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Las Cuestiones Sicilianas De Ibn Sab‘Īn: El Texto, Sus Fuentes Y Su Contexto Histórico, Anna Ayşe Akasoy

Publications and Research

The Sicilian Questions are the earliest pre-served text of the philosopher and Sufi Ibn Sab‘īn of Murcia (c. 614/1217-668/1270). Even though the prologue of the text claims that it is a response to questions sent by Frederick II to the Arab world, it seems more likely that it was an introductory manual for Arab students of philosophy, dealing with four specific and controversial problems as away of presenting general concepts of Aristotelian philosophy. This article analyses the structure and way of argumentation in the Sicilian Questions. Particular attention is being paid to the relationship between mysticism and philosophy and …

Africana Studies And Research Methodology: Revisiting The Centrality Of The Afrikan Worldview In Africana Studies Research And Scholarship, Karanja Keita Carroll

Publications and Research

This essay engages questions of methodology and philosophical assumptions as they impinge upon discipline-specific scholarship in Africana Studies and ultimately on arguments in Africology. Through an investigation of the worldview concept as discussed within the scholarship of Vernon Dixon, the Afrikan/Black psychologists and other Afrikan-centered scholars this essay attempts to reorient this discussion to questions which are pertinent to the development and utilization of the Afrikan Worldview as a research methodology in Africana Studies. We conclude with the possible implications this analysis can have on Africana Studies and Africological scholarship.

Forgetting The Subject, Christa Davis Acampora

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

The New York Police Officer: Democratic And Moral Accountability In Conflict, Sarah Ryan, Dan Williams

Publications and Research

The following case draws upon two views of accountability. One is democratic accountability the other is accountability to one's own moral conscience. As the story unfolds, other facts may get in the way but these central views should not be forgotten. The focus of this case is on the individual. However, the material also covers institutional decisions and policies that deserve considering. The institutional story is the background, not the foreground, of this case. Yet, when the institutional features are considered, they may give new insight to the individuals' decisions.

Madame De Staël, The Protestant Reformation And The History Of ‘Private Judgement’, Helena Rosenblatt

Publications and Research

It is a well-known fact that Madame de Staël held the Protestant Reformation in high regard and preferred Protestantism to all other religions. To her, Protestantism was the most moral and the most enlightened religion available; it was the the religion most compatible with, and even conductive to, progress.

But why was this so, and what exactly did Madame de Staël mean by Protestantism? It is an important question, because answering it will shed light on the nature of her liberalism and, more particularly, on the interconnectedness of her religious and her political views.

On The Intellectual Sources Of Laïcité: Rousseau, Constant, And The Debates About A National Religion, Helena Rosenblatt

Publications and Research

That French Protestants gave strong support to laïcité is by now well established. In recent work, Patrick Cabanel has even made a compelling case for the Protestant sources of laïcité, placing particular emphasis on the Protestant entourage of Jules Ferry (1832-1893) and stressing the inspiration provided by the pro-Protestant intellectual, Edgar Quinet (1803-1875.)

This article suggests that we look even earlier in time for the intellectual sources of laïcité. Seminal ideas can be found in the writings of two liberal Protestants, Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) and Benjamin Constant (1767-1830.) Rousseau is usually counted among the opponents, and not the …

On Sovereignty And Overhumanity Why It Matters How We Read Nietzsche's Genealogy 11:2, Christa Davis Acampora

Publications and Research

There is nearly unanimous agreement, among those who bother to pay attention to Nietzsche's anomalous claim about the "sovereign individual" in the second essay of On the Genealogy of Morals that the "sovereign" is Nietzsche's ideal, and many more still take sovereignty as the signature feature of the overman Nietzsche heralds in his Thus Spoke Zarathustra and other writings. I describe the reception among Nietzsche scholars as "nearly unanimous" because there has been at least one cry of dissent: that issued by Lawrence Harab. Curiously, his brief but incisive comments about the problematic nature of several readings along these lines …

Orientalisms In The Interpretation Of Islamic Philosophy, Muhammad Ali Khalidi

Publications and Research

The recent death of Edward Said has reignited the debate as to whether his landmark work Orientalism still has something to teach us about the study of Arab-Islamic civilization. In this article, I will argue that Saidʼs central thesis in Orientalism has a direct explanatory role to play in our understanding of the work produced in at least one area of scholarship about the Arab and Islamic worlds, namely Arab-Islamic philosophy from the classical or medieval period. Moreover, I will claim that it continues to play this role not only for scholarship produced in the West by Western scholars but …

Masochism: A Queer Subjectivity?, Amber Musser

Publications and Research

Judith Butler's Gender Trouble elaborates what may be called a queer subjectivity. Characterized by non-essential, performative identity, her theory has been criticized because, according to its critics, it does not give the subject political agency. Liberal theorists, such as Seyla Benhabib, have been particularly concerned with the political effects of this form of subjectivity on already marginalized social groups while other theorists, such as Susan Stryker and Ed Cohen, have articulated concern that the theory does not sufficiently account for embodiment, affect, and identity. This essay brings Deleuze's theory of masochism in dialogue with Butler's theories of subjectivity in an …

Negative Emotions And Music Revisited, Peter L. Manuel

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Why Constant? A Critical Overview Of The Constant Revival, Helena Rosenblatt

Publications and Research

Recent years have seen a remarkable renewal of interest in the thought of Benjamin Constant (1767–1830). For long recognized as the author of the literary masterpiece Adolphe, Constant is now receiving increasing attention for his political writings. Paperback editions of his major works are presently available in both French and English, helping to establish his growing reputation as a founding father of modern liberalism. Constant's stature as a seminal liberal thinker has benefited from the recent climate of opinion in the Western world and, in particular, from the return to fashion of liberalism as a social and political doctrine. …

Demos Agonistes Redux: Reflections On The Streit Of Political Agonism, Christa Davis Acampora

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Nature And Nurture In Cognition, Muhammad Ali Khalidi

Publications and Research

This paper advocates a dispositional account of innate cognitive capacities, which has an illustrious history from Plato to Chomsky. The ‘triggering model’ of innateness, first made explicit by Stich ([1975]), explicates the notion in terms of the relative informational content of the stimulus (input) and the competence (output). The advantage of this model of innateness is that it does not make a problematic reference to normal conditions and avoids relativizing innate traits to specific populations, as biological models of innateness are forced to do. Relativization can be avoided in the case of cognitive capacities precisely because informational content is involved. …

On The Grounds Of Globalization: A Topography For Feminist Political Engagement, Cindi Katz

Publications and Research

Globalization is nothing new. Global trade has been going on for millennia—though what constitutes the "globe" has expanded dramatically in that time. And trade is nothing if not cultural exchange, the narrow distinctions between the economic and the cultural having long been rendered obsolete. Moreover, our forbears, like us, were great "miscegenators." If here I gloss the racialized and gendered violence often associated with miscegenation, I do so strategically to note that all recourse to purity, indigeneity, or aboriginality—however useful strategically—should be subject to at least as much scrutiny as the easy romance with hybridity (see Mitchell 1997). Globalization has …

Rationalism In Normative Budget Theory, Dan Williams

Publications and Research

This paper concerns epistemological rationalism and the norms used by governments to instruct their officers to perform their duties. The particular duty I discuss here is preparation of and action on the budget. In this paper I use "rationalism" as the opposite of "empiricism." This rationalism does not refer to "'economic rationality," it refers to the method of attaining knowledge associated with introspection, logic, and a priori knowledge. It is opposed to the method of attaining knowledge associated with observation, experiment, and evidence. By "norms, “normative," and other related terms, I mean action guiding language. Four senses of normative are …

Le Contrat Social, Une Œuvre Genevoise? L’École Du Droit Naturel Et Le Débat Politique À Genève. La Réponse De Rousseau, Helena Rosenblatt

Publications and Research

La question de l'influence de Genève sur les idées politiques et religieuses de Jean-Jacques Rousseau est discutée depuis plus de deux cents ans. Cependant, au cours des années, les suppositions méthodologiques sous-jacentes au débat sont restées fondamentalement les mêmes, et elles ont besoin d'être modifiées. C'est pourquoi il est encore nécéssaire de réexaminer un vieux sujet selon une nouvelle approche. Au lieu de voir Genève simplement en tant que source d'idées que Rousseau a pu adopter, il faudrait voir Genève comme fournissant des problèmes concrets et intellectuels que Rousseau a tâché de résoudre.

On Public Language And Private Language, Rohit J. Parikh

Publications and Research

It is discussed how a discussion of private experiences and qualia can arise in personal life. The examples used are an accident with a truck and a possible operation by researchers at CUNY.

The Directly Evident, Richard Legum

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Foundationalism, Richard Legum

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Foundationalism And The Proper Stopping Place For Socratic Questioning, Richard Legum

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Probability And Foundationalism, Richard Legum

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

The Given, Richard Legum

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Chisholm's Rules Of Evidence, Richard Legum

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Conclusion. Bibliography., Richard Legum

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Probability, Terminating Judgments, Memory, And Justified Belief, Richard Legum

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

[Foundationalism And Perceptual Knowledge], Richard Legum

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

An Alternative Policy For Obtaining Cadaver Organs For Transplantation, James L. Muyskens

Publications and Research

Two moral principles have been basic to the legal decisions concerning the rights and duties toward the newly dead. They are the duty to give decent burial and the denial to anyone of a right to ownership of the dead body for commercial profit. The next-of-kin-rather than the church or the state­ have come to bear the primary responsibility for providing decent burial.

The familial duty to give decent burial has come to be understood as a legal right to determine what is to be done to the body in the interval between death and burial.

Armed with this right, …

D-Structures And Their Semantics, Rohit J. Parikh

Publications and Research

"Many logicians are familiar with the game theoretic approach to semantics, due to Jaakko Hintikka. This paper by me contains class notes of a logic course at Boston University in fall 1972. It has similar game theoretic ideas, developed quite independently, but influenced by the work of A. Ehrenfeucht. It applies to a larger class of logics, including classical logic, intuitionistic logic and the *-semantics of Ehrenfeucht. The treatment is via D-structures which are finite approximations of infinite structures. For various reasons I did not publish this paper then, but some abstracts, both by myself as well as joint abstracts …