Earlier Views Research Articles

Critical migration policy narratives from West Africa

AbstractAlthough there are contesting perspectives on migration, there is little understanding of how narratives of various policy actors shape migration governance in West Africa. This paper relies on a desk‐review and qualitative data to examine the narratives that shape migration policy formulation and outcomes in West Africa. The findings indicate that while various stakeholders have been championing divergent narratives on migration, programmes that have been adopted by West African countries to manage migration have largely been based on the narratives of political elite and international development partners, although there were situations where these narratives were not supported by any strong evidence. While early views on the impacts of international migration portrayed it as a threat to socio‐economic development, more recent narratives have recognized the potential of migration to contribute to socio‐economic transformation. Consequently, various West African countries are developing policies to harness the benefits of immigration, emigration and return migration for socio‐economic development.

“O My Mother”: Mormon Fundamentalist Mothers in Heaven and Women's Authority

“O My Mother”: Mormon Fundamentalist Mothers in Heaven and Women's Authority

The Structure of Truth: The 1970 John Locke Lectures by Donald Davidson

Reviewed by: The Structure of Truth: The 1970 John Locke Lectures by Donald Davidson Claudine Verheggen DAVIDSON, Donald. The Structure of Truth: The 1970 John Locke Lectures. Edited by Cameron Domenico Kirk-Giannini and Ernie Lepore. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. 120 pp. Cloth, $35.95 This short book consists of the six Locke lectures Donald Davidson delivered at Oxford in 1970, as well as an introduction by the editors, Cameron Domenico Kirk- Giannini and Ernie Lepore, who helpfully summarize the contents of each lecture and connect them to pieces that were published before or after the lectures. It is perhaps no wonder that Davidson himself chose not to see the lectures in print, for much of what they contain was eventually published, if it had not already been at the time of the lectures. But this absence of interest on Davidson's part in seeing the lectures in print does not detract from their interest for anyone eager to understand how one of the great philosophical systems of the twentieth century started developing. For the lectures contain not only an already well worked out semantic program but also the seeds of his metasemantic views and their consequences for metaphysics and epistemology. Moreover, the materials he chose not to publish, pretty obviously because he came to relinquish [End Page 590] the views they advocate, may help the reader to understand better the views he did further develop, and why he developed them, or, alternatively, they may prompt the reader to wonder what different path he may have taken, had he not relinquished those early views. The first lecture, tellingly called "Speaking the Truth," is, to my mind, the most thought-provoking one, for two reasons. First, it endorses a claim that Davidson would famously come to reject, namely, that literal meaning is essentially conventional. Second, it asserts a claim that Davidson always argued for, though this has not always been recognized by his commentators, namely, that meaning cannot be reduced to any nonsemantic notion. The lecture focuses on Davidson's semantic program and thus the idea that a theory of truth could serve as a theory of meaning for a language (here English), that is, a theory that "gives the meanings of all independently meaningful expressions on the basis of their structure." One remarkable thing about the lecture is that Davidson initially chooses (unlike what he had done in "Truth and Meaning," but anticipating "Radical Interpretation") to describe the relation between truth and meaning in terms of the relation between the conditions under which someone speaks the (literal) truth and what she means by her words. Thus, he initially chooses to describe the relation between meaning and truth by appealing to a kind of speech-act. Speaking the (literal) truth is a speech-act, he says, of a kind different from others, such as assertion; indeed, it is "unique" in that it is the only one we can tell has been performed just by knowing the language in which it has been performed, together of course with the way the world is. And it is the only one that is purely conventional, thus "specially suited to systematic study." Interestingly, aside from this blatant claim about meaning being conventional, and, to some extent, because of that claim, the lecture contains many of the claims for which Davidson subsequently further argued. Most notably, Davidson emphasizes the ideas that literal meaning is autonomous, that is, independent of illocutionary force and ulterior purposes (nonlinguistic intentions), and that illocutionary forces are not "wholly definable in terms of conventional procedures." What is also striking about the lecture is that there is no serious attempt to elucidate the nature of meaning in a foundational way. His main goal, Davidson says, is not to provide a "general" theory of meaning but to see how to construct, for a particular language, a theory that would enable us to understand all the linguistic acts, potential and real, performed by the speakers of that language. Thus, at this stage, Davidson's interests are more semantical than metasemantical. This makes it unsurprising that he takes the conventional aspect of literal meaning for granted. But then it is also unsurprising that this is...

Feyerabend on the Quantum Theory of Measurement: A Reassessment

ABSTRACT In 1957, Feyerabend delivered a paper titled ‘On the Quantum-Theory of Measurement’ at the Colston Research Symposium in Bristol to sketch a completion of von Neumann's measurement scheme without collapse, using only unitary quantum dynamics and well-motivated statistical assumptions about macroscopic quantum systems. Feyerabend's paper has been recognised as an early contribution to quantum measurement, anticipating certain aspects of decoherence. Our paper reassesses the physical and philosophical content of Feyerabend's contribution, detailing the technical steps as well as its overall philosophical motivations and consequences. Summarising our results, Feyerabend interpreted collapse as a positivist assumption in quantum mechanics leading to a strict distinction between the uninterpreted formalism of unitary evolution in quantum mechanics and the classically interpreted observational language describing post-measurement outcomes. Thus Feyerabend took the no-collapse completion of the von Neumann measurement scheme to show the dispensability of the positivist assumption, leading the way to a realistic interpretation of quantum theory. We note, however, that there are substantial problems with his account of measurement that bring into question its viability as a legitimate foil to the orthodox view. We further argue that his dissatisfaction with the von Neumann measurement scheme is indicative of early views on theoretical pluralism.

Politics as a vocation in the African context? An African theological engagement with Max Weber

The German sociologist, Max Weber, argued that politics has to be taken as a vocation just like other fields of academic and professional engagements. He did this by reconsidering his earlier view on ethics of conviction, which he thought does not hold sufficient promise to address the political atmosphere of his day. To consolidate this proposal, Weber proposed an ethic of responsibility which, for him, carries some great promise to advance politics as a vocation. In this article, however, I engage with these thoughts and proposals by Weber in order to deduce some lessons on how politics could be considered as vocation. This was thought to carry some promise in the African context of political engagement in reducing misappropriation, mismanagement, and wastefulness of both human and material resources. This article concludes that taking politics as a vocation would enhance the placement of value on human lives over things as it is the case in the African context.Contribution: This contribution would ensure that individuals intending to take politics as a vocation have a different view of politics other than amassing wealth, but to render service to humanity.

‘Strains and relaxations’ in the perception of time: Views from early experimental Psychology and later

The article discusses some early views on whether the duration of a stimulus or event could be a directly-perceived sensation, or whether, in contrast, time judgements were necessarily indirect, mediated by various sorts of ‘strains and relaxations’ based on bodily processes. Three arguments advanced against direct perception were: (a) that duration is always judged relative to something else, so cannot be directly perceived; (b) that sensations are necessarily momentary so cannot themselves have any duration; and (c) that duration judgements were in fact based on bodily sensations or movements, particularly those involving respiration. All three arguments are discussed, with evidence relating to the involvement of bodily sensations obtained from some early studies reviewed. A final section discusses some modern research relevant to this question.

Palimpsest Wojtyły. Jan Paweł II, polski mesjanizm i katolicka nauka społeczna

In 1953 Karol Wojtyła started his lectures on Catholic social teaching at the Theological Faculty of the Jagiellonian University. The course was generally based on notes prepared by Professor Jan Piwowarczyk, a former lecturer, removed from teaching for political reasons. For a long time Wojtyła’s own script was not available for researchers. Many commentators speculated about the content of his early lectures; some of them argued that Wojtyła was at that time close to Marxism, whereas others denied that the lectures were actually authored by him. Finally, in 2018, the full version of the lectures was published in Polish. It turns out that Wojtyła usually merely repeated or slightly reformulated Piwowarczyk’s material, though in some cases he added some original content. In this paper I analyse these additions to find some traces of Wojtyła’s earliest views. I argue that they clearly indicate influences of Polish romantic messianism. Wojtyła in a way translated his early inspirations into the language of Catholic social teaching. That is why he wrote about the idea of the Kingdom of God on earth, supported the doctrine of the missions of particular nations and defended the eligious meaning of collective suffering.

Studying the Dharma: Moral Qualities of a Disciple

The topic of the article is early medieval Indian Buddhist views on the problem of monks selection for the study in monastery universities. Basing on the analysis of Vasubandhus treatise The Encyclopedia of Abhidharma and the commentary on it (Abhidharmakośa, Abhidharmakośa-bhāṣya), the author demonstrates that the criteria of the selection elaborated by Kaśmīr Vaibhāṣikas included only moral qualities of competitors. Only monks inspired with determination to achieve the soteriological aim of the Buddhas Teaching to eradicate the root of suffering could be regarded as appropriate for the study. The object of special attention was virtuous behavior of a competitor and strict observance of monastic vows. Those who were diligent, abstinent from sin, content with minimal material goods (clothes, food, bed, and seat), and see happiness in monastic ascetics and religious practices regarded as worthy competitor.

Becoming Human: The Archaeology of John C. Barrett

Becoming Human: The Archaeology of John C. Barrett

The Unknowable: A Study in Nineteenth-Century British Metaphysics, by W. J. Mander

Reviewed by: The Unknowable: A Study in Nineteenth-Century British Metaphysics by W. J. Mander Andrew Vincent (bio) The Unknowable: A Study in Nineteenth-Century British Metaphysics, by W. J. Mander; pp. ix + 336. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2020, $80.00, £60.00. W. J. Mander's The Unknowable: A Study in Nineteenth-Century British Metaphysics is a valuable text for scholars of Victorian thought, whether they work in philosophical, metaphysical, or scientific domains. The narrative motif is the concept of the unknowable. Droll quips aside, we do get to know a lot about the unknowable. The term, or cognates such as the unconditioned, clearly had an intricate provenance permeating many nineteenth-century debates. The unknowable is certainly not confined to the Victorian era. It both predates and postdates the nineteenth century. The rough structure of the book is divided into three broad schemes of thought which respond, in diverse ways, to the idea of the unknowable. The schemes are agnosticism, empiricism, and idealism. The themes through which the unknowable is commonly articulated are as follows: the ground of sensory experience, the intuited dimensions of space and time, the self and identity, causality, and the eternal ground of being and/or God. The period covered is approximately from the 1840s up to the turn of the century. These schemes are seen to constitute the rich history of overt or covert metaphysics in Victorian Britain. The figure who initially advanced the idea of the unknowable was Sir William Hamilton. Hamilton is probably best known today via the harsh critique in John Stuart Mill's An Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy (1865). However, in the 1840s he was a respected figure who, in Mander's words, "energized metaphysical writing in Britain" (11). The unknowable, or what Hamilton referred to as the unconditioned, derived largely from Immaneul Kant. The basic claim is that we cannot pass beyond our own phenomenal understanding; we are governed by what Hamilton called the "law of the conditioned" and we need consequently to cultivate a "learned ignorance" (13). Hamilton was also an admirer of Thomas Reid's realism. Accordingly, objects do definitely exist, but we only know them in relational terms as we perceive them. This general point constitutes a theme of agnostic realism. Analogous themes are explored in the work of Henry Mansel, although Mansel read Kant much more comprehensively in German and was not enamored of Reid's realism. Consequently, he argued more stringently than Hamilton for the limitations of reason, especially about God or morality. Herbert Spencer was disdainful of Kantianism, unsympathetic to religion, committed to an evolutionary naturalism, and confident about the reach of the empirical sciences; nonetheless, he also formulated a gauche metaphysical theory of the unknowable. [End Page 590] Mind and all theorizing were premised on an unknowable ground. Thomas Huxley developed his early views via Hamilton and was an early admirer of Spencer's metaphysical First Principles (1862). Later, however, in advancing his own evolutionary views, Huxley moved away from Spencer. It was Huxley who first coined the term agnosticism. His unknowable became a preliminary to scientific advance. Under the expansive canopy of empiricism, Mander discusses Mill, Alexander Bain, George Croom Robertson, Shadworth Hodgson, William Clifford, G. H. Lewes, and Karl Pearson. It is impossible to deal with the sheer quantity of beguiling detail in these various studies. In effect, all of these thinkers emphasized that empirical science-based knowledge suffices and that we experience reality via the senses. As Mill memorably put it: matter becomes the permanent possibility of sensation. Empiricism is combined here with phenomenalism—namely, the argument that sensations constituting appearances always interpose between us and the world. While all such empiricists resisted the agnostics' unknowable, many were still prepared to acknowledge a realm that was not yet scientifically accessible. For Mander, the high-water mark of such empiricism was Pearson's popular Grammar of Science (1892). The third scheme concerns idealism in the work of James Ferrier, John Grote, James Hutchinson Stirling, John and Edward Caird, Andrew Seth Pringle-Pattison, Henry Jones, and finally Francis Herbert Bradley. Mander employs the term objective idealism (in the main) to describe this group. He identifies...

Sources for the Study of Early Ecumenical Views of Amfilohije Radović: Justin Popović

The paper aims to analyze the early ecumenical views of Amfilohije Radović with reference to the influence exerted on him by his spiritual father Justin Popović. This investigation is important because Radović’s ecumenical engagement is often a matter of controversy, which results in conflicting views. Sources for studying Radović’s early ecumenical views are: his correspondence with Justin Popović on ecumenism, his engagement in editing and publishing Popović’s book Orthodox Church and Ecumenism, and finally, his article written as a report from an inter-Orthodox conference held in September 1972 in Thessalonica. In addition to Radović’s similarity with Popović's views, the paper also aims to show their differences, i.e. their different interpretations of the same phenomena.

Nonreciprocal exciton-polariton ring lattices

Recent experiments have shown the transfer of orbital angular momentum (OAM) from a non-resonant laser onto an exciton-polariton condensate, despite earlier views that the phase information of such a laser should be lost during the process of polariton condensation. We study with a phenomenological theory the interplay of a usual angular momentum independent gain and an angular momentum preserving gain. We find that even when the latter is much smaller, it is enough to favour condensation into a given orbital angular momentum state. This further allows a breaking of symmetry in the system, which further manifests in non-reciprocal one-way propagation in a lattice of coupled rings. Even though we consider only Hermitian reciprocal coupling between rings, the local non-Hermiticity generates an effective non-reciprocal coupling and supports a non-Hermitian topological invariant (winding number) associated to a non-Hermitian skin effect.

Gabriel Naudé’s library thought and early modern views into history and veins within political theory

The essay discusses Gabriel Naudé’s ideal of a censorship-free and publicly open library within Naudé’s intellectual environment consisting of some early modern veins of political theory and views to history. An assumption is that the Naudéan ideal of library and some veins in early modern historiography and views to history could manifest somehow similar rationalities. The early modern vein of Tacitist historiography pursuing a realist and source-based description of the past could relate to Naudé’s ideal of the censorship-free library and his technocratic and moral premises excluding political thought. Naudé’s ideal of the publicly open library, on the other hand, could relate to a different view to history that could be constitutive of morality too. The early phase of early modern Tacitism especially would be consistent with Naudé’s thought of both the library and politics, while the other view to history could be, at best, only fragmentarily significant.

Early Pentecostal Eschatology

Few studies have been devoted to early Pentecostal eschatology.1 One of them, that of by Gerald T. Sheppard merits special attention. Sheppard’s article attempts show that “Pentecostals were not originally dispensationalist-fundamentalist and that the efforts secondarily to embrace such views have raised new problems for the identity of Pentecostals – hermeneutically, sociologically and politically.”2 The procedure taken by Sheppard is to investigate early Pentecostal eschatology as reflected in the writings of some early Pentecostal figures. Unfortunately, he excludes some important earliest Pentecostal figures such as Charles F. Parham, William J. Seymour, and G. F. Taylor. Moreover, some important Pentecostal writers, such as Daniel W. Kerr, that merit special attention due to their distinctive eschatology, have been left out. It is the purpose of this paper to fill “empty space” within Sheppard’s article. It will investigate specifically the eschatological views of Pentecostal writers prior to 1920. The conclusion certainly affirms the Sheppard’ thesis that originally the Pentecostal eschatology was not purely dispensational. Besides, it will be shown that early Pentecostal views on eschatology were not absolutely uniform.

Early Career Researchers' Views on Publishing in The Journal of Wildlife Management

Early Career Researchers' Views on Publishing in <i><b>The Journal of Wildlife Management</b></i>

Social education through the lens of Bakhtinian theory

A review of Bakhtin in the Fullness of Time: Bakhtinian Theory and the Process of Social Education, Edited by Craig Brandist, Michael E. Gardiner, E. Jayne White and Carl Mika. L.: Routledge. 2020. 160 p.&#x0D; The review of the collection of articles Bakhtin in the Fullness of Time: Bakhtinian Theory and the Process of Social Education represents an analysis of the perspectives, main trends, and interpretations of key points, ideas, and concepts of M. M. Bakhtin in the contemporary theory and practice of Social Education.&#x0D; The book’s nine chapters are grouped within three problem areas, researched by the book’s contributors. This is, in the first place, a re-establishment of those philosophical and sociological sources that trace back to the roots of Bakhtin’s early views that had defined the nature of his responses to the challenges of his time in his early philosophical texts, books about Dostoevsky and books about bildungsroman. Another field of examination is Bakhtin's late dialogue with his contemporaries. Sometimes this dialogue is active and obvious, as it happens in the situation with the latest aesthetic and literary trends in Russia at the beginning of the 1920s. Sometimes this dialogue turns out to be ambiguous, therefore researchers can only guess how to reconstruct it, basing their views on the complementarity of Bakhtin’s ideas and Lev Vygotsky or Paulo Freire’s ones.&#x0D; An equally important aspect of this collection is a number of articles devoted to how Bakhtin's theory is transformed into "classroom practice", whether it concerns the use of dialogue and its capabilities in interaction with foreigners, providing educational opportunities to the most economically vulnerable segments of South African society, or communication with preschoolers in kindergarten.&#x0D; The authors of the book managed to create a convincing picture of how Bakhtinian theory is becoming one of the most important elements of contemporary theory and practice of education. At the same time, not only Bakhtinian ideas, primarily the concepts of dialogue, polyphony, carnival, and chronotope, are important, but also that free polyphony, which puts into effect any creative practice.

Gaṅgeśa on Absence in Retrospect

Cases of past absence (prāṅnâstitāsthala) involve agents noticing in retrospect that an object or property was absent, such as when one notices later that a colleague was not at a talk. In Sanskrit philosophy, such cases are introduced by Kumārila as counterexamples to the claim that knowledge of absence (abhāva) is perceptual (pratyakṣa), but further take on a life of their own as a topic of inquiry among Kumārila’s commentators and their Nyāya interlocutors. In this essay, I examine the Nyāya philosopher Gaṅgeśa’s epistemology of past absence, according to which agents learn that a recollectable (smaraṇârha) object or property was absent by inferring its past absence from failing to recall (asmaraṇa) that object or property. Gaṅgeśa’s account is best appreciated against the backdrop of earlier theories and their shortcomings, and I begin by presenting historical views leading up to his. I identify two groups of views about the epistemology of past absence: recollection views, according to which cases of past absence involve agents recalling negative information; and recollection failure views, according to which cases of past absence involve agents failing to recall positive information. I reconstruct two early recollection views: a Bhāṭṭa view belonging to Uṃveka, and a competing Nyāya view belonging to Jayanta and Bhāsarvajña. I then examine Śālikanātha and Sucarita’s critiques of recollection views, following which I reconstruct a Bhāṭṭa recollection failure view belonging to Pārthasārathi. I then examine Gaṅgeśa’s critiques of Pārthasārathi’s account and the recollection failure view he constructs out of its shortcomings.

Rethinking History, Science, and Religion: An Exploration of Conflict and the Complexity Principle

Rethinking History, Science, and Religion: An Exploration of Conflict and the Complexity Principle

Description of a metacercaria of a zoogonid trematode Steganoderma cf. eamiqtrema Blend and Racz, 2020 (Microphalloidea: Zoogonidae), with notes on the phylogenetic position of the genus Steganoderma Stafford, 1904, and resurrection of the subfamily Lecithostaphylinae Odhner, 1911.

Metacercariae of the zoogonid trematode Steganoderma cf. eamiqtrema ex crab Chionoecetes bairdi caught in the Sea of Okhotsk were described using morphological and molecular-genetic (ITS2 region, 28S rRNA and nd1 genes) data. These are the first molecular-genetic data for the genus Steganoderma. The studied trematodes differed from S. eamiqtrema in having a much larger body size. The phylogenetic analysis based on the 28S rRNA gene supported neither the current taxonomic hypothesis that Steganoderma belongs to the subfamily Lepidophyllinae nor the earlier views that the Steganodermatinae and the Lecithostaphylinae are synonymous. The topology of the phylogenetic tree shows that the Steganodermatinae and the Lecithostaphylinae are independent subfamilies. However, morphological differences between them are obscure. Until morphological evidence for the Steganodermatinae is found, we propose to distinguish the subfamily Lepidophyllinae sensu stricto with the genera Lepidophyllus and Urinatrema, and the subfamily Lecithostaphylinae sensu lato uniting all the other former lepidophyllines. Thus, for now, we propose to consider the Steganodermatinae as a conditional synonym for Lecithostaphylinae sensu lato.

Grumpy Old Men: reconsidering Rational Choice & Political Power

ABSTRACT A new, expanded edition of Keith Dowding’s Rational Choice & Political Power (PC&PP) provides an opportunity to examine the uses of game theoretic models in political inquiry. Specifically, it raises questions about the apparent discontinuities between the way bargaining models are used in RC&PP and the way he defends formal models in more recent work. I prefer what I take to be his earlier view.