for income tax evasion, but it cannot be defended for pursuing otherwise innocent people. The man responsible for bringing these four cases, Roanoke U.S. Attorney John Brownlee, has defended his actions (Rocktown Weekly, April 27-May 3, 2006, p. 11): “We have to properly track money going overseas so it’s not going to the wrong places.” But, this could be done without this law. Even though 12 agencies investigated these money transfers, led by the FBI, none charged that any went to (...) terrorist groups. “We know you are not the bad guys,” another prosecuting attorney has said. A group of agencies went looking for Middle Eastern Muslim terrorists around here after 9/11. Not finding any, they arrested four anti-Saddam Muslim Kurds, just like autoworkers went after a Chinese-American when they could not find any Japanese to beat up. This is an appalling travesty of justice. These men helped neighbors who needed to send money to families for medical care when there was no other way to do so, there being no banking system in Iraq. These men are all civic-minded, translating for schools, hospitals, and the courts since arriving here. They are being prosecuted for helping their neighbors in times of trouble. In their initial investigations, the FBI inquired whether these men knew Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden. This makes as much sense as Abraham Lincoln ordering Union troops to investigate runaway slaves in the North to find out their knowledge of Jefferson Davis or John Singleton Mosby and then prosecuting them for sending money to their families in the South via an illegal method. Citizens of Harrisonburg should express their support for these four men and demand that these charges be dropped. The FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s office in Roanoke should get back to what they are supposed to be doing and stop degrading our American system with such outrageous prosecutions. (shrink)

Iraqi Kurds have been involved in a liberation movement since the very beginning of the establishment of the Iraqi state by European colonizers. With the proliferation of communism in the 1960s and 1970s among liberation movements in the third world, the Kurdish liberation movement also adopted popular Marxist, Leninist and Maoist jargons. However, after the 1991 Kurdish uprising successfully liberated some areas of Kurdistan, the leftist rhetoric almost completely disappeared in the dominant Iraqi Kurdish discourse. I argue that, even from (...) the 1960s to the 1980s, the adoption of Marxist rhetoric by the Iraqi Kurdish leadership was inauthentic; it was neither rooted in nor tailored to Kurdistani society. Moreover, unlike the Kurdish liberation movements in Turkey and Syria, as well as Iran to some degree, the Kurdish movement in Iraq failed to recognize gender equality. Thus, while Kurdish women in Turkey and Syria took active roles in the liberation movement, their counterparts in Iraq remained marginalized. (shrink)

Nationalism is generally associated with sentiments, ideologies, and social movements that involve strong commitments to a nation, conceived as a potentially self-sustaining community of persons bound together by a shared history and culture. Recent empirical and normative discussions have been concentrated on revisionist instances of nationalism, that is, on sentiments, ideologies, and social movements that aim to gain power, political autonomy, or territory for a particular nation. I will here take a somewhat broader view of nationalism, focusing on persons who (...) have a bland and conservative commitment to their own country. Quite content with thestatus quo,these persons view it as legitimate and even admirable that they and their political leaders should show a pre-eminent concern for preserving and enlarging their own collective advantage. Most citizens of the affluent countries – however condescendingly they may regard the revisionist nationalisms of the Serbs, Kurds, Tamils, Irish, and Québécois – are nationalists in this sense, and extreme ones at that. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 42.2 (2004) 224-225 [Access article in PDF] Ross Harrison. Hobbes, Locke, and Confusion's Masterpiece: An Examination of Seventeenth-Century Political Philosophy. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Pp. v + 281. Cloth, $65.00. Paper, $23.00. The title of Ross Harrison's book is taken from Macduff's line in Macbeth, "[c]onfusion now have made his masterpiece," in reference to the discovery of a murdered king. Regicide (...) was a particularly unsettling crime in the day of Shakespeare, as Harrison reminds us, since kings were often associated with divinity (2). And perhaps it was their obvious and fragile mortality, as witnessed by the killing of King Charles I, that served to further unsettle what had previously been taken for granted in the modern world—the very foundations of the state. Today, Jürgen Habermas informs us from the perspective of critical theory that we live in a "postmetaphysical condition," where we can no longer count on the apparatus of Christian natural law or Platonic Ideas to justify the state and its laws. Practically, the difficulty in Iraq of bringing together the various religious perspectives of Sunnis, Shiites, Kurds, Christians, and others suggests that different religions or even varying interpretations of the same religion provide formidable barriers to the foundation of political systems. How do we bring people of different worldviews and perspectives together into one state? The great virtue of Harrison's book is the reminder that this is not a new problem. Rather, it resides at the core of the greatest challenges for political philosophy in any age. This challenge inspires what Harrison calls "some of the greatest and most important political philosophy ever written" (1).Thomas Hobbes is the first to receive extensive attention. Harrison provides a careful step-by-step analysis of Hobbes's reasoning in Leviathan. His affection for Hobbes is thinly veiled, as he parenthetically refers to Leviathan as "the greatest work of the greatest political philosopher" (62). Much of his account is standard, as he skillfully walks the reader from Hobbes's fascination with science to the sweeping authority of the sovereign. What is particularly worthy of note is his attention to the matter of foundations in Hobbes. Here his characterization reminds us of the eternality of Hobbes's central problem: "... how in a sceptical age to make statements of human reason that can depend on something fixed, or generally agreed" (64). Having found God superfluous to the question, according to Harrison, Hobbes ultimately employs prudence in relation to self-interest to be this fixed object. Since prudence—particularly its response to threats of violence—is the one element shared by all peoples, regardless of their religious or moral commitments, it makes the most sturdy foundation of political reasoning.The second object of extended attention is John Locke. And as was the case with his treatment of Hobbes, Harrison again looks to the foundations. As most readers of Locke are aware, the law of nature plays a central role in his thought, and if one is to get to the foundations of his politics, then one must unravel its mysteries. Locke makes solving these mysteries difficult for readers by denying the existence of innate ideas in the Essay. Locke makes his own task of grounding his theory difficult by doing just the same—denying the existence of innate ideas. Grounding natural law is made even more troublesome by his apparent appeals to these very same innate ideas on two occasions in the Second Treatise (§11, §136). It is perhaps in his own confusion that, according to Harrison, he "falls back, [End Page 224] after all, on revelation" (180). This is particularly unsatisfactory for Harrison, since revelation is characterized by the indeterminacy that led to the political conflict between Protestants and Catholics in modern England and eventually to the works of Hobbes and Locke in the first place.Shorter chapters are devoted to Grotius, Pufendorf, and the less-celebrated sixteenth-century figure, John Ponet. Ponet is found to appeal... (shrink)

In explaining national identity as an indicator of subjective belonging to the nation-state, researchers have examined factors such as occupational structure, economic discrimination, competition, and political recognition. However, the influence of cultural factors has often been neglected. By investigating the moderating effect of Shia and Sunni rituals on national identification, I find that the nature of rituals significantly influences the strength of national identity among subordinate ethnic groups. In Shia culture, the solidarity generated through ritual practices extends into national identity, (...) fostering the formation of a confessional supra-identity. In contrast, rituals centered on personal piety in Sunni Islam do not produce the same effect. I propose a theory of interethnic solidarity based on ritual processes. A qualitative analysis of the cases of Turkey and Iran shows that in Turkey, the absence of cross-ethnic ties forged through less intense rituals leads to weaker national identity among Sunni Kurds and higher perceived ethnic discrimination. In Iran, however, the frequent practice of interactive rituals that transcend ethnic boundaries strengthens national identity among Shia ethnic minorities and reduces perceived ethnic discrimination. This research underscores how communal, intensive rituals play a key role in explaining variations in national identification. (shrink)

...If, in some places, backward science determines the remaining period by the lack of optimism only by the number 123456789, then our progressive science expands it to 987654321, which is eight times more advanced than theirs. However, due to the inherent caution of scientists, both sides do not specify the measuring unit of reference — year, day, hour or minute are meant. Leonid Leonov. Collected Op. in ten volumes. Volume ten. M.: IHL, 1984, p.583. -/- The modern men being as (...) a rule is proceeding in three relatively autonomous, but immanently coexisting, and each penetrating dialectically through other, and each contesting even cruelly with other, and each more or less dominating on other, differently in various societies, worlds: the first one of the barbarity, the second one the culture, the third one the civilization... Barbarity is the mode of coexistence of autonomous human societies based on the unlimited will to act so as subject wants to do without any limitations of his activities... Culture is the mode of coexistence of autonomous human societies based on the most ancient testaments, customs, traditions etc of the highestly sacrified appearence... Civilisation is the mode of coexistence of autonomous human societies based on the reasoned or legitimated by social contracts, by profits, by expediency and so more constitutions, institutions etc... -/- Andrei Melnikov-Pechersky in his epic "In the Woods" says that there was a movement among the Old Believers in Russia, or a current that proclaimed Kostroma the new and, it seems, the only true Jerusalem, in an apocalyptic sense, of course, which in its spiritual scale was probably not inferior to the Bogomils, shakers, Mormons, or else and the whole Reformation in potential. In Western Europe, every more or less convex nuance of the history of a state or region (even if it is a small San Marino) is overgrown with almost a dozen institutions, not always state ones, by the way, in which almost every sneeze and step of very ambivalent historical subjects in a broad sense is studied. Especially in the young, but very pretentious America of the United States, which embodies all world justice. In our country, for example, even many leading humanitarian specialists do not realize the spiritual value of the Ipatievsky MONASTERY. The Russian writer Boris Shiryaev, who died quite a long time ago and in a very far abroad, devoted a special part of his documentary and artistic epic of wanderings "The Inextinguishable Lampada" to an entertaining and instructive, tragic fate of a kind of village monarchy in some Villages of the Kostroma province (I could not identify the area, and, frankly, I did not really try) in the early years The Soviet government. At the same time, all Russians learn about the French emperor Napoleon almost with their mother's milk how many percent of cyanide potassium was found in his hair, they reflect on Lermontov's "Airship" (probably, just not to "memorize" the imposed "Borodino" by heart). The events, of course, are incomparable, but the fact is significant. The outstanding national artist (if not to say a thinker of the Chesnyakov level) Grigory Pavlovich Kusochkin was glorified wherever, in whatever catalogues he was not included. Paris, London, New York, St. Petersburg, Moscow... To look at some smear of luminaries like Picasso or Modigliani, international tourist routes are organized in the restaurant toilet using the finest marketing technologies, and we did not even know Grigory Pavlovich by sight until, thank God, a series of TV shows on all Russian channels was dedicated to him in one gulp. Why is this happening? Is it a consequence of poverty or the result of the conscious policy of the ruling elite of the country and the world? The regions of the Kostroma Region are Austria, Switzerland, Bavaria, Armenia, Moldova, and Georgia... Georgia! I served in the army there. In this small but very great country, judging even by the appearance of its President Shevardnadze, although it is smaller than the Kostroma region, there are so many different, but Georgian-speaking peoples! Kakhetians, Meskhetians, Imereti, Iveretians, Mingrelians, Khevsurs... Adjarians (mostly Georgian-speaking Muslims) even have their own autonomy. And some peoples are not Georgian—speaking at all — South Ossetians, Abkhazians, Kurds, Armenians, Greeks, even Assyrians. In the Kostroma Region, and in any Russian "province" — not much less: there are plenty of the same Georgians or Armenians everywhere, quite moderate, loyal, and so on. Having, as a rule, their own officially registered associations within the framework of cultural autonomy. Well done! And Israel! He is the only one with all his "illegal" (and I am for the fact that every nation knows better where its ancestral lands are) territories half the size of the Kostroma region. The total number of Jews worldwide, according to the "Soviet Encyclopedic Dictionary" in 1987, is about 14 million. Meanwhile, the fate of Israel is being preoccupied (it is very instructive how he achieved this!) all the united nations of the world. In the Kostroma Region and its diaspora, it seems to everyone, and especially to its semi-migrant, Varangian leadership. I don't care if they build a public atomic bomb here in the form of a nuclear power plant or not. Because they do not know the value of this land, the greatness of its spirit. Kostroma is a holy land. I will immediately make a reservation that by Kostroma I mean not only the modern region, but the entire area that has ever historically been associated with Kostroma. The USSR is also a part of the great historical Russia. In this sense, even the entire era of the Russian Romanov Empire is the Kostroma region. Or: many toponymic objects of our native land are called mysteriously beautiful: Sharya, Shunga, Shekshema, Sholezhka, - we need to find out what kind of peoples — and where are they now? — we left such euphonious archetypal combinations, because these are our Kostromsky peoples, these are our Kostroma people. Or, say, the classic of American and world sociology Pitirim Alexandrovich Sorokin writes in his autobiographical scientific novel "The Long Way" that he studied at the Khrenovskaya (what a strong word!) teachers' seminary of Kostroma province, but in an administrative row for propaganda activities, gendarmes were taken by sledge to the prison of the city of Kineshma - is this not a fact for Kostroma, and primarily for him, local history, although Kineshma has long been attributed to the Ivanovo region, and Pitirim Alexandrovich is buried on the other side of the planet?! I have not the slightest doubt that Kostroma provided spiritual food, gave birth to and nurtured a huge intellectual diaspora with extremely valuable material on a national, global scale. And this is both in direct and indirect order, in the form of a chain reaction. Apparently, it is easy for an intelligent person to grow up in Kostroma, but it is impossible to live, and somewhere on the contrary. Therefore, it is not surprising that the geneticist academician D. K. Belyaev, who was born in the village of Protasov near Nerekhta, very close to Kostroma, glorified Moscow and Siberia with his discoveries and practical results, which immeasurably enriched the Soviet state treasury with foreign exchange income from the sale of the most valuable fur grown according to the biotechnology developed by him in a much shorter time than it usually turns out in nature. And in Kostroma, most likely, few people know who he is and what he is famous for. I will focus in more detail on one of the aspects of his great life. This happened back in the so-called pre-Perestroika times. In a series of his speeches, Dmitry Konstantinovich, based on the results of his and colleagues' research, emphasized, in his opinion, the determining role of the biological factor in shaping the content of human essence, of course, only in a philosophical, conceptual aspect. For some reason, this was opposed by a geneticist, as they say, persecuted at one time by the "senile" in selectionism (including human nature) by the Michurino-Lysenkoists, academician N. P. Dubinin, which personally remains incomprehensible to me until now. With a grateful curtsey to Academician Dubinin and his point of view, the famous French humanist, member of the Politburo of the French Communist Party Lucien Sav appeared on the pages of the Communist magazine. The material was clearly titled: "Problems are not only scientific, but also political." He very indecently attributed the views of academician Belyaev to "a reactionary ideology that tries to put genetics at its service, and more broadly, biology, in order to present all kinds of social inequalities of all kinds as inherent in nature itself"(1). I would like to see any ideology that does not try to "put this or that at its service," much less something worthwhile... A little later, the editorial of the Communist hit the "biologizers", and soon Dmitry Konstantinovich was gone. In short, it is only on the example of our fellow countrymen that you can write interesting, world-class essays on science and its history, but instead our scientists should fit their global potencies into a page and a half (good yet. if not entirely at their own expense), and then for at least three years to guess whether they will be published or not. Now it no longer surprises me how at one time, when, after reading the listener card I filled out, the sweetest girl from the IPKPON office at USU congratulated me for something. It turned out that the dean of the Faculty of Philosophy of USU, doctor, professor, Honored Scientist, and now academician Konstantin Niko-laevich Lyubutin is a countryman, Kostromsky, or rather Manturovsky by origin, as I write below in the notes — we are Kostromendors. To him, my fellow citizen in the most subtle micropatriotic dimensions, I owe a lot in my professional and social development, even in survival. Because that's how it often turns out: you can be born here, sometimes you can live here... It's very hard. Maybe the Kostroma origin of an outstanding Russian historian of philosophy, organizer of science and education, educator and friend of a galaxy of people devoted to the Motherland and the cause is not a great milestone in the history of the region, but name me at least a dozen Russian cities on the scale of Kostroma, from where such intellectual ones would come out into the world and light luminaries like ours. No matter who you take from the world significance of the pillars of national (and world, and foreign, - even the great Rabbi of Lubavitcher spent three years in exile in a Campfire, — I learned from some foreign voices) history, literature, culture in general, technology, science and so on - you will always find someone, which is very directly related to Kostroma. Pushkin, Lermontov, Gorky. Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky, Pisarev, Uspensky, Katenin, Florensky, Savrasov, Kustodiev, Dyagilev, Mikhalkov, Alexander Alexandrovich Zinoviev; writers, artists, entrepreneurs, revolutionaries, inventors, politicians... In some world-famous for its classic Russian provincialism, Kologriv has been storing, figuratively speaking, unique sketches, if not of Leo-Nardo da Vinci himself, then certainly of his school, almost since the seventeenth century. And not only that. Nevertheless, the well-known Chukhloma to the Fatherland, in addition to thinkers of the rank of Rozanov and Zinoviev (where should domestic philosophers mature and not be born, if not in Chukhloma, Manturov or Khrenknowswhere?), gave an actor of amazing, national, originality — Mikhail Pugovkin, who can not be confused with anyone, a role that no one will repeat. (shrink)

A militant Marxist atheist and a "Radical Orthodox" Christian theologiansquare off on everything from the meaning of theology and Christ to the war machine of corporatemafia.

В монографии рассматриваются мифы о Мировом Разуме, который нашими древними предками почитался как языческая богиня Матерь Мира София Премудрая. Для широкого круга читателей.

Articles on the understanding of philosophy with special reference to Islamic teachings; includes theories of noted philosophers.

What is the place of human free will in our lives if all our actions are the result of some other cause? Does our processing unconscious beliefs or desires make us less free? Is our free will necessarily restricted if we do not choose our own beliefs? The debate between free will and its opposing doctrine, determinism, is one of the key issues in philosophy. _Free Will: An historical and philosophical introduction_ provides a comprehensive introduction to this highly important question (...) and examines the contributions made by sixteen of the most outstanding thinkers from the time of early Greece to the twentieth century: *Homer *Sophocles *Platto *Aristotle *St Augustine *St Thomas Aquinas *Descaartes *Spinoza *Hume *Kant *Schopehauer *Freud *Sartre *Weil *Wittgenstein *Moore Ilham Dilman brings together all the dimensions of the problem of free will with examples from literature, ethics and psychoanalysis. Drawing out valuable insights from both sides of the free will-determinism divide, and he provides an accessible and highly readable introduction to this perennial problem. (shrink)

Nadezhnostʹ matematicheskogo dokazatelʹstva -- Nadezhnostʹ logicheskikh norm -- Ontologicheskoe obosnovanie matematiki -- Sistemnoe obosnovanie matematiki.

t. 1.Novoe mirovozzrenie i novai͡a teorii͡a nauki -- t. 2. [without special title].

PENSAMENT POSITIVISTA A CATALUNYA és un conjunt d'estudis sobre la recepció al nostre país de les idees culturals, socials, polítiques i científiques del corrent de categories formulades per August Comte i Émile Littré. L'objectiu de l'estudi que es presenta és mostrar el marc històric i institucional —la funció instructora d'ateneus com el Centre de Lectura reusenc— en què es produeix l'evolució de la concepció positivista de la realitat. La recerca se situa en el context contemporani que abocarà a la industrialització (...) i a l'emergència del moviment obrer i republicà. Pel que fa a l'àmbit del pensament econòmic, el volum estudia el programa de Pere Estasén —relació entre política econòmica i territori—, que duu a plantejar la irrupció del positivisme a Catalunya com una estratègia explicativa que vincula les idees generals a la situació de la vida nacional, tant políticament (catalanisme regeneracionista) com econòmicament (proteccionisme com a via de modernització de les estructures productives). En aquesta línia de coneixement sociològic també cal destacar, com es planteja al llibre, un cert gir humanista del cientisme en l'àmbit de la cultura fisiològica representat per les Monografies Mèdiques. Finalment, arran de la lectura del text, el lector es pot arribar a formular un doble interrogant: si existeix un pensament positivista autòcton o bé si a quest pensament sorgeix de la formalització i aplicació de la idea de progrés en un context determinat. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “What Can the Global Observer Know?” by Diana Gasparyan. Upshot: I introduce some distinctions that I hold to be useful for understanding the global observer problem and then sketch a hypothetical scenario that suggests the existence of an observer that is as good as a global one.

Satr al-awrah (Hijab /veiling) is one of the obligatory provisions for men and women in Islam. Satr al-awrah, as a religious/jurisprudential term, means covering the parts of the body (awrah) that should be covered by religion. Islamic jurisprudents have disagreed on whether satr al-awrah is a condition of validity for prayer. There are two basic approaches to this issue, one of which belongs to the public (jumhūr including the Hanafī, Shafiī and Hanbalī schools) and the other to the Mālikīs. According (...) to the majority (jumhūr), satr al-awrah is a validity condition of the prayer. Therefore, a prayer performed without fulfilling the satr al-awrah condition is not valid. A prayer performed in this way must be re-performed absolutely within or outside of time. There are two approaches in the Mālikī school regarding whether the satr al-awrah is a condition for the validity of the prayer. The first approach is (partly) the same as the jumhūr. According to the second approach (without any distinction between prayer and outside the prayer), satr al-awrah is a general obligation in Islam and is not a valid condition for prayer.According to the Mālikīs who accept this second view, it is sunnah to comply with the satr al-awrah condition in prayer. On the other hand, in the Mālikī school, awrah is divided into two as ʿawrah mughallaẓa and ʿawrah mukhaffafa in terms of its effect on the validity of prayer. The disagreement about whether the satr al-awrah is a condition of validity for the prayer is related to the ʿawrah mughallaẓa. On the other hand, there is an agreement that the ʿawrah mukhaffafa is not a condition for the validity of the prayer. The disagreement in the classical fiqh doctrine about whether the satr al-awrah is a condition for the validity of the prayer has some jurisprudential consequences. As a matter of fact, according to the majority, whether it is ʿawrah mughallaẓa or mukhaffafa, a prayer performed with an uncovered awrah is not valid and must be re-performed absolutely. In the Mālikī school, there are different opinions depending on whether it is ʿawrah mughallaẓa or mukhaffafa. If the place uncovered on the body is ʿawrah mughallaẓa; According to those who accept the satr al-awrah as a condition for the validity of the prayer, the prayer is not valid and must be re-performed absolutely. After the time has passed, the prayer does not have to be repeated. If the place uncovered on the body is ʿawrah mukhaffafa, according to all Mālikīs, unanimously the prayer is valid. Although it is recommended to reperformed it in time, it is not required to be returned after the time has passed. The following can be said about the practical examples of the disagreement in the classical fiqh doctrine regarding whether the satr al-awrah is a condition for the validity of the prayer, especially in terms of ʿawrah mukhaffafa: According to Mālikīs, who do not accept the validity of the satr al-awrah for prayer, it is valid for women to pray with their heads down, below the knees and with their arms uncovered. Again, according to them, it is valid for men to perform prayers with their thighs/hips (fakhz) uncovered, since it is considered one of the private parts. (shrink)