Central Claim Research Articles

Uproar against Liberal Majoritarianism: Critiques from African Perspectives

Abstract The article deals with critiques of liberal majoritarianism from an African, chiefly sub-Saharan-African perspective. It explains the central claims African and Africanist critics advance against liberal majoritarianism and indicates potential normative ways of development. The case study of Guinea-Bissau exemplifies our arguments using a qualitative analysis of interviews with local respondents. The article infers that this is an instance of a more general perception of liberal majoritarianism in Africa. The article contributes to critiques that range from empirical and theoretical concerns over the feasibility of this model in sub-Saharan Africa to analyses of cultural, social, and political specificities.

Strategies Used by Students in Correctional Facility for Accessing Educational Resources: The Case of a Namibian Correctional Facility

The purpose of the study was to examine strategies used by students at a Namibian Correctional Facility in accessing educational resources while studying in prison. The paper's central claim is that, despite their severe living conditions, inmates are motivated to further their studies. This research was carried out in a correctional facility in Namibia. This study was qualitative in nature, using interviews as a means of data collecting while adhering to an interpretive paradigm. A skilled transcriber transcribed the audio-recorded interviews verbatim, and the author was provided with the transcripts for interpretation. The analysis was conducted thematically. With regard to correctional facility services, Namibia's legal system saw significant transformations as it moved from an approach centred on punishment and isolation to one that emphasises rehabilitation and community reintegration.

Engaged scholarship: paradigmatic and pragmatic drivers

ABSTRACT Why do scholars engage with the public? Following a brief overview of engaged scholarship, this paper addresses this question, delineating two interconnected categories of drivers: paradigmatic and pragmatic. Paradigmatic drivers are rooted in deeply held worldviews that shape scholars’ interactions with the public, encompassing theoretical commitments, epistemological orientations, and ethical considerations. On the other hand, pragmatic drivers of engaged scholarship refer to a commitment to addressing urgent societal issues and effecting tangible changes. Guided by practical questions, engaged scholars are responsive to immediate concerns of injustice and unfreedom in society. Pragmatic drivers of engaged scholarship include moments of crisis and evidence of urgency, role expectations, and personal positionality. Under the two categories of drivers, the paper puts forward six propositions that encapsulate its central claims. The two categories of drivers do not exist in isolation; rather, they often interact and influence each other. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of engaged scholarship for policy and practice, emphasising the importance of collaborative relationships with communities of interest.

The Buddhist Logic of Distress (Saṃvega): An Exploration of Early Abhidharma Sources

In the early Buddhist discourses, distressing experiences like fear and disgust are evaluated in contradictory modes. These upsetting emotions are considered both a detriment and an advantage for those seeking liberation from suffering. This ambivalence is reflective of the classical Buddhist conception of distress. The earliest scholastic Buddhist texts (i.e., Abhidharma sources) have sought to resolve the ambivalence surrounding this conception. The Abhidharma texts thus explain precisely how, when, where and for whom distress can prove favorable. By tracing this intellectual endeavor, I examine in this article the systematic and philosophical treatments of distress (saṃvega) in early Buddhist scholasticism. I outline the reasons for considering the experience of distress to be beneficial, unveiling the religious framework within which distress is rendered positive and even essential. My central claim is that early Abhidharma sources conceive of distress as a potential source of energy that facilitates one’s progress on the religious path and determines how rapidly one can understand the truth.

The storythinking programme: a framework for nurturing critical thinking in preschool

ABSTRACT The Storythinking Programme, focusing on oral storytelling, was designed to investigate critical thinking skills and pedagogical practices to nurture these skills in preschool children. The aim of the study was twofold: (1) to clarify what type of skills preschool children use and (2) to explore those teaching practices that nurture these skills. One of the study’s central claims, examined from a sociocultural lens, is that children from age 3 begin to engage in critical thinking with adult scaffolding and peer support. The paper reports fine-grained evidence of specific critical thinking skills in children aged 3–5 years, gathered using a Design-Based study in 2 classrooms involving 17 preschool children and 2 educators. An in-depth analysis of the pedagogical practices necessary to provide the scaffolds and the space within which these skills can emerge is presented. The pedagogical approach leverages established practices in early years in a novel way to best support the emergence of young children’s critical thinking skills. The findings provide strong evidence to support the conclusion that preschool children think critically under specific pedagogical conditions.

Neuroidealism, perceptual acquaintance and the Kantian roots of predictive processing

Perception, according to advocates of the predictive processing (PP) framework in cognitive science, is a kind of controlled hallucination. Philosophers interested in PP, however, differ on how best to interpret this slogan. Does it suggest a new kind of idealism about perceptual objects or is it just a useful metaphor, illustrating something about how PP systems work without entailing a radical shakeup of mainstream realist views in the philosophy of perception? In this paper, I take a historically informed approach to this question, drawing on the Kantian roots of the contemporary framework. What perception reveals, according to PP, is a world shaped by the neurocomputational capacities and limitations of perceiving creatures. This means that the properties of perceived objects are, in an important and surprising sense, perceiver-dependent. Nonetheless, thanks to the integration of perceptual and agential capacities envisioned by PP, we should also accept a central claim of realism: in encountering this world we also encounter—come to be acquainted with—mind-independent particulars. PP thus supports a promising next step in the development of a Kantian argument linking the unity of agency to the objectivity of perception. The argument was advanced in its modern form by P.F. Strawson and has later been developed by Susan Hurley and others. In the revised form presented here, it says that PP-perceivers must be practically self-aware agents and that practically self-aware agents embedded in an environment can be acquainted with objects it contains.

Clarifying Mutual Consent’s Role in Agency Law

Abstract Important cases and academic commentators have suggested that the mutual consent of principal and agent is necessary for actual authority to be conferred on the agent. The chief purpose of this article is to show that this view of mutual consent’s role in agency law is inaccurate and misleading. Its central claim is that the agent’s consent is not a necessary pre-condition for the conferral of authority. Instead, a principal can confer authority on an agent unilaterally. However, when authority is conferred unilaterally on an agent, the external aspect of agency is fully present, but the internal principal–agent relationship possesses two unique features, one relating to the agent’s duties and the other relating to the agent’s ability to disclaim. The account presented here thus clarifies the proper scope of ‘mutual consent’ justifications in agency. Mutual consent may justify some incidents of agency, but it does not justify them all.

Existential Therapies and the Extended Evolutionary Meta-Model: Turning Existential Philosophy into Process-Based Therapy

This article reviews the central theoretical claims found in the various psychotherapeutic approaches broadly referred to as the existential therapies. Despite substantial differences across existential packages, these therapies broadly arise from the theoretical position that the pain and suffering common to our species arises, not from illnesses hypothesized in traditional medical and psychiatric accounts, but rather from a set of existential concerns that all humans must face. These ‘givens’ of existence include death, identity, isolation, meaning, and freedom. From this theoretical perspective, all branches and brands of psychotherapy need to include some procedures to address these issues. Evidence for the importance of these constructs in human experience is presented, followed by evidence for existential therapies themselves. A dearth of quality research trials establishing a strong evidence base for this branch of therapy was noted. Further, process-based research in this area was shown to be weak. That is, few researchers have sought to show that the hypothesized processes are responsible for the changes observed in existential therapy. We describe how viewing existential therapy through a Process-Based Therapy (PBT) framework and the Extended Evolutionary Meta-Model (EEMM) will encourage: (1) a greater examination of the processes of change occurring; (2) an expansion in the way in which existential therapies operate, enabling the inclusion of procedures drawn from other therapeutic modalities; and (3) more nuanced targeting of existential processes in any given case.

Ships of State and Empty Vessels: Critical Reflections on ‘Territorial Status in International Law’

Abstract In his recent monograph, Territorial Status in International Law, Jure Vidmar offers ‘a new theory of statehood’ that consolidates his existing work and departs in important ways from legal orthodoxy. As a work of doctrinal law, the text is rigorous; however, its theoretical contribution is somewhat unclear. Vidmar’s central theoretical claim—that the status of individual states is established by discrete norms of customary international law—adds very little to his doctrinal argument. By examining his position, this review article examines what it might mean to provide helpful ‘theories of statehood’. It begins by framing the theoretical challenge posed by such work before setting out some desiderata for theoretical success in this area. Finally, it sketches out a general approach, grounded in Hannah Arendt’s conception of power, which offers a promising means for moving beyond doctrinal description within ‘reconstructive’ international legal theory.

Reforma sądownictwa w Izraelu: iskra, która doprowadziła do wojny 7 października

In the center of the Middle East, surrounded by millions of hostile Arabs, the best way to guarantee its existence Israel must project an image of an invincible power to deter its enemies from attacking. This is the main component of Israel’s security concept. However, On October 7, 2023, it seemed that Israel lost its deterrence when Hamas, joined by other Islamic terror groups, launched a surprise attack, including firing rockets, brutal raids of fighters, and kidnapping hostages. Although Israel has a strong and sophisticated army with technological superiority, the Islamic organizations felt confident launching the attack. This paper aims to explore the factors that encouraged Hamas and the Islamic resistance front to go on the attack. The October 7th attack came after ten turbulent months characterized by civil protests, strikes, and demonstrations of thousands of Israelis who struggled against the intentions of Netanyahu’s government to change the Judicial system. A study of public statements given by Islamic leaders can shed light on the mindset of radical Islamic organizations. The central claim is that Hamas and the Islamic groups perceived the civil struggle in Israel as the fulfillment of the religious vision written in the Quran. The conclusion is that Israel’s military power is not enough to maintain deterrence and project power toward Islamic organizations, but social cohesion is needed, too.

Reassessing the Eclipse of Aesthetic Sense—Natural Theology and the History of Modern British Aesthetics

ABSTRACT In this essay, I reconceptualise some of the most general coordinates of the history of modern British aesthetics. My central claim is that a renewed grasp of the relationship between aesthetic sense theory and natural theology fundamentally alters our narrative of British writing on aesthetics, beauty and art. I trace an intellectual genealogy stretching from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century, considering, among others, the work of Walter Charleton, Francis Hutcheson, Kames, William Paley and Thomas Chalmers. I argue that these authors can be understood in terms of a common teleological architecture I designate the ‘double teleological condition.’ In turn, I explore how commonly relayed accounts of the ascendency of associationist thought over aesthetic sense have failed to adequately capture the later philosophical interest of aesthetic sense theory. There was no eclipse of aesthetic sense, which continued to assert a profoundly important and innovative role through the nineteenth century.

Non-Perceptual Representational Immersion in Video Games: a Response to David Chalmers’ Reality+

This article criticises David Chalmers’ ‘Reality+’ by interrogating its distinction of virtual reality (VR) from 2D, non-VR video games, a distinction made on the grounds that VR is immersive and these types of video games are not because immersion is a distinct characteristic of 3D perceptually represented VR. Building on the Balcerak Jacksons’ account of ‘representational immersion’, which they acknowledge has ‘perceptual’ and ‘non-perceptual’ elements, I develop an account of ‘non-perceptual representational immersion’ and use it to critique Chalmers’ treatment of VR, immersion, and video games, indirectly problematizing his central ontological claim that ‘virtual reality is genuine reality’ and the reflections he makes about future society which rest upon it. I argue that video games are rich in non-perceptual representational immersion, which includes the representation of non-perceptual information about the structure and behaviour of a virtual world and its systems, the non-perceptual cognitive states that are generated in the player by the virtual world, and the immersion which comes from the constitutively cognitive nature of the player’s engagement with the virtual world, a cognitive engagement construed in an enactive sense. These are just as crucial to the phenomenon of digital immersion as perception. Immersion generally is a much more complicated phenomenon than Chalmers allows for, and it is better conceived as taking place on a spectrum which includes both 3D and 2D experiences of virtual worlds, not as hinging on 3D perceptual representation. I use ‘immersive simulation’ games as a case study.

Global egalitarianism and climate change: against integrationism

ABSTRACT A central question in debates about climate justice concerns how the global emissions sink should be shared among the global population over time. This paper considers how global egalitarians should answer that question. In particular, it defends emissions egalitarianism from a view known as ‘integrationism’, according to which shares of the emissions sink should follow from a more general egalitarian theory of distributive justice. First, I show that emissions egalitarianism can draw on a source of functional support not adequately acknowledged in the integrationist critique: it can express an underlying account of the structure of historical responsibility for climate change I call the Fair Share View. Second, I claim that integrationism is also in tension with other principles of responsibility for climate change, and that its scepticism about historical responsibility has not been appreciated. Finally, I provide an alternative to integrationism. My central claim is that integrationism posits too direct a relation between a theory of equality of wellbeing and practical questions about claims to the emissions sink. Egalitarians should appeal to a species of derivative principle I call ‘applied principles of global justice’, and emissions egalitarianism could plausibly be endorsed on these grounds.

What Does Lauren Berlant Teach Us About Networked Affect?

Lauren Berlant’s profound legacy for affect theory, cultural studies, queer theory and adjacent fields centers on their socio-sensory attunement to the role of media, popular culture, and the aesthetic in shaping everyday experience within late capitalist America and far beyond. And yet, within the pervasively digitalized media cultures of the twenty first century, it is curious, perhaps, that Berlant rarely engaged directly with digital culture, nor has their work (with notable pockets of exception) been drawn on widely in accounts of networked media within media theory, digital humanities, or critical data studies (Pedwell 2023b; see also Azhar and Boler 2023). The central claim orienting this introductory essay, however, is that the uncommon instances in which Berlant does address digital technologies explicitly are instructive and, moreover, that there is much to be gained from mining Berlant’s rich oeuvre for what it teaches us about the changing relations among affect, subjectivity, digital culture, and ‘the political’ amid the intersecting crises of the present. The most significant lessons Berlant’s work imparts in this vein, we will argue, concern the affective workings and implications of mediation, genre, and infrastructure in our digital age—lessons which prompt us to confront the ineradicable persistence of uncertainty, ambivalence, and vulnerability within human-technology relations, alongside the vital role of transitional infrastructures in the emergent ethico-politics of networked affect.

Listening and Legibility: Urban Surfaces Against ‘Overarching Meanings’ in Lispector’s The Besieged City

Listening and Legibility: Urban Surfaces Against “Overarching Meanings” in Lispector’s The Besieged City. This paper looks into the literary dismantlement of projections of totality and objectified knowledge in women’s modern writing, focusing on Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector’s novel The Besieged City. My central claim is that her writing opposes “geographies of reason,” indirectly arguing for an untranslatability of the self inside modernity’s model of legibility and communication. In this novel, Lispector’s alternative to the discoursing, male-dominant, rational public realm is not the introspective inner space of subjectivity, but an innovative world-making poiesis founded on the substitution of the individual self with “the wider life of the world” that remains always a-centric and anti-textual. I investigate the ways in which Lispector opposes opaqueness to legibility, seeking the uncharted territory outside the logic of historical time or the colonial gaze. Reading Lispector’s novel through the notion of “writing by ear” (bearing multiple meanings, mostly in relation to the re-negotiation of the voice-dominant Western perception about writing) will prove useful in understanding the intricate and tangled relation between Euro-American literature and the Global South in terms of complex forms of heritage hybridization and designs of global memory. Keywords: poiesis, totality, Global South, creolization, urban, listening, modernity

‘We will continue to fight for our lands … it is Mother Nature that we value’: Idle No More, the Rights of Nature social movement frame, and Anti-Capitalist Ecologist Discourse

ABSTRACT Organizing to oppose an omnibus budget bill threatening First Nations in Canada, the Idle No More (INM) movement is embedded in a legacy of Indigenous resistance to colonialism and environmental degradation. INM activists challenged Western nature perceptions to advocate for the protection of nature through the lens of First and Indigenous Peoples’ traditions and cultures. We build upon existing Indigenous Environmental Justice movement, framing, and Rights of Nature (RoN) literature to understand the role of the RoN social movement frame and Anti-Capitalist Ecologist Discourse as orienting frameworks for INM movement mobilization. We explore the emergence period of INM, analysing the first 6 months of posts and comments on the movement’s Facebook page. We argue that INM activists employed an RoN frame to establish central claims and appeal to a range of potential supporters connecting the local and the global through broad Anti-Capitalist Ecologist Discourse narratives.

When consumer decisions are moral decisions: Moral Foundations Theory and its implications for consumer psychology

AbstractAlthough researchers have considered the role of morality in consumer psychology over the years, such investigations often fail to (a) recognize the different values that consumers might hold, and (b) provide proper context for why different moral considerations emerge. Moral Foundations Theory (MFT; Graham et al., Advances in experimental social psychology, 2013, Academic Press; Haidt & Joseph, Daedalus, 2004, 133, 55) provides just such a conceptual framework for understanding the diversity of moral thought that exists across cultures and demographic groups. MFT describes morality not as a monolithic entity, but as a pluralistic set of intuitive values that were shaped by evolutionary pressures and edited by distinct cultures. We review the central claims of MFT and describe how the theory can offer new insights when applied to consumer psychology, providing examples from existing research on persuasion, emotion, and prosocial behavior.

‘Emotions’ in Gopal Sreenivasan's Emotion and Virtue

AbstractIn his remarkable new book, Emotion and Virtue, Sreenivasan defends the view that, in the case of many virtues, in order for an exemplar of each of these virtues to be a reliable judge of what that virtue requires in specific circumstances, she must possess a particular, morally rectified, emotional trait. In this article, I raise two challenges to “the argument from salience” that Sreenivasan offers in favor of this view. First, I argue that, although Sreenivasan wishes to remain neutral about different philosophical theories of emotions, the success of his argument depends, in fact, on the outcome of the debate about the nature of emotions. Second, I challenge the central claim of Sreenivasan's argument from salience, namely, that the possession of a morally rectified emotional trait, cleverness, and supplementary moral knowledge is sufficient to explain an agent's ability to reliably judge what a given virtue requires in specific circumstances.

“So I know how to do this”

Abstract Debates are important events during presidential elections in the U.S.A. Candidates are juxtaposed and engage with each other on a wide range of issues. This poses the question how disagreement between the two candidates and the public is managed. The aim of this paper is to articulate the prototypical argumentative pattern used by candidates which shows that to defend that the public should vote for them, candidates recurringly make three central claims. Specifically, they claim that some political action has to happen, they will do that action if elected, while their opponent will not. This basic argument scheme – which could be referred to as campaign promise argumentation – is further expanded by candidates by responding to six distinct critical questions, resulting in a prototypical argumentative pattern designed to deal with potential criticisms against a bid to become president.

Who Counts in Official Statistics? Ethical‐Epistemic Issues in German Migration and the Collection of Racial or Ethnic Data

ABSTRACTIn European countries (excluding the UK and Ireland), official statistics do not use racial or ethnic categories, but instead rely on proxies to collect data about discrimination. In the German microcensus, the proxy category adopted is ‘migration background’ (Migrationshintergrund): an individual has a ‘migration background’ when one or more of their parents does not have German citizenship by birth. We apply a coupled ethical‐epistemic analysis to the ‘migration background’ category to illuminate how the epistemic issues contribute to ethical ones. Our central claim is that these ethical‐epistemic issues with the ‘migration background’ category are best analysed in terms of Charles Mills's ‘white ignorance’. Appealing to Annette Martín's structural account of white ignorance, we highlight the cyclical reinforcement of ignorance and racial injustice in the use of the ‘migration background’ variable. Colourblind eliminativism about race perpetuates the use of ‘migration background’, which sustains and intensifies racial injustices.