid-twentieth century the idea of Christian Philosophy gained momentum and has become an object of explicit discussion among philosophers. The historical circumstances leading to its emergence as a distinct type of philosophy are not here discussed, and the existence of Christian Philosophy with a distinct content and purpose that sets it apart from other philosophies is here presupposed. Instead, the paper focuses on the concept (...) and methods of practising Christian Philosophy with specific reference to the methodology developed by Stanisław Kamiński. The paper argues for the suitability of his method of philosophising within the context of Christian Philosophy. Kamiński proposes a unique style that is strictly philosophical but also Christian. This methodology was based on the classical theory of being which fulfils the demand for the autonomy of philosophy but in relationship to faith. Kamiński’s doctrinal standpoints in philosophy are rational, objective, and universal. But is also most friendly and compatible with the Christian faith. In this sense, one can speak of his Christian philosophy and the suitability of his methodology for the practice of Christian philosophy. (shrink)

There is a mental malaise creeping through the collective human mindset. Mass psychosis is becoming normalized. It is time to break free... One of the key problems facing human beings today is that we do not look after our minds. As a consequence, we are unaware of the malicious impacts that infiltrate and influence us on a daily basis. This lack of awareness leaves people open and vulnerable. Many of us have actually become alienated from our own minds, argues (...) class='Hi'>Kingsley L. Dennis. This is how manipulations occur that result in phenomena such as crowd behaviour and susceptibility to political propaganda, consumerist advertising and social management. Mass psychosis is only possible because humanity has become alienated from its transcendental source. In this state, we are prisoners to the impulses that steer our unconscious. We may believe we have freedom, but we don’t. Healing the Wounded Mind discusses these external influences in terms of a collective mental disease – the wetiko virus (Forbes), ahrimanic forces (Steiner), the alien mind (Castaneda), and the collective unconscious shadow (Jung). The human mind has been targeted by corrupt forces that seek to exploit our thinking on a grand scale. This is the ‘magician’s trick’ that has kept us captive within the social systems that both distract and subdue us. In the first part of this transformative book, the author outlines how the Wounded Mind manifests in cultural conditioning, from childhood onwards. In the second part, he examines how ‘hypermodern’ cultures are being formed by this mental psychosis and shaping our brave new world. In an inspiring conclusion, we are shown the gnostic path to freedom through connecting with the transcendental source of life. (shrink)

Families and clinicians approaching a child’s death in the paediatric intensive care unit (PICU) frequently encounter questions surrounding medical decision-making at the end of life (EOL), including defining what is in the child’s best interest, finding an optimal balance of benefit over harm, and sometimes addressing potential futility and moral distress. The best interest standard (BIS) is often marshalled by clinicians to help navigate these dilemmas and focuses on a clinician’s primary ethical duty to the paediatric patient. This approach does (...) not consider a clinician’s potential duty to the patient’s family. This paper argues that when a child is dying in the PICU, the physician has a duty to serve both the patient and the family, and that in some circumstances, the duty to serve the family becomes as important as that owed to the child. We detail the limitations of the BIS in paediatric EOL care and propose the relational potential standard as an additional ethical framework to guide our decisions. (shrink)

Background The COVID-19 pandemic forced governments, multilateral public health organisations and research institutions to undertake research quickly to inform their responses to the pandemic. Most COVID-19-related studies required swift approval, creating ethical and practical challenges for regulatory authorities and researchers. In this paper, we examine the landscape of ethics review processes in Africa during public health emergencies (PHEs). Methods We searched four electronic databases (Web of Science, PUBMED, MEDLINE Complete, and CINAHL) to identify articles describing ethics review processes during public (...) health emergencies and/or pandemics. We selected and reviewed those articles that were focused on Africa. We charted the data from the retrieved articles including the authors and year of publication, title, country and disease(s) reference, broad areas of (ethical) consideration, paper type, and approach. Results Of an initial 4536 records retrieved, we screened the titles and abstracts of 1491 articles, and identified 72 articles for full review. Nine articles were selected for inclusion. Of these nine articles, five referenced West African countries including Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, and experiences linked to the Ebola virus disease. Two articles focused on South Africa and Kenya, while the other two articles discussed more general experiences and pitfalls of ethics review during PHEs in Africa more broadly. We found no articles published on ethics review processes in Africa before the 2014 Ebola outbreak, and only a few before the COVID-19 outbreak. Although guidelines on protocol review and approval processes for PHEs were more frequently discussed after the 2014 Ebola outbreak, these did not focus on Africa specifically. Conclusions There is a gap in the literature about ethics review processes and preparedness within Africa during PHEs. This paper underscores the importance of these processes to inform practices that facilitate timely, context-relevant research that adequately recognises and reinforces human dignity within the quest to advance scientific knowledge about diseases. This is important to improve fast responses to PHEs, reduce mortality and morbidity, and enhance the quality of care before, during, and after pandemics. (shrink)

Parmenides, the ancient Greek poet who is known as the father of logical thought, has been a decisive influence in shaping the whole course of Western philosophy and is a crucial figure in determining how we understand the ancient world. But there are some disturbing details in his own poetry, together with occasional remarks made by other ancient writers, that have always cast a long shadow of doubt over the standard view of him as a purely rational thinker. Then, in (...) the 1950s, a series of inscriptions was unearthed at Parmenides' hometown in southern Italy which has thrown a totally new light on the nature and purpose of his philosophy. This book brings the key evidence together and presents a new picture of him as priest, initiate and healer. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy of Music Education Review 12.1 (2004) 30-42 [Access article in PDF] How Can Music Seem to be Emotional? Kingsley Price Johns Hopkins University Preliminary Let me make some preliminary remarks about my question. First, the distinction employed in it, the distinction between seeming and reality, comes in two forms. The first is inclusive. A thing that really is so-and-so also seems to be so-and-so. The butler really (...) is guilty and seems guilty as well. The second is exclusive. A thing that is really not so-and-so seems to be so-and-so. The butler is really not guilty but seems to be guilty. The distinction that underlies my question is of the exclusive form.Second, the music I ask about is not music as read from scores on paper or held in memory. Nor is it music that contains linguistic elements-words or gestures as in song, opera, ballet, etc. Rather, it is purely instrumental music, and that as perceived or heard.Third, the emotions I refer to are not physiological conditions that may cause them, nor the behavior that may express them, but the conscious feelings we find in ourselves when we are undergoing emotion. [End Page 30] The Problem Persons (perhaps even the lower animals) can seem to be, without really being, emotional. They are pretending, or we perceive mistakenly. There is no difficulty, in principle, in explaining the situation. But there would be if they were sculptured persons only-that is, if they could not possibly be emotional. A sculpture cannot seem to be emotional by pretending it; nor can we perceive mistakenly that it is emotional when we know that it is a sculpture only.Much music is like sculpture. Not personal, we know that it cannot really be emotional. None-the-less, we hear the wedding march from Mendelssohn's music for A Midsummer Night's Dream as joyful, the second movement of Chopin's Sonata in B-flat Minor as sorrowful, "The Great Fugue" as grimly resigned, the first movement of the first Razumowski as hopeful, etc. How can this be so? How can music seem to be emotional?I look for an answer to this question, first, within the perception, the hearing of music, and then, without it in its meaning. If seeming emotionality is found in either place, I shall have answered the question. And now, for the first place. The Perception In sense perception there are two major constituents.1 One is awareness; the other is the object of awareness. Awareness occurs in all the kinds of consciousness-in remembering, imagining, dreaming, and thinking, for example, as well as in sense perception. In this last, it is brought about by operation of the senses; while in the others, that operation plays no direct part. But although it differs in its cause, awareness in sense perception is precisely the same, considered in itself, as it is in all the other kinds of consciousness, considered in themselves.What is awareness? It cannot be explained, as many notions can, by eliciting its parts. To understand what squareness is, for example, we need only bring forward the parts that constitute it: four straight lines equal in length, four right angles, and closed plane figure. But awareness has no parts and cannot be explained in this way. To call attention to its simplicity and its identity in all kinds of consciousness, indeed, is all that can be done to explain it though we might add the simile that likens awareness to the light that brings things before our minds out of the dark that conceals them in its absence.Now, hearing is a kind of sense perception-the kind that occurs by virtue of operation of the auditory organs; and music heard is one of the objects of auditory awareness. Can we understand how this object can seem to be emotional by appeal to the awareness of it? If that awareness seemed to exist and did not really do so, the answer would be that we cannot since the awareness of it... (shrink)

As one of the global measures for containing the spread of the dreaded coronavirus disease 2019, the Nigerian government imposed a total lockdown from 30 March 2020 to 15 May 2020. This exposed a lot of women and children to a greater level of sexual violence such as rape, which has persisted even before COVID-19. On 14 July 2020, the Nigerian Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development, Pauline Tallen, reportedly said that over 3600 rape cases were recorded across Nigeria (...) during the lockdown. The sudden rise in cases of rape in the country calls for urgent attention. The article explores the effects of rape during the COVID-19 lockdown in Nigeria using expository and phenomenological designs. It used data obtained from: articles and commentaries on the websites of various newspapers in Nigeria, existing works and interviews with women and girls who were either survivors or connected to the victims of rape during the COVID-19 lockdown in Nigeria. The findings corroborate the notion that rape, especially during the COVID-19 lockdown, is a very traumatic experience that has negative effects on the survivors in a physical, psychological and sociological way. The data also indicate that the upsurge of rape incidences in Nigeria is an epidemic that should also be treated as a public health emergency.Contribution: This research revealed diverse health and safety approaches that should be adopted to mitigate further escalation of rape, which includes enforcement of anti-sexual harassment bills, intensified orientation and awareness through campaigns. (shrink)

The special theory of relativity is based on two postulates: (I) All inertial frames are equivalent for the performance of physical experiments; and (II) the velocity of light is a universal constant. It is shown that if postulate I is true, then postulate II is not true, and if postulate II is true, then postulate I is not true. Further, it is shown that the only possible velocity consistent with postulate I follows the rule that the velocity of light with (...) respect to the observer is equal to the velocity of light with respect to the source plus the velocity of the source with respect to the observer. (shrink)

This is the first book to analyze systematically crucial aspects of ancient Greek philosophy in their original context of mystery, religion, and magic. The author brings to light recently uncovered evidence about ancient Pythagoreanism and its influence on Plato, and reconstructs the fascinating esoteric transmission of Pythagorean ideas from the Greek West down to the alchemists and magicians of Egypt, and from there into the world of Islam.

The use of the social sciences in the interpretation of the New Testament emerged from the 1970s and has become a standard methodology for interpreting the New Testament. However, it has not been significantly used in the interpretation of the New Testament in Nigeria by biblical scholars. This article discusses what social-scientific criticism is and the need for its application in the interpretation of the New Testament by Nigerian New Testament scholars for a better understanding of the New Testament and (...) the people, beliefs and teachings it presents and contextualisation in the face of changing contexts of Christianity in Nigeria. Contribution: As far as we know, this article is the first one written on using social-scientific criticism to interpret the New Testament in the Nigerian context. It therefore contributes to the need for a multidisciplinary approach to interpreting the New Testament in Nigeria in particular and Africa in general. It therefore contributes also on methodological considerations with regard to interpreting the New Testament. (shrink)

African biblical studies (ABS) focus on biblical interpretation in Africa. Although new, it has gained massive recognition among African biblical scholars as the biblical interpretation focus that best suits the peculiar challenges that face African Christians. Its emergence, of course, was reactionary to the Western approach to the interpretation of the Bible in Africa and the practice of Christianity as well, which failed to take into cognisance the peculiar needs of African Christians. In New Testament scholarship in Nigeria, ABS has (...) come to dominate biblical interpretation, being the most preferred by New Testament scholars. However, this article notices a persistent problem with regard to methodological rigour in ABS in Nigeria. This article aims to call the attention of New Testament scholars in Nigeria to methodological rigour while engaging in ABS as this is also part of the reasons breaking into mainstream New Testament scholarship has become a problem for many of these scholars. This equally leads to poor global visibility and competitiveness on the part of many Nigerian New Testament scholars. The approach to the discussion in the work is analytical and descriptive with a touch of personal observation. Contribution: This article calls attention to the need for ABS scholars in Nigeria to emphasise methodological rigour in their research. While this will lead to recognition of the works of ABS practitioners in Nigeria and beyond, this article makes a case for academic excellence which is the hallmark of good biblical scholarship. (shrink)

Kingsley Widmer, one of the most insightful and provocative learned critics, has long had a considerable influence on D. H. Lawrence studies. Here he elaborates the crucial argument that the erotic conversion experience and its dialectic of social negation centrally define Lawrence, thus creating his major legacies. In dialectically considering all of Lawrence’s novels and many of his essays and stories, Widmer carries the issues beyond the texts to Lawrence’s literary and ideological inheritors, including Henry Miller and Norman Mailer. (...) In addition, he imbeds Lawrence’s fictions and roles in the "dark prophecy" of affirmatively countering the Nietzschean tradition and, in a striking chapter on Lady Chatterley’s Lover explores the use of obscenity, sexual ideology, and anticlass utopianism. This is Lawrence as a major dissident culture hero with a still pertinent, drastic revisionism of human responses in a nihilistic world. It is a large and controversial critical view. (shrink)

The aim -- The journey -- The goal -- The view -- The endless joy.

Sex differences in aggressive and risk-taking behaviors have practical implications for sexual integration of military combat units. The social-role theory implies that female soldiers will adapt to their role and display the same aggressive and risk-taking propensities as their male comrades. If sex differences reflect evolved propensities, however, adoption of the soldier's role is unlikely to eliminate those differences.

Visions of an interconnected future are on the rise that foresee technologies moving toward ubiquitous "everywhere" computing and the rise of the "Internet of Things." This article examines emerging trends in informational connectivity that indicates shifts toward upcoming scenarios of re-imagined geographies and spatial landscapes that are sensored and networked. I examine how the relationships, processes, and flows between people, physical objects, and the environment will make implicit information explicit and engagement between the physical and the digital more commonplace. These (...) are the scenarios presented by emerging applications of location-specific, informationally augmented objects: a real-time sensored future. (shrink)

In fragment 38 Diels–Kranz, Empedocles turns to describe the creation of ‘everything that we now see’: γαî τε κα πντος πςλυκμων δ' γρς ρ ιτν δ' αθρ σΦγγων περ κκλον παντα. Here, as so often with Empedocles, the influence of Zeller and Diels has proved decisive in determining later interpretations of the text. They understood the words ιτν δ' αθρ as meaning ‘and Titan aither’; ‘; the text has been mistranslated ever since. In fact the conjunction δ is never postponed. (...) This means that—as scholars earlier in the nineteenth century well understood—‘Titan” must be an item on its own, distinct from the aither: earth and wavy sea and moist aer, Titan and aither binding everything in its circular grip. (shrink)