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Throughout Islamic history scholars have put forward cases about the ‘right’ way to understand the faith. Focal to these processes is positioning a scholarly narrative as authoritative and authentic. This article contrasts two scholarly narratives of contemporary Sunni Islam as a means to explore how authority and authenticity are constructed. In addition to a critical discourse analysis, the respective positions are contextualized within their respectively claimed classical scholarship. The article identifies the means through which authority and authenticity are justified and it highlights the divisive nature of the discourses, often driven by carefully selected analogies, exaggerations, and the citing of extreme positions as exemplary of the errors of others. The findings have implications for understanding the intolerant, and sometime violent, interactions between Sunni Muslims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Causal theories of reference for natural kind terms are widely agreed to play a central role in arguments for the claim that theoretical identity statements such as 'Water is HO' are necessary, if true. However, there is also fairly wide-spread agreement, due to the arguments of Nathan Salmon (in Reference and Essence), that causal theories of reference do not alone establish such essentialism about natural kinds: an independent, non-trivial essentialist premise is also needed. In this paper I will question this latter agreement. I will argue that there is an independently attractive explanation of why such identity statements are metaphysically necessary, if true: an explanation which relies on assumptions about the semantics of natural kind terms, general philosophical assumptions about reference, and straightforward empirical assumptions, but presupposes no non-trivial essentialist premises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The project we highlight in this article stems from our philosophical work on moral disagreements that appear to be-and sometimes are-intractable. Deliberative democratic theorists tout the merits of dialogue as an effective way to bridge differences of values and opinion, ideally resulting in agreement, or perhaps more often resulting in greater mutual understanding. Could dialogue mitigate disagreements about a controversial education policy such as affirmative action? Could it foster greater understanding? We conceived of a project that would simultaneously fulfill two goals that we had as philosophers, education researchers, and aspiring public intellectuals. First, it would allow us to use philosophy in research, grounding our mixed methods research in a philosophically informed framework. The tools and analytic techniques that are particular to philosophers felt uniquely suited for an empirical study concerning political theory. Second, we aimed to use philosophy in the community. We were able to put our own expertise in philosophy and race-conscious education policy to good use by purposefully creating opportunities for diverse community members in our larger metropolitan area to engage in dialogue and deliberation with each other over the issue of affirmative action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay examines several ethical and epistemological issues that arise when philosophers conduct empirical research focused on, or in collaboration with, community groups seeking to bring about systemic change. This type of research can yield important policy lessons about effective community-driven reform and how to incorporate the voices of marginalized citizens in public policy debates. Community-based reform efforts are also particularly ripe for philosophical analysis since they can demonstrate the strengths and shortcomings of democratic and egalitarian ideals. This type of research also raises unique ethical dilemmas that challenge central tenets of research ethics. We focus on two foundational questions: What does informed consent mean in the context of community-based research (CBR) when CBR may dissolve differences between researcher and research participant, and its parameters can be hard to delineate? And what ethical, democratic, and epistemic issues arise when conducting research with and on community groups, given potentially competing commitments to respect the epistemological contributions of all participants while also meeting research norms to warrant findings and conclusions? Our examination has two aspects: we grapple with these issues through examples from our work to reveal their significance in our own philosophic practice, and more broadly, to reveal their significance as problems within traditional research ethics. We believe that this approach will demonstrate the utility of philosophic engagement with dilemmas in research ethics as a reflective matter, and in the course of empirical research itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses aspects of reputation. It states that reputation represents social artifacts, which are being used by people to make sense out of complex social reality. It mentions that reputation is among the conceptualizations that people use to comprehend social uncertainty and decrease social complexity. It adds that reputation also play the role as key component for understanding society.

In this paper, I seek to caution the increasing number of contemporary sociologists who are engaging with continental phenomenological sociology without looking at the Anglo-American tradition. I look at a particular debate that took place during the formative period in the Anglo-American tradition. My focus is on the way participants sought to negotiate the disciplinary division between philosophy and sociology. I outline various ways that these disciplinary exigencies, especially the institutional struggles with the sociological establishment, shaped how participants defined phenomenological sociology. I argue that despite the supposed theoretical, methodological, and substantial differences between these waves of phenomenological sociology, the contemporary wave could benefit from some of the lessons that were learned by their predecessors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few studies have examined the theoretical underpinning of contextual theory. Using structural equation modeling, the relationship among relational ethics (recognized as the most important aspect of contextual theory), marital satisfaction, depression, and illness was examined. Data came from a national sample of 632 mid-life, married individuals. Results supported Nagy’s contextual theory. The total score of the Relational Ethics Scale was a significant predictor of marital satisfaction, and marital satisfaction was significantly associated with depression and health problems. Vertical and horizontal subscales of relational ethics also were significant predictors of depression and health problems through the mediating variable of marital satisfaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite recent efforts to improve on counterfactual theories of causation, failures to explain how effects depend on their causes are still manifest in a variety of cases. In particular, theories that do a decent job explaining cases of causal preemption have problems accounting for cases of causal intransitivity. Moreover, the increasing complexity of the counterfactual accounts makes it difficult to see why the concept of causation would be such a central part of our cognition. In this paper, I propose an account of our causal thinking that not only explains the hitherto puzzling variety of causal judgments, but also makes it intelligible why we would employ such an elusive concept. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers the author's insights on the ideas of Thomas McEvilley regarding the notion of Indo-European background in Greek and Indian philosophy. The author says that the similarities between the two philosophies was due to distribution of Mesopotamian ideas in both areas. He adds that the similarity of Indo-European background expresses parallelism in the social structures of Indo-European cultures based on Georges Dumezil's work, hence he relates the idea of Indo-European heritage.

What sort of connection is there between business ethics and philosophy? The answer given here: a weak one, but it may be getting stronger. Comparatively few business ethics articles are structurally dependent on mainstream academic philosophy or on such sub-specialities thereof as normative ethics, moral theory, and social and political philosophy. Examining articles recently published in the Journal of Business Ethics that declare some dependence, the author finds that such declarations often constitute only a pro forma gesture which could be omitted without detriment to the paper's content and conclusions. He also finds, however, that some authors do draw on solid philosophical work in ways that are establishing ever more meaningful interconnections between business ethics and academic philosophy. These cross-disciplinary studies, he concludes, are ground-breaking and invite creative imitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It became obvious in classroom case discussions in a required MBA course, Corporate Social Responsibility and Business Ethics, that subjective opinion often prohibited complete and thorough case analyses. Over a two-year period an attempt was made to identify the parameters of situations involving corporate social responsibility in order to develop a methodology which would facilitate classroom learning. The model described in the following manuscript is the result of these efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When people see a life-sized virtual body (VB) from first person perspective in virtual reality they are likely to have the perceptual illusion that it is their body. Additionally such virtual embodiment can lead to changes in perception, implicit attitudes and behaviour based on attributes of the VB. To date the changes that have been studied are as a result of being embodied in a body representative of particular social groups (e.g., children and other race). In our experiment participants alternately switched between a VB closely resembling themselves where they described a personal problem, and a VB representing Dr Sigmund Freud, from which they offered themselves counselling. Here we show that when the counsellor resembles Freud participants improve their mood, compared to the counsellor being a self-representation. The improvement was greater when the Freud VB moved synchronously with the participant, compared to asynchronously. Synchronous VB movement was associated with a much stronger illusion of ownership over the Freud body. This suggests that this form of embodied perspective taking can lead to sufficient detachment from habitual ways of thinking about personal problems, so as to improve the outcome, and demonstrates the power of virtual body ownership to effect cognitive changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]