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In recent decades, the religious landscape in Europe, including Finland, has witnessed increasing secularisation and pluralisation. In this article, we investigate the diversity of worldviews among Finnish upper secondary school students from a person-centred perspective. By conducting latent class analysis on the survey responses of 973 students, we distinguish five different worldview profiles: the Culturally Moderate are characterised by average scores on all worldview-related items. The Secularly Active distance themselves from clearly religious or spiritual items, yet they are very engaged in existential and ethical reflections. The Communally Passive show limited interest in spiritual or value-based activities, while the Existentially Indifferent tend to have minimal engagement with worldview-related issues. The Religiously Active are the smallest class in the data and the only ones to show marked involvement in distinctly religious concerns. Personal ethics and meaning are important across the classes and are also relatively important in classes otherwise uninterested in worldview-related issues. Finally, the article concludes with a discussion of the educational implications of the findings for Religious Education and Ethics instruction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a growing field of research dedicated to online incel communities, gathering men identifying as involuntary celibates or ‘incels’. A distinctive aspect of the incelosphere is the elaborate ‘theoretical framework’ communicated in the forums, portraying incel men as voiceless losers at a (hetero)sexual market ruled by women and biologically superior men. While the content of this incel worldview is relatively well-studied, a notable gap exists in the examination of the way knowledge production taking place within these communities is epistemologically legitimized. This article aims to fill this void by scrutinizing the epistemic logics and practices used by members at incel forums to validate their knowledge production on gender relations. By shedding light on how incels mobilize science as well as counter-hegemonic forms of knowledge production to legitimize their knowledge claims, the article offers a nuanced understanding of the intricate relation between the knowledge production of movements and counter-movements. This exploration can, we believe, form a basis for challenging and contesting claims made by incels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the phenomenon of xenophobia in Africa. The manifestation of xenophobia was explored within the tenets of the terror management theory which links existential concerns to the development of worldviews that help to make sense of life vagaries. We put forward that colonialism impacted the African worldview of collectivism and human connectedness and contributed to a worldview of the world as a dangerous place. The authors largely situate xenophobic attitudes of Africans toward Africans within the colonial experience which promoted ethnic discord and influenced the perception and receptivity toward strangers. The value of collectivism in pre-colonial and post-colonial African societies was compared to demonstrate the impact of colonialism. Furthermore, a synopsis of ethnic politics as a legacy of colonialism in Nigeria was provided. The authors conclude by emphasizing the importance of giving recognition to ethnic identity as one approach to managing xenophobic attitudes toward co-nationals in African countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nearly all theoretical approaches and therapies to criminal thinking and behavior have been reductionist, meaning that they focus on a part or a subsystem of a system or a supra-system. While these reductionist theories and therapies have provided, and continue to provide, valuable information and rehabilitation, they offer a limited view of criminality and rehabilitation as a consequence of reductionism. Using general systems theory (GST), this article presents an integrated and interdisciplinary theoretical approach to criminal thinking and behavior. This article posits that criminality can be better understood, prevented, and treated using GST. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Every philosophy has a geo-socio-cultural locus. The pragmatic theory of truth is a historically recent contribution to philosophic endeavor from the New World. Although the nuancing can be traced to the Academic Skeptics in Ancient Greece, it is substantially the articulation of American perception of a world view into a philosophy. This paper could not have been done if the claim remained that of an articulation or even encapsulation of a regional world view. The declaration that the world of philosophy is being proffered a theory of truth in the pragmatic theory of truth supplied the raw material for this work. This paper tried to x-ray the principles and character of any truth-claims. The pragmatic theory does not meet-up with subsisting characteristic in truth-claims. It cashes in on the workable, useful, 'successful' and whatever has instrumental or cash-value; that is, that which produces results. Although these elements of the theory can be integrated into a properly developed theory of truth; in the case of the pragmatic theory of truth, this was not done. There were dislocations in the theory which cannot be reconciled to any serious attempt at developing a theory of truth. Due to the glaring deficiencies in the theory, it becomes imperative to note that the thesis in the whole project cannot be sustained. The methodological approaches to the study are the critical, historical, phenomenological and expository methods. The goal was to illuminate the theory through these methods for better appreciation and execution of the task of the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to advance understanding of foreign nation oracles in the hb/ot by analyzing how many such oracles focus, more precisely, on subgroups within the polities named and direct their critique against that group’s articulation and enactment of imperialistic or nationalistic ideologies. The article first draws upon sociology and critical discourse analysis to sketch a theoretical perspective in which to analyze such oracles, then heuristically explores nation oracles in several prophetic books to illuminate the significance of their double focus on subgroups associated with ideologies which, as discourses of power, definitively validate and vindicate their proponents over against the Other. The article concludes with reflections on the value of ideologically-sensitive interpretation of prophetic oracles concerning foreign groups in light of this phenomenon’s overlap with sociology, imperialism, ideological critique, and justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper clarifies some prominent aspects of Rudolf Eucken’s Philosophy of Life that, despite its vast influence in the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries, is nowadays mostly forgotten. More specifically, I will reconstruct Eucken’s philosophical diagnosis of the spiritual crisis affecting European and Western civilization in relation to the concepts of culture, history, and worldview. First, I will offer an analysis of the spiritual crisis in its two core aspects: as a crisis of culture and as a crisis of the historical present stemming from the unprecedented polarization of vying worldviews. Second, I will identify the defining traits of Eucken’s original and systematic concept of Weltanschauung through a detailed comparison with Ernst Haeckel’s naturalistic worldview, an early version of scientific reductionism. Third, I will show how the problem of clashing worldviews both configures and responds to the present crisis and how such a problem hinges on a latent process of falsification of life. In doing so, I will shed light on Eucken’s belonging to Lebensphilosophie by elucidating the relation between philosophy and life as well as the task of philosophy vis-à-vis the present crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Misinformation campaigns target wind farms, but levels of agreement with this misinformation among the broader public are unclear. Across six nationally quota-based samples in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia (total N = 6008), over a quarter of respondents agree with half or more of contrarian claims about wind farms. Agreement with diverse claims is highly correlated, suggesting an underlying belief system directed at wind farm rejection. Consistent with this, agreement is best predicted (positively) by a conspiracist worldview (i.e., the general tendency to believe in conspiracy theories; explained variance ΔR² = 0.11–0.20) and (negatively) by a pro-ecological worldview (ΔR² = 0.04–0.13). Exploratory analyses show that agreement with contrarian claims is associated with lower support for pro-wind policies and greater intentions to protest against wind farms. We conclude that wind farm contrarianism is a mainstream phenomenon, rooted in people's worldviews and that poses a challenge for communicators and institutions committed to accelerating the energy transition. Six surveys show substantial public agreement with misinformation about wind farms. Agreement with diverse contrarian claims is best predicted by participants' worldviews, most notably the tendency to believe conspiracy theories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the dialogues of J. Ratzinger-Benedict XVI with three prominent atheists: Paolo Flores d'Arcais (2000), Jürgen Habermas (2004) and Piergiorgio Odifreddi (2013- 2021). Benedict XVI is convinced that confrontation with secular reason is a requirement of faith, which benefits from such dialogue. At the same time, it denounces the pathologies of reason and invites it to be self-critical. J. Ratzinger surprises by choosing with precision the questions with which he intends to get to the very heart of the world views that he seeks to criticize and demonstrates, at the same time, the reasonable nature of the believing option. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes the presence of a subliminal thesis—with conspiratorial and apocalyptic content—in the discourse of the Seventh-day Adventist tradition based on a documentary analysis of Adventist publications from the 1900s to the 1990s. The history of the development of this thesis is classified into three periods: (1) Proto-Adventist Subliminal Thesis, from 1900s to 1940s, with a discourse of anti-spiritualist emphasis; (2) Adventist Subliminal Thesis' First Wave, from 1950s to 1960s, with a discourse of anti-media emphasis in the context of James Vicary's experiments in the 1950s; and (3) Adventist Subliminal Thesis' Second Wave, from 1970s to 1990s, with a discourse of conspiratorial emphasis in the context of the satanic panic of the 1980s and 1990s. The Adventist subliminal thesis is configured in a way of thinking that considers (1) the human being as a "mass-man" and culture as "mass culture"; (2) the media as having the power of manipulation and mental control; (3) adherence to moral panic phenomena as reactions to media threats to traditional values; and (4) the cosmic narrative of the Great Controversy as a worldview for understanding media messages and products as part of a satanic conspiracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Restoration and redemption of the soul are, in biblical terms, essentially life-bringing acts. Yet even the present reality is so frequently a spirit deeply in need of renewal and new life. Memories contribute greatly to this felt need: as the psychological building blocks of an individual's sense of self, their joy and their pain reverberate through the self, reaching deeply to shape identity and worldview. What is needed is not only the redemption of our souls but the redemption of our memories as well. Such an inner transformation would indeed prove both a restoration and a transformation, an experience now of the future kingdom in which God will reconcile all things to himself (Colossians 1:20). This article explores how the New Testament text provides a psychologically and neurologically coherent model to leverage memory formation and reconsolidation toward restoration and renewal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indigenous knowledge is generally recognised as an inferior social experience in spaces of knowledge production. The educational issue that results from this process imposes barriers to the integration of these epistemologies in the school environment. This study presents a systematic review about the integration of indigenous knowledge in primary schools in developing and/or emerging countries and the results of these interventions. Through a search carried out in the electronic database b-on, from the Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences of the University of Porto in Portugal, 14 studies were selected. This review identified factors that influence the representation of the indigenous culture in the school environment, allowing the construction of a framework in which indigenous knowledge is often neglected in the formal education system with obstacles to its introduction into the school environment. It also revealed that the understanding of the local context is essential in proposing interventions to open a possible intercultural dialogue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The running thread of the present article is the perceived union and harmony between faith and reason in the worldview of Ghiyāth al-Dīn Manṣūr Dashtakī (d. 1542), arguably the most significant – but little-known to modern scholarship – Shiʿi intellectual and polymath of the late medieval era. The study sets to do three things: first, to introduce to introduce new data and material for the study of early Safavid intellectual history, focusing on the figure of Ghiyāth al-Dīn Manṣūr Dashtakī (d. 1542), his life, writings, and legacy; second, to set out the contours of Dashtakī's major accomplishments in philosophy, namely in metaphysics; and third, to call for a revised reading of the Safavid intellectual and cultural renaissance, showing that there was precedent in the example of the Shiraz Circle and particularly in Dashtakī, who, along with his contemporaries, led an important scholarly revival in religion and philosophy well over a century before the rise of the Isfahan school in the early decades of the eleventh/seventeenth century. The article will be concerned primarily with Dashtakī the son who lived under the dispensation of the Safavid rulers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Clinical pharmacology is often the nexus in any cross‐disciplinary team that is seeking solutions for human healthcare issues. The use and application of real‐world data and artificial intelligence to better understand our ecosystem has influenced our view at the world and how we do things. This has resulted in remarkable advancements in the healthcare space and development of personalized medicines with great attributes from the application of models and simulations, contributing to a more efficient healthcare development process. A cross‐disciplinary symposium was held in December 2023, whereby experts from different scientific disciplines engaged in a high‐level discussion on the opportunities and challenges of mathematical models in different fields, possible future developments and decision making. A strong interlink amongst the disciplines represented was apparent, with clinical pharmacology identified as the one which integrates various scientific disciplines. Deliberate and strategic cross‐disciplinary dialogues are required to break out of the silos and implement integration for efficiency and cost‐effectiveness of novel interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the author draws attention to "Daoist" themes in Morrissey's art and personality. The link between Morrissey and Daoism can be established via Oscar Wilde, whose relationship with Zhuangzi's philosophy has been much commented upon. Morrissey's worldview and art have been shaped by Wilde, whose Complete Works Morrissey received from his librarian mother at the age of eight. The self-estranging irony, the incorrect behavior, as well as the conviction that aesthetics is more important than ethics, are emblematic of Zhuangzi, Wilde, and Morrissey. Linking themes of East Asian philosophies to Morrissey's art is historically justified. There is an affinity between Daoism/ Buddhism and the subcultural context from which Morrissey emerges. Morrissey becomes the Oscar Wilde of post-punk. Morrissey rejects all taints of rock'n'roll machismo and plays up to social awkwardness of the misfits and the outsider. The article also deals with the following themes : strength arising from weakness, uselessness, aimless wandering, language skepticism, identity, authenticity, handicap, camp, and finally, the aesthetics of awkwardness. Awkwardness transcends mere clumsiness (which is no aesthetic quality at all) and becomes potentially attractive. Morrissey's wuwei strategy of non-pretentious acting creates an aesthetics of awkwardness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With resources stretched thin and the growing risk of compassion fatigue, faith beliefs can offer enriching perspectives for nurses. Covenantal care is a nursing approach rooted in theological insights about humanity’s inherent purpose to engage in relationship with God and actively participate in acts of love and justice. Based upon interpretations of JudeoChristian teachings of imago Dei and God’s covenant with humankind, this approach provides guidance for the nurse to care for self, patients, and the wider community. This exploration of theology-in-practice provides an orientating ethos for nurses that reflects the loving, restorative, and dignified care that is at the heart of the Christian faith. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper focuses on current research that has suggested that Africa is experiencing a moral decline, which has been a fact for several years. The cultural sense of African societies has also been called into doubt in the twentieth century, with many others dismissing its existence and relevance. While society is currently disregarding cultural underpinnings and challenging morality as a reality across groups, relativism is the perspective that morality and knowledge are culturally driven. Similarly, African philosophical ideas such as ubuntu, batho-pele, communalism, and so on, which serve as the cornerstone of African worldviews, have been firmly undermined and ignored by society. The article adopts a qualitative research method, using accredited books, journals, and government publications to achieve the purpose of the study. The study's findings imply that if relativism is abandoned and African philosophy concepts are no longer relevant in society, society will perish. As a result, in the discussion, the study claims that contemporary African society is unrelated to the foundations of relativism and African philosophy, which is not the case. It concludes that to keep relativism relevant in contemporary Africa, there should be a focus on historical relativism as a tool for unity and reconciliation to address potential conflicts and restore harmony among nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of AugenBlick is the property of Schueren Verlag GmbH and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The Cumberland Sound beluga whale (Delphinapterus leucas) population inhabits Cumberland Sound on the southeast side of Baffin Island, Nunavut. The population is listed as threatened under the Species at Risk Act. The last abundance estimate from an aerial survey was estimated at 1,381 (95% CI: 1,270-1,502) beluga whales in 2017 for an area covering 12,485 km². Since then, satellite imagery has been used as a remotely based non-invasive method to monitor these whales. Very High Resolution (VHR) satellite imagery covering 9,690 km² of water was collected from Cumberland Sound from August 30 to September 7, 2021, during the ice free season. Readers with previous imagery analysis experience analyzed the images and identified 704 certain detections. Abundance estimates were corrected for availability bias for whales that were too deep to be detected in the imagery (>2m). We present a total estimate of 1,690 (CV = 0.16; 95% CI: 1,241-2,301) beluga whales in Cumberland Sound (22,663 km²). This estimate covers a larger area and estimates a higher abundance than the 2017 aerial survey. Regular population abundance assessments are essential for understanding population dynamics and trends and we have shown here that satellite imagery is a comparable method to aerial surveys for estimating abundance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organ donation is an ambivalent prosocial behavior. It triggers altruistic values and reminds people of death related thoughts at the same time. Due to the characteristics of organ donation, prior studies examined the impact of different types of mortality salience (conventional manipulation: ask participants to write down their thoughts once they are physically dead vs. narrative manipulation: ask participants to read a narrative of a cancer patient) on organ donation. However, without acknowledging the unique feature of organ donation, different types of mortality salience generated opposing results in organ donation. Hence, in this article, the purpose of Study 1 is to investigate if an organ donation campaign can remind people of their own mortality. Furthermore, although previous studies discovered that non-cognitive factors, such as mortality salience and medical mistrust, affect organ donation, few studies investigated how to resolve those non-cognitive factors to promote organ donation rate. Therefore, the purpose of Study 2 is to study how to help people address the fear of death caused by organ donation. Two online experiments were executed on Amazon Turk Prime to bridge the knowledge gaps. Study 1 found that an organ donation campaign can increase people's death related thoughts. Study 2 discovered that an enhanced altruistic worldview value can help people diminish organ donation triggered fear by decreasing medical mistrust. In addition, this study also revealed that medical mistrust as a causal factor mediated the effect between worldview value and perceptions of organ donation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the ties of solidarity that exist in the communities that are part of the Purhépecha indigenous region, in Michoacán, Mexico. Through various investigations, we seek to lay the foundations for the construction of an index that would allow the measurement of "social cohesion", considering that this is generated socially and historically, and is not necessarily determined from a rational-economic vision, but that the bases of social cohesion can be "based on the existence of a collective conscience, c0omposed of a system of values, norms and feelings and ideas common among all the people who make up society" that they are based on the indigenous worldview itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The detection of people in urban environments from satellite imagery can be employed in a variety of applications, such as urban planning, business management, crisis management, military operations, and security. A WorldView-3 satellite image of Prague was processed. Several variants of feature-extracting networks, referred to as backbone networks, were tested alongside the Faster R–CNN model. This model combines region proposal networks with object detection, offering a balance between speed and accuracy that is well suited for dense and varied urban environments. Data augmentation was used to increase the robustness of the models, which contributed to the improvement of classification results. Achieving a high level of accuracy is an ongoing challenge due to the low spatial resolution of available imagery. An F1 score of 54% was achieved using data augmentation, a 15 cm buffer, and a maximum distance limit of 60 cm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this conceptual paper I suggest that hermeneutic phenomenological view on humans in the world can lay a premise to understand our embodied, dialogical way of living in the world with information of all kinds. This gives us ethical stance to the development of information‐intensive world and points out our limits as human beings. First, I explicate the implicit and explicit traces of phenomenology in the field of Library and Information Studies (LIS). After that, I continue to explicate how human beings and their relation to the world of information can be conceptualized also by the means of understanding, and dialogicality, with hermeneutic phenomenology of Martin Heidegger, 1985 and Hans‐Georg Gadamer, 2004 T. Then, I introduce the concepts and conceptions of understanding human beings as living bodies in the world, based on hermeneutic phenomenology of Maurice Merleau‐Ponty, 2006. Together, these form a strong basis for understanding humans with information in their environment. Finally, I explicate why it is essential and meaningful to understand humans as embodied and dialogical, to be able to understand and examine information use, action, and interaction in our field in different contexts critically and sustainably. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper advocates a realist position with respect to science and common sense. It considers the question of whether science provides knowledge of reality. It presents a positive response to that question. It rejects the antirealist claim that we are unable to acquire knowledge of reality in favour of the realist view that science yields knowledge of the external world. But it remains to be specified just what world that is. Some argue that science leads to the rejection of our commonsense view of the world. If so, the world about which science informs us is not the world of common sense. Common sense is "stone-age metaphysics". It is false theory inherited from our primitive ancestors that is to be eliminated in favour of science. Against such an elimination of common sense, it is argued that science both preserves and explains our commonsense experience of the world. Science may well lead to the overthrow of some of our most deeply held beliefs. But common sense reflects a more basic and durable level of experience. Commonsense beliefs are well-confirmed beliefs that are vindicated by their role in successful practical action each and every day. Common sense provides a firm basis on which to base a realist philosophy of science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Challenges and tensions that arise in a pluralistic society with differing worldviews among its citizens must be addressed from the outset in school education. To enable social cohesion within a heterogeneous society, students must learn to harmonize their own worldviews with other interpretations of the world in a spirit of "reciprocal inclusivity" (Reinhold Bernhardt). This article argues that this task particularly falls within the responsibility of subjects in schools that address the existential "problems of constitutive rationality" (Jürgen Baumert), specifically religious education, ethics, and philosophy. In Germany and Austria, multiple subjects within denominational religious education, as well as ethics and philosophy, are offered in schools. When these subjects collaborate on projects, students learn to engage in dialogue with the various religious and secular, individual, and collective interpretations, perspectives, and worldviews they encounter. Since 2002/03, and in teacher training since 2011, such a didactically guided Sharing Worldviews approach has been implemented in school projects in Southern Germany through a four-phase concept. This concept can be flexibly applied to the local conditions of the school, contributes to internationalisation and digitalisation, and does not require additional teaching hours. By incorporating secular worldviews, Sharing Worldviews goes beyond interreligious learning and has also been realised digitally in other European countries. The following article begins by considering the educational requirements in a heterogeneous society (1), describes the prerequisites needed to positively influence students' attitudes (2), outlines common foundational concepts for interreligious and inter-worldview dialogue (3), and recommends "Mutual Hospitality" as the basis for such dialogue in schools (4). The article then explains how "Mutual Hospitality" can be practically implemented in a four-phase concept of Sharing Worldviews both in schools and in teacher training (5 and 6) by tracing the origins of this concept (7). The Sharing Worldviews concept has been both internationalised and digitalised in schools and teacher education (8), aligns with the educational principles of the OECD (9), and demonstrates significant benefits in empirical studies (10). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the phenomenology of time and eschatology in the thought of Jean-Yves Lacoste, including his recent book on the philosophy of history. Lacoste's idea of "the hidden present" is examined within the context of his broader theological and philosophical framework, with a particular focus on the way it addresses the intersection of temporality and eternity. Human temporality is characterized by finitude and death, which are interpreted both philosophically—under the influence of Heidegger's philosophy—and theologically. Using Husserlian and Heideggerian concepts, Lacoste proposes a theologically inspired conceptual network: phenomenological reduction versus theological reduction, world versus creation, death versus resurrection, care (Sorge) versus eschatological restlessness, and time versus eschaton. All of these describe the liturgical experience of man before God and the possibility of an eternity which, from the point of view of the world and of our experience in the world, can only take on the ever-provisional figure of anticipation. The present article argues for the existence of a theological paradox of eschatology in the writings of the French phenomenologist: even if eschatology is only anticipated, the liturgical man, situated before God (coram Deo), experiences it in an incomplete and apophatic manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and all Rus, has correctly been seen as a staunch supporter of the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. However, explicit statements of support for the war are rare in his public sermons and speeches, and it is worth exploring the mechanisms of his support in some detail. The article presents an analysis of all the patriarch's sermons and speeches between February 2022 and February 2023 and shows how the patriarch uses references to history to nurture a worldview that makes the war both legitimate and necessary. Using Duncan Bell's notion of a mythscape, the author argues that Kirill infuses secular history with divine meaning in order to give indirect divine legitimation for the war in Ukraine. He further relates this to Stoeckl's contention that the Russian Orthodox Church's promotion of so-called traditional values functions as civil religion for today's Russia and suggests that Kirill's use of history nurtures this civil religion further. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the practices associated with technical solutions to energy transitions. In particular, it considers the role of 'problem solving' as a partial view on the world with extraordinary influence. As the core epistemological practice of engineers, problem solving starts with selective framings of problems in which social or political conditions are taken as given. Engineering, as a form of applied science, therefore offers ethical choices that may be eclipsed by technical framings. This article highlights the reflexive practices of engineers engaged in modelling practices for energy transitions, who are addressing socio-technical problems in formally constrained ways that both enable and limit the thinkability of different future horizons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amie Thomasson has argued against descriptivism about modality, which starts from the idea that modal statements serve to track features of the world and that these features explain the truth-values of modal claims. Thomasson objects that descriptivists cannot satisfactorily explain how modal features fit into the naturalistic picture of the world and that they cannot account for our apparent capacity to acquire modal knowledge. On Thomasson's alternative to descriptivism (called 'normativism'), the function of modal claims is to facilitate communication about certain semantic rules. I argue that it is not obvious that the semantic rules that Thomasson takes to be expressed by modal truths really exist. Moreover, I defend a specific version of descriptivism – essentialism – against Thomasson's objections. Essential truths play a central role in the best explanations of many facts about the world. That includes the explanations delivered by our best scientific theories once these theories are correctly interpreted philosophically. In this way, essences earn their keep in a naturalistic view of the world. Furthermore, the abductive methods by which we confirm our explanatory theories also support certain theses about essences. This allows essentialists to explain knowledge of essences and modal knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper argues for an ideology-centred interpretation of the Orbán regime. Those regimes are considered ideology-centred that promote a particular worldview through discourse, consequential policies and the allocation of resources. In addition to demonstrating that Hungary after 2010 satisfies these criteria, I identify three principal ideological modules of the regime: illiberal conservatism, civilisationist ethnocentrism, and paternalist populism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is there a Chinese School of International Relations (IR) Theory? My answer to this question is ambivalent. Although a Chinese school of IR theory does not exist in the singular, it does exist in the plural. If "birds of a feather flock together," then the difference in approaches taken by Chinese scholars is as relevant as is the fact that the scholars are all Chinese. The Tsinghua School and moral realism share much with classical realism. Cultural relationalism also offers a distinctive Chinese approach as do Gongsheng /symbiotic and tianxia approaches. That said, Chinese IR scholarship shares with IR scholarship in America, Europe, and the rest of the world its firm anchor in the Newtonian mechanical worldview of the late 19th century. Natural sciences, such as quantum mechanics and scientific cosmology, meanwhile concluded long ago that Newtonianism offers an often practicable yet constricted view of the world. In contrast, the humanities operate with a worldview fully consonant with 20th century physics. It is the social sciences and the analysis of IR which continues to adhere to the mechanical worldview common in the late 19th century—in China and the rest of the world. In both "China" and "the West" IR, scholars are tapping their canes against the pavement, seeking to fathom what will happen next. If historians and semantic modelers are right, like the future, the past is never distant. Always open to reinterpretation, it is like the future—unpredictable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Death is among the few certainties of life. Although personal and societal attitudes about death are varied and complex, death can act as a catalyst for action, resulting in a somber, affirmative, and more authentic existence—captured by Heidegger's term "being-toward-death." This article calls for a more proactive engagement with the topic of death vis-à-vis leisure, asserting a greater need to embrace diverse perspectives, philosophies, and worldviews through both empirical and conceptual research. Serving as the introduction to the special issue of Leisure Sciences on "Leisure, Loss and Death," it explores nuanced definitions of death and distinguishes between personal and collective loss. It urges a more affirmative embrace of death in leisure research, presenting death as an existential milieu that can inform human existence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mnemonics are not only tools that empower memory but also have a significant role in qualitatively transforming mental functions and, hence, consciousness in general. A specific type of mnemonics is autobiographical mnemonics (AM) constructed of spatial, temporal, and semantic dimensions used in a naturalist form by individuals about their own experiences. This paper proposes a spatial–temporal mnemonic that transforms AM from a naturalist level into an artificial one. We consider allowing the intellect and consciousness to grasp the abstract flow of time in the global context of geography will contribute to setting the stage for creativity. By explicitly representing the abstract time–space theater, the intellect (the world view) is more able to reflect the abstract laws of reality (the world), hence, to make the intellect sphere objectively equipped to externalize the emerged meanings (the internalized reality) that reflect the internal content of experience and, hence, make sense of them as a crucial function in creative activity. The paper is a theoretical and methodological step for the empirical part of the proposal when the mnemonic should be used as a training tool to empower creativity factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the significance of effective communication in Christian leadership, particularly when engaging with younger generations. The author, Pavel Eder, shares his personal experience of discovering faith and establishing a Christian youth group in the Czech Republic. The article emphasizes the challenges of leading young people in a post-Christian society and the importance of understanding their cultural background. It highlights the value of active listening, dialogue, and gradually introducing the Gospel in communication and leadership. The text also emphasizes the role of digital engagement and online presence in church-planting strategies, particularly for Generation Z. However, it acknowledges the potential feelings of isolation and loneliness that Generation Z may experience despite the connectivity of the digital age. The article stresses the need for authenticity, transparency, and a presence on active platforms to create a safe space for communication. It also addresses the difficulties of preaching to a post-Christian audience and the significance of contextualizing the Gospel message. The text concludes by emphasizing the transformative power of communication and the importance for Christian leaders to listen to younger generations and make the Gospel message relevant and meaningful to them. [Extracted from the article]

How incidents of mass violence are portrayed has great consequences for how the violence is understood and responded to, including whether it requires political attention. This article examines the portrayal of incel violence, a relatively new phenomenon of violence perpetrated by people who identify with the misogynistic worldview present in and perpetuated by incel online forums. It does so through placing this violence in comparison with Islamist violence and right-wing violence, both of which have shaped understandings of mass violence so far. By conducting this three-way comparison, this article investigates to what extent portrayals of incel violence align with media portrayals of other types of violence. This article finds that incel violence is portrayed in an overly personalised manner without much reference to the violence's gendered socio-political context, hindering the possibility of incel violence being understood as political. Not only does this article helps understandings of incel violence per se but also provides insight into to what extent processes of politicisation and securitisation play a part in understandings of misogynistic violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Cuadernos.info is the property of Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, Facultad de Comunicaciones and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The theory of 'enclothed cognition' posits that clothes alone can significantly alter their wearer's outlook on life. Based on this idea, this article examines the world view of uniformed British police officers seeking to understand whether their uniform impacts on their attitudes and behaviours. Using data from a survey of 91 uniformed officers, results suggest that their uniform does indeed affect how they behave and their perceptions of self. Recommendations are made for changes to uniforms with the intent to reduce assaults by and against officers and complaints, as well as increase morale and productivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nigeria's response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine carried significant geopolitical weight within the Global South. Despite Western pressure, Nigeria adopted a carefully calibrated, value‐driven, pragmatic indifferent stance that avoided overtly condemning Russia. While denouncing the violation of Ukraine's territorial integrity, Nigeria emphasised the need for dialogue and diplomacy. This reflected Nigeria's pursuit of strategic domestic value‐driven foreign policy that has embedded non‐alignment principles and its Afrocentric worldview. Nigeria's position highlighted the challenge many Global South nations face in being caught between the West and Russia. Overtly backing either side could jeopardise their interests and economic ties. Nigeria aimed to uphold foreign policy principles and support international norms like sovereignty while keeping channels open with the West and Russian power blocs. Its position, which reflects Afrocentricism, bolstered its credentials as a leader representing the perspectives of the Global South. Its value‐driven and pragmatic indifferent stance provided a model for global order‐making, and its deft geopolitical balancing act allowed it to protect its interests while reinforcing its status as an influential force shaping the Global South's stance(s) on major international issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In February 2017, Syrian-German artist Manaf Halbouni set up three upright bus wrecks at a central square of Dresden, thereby recalling a scene from the war-torn city of Aleppo, from which thousands were fleeing. The work of art, entitled Monument, was one of many controversial occasions on which emotions were mobilised in conflicts over migration. This paper deploys the concept of crafting emotional proximity and distance as a way to shift debates on whether emotions should be mobilised in conflicts over migration towards a closer engagement with how this can be done and what the ethical and political implications are. I suggest a methodological framework which combines a focus on the aesthetic, pragmatic and ethical/political aspects. By applying the approach to Monument, I argue that the material presence and physical proximity of the work of art disrupted the carefully crafted categories of 'inside' and 'outside' which characterise the concept of world order held by sections of the local population and catalysed by far-right activists. So whether or not Monument contributed to crafting stronger emotional proximity with refugees, it claimed public space and exposed world views of exclusivity and inequality which may otherwise have remained below the surface. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Investigaciones Regionales is the property of Asociacion Espanola de Ciencia Regional and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article explores the historical dismissal and suppression of Indigenous ways of knowing and being (IWKB) by Western science, and the impact of colonial expansion on Indigenous peoples and knowledge systems. It calls for closer links between Western science and Indigenous knowledge systems, emphasizing the need to address the underrepresentation of Indigenous worldviews in STEM fields. The article discusses epistemic violence and the importance of recognizing and valuing Indigenous ontologies and epistemologies. It presents a theoretical framework and examples of how Indigenous ways of knowing and being can be incorporated into STEM education, promoting a more inclusive and holistic approach that respects diverse perspectives and values. [Extracted from the article]

Copyright of Revista Foco (Interdisciplinary Studies Journal) is the property of Revista Foco and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

I seek recurrent characteristics of ancient world maps from different cultures to gain insights into constant aspects of human perceptions and world views. Discussed is how circular horizons are introduced to delineate the far and unknown world, how the shapes of the known areas are idealised by being given regular shapes, and how the way from the rim to the centre often epitomises cosmogony or evolutionary progress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the associative fields of the stimulus words DYOL and SCHASTYE, which are central to the linguistic consciousness of Yakut and Russian speakers. Investigating the underlying processes within language enables us to uncover the ethnocultural specificity of a community’s linguistic consciousness — a snapshot of the real-world image at a particular period in the life of an ethnic group. The focus is on identifying both commonalities and distinctions in the perception of happiness among speakers of the two languages, as well as the ethnocultural nuances in their worldviews. A comparative analysis of the associative fields of the stimulus words DYOL — SCHASTYE is conducted using Y.N. Karaulov’s “semantic gestalt” methodology, which includes delineating semantic zones, determining types of connections between stimuli and responses, and employing a quantitative assessment method to measure the overlap of associative fields. The analysis reveals significant shifts in the value priorities of Yakut speakers in recent years. While happiness was previously associated with family, children, and material wealth, con-temporary perspectives increasingly emphasize aspects such as fulfilling work, travel, career advancement, and self-care. This reflects modern social trends where happiness is linked not only to material factors but also to personal growth and self-actualization.

The image of the social world is a predictor of social behavior and its development during stable social transitivity, i.e., COVID-19 pandemic, economic crises, local military conflicts, etc. It can also be interpreted as a variable linguistic phenomenon. However, very little empirical research has featured its integral structural and content characteristics through the prism of narratives, metaphors, and social representations. The author used the methods of thematic narrative analysis and content analysis of metaphors to identify the narrative constructions used by adult subjects to describe their image of the social world. The data obtained were subjected to frequency analysis and hierarchical cluster analysis. The experiment involved 193 respondents aged 35–49 years old, employed in the city of Rostov-on-Don, Russia. In their metaphors and narratives, they described the social world as balancing between stability and dynamism, predictability and stochasticity, as well as endowed it with differentiation in the absence of universal laws. The rationality of the metaphors reflected the age identity while the subject of biographical narratives reflected the subjective adaptation to current social processes.

The paper focuses on current research that has suggested that Africa is experiencing a moral decline, which has been a fact for several years. The cultural sense of African societies has also been called into doubt in the twentieth century, with many others dismissing its existence and relevance. While society is currently disregarding cultural underpinnings and challenging morality as a reality across groups, relativism is the perspective that morality and knowledge are culturally driven. Similarly, African philosophical ideas such as ubuntu, batho-pele, communalism, and so on, which serve as the cornerstone of African worldviews, have been firmly undermined and ignored by society. The article adopts a qualitative research method, using accredited books, journals, and government publications to achieve the purpose of the study. The study’s findings imply that if relativism is abandoned and African philosophy concepts are no longer relevant in society, society will perish. As a result, in the discussion, the study claims that contemporary African society is unrelated to the foundations of relativism and African philosophy, which is not the case. It concludes that to keep relativism relevant in contemporary Africa, there should be a focus on historical relativism as a tool for unity and reconciliation to address potential conflicts and restore harmony among nations.

This article sought to survey the rhetorical use of Sobolo (hibiscus drink) as Yesu Mogya (the blood of Jesus) for holistic healing in contemporary Ghanaian Christianity. From the perspective of Biblical Theology and Christian Ethics, it argued that the phenomenon of using plant products and symbolic objects for miraculous healing is both explicitly and implicitly rooted in the Bible. Contrary to the dispensationalist perspective with its emphasis on the cessation of miraculous healing in some Western contexts and within scholarship, the continuous relevance of miraculous healing in Ghanaian Christianity is not much debated in the ecclesial context. It is, therefore, maintained that the use of symbols such as Sobolo for healing creates opportunities for the wholistic needs of the members of the church to be met. These needs are claimed to be fulfilled by spiritual means. From a Christian ethical perspective, this paper, however, cautions that sobolo as a miraculous drink in the Ghanaian Christian context should not be used as an exclusive means of physical well-being and development of society. It is further argued that the cyclical use of sobolo as a healing juice for all and diverse kinds of miraculous healings needs to be questioned in the light of biblical theology.

CEOs are increasingly called upon to take public stands on political issues, a phenomenon dubbed "political activism." These stands tend to have either moral foundations or moral implications, yet it is unclear whether stakeholders truly want CEOs to make stands, and, if so, how philosophically grounded they are in their stated positions. This paper explores the philosophical worldview questions relevant to current issues facing organizations, particularly those that have been characterized as "wokeism." It then examines how these worldview positions translate or apply to these issues in ways that seemingly contradict CEOs' stands. Finally, it explores how the concept of the social imaginary, CEOs' political beliefs, mass media's reciprocal effects, and CEO narcissism may influence CEOs to take "woke" political activist positions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today, the question of the relationship between the collective and the individual in their consciousness and worldview occupies a special place in the study of modern Russian youth. Young people tend to want to separate themselves from society in order to understand their personality and belonging to various social groups, to accept or not accept the values, norms, ideals of the society in which they are located, in general, to understand their place in it. At the same time, our political culture is considered collectivist, oriented towards the ideas and values of conciliarity and solidarity. In this regard, the study was aimed at identifying attitudes and orientations towards the collective and individual in the minds of modern Russian youth. The empirical base of the study was made up of data from the All-Russian representative survey of citizens aged 14-30 years ( n = 2,500) conducted in the fall of 2022. The qualitative part of the study is presented by the materials of 8 focus groups conducted in the fall of 2023, the participants of which were young people aged 14 to 30 years living in all federal districts of Russia. The general conclusion of the study was the results of the study allow us to say that the so-called We-worldview is characteristic of modern Russian youth, which is a complex set of contradictory but interrelated values, ideas, orientations and attitudes towards inclusion in public relations and relationships. Its peculiarity lies in the fact that it simultaneously manifests elements of the collective (solidary, conciliar, communal) and partly individualistic principles that are traditional for the domestic political tradition. Young people retain attitudes towards unification and solidary social relations. At the same time, social groups, society, the state and interaction with them are perceived by young people only through the prism of the “I” as defining the context, conditions and circumstances of their life and creating opportunities for their self-development, self-expression and self-realization.

From the point of view of political science, the formation of a worldview is associated with a person’s awareness of himself in the surrounding socio-political reality, the development of a certain value attitude towards the objects present in it and the building of his own model of interaction with them. The semantic basis of a worldview is values, including political ones, which exist in the form of social ideals, shared by members of social groups or society, ideas about excellence in politics, or personal life orientations of an individual. Axiological guidelines for the development of a country are determined by national or traditional values. Having defined the content and semantic content of the concepts of «worldview», «ideology» and «identity», denoting interrelated socio-cultural and political-psychological phenomena based on values, the author offers a model of their conceptual coupling, reveals the semantic and instrumental aspects of the process of their formation. The formation of the value and worldview system of society is a long-term process, the nature and course of which is determined by the political and cultural traditions of the nation, the actual context of people’s life and the strategic objectives of the country’s development. The processes of formation of value and worldview systems of an individual and society are interconnected and interdependent.