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This paper pursues the question of where we stand today in making sense of "intelligence". Even though definitions of intelligence have been provided over many years in different fields and disciplines such as psychology, neuroscience, and computer science, these crude approaches often turn out to be overly systematic, rigid, and reductive. Moreover, as we argue here, much work on intelligence suffers from the bias of using humans as a yardstick and/or of focusing on human intelligence at the expense of acknowledging other, i.e., non-human forms of intelligence. By means of a concise literature review and case study analysis, the objective of this paper is to pave the ground for overcoming our anthropocentrism and appreciating the wonders of intelligence in nonhuman and non-biological animals instead. For that reason, we study two cases of octopus intelligence and intelligence in machine learning systems to embrace the notion of intelligence as a non-unitary faculty with pluralistic forms. Furthermore, we derive lessons for advancing our human self-understanding. Doi: 10.28991/HEF-2022-03-03-03 Full Text: PDF

The ‘dramatic poem’, Nathan der Weise [Nathan the Wise], was written in 1779 by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing in Germany. The scene is set in medieval Jerusalem, where Sultan Saladin rules and where the wealthy merchant Jew, Nathan, lives with his adopted daughter Recha, who is saved from a burning house by a Christian Templar knight. It is clear from the characters that the poem has the making of a fine example of interreligious dialogue. The culmination of the interreligious encounter in the poem is the account of what is now known as the parable of the Three Rings. The principle behind the parable has theological and socio-ethical implications that may guide us in understanding how religions can and ought to engage. This contribution presents a critical reflection of the Three Rings parable to add to the current debate on interreligious relations. The text of the poem is read from a theological socio-ethical perspective. The conclusion drawn from this reflection is that theological reasons may sometimes not be enough to ensure peaceful relations between religions. It may be that religions can together address socio-ethical challenges. Such co-action may transcend theological differences and mitigate interreligious dialogue. Contribution: This contribution wants to critically discuss the dramatic poem ‘Nathan der Weise’ and determine how the Three Rings parable can contribute to current interreligious relations. The research addresses United Nations Sustainable Development Goals numbers 11 and 16, contributing to peaceful co-existence in sustainable communities.

In this paper, it is shown that as people often convert their beliefs into knowledge through many external means, knowledge cannot be considered exclusive in a justified belief where its justification has been achieved internally. If we do not consider these people’s beliefs as knowledge, we will face some problems; not only will we be caught up in pervasive skepticism but we would also be rejecting the reality of most human items of knowledge. Therefore, to acquire our knowledge, we do not need to use internalism as externalism provides us with new facilities. Philosophy of religion may achieve new solutions through this expansion in epistemology. In this paper, four currents in the philosophy of religion that have used epistemological externalism are mentioned. It is also shown that religious epistemology, based on the trusted hearings which follow Greco’s path, provides a reliable way to justify religious beliefs.However, if we have a justification for religious beliefs through reassured hearings, all religions can claim that their followers believe in their own religious beliefs in this way; so they must be justified, and therefore, all religions must acquire true knowledge, and this is nothing but pluralism.But it seems that to explain the diversity of religions, we do not need to resort to religious pluralism. It can be said that beliefs based on trusted hearings do not rely on their confidence only in the religious preachings, but their confidence in the religious preachings that have been transferred correctly and also that the religious preachings which are based on trusted hearings depend on another preaching and each has been assured through its previous preaching. If some kind of mistrust occurs in this chain then the ultimate believer in the reliability of the narrated in this chain or their collection (in Greco’s particular view) cannot turn his belief into knowledge with the necessary justification.But the problem is what the end of the chain is based on. In some religions, a person can believe in the ability to understand many spiritualities and he has attempted to convey his findings to others. It is clear thatat the end of this chain, if it is the personal findings or readings of a person from spirituality, then the difference in spiritual reception among the early leaders can justify the diversity of religions. Therefore, this type of religious epistemology is dependent on the source of narrations.But some religions speak of believing in an existential truth and one of the consequences of believing in his existence will also be to achieve spirituality. They also believe that their early leaders have based their teachings on their confident hearings of that existential truth.In the meantime, Abrahamic religions believe in God as that existential truth. If a religion (such as Islam) can show the correctness of the chain of reassurance that leads to the prophet’s speech from God and also the prophet considers it not as his concept of spirituality but rather he has stated it because it is the same as the word sent by God, he can show the source of his teachings to be God.What we should ultimately be sure about in this type of epistemology is that he has been able to establish a relationship with God and has conveyed God’s words. In this paper, four paths are mentioned to achieve this assurance.

This paper presents results of the mapping of the investigations in the academic field of Parana’s educational policy, carried out from the analysis of students’ productions in the Graduate Programs in Education (called Programas de Pós-Graduação em Educação - PPGEs) in the State of Parana (Brazil). The categorization of production in the period 2010-2012, focused on educational policy, was performed through the study of epistemological issues presented in theses and dissertations, to understand how the academic field of educational policy has been constituted in Parana. Social mapping was used as a methodology, which has its bases composed by epistemological pluralism, and uses textual analysis and construction of maps. In the analyzed sample, most works omitted the theoretical references in their summaries, and highlighted the methodology in their technical scope. The map built about the research epistemology in educational policy in the PPGEs of Parana indicates spaces occupied by different conceptions, with great emphasis on dialectical and historical materialism. On the one hand this points to the tradition of excellence of the Marxist method; but on the other hand it may indicate a production in which the political position overrides the research methodology.

Saussure, Durkheim’ın toplum teorisinden faydalanarak dilin toplumsal bir olgu olduğuna dikkat çekmiştir. Saussure’a göre dil bireylerin iradelerinden bağımsızdır. Böylece dil mevcut bir yapıyı ifade eden toplumsal sistem içinde değerlendirilir. Lévi-Strauss, toplumsal düzeyde farklı sistemlerin ve kültürlerin birbirleriyle üstünlük açısından karşılaştırılamayacağı görüşünü öne sürer. Althusser’in iddiası ise modern devletlerin toplumsal düzeydeki ilişkileri çoklu aygıtlarla düzenlediğidir. Post-yapısalcılara gelindiğinde artık toplumun bir ağ gibi çoklu ilişkilerden oluştuğu iddiası yaygınlık kazanır.

Tendo em vista o amplo debate que divide a opinião de pesquisadores hoje no Brasil em torno da complexa questão do “ensino religioso” na escola pública, este artigo busca situar o tema na perspectiva das ciências da religião. Busca-se apontar a possibilidade de um aporte singular desse novo campo disciplinar no “ensino do religioso”. Sem cair num proselitismo problemático, busca-se mostrar a pertinência e plausibilidade de uma reflexão que favoreça a aproximação e o conhecimento por parte dos alunos das distintas manifestações do fenômeno religioso, bem como das plurais opções espirituais em curso no cenário mundial. Trata-se de uma aproximação que vem enriquecida com a dinâmica transversal e multidisciplinar das ciências da religião, movida também por uma distinta sensibilidade ao mundo do outro e da perspectiva dialogal, de forma a superar a dinâmica das afirmações identitárias e a buscar com sinceridade e abertura, o respeito e o aprendizado diante do patrimônio religioso do outro. Palavras-chave: Educação. Ensino Religioso. Ciências da Religião. Pluralismo. Abstract Taking into account the wider debate that involves opposing views of researchers in Brazil on the complex issue of religious education at public schools, this essay situates this thematic from the standpoint of sciences of religion. This article reflects on the possibility of a singular approach to this new problematic concerning the “religious education” in public schools. It is necessary to show the possibility of a reflection that helps students to learn about different manifestations of religious phenomenon, as well as the plurality of religious spiritual experiences nowadays available, without falling in a questionable proselytise. This experience can be enriched by transversal and multidisciplinary approaches in sciences of religion. This means to take a dialogic perspective with a special sensibility to the others’ worldview in such a way that allows us to overcome the tendency to affirm one’s own identity rather than the identity of the other. In this way, we are sincerely open to respect the religious experience of the other.Keywords: Education. Religious Education. Sciences of Religion. Pluralism.

This article analyzes the difficulties that liberal democracies face in accommodating a diversity of values, interests and identities in contexts of national pluralism (plurinational states). The first section analyzes the fallacy of abstraction and the distortions of the concept of pluralism that occur in enlightenment-based theories. The second section begins with a brief description of three classic institutional solutions for accommodating plurinational societies in liberal democracies: federalism, consociationalism and secession. A comparative analysis of nineteen decentralized federal or regional democracies is then discussed in order to evaluate the adequacy of federalism in regulating political recognition and accommodation in contexts of national pluralism. My conclusion suggests that these two objectives can only be achieved by means of plurinational federalism or partnership, which may also include consociational processes that regulate the possible secession of minority nations.

The author critiques the political project known as “21st century socialism”, developed by Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, from a Liberal perspective of moral pluralism (which should not be confused with neoliberalism). In opposition to such liberal ideas, totalizing utopias, such as Chavez’s socialism, do not acknowledge the nature of critical rationality, and therefore end up imposing on society as a whole a substantive idea of the good life that does not recognize individual autonomy and moral pluralism.

In this essay, I present a new argument for the impossibility of defining truth by specifying the underlying structural property all and only true propositions have in common The set of considerations I use to support this claim take as that inspiration Alston's recent argument that it is impossible to define truth epistemically—in terms of justification or warrant According to what Alston calls the “intensional argument”, epistemic definitions are inconsistent with the T schema or the principle that it is true that p if, and only if, p. Since the T-schema has great intuitive appeal, this is a powerful indictment of epistemic theories. But the basic argument that Alston employs, and the constellation of considerations which prosecute that argument, work against a much broader range of views than he considers While this implies that a traditional conceptual analysts of truth may be impossible, it opens the door to a pluralist approach to truth

This article considers whether the growing theoretical and methodological diversity or pluralistic nature of economic geography contributes to its lack of engagement outside the discipline and academy. Although we are enthusiastic about the vibrancy this pluralism brings, we also speculate that it contributes to the discipline's tendency to fall short of significantly impacting key debates in the social sciences. In particular, we consider the disciplinary challenges to influencing mainstream debates over financialization and the recent financial crisis and the recurring lament that economic geography “misses the boat” by failing to significantly impact key scholarly and policy issues. Specifically, we suggest that methodological and theoretical diversity, local contextualization, and relational analysis, all of which we support as vital to the discipline, make it difficult to isolate a disciplinary core. We conclude that pluralism produces a vibrant discipline with unique explanatory power but that it also has important impacts on the design, execution, and influence of geographers’ research outside the discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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The African National Congress secured another emphatic victory in South Africa's third general election in April 2004. The ruling party achieved a two-thirds majority as well as a clean sweep in the nine provincial elections. Opposition parties have been effectively crushed by the weight of this electoral juggernaut, although the extent of the damage sustained has varied greatly from party to party. This article assesses the performance of the principal opposition parties and considers why some, such as the New National Party, the Pan-Africanist Congress and the Inkatha Freedom Party, have performed so badly while others, such as the Democratic Alliance, have at least established a bridgehead within the political system from which they can contemplate making further advances. The general explanations for opposition weakness vis-à-vis the ANC are explored before the article moves on to the wider academic debate about the role and value of opposition within a one-party-dominant political system. The final section of the article considers the prospects for the ANC's only feasible national challenger, the DA. The article concludes by arguing that the opposition as currently constituted is ill-equipped to make a decisive electoral breakthrough and that ultimately the prospects for a more competitive party system are dependent upon the fragmentation of the ruling party itself As that is unlikely in the short to medium term, much depends upon the ANC's ability to maintain a vigorous culture of internal debate, an area where the international experience of one-party-dominant systems invites scepticism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides an exposition and critique of recent attempts to systematize meta-theoretical issues in the human sciences on the basis of thoroughgoing pluralism and reflexivity. In spite of wholehearted efforts to avoid scientistic justification for what I call 'methodologism', the development of any interesting or robust criteria for cross-theoretical assessment and comparison cannot dispense with some kind of legislative – as against merely optional or descriptive – motivation. Lack of conviction on this score creates impossible quandaries and dilemmas for earnest methodologists. In some ways, the problem with many current 'critical' perspectives on social knowledge making is that they are not (self-)critical enough, turning such no doubt valuable things as reflexivity and pluralism into sacred cows. In the paper, I try to puncture these aspects of post-positivist orthodoxy, and suggest that the rationale for engaging in theoretical activity in the social disciplines requires more basic elaboration than current methodologists offer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An alternative to the widely accepted hypothesis that "big business" has a negative impact on community welfare is tested with data from 445 nonmetropolitan counties in the American South. We argue that the appropriate counterhypothesis is not that branch plants have a positive impact on community welfare, because that and similar formulations simply perpetuate the nonsociological approach of the early hypotheses. An interaction formulation that sees community structure as mediating the impact of branch plants better explains differentials in our three criteria of welfare-per capita income, percent below the poverty line, and infant mortality. This explanation predicts positive welfare when pluralism and urbanization are high and branch plants are frequent, and lower welfare when one or both of these is low. Tests Using discriminant analysis support the interaction hypothesis while providing little evidence for either the direct positive or negative impact hypotheses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article employs the concept of policy networks to examine a major area of policy-making and provide fresh insights into Greek politics. It questions the extent to which policy-making in the Greek agricultural sector can be usefully typified as pluralist or corporatist. The authors conclude that the weakness and vulnerability of the state to the demands of the co-operatives, in particular, suggests that the sectoral corporatist model understates the level of mutual dependency. The rhetoric of clientelism disguises the reality that the government no longer occupies a clearly superior position in the network but shares policy-making powers with other societal institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Responsibility to Protect (R2P) brought about new challenges for research on norms in International Relations, mainly due to the actions of emerging powers. These states have exhibited complex behaviour towards norms. Rather than classifying them as simple norm-rejecters or norm-takers, current literature on norms in International Relations has classified them as norm-shapers. In their behaviour, emerging powers seek to shape the norm from various angles. In this sense, the need arises to theoretically frame these types of engagement. This essay aims to analyse the action of normative shapers through the lens of the English School of International Relations, combined with constructivism. After presenting the norm-shapers and characterising them theoretically, a new concept is introduced, called pluralist norm-shapers.