Academic literature on the topic 'Pre-modern ethnic foundation'

Abstract Most studies of religious beliefs and praxis, including those in Islamic Studies, assume the subjects of investigation to be adults. In childhood studies of religion, however, we find a lens for exploring how foundational pre-modern Islamic ethics discourses, such as those of Abu Hamid al-Ghazali and Nasir ad-Din Tusi, taught how children were supposed to be reared and educated, which uncovers important insights about the gendered nature of ethics itself. Specifically, classical Islamic ethics is so deeply entangled with gender roles that the Islamic ethicists’ instructions for rearing children are in essence instructions for inculcating gender roles from birth. Ethical cultivation was the purview of elite men, whereas women were marginalized from ethics instruction. The childhood-studies-of-religion lens enables us to see the synonymity between Islamic ethics and the creation of the man or the man-as-process.

The article analyzes the theoretical foundations of the modern project of rational ethics, in which the ethics of discourse is interpreted as a critical theory of society and a critic of modern morality. I. Kant was one of the first to offer the possibility of generalizing the norms of morality and perception of ethics as a transcendental critique of morality. Neo-Kantianism develops ethics as the most important part of the philosophical system and fixes its scope by the idealistic theory of morality (H. Cohen, P. Natorp). In Russian philosophy, modern ethics is perceived as a normative theory that has to do with issues of self-determination, moral regulation, and freedom of choice. The origins of discourse ethics in the philosophy of the 20th century go back to the “pragmatic turn” and to vigorous discussions about hermeneutics of language and its a priori status in German philosophy, and in analytical philosophy regarding the understanding of metaetics. The modern program of ethics of discourse receives meaningful justification as the logic of moral argumentation in the social philosophy of J. Habermas and in the transcendental pragmatics K.-O. Apel. The ethics of discourse is born from the real need to justify moral requirements and norms. Ethics as a critique of moral argument is associated with the pre-reflexive horizon of the life world, why it is a deontological, formalistic and universal ethics. Two significant projects of discourse ethics, presented in the article as an analysis, should be defined as “weak and strong” variants of philosophical transcendental idealism in modern science.

The article analyzes the foundations methods and theoretical limits of the traditional sociological theories of social inequality. These theories do not distinguish methodologically between agence and structure. This makes such a theory of social inequality just a “social taxonomy”. The theories of A. Giddens and P. Bourdieu are viewed as the contemporary theoretical and methodological constructivist approaches to social inequality. They are based on the notions of “social practices”, “symbolic categorization”, “distinction”, “life style” (P. Bourdieu) and “reflexive structuration” (A. Giddens). The analysis demonstrates the lack of historical dimension in these theories. The article proves the need to analyze the basic everyday practices which give rise to social inequality. It is necessary to broaden the sphere of sociological research and use the historical perspective. It should also include as its object the system of social inequality in pre-modern societies. The article strives to achieve this by analyzing such pre-modern social practices of social inequality as inclusion/exclusion based on mechanisms of stigmatization, lanquage and ethuic-religions tradition.

The article is devoted to one of the poorly studied issues in historical science – the formation and development of education among Nogais. The relevance of the study is due to the importance of education as a basic component of the spiritual culture of an ethnic group, the focus of the research outcome on promoting the cultural growth of the modern Nogais, preserving their ethnocultural identity, and strengthening ethnic self-awareness. The methodological and theoretical basis of the study lies in the principle of historicism, as well as historical-comparative and historical-typological methods. Based on the new archival documents and field material, the stages of public education of the Nogais have been identified as follows: pre-revolutionary (pre-Soviet), Soviet and post-Soviet. With the adoption of Islam by the Nogais around 1254–1256, a whole network of maktabs and madrasas emerged in the Nogai steppe, in which students studied the foundations of Islam, Arabic script and literature, works of advanced scientific thought and Oriental literature. After the inclusion of territories with the Nogai population into the Russian Empire, secular schools and colleges were opened, in which, thanks to the influence of progressive Russian culture, Nogai learned the achievements of world culture and joined the all-Russian cultural field. In the XIX century, the Nogai education produced literary men, enlighteners and public figures, who were notable not only in Russia but also in the countries of the Middle East. With the establishment of Soviet rule in the country, illiteracy among the Nogais was eliminated. The emergence of national schools and teachers of the native language served the formation of the Soviet Nogai intelligentsia. Its most important merit was the creation of a new Nogai written language, its modern literary form, educational and reference literature in the Nogai language. In the conclusion, the Nogai public education, having passed certain stages in its formation and development, has reached a new qualitative level that meets the requirements of the Russian educational system.

Purpose of the research: This article aims to find national commonalities that will help ensure the harmonization of interethnic relations and create a unified educational space of the country, considering national and regional characteristics inherent in the subjects of the Russian Federation. Methodology: The methods were determined by the specifics of theoretical and historical research: systemic, historiographic, axiological, and socio-cultural approaches to the research of the school education evolution; the research and analysis of archival and historical-literary sources, including materials of dissertations and applied research on the educational problems in Yakutia; the documents of the People’s Commissariat of Education: orders, instructions, circular letters, statistical reports, and others, and reference materials, containing specific information on the problem under discussion. Main Findings: The research and use of domestic historical experience identified the continuity between the school of the past and the present, to creatively interpret and preserve all the valuable lessons from the experience of domestic and foreign pedagogy. Application of this research: It was revealed and established that this was necessary due to the diversity of natural-geographical, demographic, ethnic, cultural, educational, and other conditions in Russia and the search for solutions to difficult problems of interethnic cooperation. Our research aims to identify value- and activity-based foundations that underlie the activities of political exiles and ethno-pedagogical experience in Yakutia. Novelty/Originality of this research: The research opens up prospects for fundamental scientific and applied research in the field of pre-revolutionary history of pedagogy and education, the development of cultural dialogue ideas related to the problems of education, the scientific substantiation of modern innovative strategies for education in national regions.

Purpose of the research: This article aims to find national commonalities that will help ensure the harmonization of interethnic relations and create a unified educational space of the country, considering national and regional characteristics inherent in the subjects of the Russian Federation. Methodology: The methods were determined by the specifics of theoretical and historical research: systemic, historiographic, axiological, and socio-cultural approaches to the research of the school education evolution; the research and analysis of archival and historical-literary sources, including materials of dissertations and applied research on the educational problems in Yakutia; the documents of the People’s Commissariat of Education: orders, instructions, circular letters, statistical reports, and others, and reference materials, containing specific information on the problem under discussion. Main Findings: The research and use of domestic historical experience identified the continuity between the school of the past and the present, to creatively interpret and preserve all the valuable lessons from the experience of domestic and foreign pedagogy. Application of this research: It was revealed and established that this was necessary due to the diversity of natural-geographical, demographic, ethnic, cultural, educational, and other conditions in Russia and the search for solutions to difficult problems of interethnic cooperation. Our research aims to identify value- and activity-based foundations that underlie the activities of political exiles and ethno-pedagogical experience in Yakutia. Novelty/Originality of this research: The research opens up prospects for fundamental scientific and applied research in the field of pre-revolutionary history of pedagogy and education, the development of cultural dialogue ideas related to the problems of education, the scientific substantiation of modern innovative strategies for education in national regions.

Background: The doctor-patient relationship is the core foundation for healing, care, establishment of trust and an essential part of modern-day medical ethics. The last few decades have seen an exponential growth in the scientific component of the medical field which has led to a strain on doctor-patient relationship. With the growing trend of patients wanting more information from their doctor in order to have a more active role in their health-care, active communication from the physician’s end is needed. Present study aims to find out what doctors over various fields expect out of this relationship.Methods: A cross sectional prospective study was conducted among a total of 49 urban and rural doctors of various specialities in an urban area of Maharashtra using a pre-structured questionnaire. The statistical tools used to analyse the data was by using Microsoft excel software.Results: It was also noted that time spent with patients was less by the specialists as compared with other doctors for all aspects of consultation. On evaluating experience with the duration of consultation, we noted that doctors having more than 30 years of experience gave lesser time for all aspects of consultation as compared to those with lesser experience. A close range, between 45%-57% of all physicians, admitted to answering phone calls during consultations.Conclusions:It is imperative to study doctor-patient interactions since a better relationship results in a more satisfied patient with better treatment outcome.

In her posthumously published work The Transmission of Affect, Teresa Brennan challenges the modern ego’s understanding of itself as self-contained. This illusion, she argues, is supported by what she refers to as the “foundational fantasy”. In explaining what this means, Brennan rejects a bounded sense of the self, arguing that affect (both positive and negative) circulates energetically between subjects. In patriarchal cultures, mothers (and “feminine beings”) act as repositories of projected fear, typically carrying the greater burden of the negative affects—anger, aggression, and envy. Importantly, Brennan’s work brings the question of intersubjective boundaries to the fore, arguing that these are open, and that any account of ethical relations between self and other needs to acknowledge this. Drawing on pre-modern sources, she develops a new theory of intersubjective and energetic affectivity and, in a positive vein, offers love—in the form of attention and discernment—as the positive gift of affect that can potentially circulate between bodies, infusing intersubjective relations with life. Brennan’s work on the transmission of affect offers a bold and very political philosophical intervention into early twenty-first century ethical accounts. Her exploration of the intricacies of our relational entanglements with others and the material world challenges our understanding of what it means to be a self in relation to others. In effect, her account of the transmission of affect highlights the other’s vulnerability to my affect, to my hostile projections, even as it accounts for the flow of affect in both directions. In a slightly different way, Hélène Cixous offers us an account of our relations with others that focusses on the self’s openness to the force of the other, the self’s vulnerability to the dangerous other. Here, the other is the focus of a potential threat, a potential undoing of the self. For Cixous, writing is the place of witness to the unfolding of this vulnerability or porosity between two (entre deux). While this essay focuses on Brennan’s philosophical account, and the potentially paradoxical nature of her work to produce a theory of affect, it offers a brief discussion of the ways in which Cixous’s focus on literature and writing provide a different frame for appreciating the challenge that Brennan’s work makes. It explores the important ways in which Cixous extends Brennan’s philosophical concerns to the domains of literature and writing. Throughout her work, Brennan calls for us to invent or reinvent a vocabulary for the exploration of discernment, the protective attitude of thoughtfulness that opens us to the other. Cixous’s work, I argue, embodies this call in hopeful and optimistic ways. As such, it allows us to think of literature and writing as privileged sites for the exploration of our complex intersubjective relations.

The concept of moral individualism is part of the foundational structure of most prominent modern moral philosophies. It rests on the assumption that moral obligations towards a respective individual are constituted solely by her or his capacities. Hence, these obligations are independent of any ἔθος (ethos), of any shared ethical sense and social significations. The moral agent and the individual with moral status (who is the target of a respective action) are construed as subjects outside of any social relation or lifeworld significations. This assumption has been contested in the last decades by diverse authors with very different approaches to moral philosophy. In the last years, an increasing number of philosophers like Cora Diamond and Alice Crary (with a Wittgensteinian background), but also phenomenologists like Paul Ricœur, Klaus Held, and Bernhard Waldenfels question the presupposition that individual capacities are the agent-neutral and context-neutral ground of moral considerations. This critique of moral individualism in different contemporary discourses shows a striking similarity between Wittgensteinian and phenomenological philosophers as their critical inquiry of prominent theories like the ones by Immanuel Kant, John Rawls, Peter Singer or Tom Regan is derived from mostly implicitly efficacious Aristotelian theorems. Telling examples are the ἔθος (ethos) as pre-given normative infrastructure, the ἕξις (hexis) as individual internalization of the ethos, the φρόνησις (phronesis) described as a specific practical know-how in contrast to scientific knowledge, and not at least the definition of the human being as ζῷον πολιτικόν (zoon politikon). However, the Aristotelian sources of this movement have not yet been scrutinized systematically. This paper aims, first, to reveal the significance of these sources to make them visible and, second, to contribute to the notion of the topicality of Aristotelian philosophy in current debates on ethics.

The Preamble and Chapter 1 This contribution is intended to be the first installment of a systematic interpretation of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa 1996. Due to the foundational and repetitive reference in the text to values, regard must constantly be had to those values when this Constitution is interpreted. Even though the preamble does not contain positive norms, is an important interpretive source of the foundations of the Constitution. An important deviation from the preamble of the 1993 Constitution, is that the term Rechtsstaat ("constitutional state") is not employed. The introduction of this notion in South African law and its meaning in general is described. With reference to relevant dicta in recent constitutional cases, the Constitutional Principles in terms of which the 1996 Constitution was formulated and the text of the Constitution itself, it is argued that this is essentially a Rechtsstaat Constitution, but that the divergence in the range of constitutional values creates the danger of the constitutional state floundering in the waters of the social state. Section 1, being the foundational provision, is not unamendable, but it is very tightly entrenched. The most profound values of the Constitution are set out in this compact formulation. The question is inevitably raised whether, where values have to compete for precedence in concrete circumstances, a hierarchy of values must be construed. An analysis of section 1 in the context of other relevant provisions of the Constitution reveals that human dignity is the primary nuclear value of theConstitution, supported by equality and freedom. Democracy, supremacy of theConstitution and the rule of law are structural and procedural values of the Constitution subordinate to the nuclear values and non-racialism and non-sexism are derived values. How it is possible for a constitution to be superior law, as section 2 provides regarding the 1996 Constitution, is analysed against the background of the social contract theory. The weaknesses of this theory are exposed and it is argued that the force external to the Constitution that guarantees its primacy, is its practical legitimacy, i.e. sufficient support or acceptance of the authority of the Constitution by the citizenry. Section 2 is phrased in strong terms and means that no juridically relevant conduct, be it of a private or public law nature, can escape the test of constitutionality. In the interpretation of section 3 the nature of citizenship and nationality is analysed with reference to international authorities and definitions of these concepts are developed. The legal implications of citizenship in the context of the Constitution are set out and the historical context of citizenship having been used in pre-constitutional times as an instrument for creating separate ethnic states, is described. The current post modern tendency in places to devalue citizenship is contrasted with the importance being attached to the notion in South Africa in the context of nation building and the employment of expatriates. Regarding sections 4 and 5 the formal regulation of the national anthem and national flag is described. The national anthem may be amended by presidential proclamation, but changes to the national flag require an amendment of the Constitution. Section 6, which deals with the complex language matter, protects linguistic diversity rather than the status of any languages. The Constitutional Court has determined that, although no express provision to this effect exists, individuals are entitled to use the language of their choice in their dealings and communications with the government. The state is required to promote "the indigenous languages of our people." This is interpreted to include the nine official indigenous African languages, Afrikaans, Khoi, Nama and San. In the determination of language policies Municipal Councils are required to take the language usage and preferences of the inhabitants into account and in the national and provincial at least two official languages must be used. Essential facts regarding language usage, demographic distribution, etc. must be taken into consideration for the determination of a language policy to conform to the Constitution.

The book examines, from the perspective of feminist disability theories, the concepts and role of women in selected Spanish discourses and literary texts from the late fifteenth to seventeenth centuries. It explores a wide range of Spanish medical, regulatory and moral discourses in order to show how these inherit, reproduce and propagate an amalgam of Western traditional concepts of the female embodiment. The book also examines concrete representations of deviant female characters, with a focus in the figure of the syphilitic prostitute and the physically decayed aged women, in a variety of literary texts such Celestina, Lozana andaluza and selected works by Cervantes and Quevedo. The analysis of the personal testimony of Teresa de Avila, a nun suffering neurological disorders, complements the discussion of early modern women’s disability. By expanding the meanings of present materiality/social construction disability theories, the book concludes that femininity, bodily afflictions, and mental instability characterize the new literary heroes in paradoxical contrast with the Spanish apex of imperial power. The broken female bodies of pre-industrial Spanish literature reveal the cracks in the foundational principles of established masculine truths such as physical and moral integrity and religious and ethnic intolerance.

In the nineteenth century, the allure of the past of the Great Civilizations was soon to be contested by an alternative—that of the national past. This interest had already grown in the pre-Romantic era connected to an emerging ethnic or cultural nationalism (Chapter 2). However, its charm would not be as enticing to the lay European man and woman of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, who were much more under the influence of neoclassicism (Chapter 3). The Western European nations had no monuments comparable to the remains of Greece, Rome or Egypt. Before the Roman expansion into most of Western Europe in antiquity, there had been few significant buildings, apart from unspectacular prehistoric tombs and megalithic monuments whose significance was unrecognized by the modern scholar. Roman remains beyond Italy were not as impressive as those found to the south of the Alps. Because of this it seemed much more interesting to study the rich descriptions the ancient authors had left about the local peoples and institutions the Romans had created during their conquest. Throughout the eighteenth century the historical study of medieval buildings and antiquities had also increasingly been gaining appeal. In Britain their study instigated the early creation of associations such as the Society of Antiquaries of 1707, but even this early interest did not lead to medieval antiquities receiving attention in institutions such as the British Museum, where they would only receive a proper departmental status well into the nineteenth century (Smiles 2004: 176). In comparative terms, the national past and its relics were perceived by many to be of secondary rate when judged against the history and arts of the classical civilizations. During the French Revolution and its immediate aftermath, for example, the national past would not be as appreciated by as many people and antiquarians as that of the Great Civilizations (Jourdan 1996). This situation, however, started to change in the early nineteenth century. There were three key developments in this period, all inherited from Enlightenment beliefs, which were the foundation for archaeology as a source of national pride. The effects of these would be seen especially from the central decades of the century.

Abstract Chapter 11 is concerned with expert evidence, a topic traditionally conceptualized as an exceptional category of ‘opinion evidence’ and frequently marginalized in Evidence textbooks. Our approach emphasizes institutional context and epistemological foundations, and centrally features forensic science evidence—which is increasingly influential in modern criminal litigation (and sometimes associated with miscarriages of justice). The supposed dichotomy between ‘facts’ and ‘opinions’ is conceptually dubious but rarely significant in practice. It is more illuminating to think about expert evidence in terms of the epistemic warrant it supplies for criminal verdicts. Building on Ron Allen’s perceptive distinction between fact-finder ‘education’ and ‘deference’, a model of rational reliance on forensic expertise is proposed and tested against doctrinal precedents and principles. Expert witnesses must be competent and objective. However, these elementary qualifications are complicated in practice by the adversarial structure of criminal litigation. Traditional mechanisms of evidence-testing, including cross-examination, are not well-suited to exposing the deficiencies of expert evidence. If radical solutions, such as court-appointed experts, flatter to deceive, more modest procedural reform may increase institutional resilience, viewed in the broader context of criminal proceedings as a whole. Regulatory structures, codes of practice, professional ethics, and pre-trial safeguards might better enhance the quality of forensic science evidence than trial-centric measures. As a doctrinal matter, admissibility of expert evidence essentially boils down to competence (Davie), relevance and ‘helpfulness’ (Turner). Other evidentiary rules are either obsolete (ultimate issues) or fact-specific applications of the general Turner standard. More recently, there is (equivocal) doctrinal flirtation with a supplementary ‘reliability’ criterion, especially in relation to novel forensic science or new technological applications. Further insight is derived from comparative experiences, especially US Daubert jurisprudence and major reports (NRC, PCAST) criticizing the methodological underpinnings of forensic science. In England and Wales, legislative policies animating the Law Commission’s unimplemented Expert Evidence Bill have been partly incorporated into Part 19 of the Criminal Procedure Rules and Practice Directions.