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This meta-synthesis reviewed and synthesized the findings of 53 studies on supervisory postconferences and feedback with a total of 807 participants published between 2004-2023. The aim of this meta-synthesis was to illustrate the trends in the reviewed studies and synthesize the results of the studies on supervisory discourse and models of supervision in the field of English language teaching. The criteria for eligibility for selection were being empirical, peerreviewed, and published in English. Articles were scanned through the Web of Science, ERIC, SCOPUS, and Google Scholar till July, 2023. The studies lacking a report of detailed and clearcut data collection and analysis phases were removed in the appraisal phase to avoid a risk of bias. The results indicated that supervisors implemented directive supervisory styles as well as collaborative approaches exploiting power dynamics such as expert power. The findings also showed that the use of conversational techniques such as mediation, mitigators, and elicitation in supervisory talk play a central role in supervising English language teachers. The results suggested that supervised teachers demonstrated confronting, autonomous, and fluid identities when faced with a directive style of supervision. The limitations of evidence for this study related the search strategy, participants and variations in educational settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Are evaluation targets negotiable in China's cadre evaluation system? If so, which ones and how are they negotiated? Little empirical work answers these questions, which reveals the reconciliation of political control with local governance considerations in a centralized system. This article bridges the literature on bureaucratic bargaining with that on the target responsibility system by examining intra-governmental bargaining in the performance target-setting process. In-depth interviews reveal a "tournament" logic of target-setting bargaining. Drawing on interviews and an original dataset of personnel rules, we conceptualize and classify performance targets based on their negotiability. The findings bring to light the presence of bargaining, albeit bounded, in the top-down rational-instrumental mechanism of the target responsibility system, and the intricate relationship between merit and personal connections in political selection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of 'emotional communities' has been a fruitful category for understanding the collective action of grassroot organisations in Bogotá, Colombia. In our study group on the subject, we developed our own approach of the concept thanks to the input from many authors who have used it, as well as from our empirical findings in research. The aim of this essay is, first, to discuss emotional communities and explain the gaps we found in some of the foundational works on the concept; second, to analyse the ways that our empirical data offered insights that helped widen up the concept for our research. Finally, it concludes with an argument of how this approach could serve to enhance understanding of the collective situated knowledge that sustain people's actions of transformation within specific contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents results - theoretical summaries and empirical arguments from a study conducted in the period 2016-2018 aiming to make a snapshot of the processes of production and consumption of public services in Bulgaria. Authors are part of a team that has been implementing a research program for more than 20 years to study market and non-market failures their dynamics and interaction in the processes of market transformation in publicly funded services. The interaction and the relationship between them is a driving force in making a choice between market and non-market alternatives in their production and supply. Analyzes show that in recent years the scope of market and non-market failures inherent in publicly funded services has been growing thanks to the development of hybrid forms of organization of activities. The widespread use of mixed supply and financing mechanisms changes the role of public administration from a direct participant to a regulator of economic and social processes. When the state does not effectively perform this function the mixed forms of supply become a field for mutual penetration and superimposition of market and non-market failures that destroys the balance between the market and the state in this sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the history of epistemology of modality. Topics discussed include information on the modal conceivability of several arguments; discussions on the justification on the modal conceivability argument; and the information on the empirical argument on the existence of God.

The paper shows the transformation of the idea of the unity of love and war from the mythology to philosophical discourse. Based on a number of theoretical and empirical arguments, the author hypothesizes that the "polemical" (warlike) Eros's image as archer with arrows has its foundation in Middle Eastern (Sumerian-Acadian, Semitic) mythology, which saw not the opposition of love and war, and a close relationship of these phenomena in the image of Ishtar (Inanna, Astarte). It emphazises that the philosophical aspect of understanding this issue is associated with two phenomena -- power and gift. Accordingly, it is within the framework of the discourse of love that the "ravishing" takes place, the effect of which is explained by the fact that having subjugated the object of love, the subject himself obeys him. At the same time, in the context of the gift, there is an "agon", that is, a competition between those in love regarding the exchange of gifts and pleasures. It is shown that in today's Ukrainian realities this problem may also be relevant in the context of the current war in the East of the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spiritual experiences are profound moments of personal transcendence, connection, and wonder. Five studies (total N = 1064) investigate how spiritual experiences induce feelings of awe , in both religious and non-religious people, through a sense of small self. Recalling spiritual experiences increased feelings of Awe (Studies 1–5), Small Self (Studies 2, 4, & 5), and Spiritual Humility (Studies 3 & 4), but did not impact Intellectual Humility (Studies 3 & 4). We thus note a paradox – spirituality promotes humility toward the divine, but not humility about one's beliefs. Moreover, the effect of spiritual experiences on Awe was mediated by feelings of Small Self (Studies 2, 4 & 5) and Spirituality Humility (Studies 3 & 4). The effects of spiritual experiences on Awe and Small Self were found in both religious and non-religious individuals, but religious people recalled more explicit religious events and life and death events as sources of spirituality, whereas non-religious people were more likely to report experiences in nature, peak experiences, science, and yoga/ meditation as spiritual experiences. Though religious and non-religious people may generate different types of spiritual experiences, we conclude that spirituality induces awe through the feelings of small self that are shared by religious and non-religious individuals, and this may help us to understand the meaning of spirituality without religion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate model projections are used to inform policy decisions and constitute a major focus of climate research. Confidence in climate projections relies on the adequacy of climate models for those projections. The question of how to argue for the adequacy of models for climate projections has not gotten sufficient attention in the climate modeling community. The most common way to evaluate a climate model is to assess in a quantitative way degrees of 'model fit'; that is, how well model results fit observation-based data (empirical accuracy) and agree with other models or model versions (robustness). However, such assessments are largely silent about what those degrees of fit imply for a model's adequacy for projecting future climate. We provide a conceptual framework for discussing the evaluation of the adequacy of models for climate projections. Drawing on literature from philosophy of science and climate science, we discuss the potential and limits of inferences from model fit. We suggest that support of a model by background knowledge is an additional consideration that can be appealed to in arguments for a model's adequacy for long-term projections, and that this should explicitly be spelled out. Empirical accuracy, robustness and support by background knowledge neither individually nor collectively constitute sufficient conditions in a strict sense for a model's adequacy for long-term projections. However, they provide reasons that can be strengthened by additional information and thus contribute to a complex non-deductive argument for the adequacy of a climate model or a family of models for long-term climate projections. WIREs Clim Change 2017, 8:e454. doi: 10.1002/wcc.454 For further resources related to this article, please visit the . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the current debate on the world city network and inter-city connectivity, a large number of cities, particularly in developing countries, have received limited attention. Despite a growing interest in emerging market cities, many scholars still focus on the more affluent parts of the global economy. In an attempt to redress this imbalance, I present an assessment for use on cities that are not at the centre of the network; but what we consider 'end nodes'. I build my argument on Taylor's interlocking model for assessing city connectivity and zoom in on the types of networks that non-hub cities create through their inter-linkages with so-called peer cities in the same economic sector. I take these ego networks as a starting point and then lead the argument on to view city networks from a non-hub perspective. This allows me to identify the existing linkages between different peer cities within as well as between selected city networks. The renewable energy business in India puts this argument to an empirical test. My findings confirm that this way of looking at city connectivity allows one to assess specifically for city end nodes and thereby contribute to a more nuanced understanding of the world city network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Skeptical worries about moral responsibility seem to be widely appreciated and deeply felt. To address these worries-if nothing else to show that they are mistaken-theories of moral responsibility need to relate to whatever concept of responsibility underlies the worries. Unfortunately, the nature of that concept has proved hard to pin down. Not only do philosophers have conflicting intuitions; numerous recent empirical studies have suggested that both prosaic responsibility judgments and incompatibilist intuitions among the folk are influenced by a number of surprising factors, sometimes prompting apparently contradictory judgments. In this paper, we show how an independently motivated hypothesis about responsibility judgments provides a unified explanation of the more important results from these studies. According to this 'Explanation Hypothesis', to take an agent to be morally responsible for an event is to take a relevant motivational structure of the agent to be part of a significant explanation of the event. We argue that because of how explanatory interests and perspectives affect what we take as significant explanations, this analysis accounts for the puzzling variety of empirical results. If this is correct, the Explanation Hypothesis also provides a new way of understanding debates about moral responsibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this research is to show how Petrovici tried to prove the existence of God in his philosophy. In his philosophical thinking the idea of God can be proven through the reason in an aposteriori way, because he is convinced that the old cosmological argument did not lose its role and if it modified in part becomes a conclusive efficacy for the existence of God. God's existence can be proved also, according to Petrovici, starting from the hierarchical aspect of nature, because nature is presented in degrees of evolution that culminates with the human who imagines degrees beyond you rising up the idea of a perfect existence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From a physical point of view, the no-boundary Hartle-Hawking model put forward in 1983 was an attempt to demonstrate that the incorporation of quantum effects into the general theory of relativity would solve the problem of singularities that make the theory of relativity incomplete. This was achieved by imposing the so called "no-boundary conditions" whereby the Universe could emerge with non-zero probability from a non-existing state. Stephen Hawking quickly turned this result into a metaphysical claim that physical laws explained away the necessity of the Divine intervention at the origin of the Universe. This paper offers an inquiry into the line of arguments presented by Hawking and Mlodinow in their book The Grand Design and supported with the claim that the yet unknown version of the superstring theory, the M-theory, is an ultimate theory of the Universe. The upshot of the paper is that although the argument in the Grand Design relies on the newer achievements of physics embedded in the controversial multi-verse setting, it does not escape the question of the origin of the most general laws of physics that bring the Universe into existe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alvin Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism aims to show that the conjunction of contemporary evolutionary theory (E) with the claim that there is no God (N) cannot be rationally accepted. Where R is the claim that our cognitive faculties are reliable, the argument is: Plantinga () defends the second premise. It examines and rejects several candidate defeater defeaters and defeater deflectors. One candidate is Millikan's teleosemantics. I show that Plantinga's motives for rejecting teleosemantics as a defeater deflector are inadequate. I then show that teleosemantics is not on its own an adequate defeater deflector. Then I offer an additional premise that constitutes a defeater deflector in conjunction with teleosemantics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Implicit Religion can be used as a hermeneutical tool for interpreting reality (IR-as-tool), or it can aim to describe, explain and predict aspects of the social world (IR-as-theory). The second approach demands theformulation ofa theory, including a definitional core and related assumptions. IR-as-theory can be evaluated through methodical empirical investigation. In this article, a foundation for empirical research on IR is outlined. A post-empiricist, constructivist epistemological backgroundfor doing research on IR is suggested. The needfor explication and definition is argued, as is the necessity of anchoring IR in nomological frameworks by determining convergence with and divergencefrom related concepts. The process ofoperationalization is described, taking into account different levels (content, structure,function) and units (individual, organizational, institutional, social) of analysis. Finally, the requirement of testability is addressed. Th determine a theory's viability, theoretical claims have to be translated into empirically falsifiable hypotheses. Falsification can indicate biased or erroneous assumptions, whereas accumulation ofsupportfor theoretically deduced hypoth- eses corroborates the viability of the theory. In conclusion, it is proposed that, although initially reducing the complexity of IR, empirical research will enhance the understanding of Implicit Religion, raise valuable new questions, inspire further exploration and suggest constructive applications of the theory of IR [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the use of arguments from ignorance, negation and empirical propositions in finding proof of the existence of God. The author shows that the known arguments in favor of the existence of God and the variation between positive and negative empirical existential proofs support the atheist argument of God's non-existence. While existential statements can be used in proving God, the failure to discover physical evidence of its existence can not be used as a counter-argument.

Jaegwon Kim's causal exclusion argument has rarely been evaluated from an empirical perspective. This is puzzling because its conclusion seems to be making a testable claim about the world: supervenient properties are causally inefficacious. An empirical perspective, however, reveals Kim's argument to rest on a mistaken conception about how to test whether a property is causally efficacious. Moreover, the empirical perspective makes visible a metaphysical bias that Kim brings to his argument that involves a principle of non-inclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When we see an object, we also represent those parts of it that are not visible. The question is how we represent them: this is the problem of amodal perception. I will consider three possible accounts: (a) we see them, (b) we have non-perceptual beliefs about them and (c) we have immediate perceptual access to them, and point out that all of these views face both empirical and conceptual objections. I suggest and defend a fourth account, according to which we represent the occluded parts of perceived objects by means of mental imagery. This conclusion could be thought of as a (weak) version of the Strawsonian dictum, according to which “imagination is a necessary ingredient of perception itself”. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One prevalent type of slippery slope argument has the following form: (1) by doing some initial act now, we will bring it about that we subsequently do some more extreme version of this act, and (2) we should not bring it about that we do this further act, therefore (3) we should not do the initial act. Such arguments are frequently regarded as mistaken, often on the grounds that they rely on speculative or insufficiently strong empirical premises. In this article I point out another location at which these arguments may go wrong: I argue that, in their standard form, the truth of their empirical premises constitutes evidence for the falsity of their normative premises. If we will, as predicted, do the further act in the future, this gives us at least a prima facie reason to believe that the performance of this further act would be good, and thus something we should try to bring about. I end by briefly assessing the dialectic implications of my argument. I delineate a subset of slippery slope arguments against which my objection may be decisive, consider how the proponents of such arguments may evade my objection by adding further premises, and examine the likely plausibility of these additional premises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses J. L. Schellenberg's argument from Divine Hiddenness against God's existence. It explores the primary debate from hiddenness and the main debate on the personal relationship to defend the premise. It also provides the idea on two responses to the Divine Hiddenness Problem such as rejecting the thesis of faith in having a loving personal relationship. It also cites a scenario involving Bob who has a chat-room bond with Julie.

The article focuses on discussions related to the contemporary meta-ethics. It examines several arguments on the nature and concepts of meta- ethics. It stresses that empirical data must be combined with explicit normative theories to support for specific meta-ethical positions. It further emphasizes that normative ethics is more significant to make an empirical contribution to the meta-ethical argument from disagreement.

After I 50 years of archaeological skepticism toward Stukeley's nineteenth-century claim for a Beckhampton avenue in the Avebury monuments, Gillings et al. (2008) have finally confirmed that it did in fact exist. However, contra Stukeley, they only allow its existence up to the site of the "Longstones Cove," and dispute its continuation further to the southwest to Fox Covert, as claimed by Stukeley. This article attempts to demonstrate that by documentary method, field survey, geophysics, site excavation, and the method of critical experiment, this interpretation fails the normal standards of the logic of empirical proof. This failure to sustain their case leaves Stukeley's claim for the Beckhampton avenue continuing to Fox Covert standing and open to further investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Arguments for multiple realization depend on the idea that the same kind of function is realized by different kinds of structures. It is important to such arguments that we know the kinds used in the arguments have been individuated properly. In the philosophical literature, though, claims about how to individuate kinds are frequently decided on intuitive grounds. This paper criticizes this way of approaching kinds by considering how practicing researchers think about the matter. I will consider several examples in which the practice of researchers on comparative vision conflicts with the standard account of these issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although students of all levels of education face serious difficulties with proof, there is limited research knowledge about how instruction can help students overcome these difficulties. In this article, we discuss the theoretical foundation and implementation of an instructional sequence that aimed to help students begin to realize the limitations of empirical arguments as methods for validating mathematical generalizations and see an intellectual need to learn about secure methods for validation (i.e., proofs). The development of the instructional sequence was part of a 4-year design experiment that we conducted in an undergraduate mathematics course, prerequisite for admission to an elementary (Grades K-6) teaching certification program. We focus on the implementation of the instructional sequence in the last of 5 research cycles of our design experiment to exemplify our theoretical framework (in which cognitive conflict played a major role) and to discuss the promise of the sequence to support the intended learning goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this theoretical paper, I present a short critical review of research on calibration. Based on this conceptual analysis I argue for two extensions of this construct: In addition to traditional applications, the methodology should be transferred to also measure calibration between students’ metacognitive control processes (traditionally, only students’ metacognitive judgments were considered) and important external criteria (traditionally, judgments were only compared to students’ own performance). As an illustrative example, one application context will be highlighted where these proposed extensions would alleviate potential problems with the traditional conceptualization: While students’ idiosyncratic task definitions constitute unwanted error variance in the traditional account it would be possible to investigate them as a primary research question within this extended notion. More specifically, it would be possible to investigate how well students’ learning processes match objective task demands. I will put forward theoretical and empirical arguments in favor of these suggestions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: We develop a new multiclass classification method that reduces the multiclass problem to a single binary classifier (SBC). Our method constructs the binary problem by embedding smaller binary problems into a single space. A good embedding will allow for large margin classification. We show that the construction of such an embedding can be reduced to the task of learning linear combinations of kernels. We provide a bound on the generalization error of the multiclass classifier obtained with our construction and outline the conditions for its consistency. Our empirical examination of the new method indicates that it outperforms one-vs.-all, all-pairs and the error-correcting output coding scheme at least when the number of classes is small. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In this article, we examine participants' talk about qualitative research. We provide empirical support for poststructural theorizations of the interview and propose three distinct but related dimensions of qualitative research: emotional, purposive/relational, and epistemic/ontological. In this study, participants often became upset but constructed participation as enjoyable and cathartic. The purpose of participation was to assist the communities to which one belonged. Participation was an active, reflexive practice that reconstructed the self and changed knowledge about one's self. This latter epistemic/ontological dimension of participation appeared to be the most compelling for participants, but it is also the hardest to observe, with implications for how we consider the costs and benefits of participation. We suggest two practical measures for researchers and institutional review boards to consider in light of our findings: routinely asking questions about the research experience in qualitative studies and reformulating patient information statements to particularize them to qualitative research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the passage 2:24 of the book "The Guide of the Perplexed," by Moses Maimonides, based on the assumptions the author made in his article "The 'True Perplexity': The Guide of the Perplexed, Part II, Chapter 24," which was published in "Perspectives on Maimonides. Philosophical and Historical Studies," edited by Joel L. Kraemer. The author also cites Shlomo Pines' study of the passage in his article "The Limitations of Human Knowledge" to argue that Maimonides believed that God's proof may be revealed prophetically or arrived at by someone else, even without the aid of revelation.

The article presents the author's and Zev Harvey's interpretation of Samuel Ibn Tibbon's reading of the book "The Guide of the Perplexed," by Moses Maimonides. The author supports Professor Joel Kraemer's position that Maimonides did not consider Aristotle's physical proof of God a demonstrative proof according to the conditions set by Aristotle in the "Posterior Analytics." The author, however, do not believe that it is likely that the emended Hebrew version of the book made by Ibn Tibbon reflects a correct Arabic text that is lost.

Against recent claims that infants begin with a sense of themselves as distinct selves, I propose that the infant's initial sense of self is still indeterminate and ambiguous, and is only progressively consolidated, beginning with embodied perceptions of others. Drawing upon Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology of perception and Hegel's notion of mutual recognition, and with reference to empirical studies in developmental psychology, I argue that perceiving other persons is significantly different from perceiving inanimate things. Until sufficient motor capacities have developed for exploring and perceptually disambiguating inanimate things, it is only in perceiving others who recognize her that the infant is able to realize herself as a self As the physiological and behavioural evidence suggests, whereas inanimate things initially captivate and dispossess the young infant, other people return her to herself This paper lends support to the ideas that humans are ontologically social beings, and that selfhood is socially conditioned rather than given with consciousness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even though Hegel rejects Kant's criticism of the classical proofs for God's existence, he is far from joining the followers of St. Anselm. "What is needed, he suggests, is the rational account of the transition from the final notion to the infinite Being. The Lectures in its central treatment of the Cosmological proof present us with an explanation in rational terms of the fact of religion, i.e., the elevation of the finite spirit to infinite God, rather than with a proof in a narrow logical sense. Hegel is not so much asking the question 'Does God exist?' but rather 'How is the elevation of the finite spirit to God possible?' The Hegelian 'proof,' I argue, consists in a demonstration of the necessity of movement from finiteness to infinity, that is, the demonstration of the necessity of religion itself. Religious faith in this context is not juxtaposed to reason, but appears as a mode of imperfect knowledge, which is superseded by the further development of the rational concept. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper offers a comparative study of the syntactic structure of nominal constituents in French Lexifier Creoles (FLC). In spite of the superficial variability observed in the distribution of FLC determiners, the paper argues that FLC have a common functional architecture and presents both conceptual and empirical arguments in support of this view. Variability, the paper proposes, is the result of extensive phrasal movement inside this common architecture that is triggered by the functional heads of FLC. Whether a given FLC determiner is a functional head or not is taken to reflect grammaticalization processes modeled in the Minimalist framework. This novel approach to grammaticalization and particularly to ‘semantic bleaching’ is shown to have a structuring effect that accounts for the ordering differences manifest across FLC determiners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author argues that the use of Bayesian concepts in philosophy relative to the existence of god, the hypothesis of multiple physical universes and the doomsday argument is wrong. The author states that one's existence cannot serve as evidence since the knowledge of one's existence is a necessary part of the background knowledge where epistemic probabilities are defined. A discussion on the Cartesian knowledge and the strong problem of old evidence is presented. The relationship between logical probability and Cartesian knowledge is presented.

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Positive psychologists aspire to study the moral virtues, as well as positive emotions, while retaining scientific objectivity. Within this framework, Martin Seligman, a founder of positive psychology, offers an empirically-based argument for an ancient and venerable theme: happiness can be increased by exercising the virtues. Seligman's project is promising, but it needs to pay greater attention to several methodological matters: (1) greater care in defining happiness, so as to avoid smuggling in value assumptions of the sort suggested by the title of his book, Authentic Happiness; (2) more attention to the gap between happiness as overall satisfaction and specific gratifications (enjoyments); (3) the danger of sliding to subjectivism by equating self-assessments of virtue with objectively-justified values of the sort Aristotle had in mind; (4) awareness of how “positive” emotions and attitudes presuppose value assumptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article profiles Fyodor Dostoevsky and examines his quasi-mathematical proofs on mathematical analysis. Dostoevsky graduated from the Petersburg Army Engineering College. His work focuses on Truth and Christ and on the concept of infinity as a substantiation of the existence of God. Although the author agrees on the axiomatic precision of Dostoevsky's reasoning, he believes that Dostoevsky is an artist and his final proof is the supremely convincing demonstration of his probity in the word.

The aim of this paper is to explore the conditions under which generalisation from single case studies, in the sense of making inferences concerning a wider class of phenomena beyond a case, is reasonable. Two sets of conditions, in particular, provide the basis for our consideration of this issue. The first is an exploration of the impressive amount of empirical knowledge that is contained within the theories that are used to make observations, to classify phenomena, and to understand and interpret cases. The second is recognition of the role of a pattern of inference known as abduction, or inference to the best explanation, in drawing conclusions from case studies. It is argued that these two conditions, when applied to the procedures for conducting case studies, can be used to defend, as reasonable, the making of certain provisional generalisations from single cases. An epistemological procedure for testing and further justifying these generalisations, with a particular emphasis on dealing with the problem of confirmation bias, is then discussed and recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that Mises's methodological position has been misunderstood by both friends and foes alike. On the one hand, Mises's critics wrongly characterize his position as rejecting empirical work. On the other hand, his defenders wrongly interpret his stance as rejecting empirical analyses on the grounds that they contradict apriorism and push economics towards historicism. We show that Mises's methodological position occupies a unique place that is at once both wholly aprioristic and radically empirical. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper defends reductionism about testimonial justification of beliefs against two influential arguments. One is the empirical argument to the effect that the reductionist justification of our trust in testimony is either circular since it relies on testimonial evidence or else there is scarce evidence in support of our trust in testimony. The other is the transcendental argument to the effect that trust in testimony is a prerequisite for the very existence of testimonial evidence since without the presumption of people's truthfulness we cannot interpret their utterances as testimony with propositional contents. This paper contends that the epistemic subject can interpret utterances as testimony with propositional contents without presupposing the credibility of testimony, and that evidence available to the normal epistemic subject can justify her trust in testimony. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the possibility of conceiving "The Absolute" in the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas. The author points out that Levinas cannot tolerate the notion of religious experience understood as a direct experience of God given to consciousness in a present moment. The author stresses that Levinas links the idea of Rene Descartes with the account of the unity of apperception of Immanuel Kant to venture to the realm of the religious experience.

The pervasive effect of armed conflicts on affected societies has kept scholars busy around the world. Since the end of the Cold War in particular, the number of explanatory efforts attributing armed conflict not only to the bipolar confrontation among the world's super powers but to complex internal and external political, economic, and social dynamics of conflict-ridden countries has increased. In Colombia, decades of armed conflict have nurtured a prolific academic production. This article identifies some of the main lines of research on the topic of armed conflicts and peace studies. It suggests that with the passage of time, the literature has gained in complexity diversity and sophistication, displaying a notorious capacity to adapt and transform in the face of new conceptual and empirical challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although most if not all human activities may be matters of passionate pursuit, it is less clear that emotions and feelings are inherently implicated in such pursuit: on the contrary, chemistry, cookery, sculpture or football might be effectively pursued without any significant or substantial emotional involvement. On the other hand, it seems less easy to see how religious experience or even religious understanding might be an entirely dispassionate or emotionally disengaged affair. That said, it is far from easy to identify the role of emotion and feeling in religious faith or understanding on some familiar conceptions of religious knowledge and discourse. This paper sets out to explore the place of feeling and emotion in religious experience and understanding via specific attention to the basically narratival form of religious discourse and its connections to wider forms of literary expression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the importance of the relationship between experience and truth for evangelicals. Elements in the definition of learning as the experience of God; Reliability of the Bible as source of divine truth; Significance of the seminary in the area of theological education.

The article discusses professor emeritus William P. Alston's epistemology of religious experience. Alston describes epistemology as the genuine awareness of God, with mystics having a more implicit attestation to it than other mortals. Information is provided on Alston's parallelism between sense experience and mystical experience, his characteristics for experiencing God, and non-sensory perception of God. It also discusses Alston's thoughts regarding God's existence as an objective reality.

This paper focuses on the validity of two different faces of atheism: The atheological interpretation of the God concept, and the claim of "believe as you see". Two faces relates not only to ancient thoughts but also to the religious beliefs and modern scientific data. However, the claim of "believe as you see" is an essential part of the God concept. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the need for an empirical evidence to support the religious belief of the existence of God. Differences between belief in the existence of God and belief in an external world; Details of the local skepticism about religious beliefs; Epistemic justification of religious belief.

Living with a spinal cord injury (SCI) is often a transformative spiritual experience. In this paper, the life story of Dewey, a man with incomplete tetraplegia, is examined with reference to the role religion and spirituality played in helping him adapt to SCI. For Dewey, a working-class husband and father, religion was not a salient feature of his pre-injury life. Only after a prolonged period of pain, depression, and isolation following SCI did Dewey experience a religious and spiritual awakening. Implications for generating a theory about religiousness and spirituality in the lives of persons with a disability are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Focuses on the propositions on the nonexistence of a deceiving God depicted in the book `Meditations,' by Rene Descartes. Use of analytical methods in presenting Cartesian thoughts; Postulation on existential certainty of truths and deceptions; Perceptions on the existence of God.