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Between Mysiticism and Philosophical Rationality: Al-Ghazali on the Reasons of the Heart.
No full textIn his seminal Orientalism and Religion (1999), Richard King argues that Western scholars of religion have constructed a conceptual dichotomy between mysticism and rationality that has caused them to systematically distort the claims and arguments of Eastern thinkers. While King focuses primarily on Western scholarship on the Buddhist and Hindu traditions, this essay shows that his argument can also be extended to apply to Western scholarship on al-Ghazali, whose sympathy for Sufism and apparent rejection of Greek philosophy has often earned him the reputation of being a champion of Islamic mysticism. I argue that al-Ghazali transcends the dueling categories of \u27rationality\u27 and \u27mysticism\u27 that have been imposed on him by offering a conception of experiential knowledge that retains its roots in the \u27mystical\u27 Sufi tradition, even while also highlighting the rational merits of experientially-grounded modes of knowing. In particular, I argue that al-Ghazali shows us how experiential knowledge is both important to providing motivation for rational action and also critical to underwriting persons\u27 genuine understanding of the evaluative properties of that which is known
Individual Differences in Working Memory and the N2pc.
No full textThe lateralized ERP N2pc component has been shown to be an effective marker of attentional object selection when elicited in a visual search task, specifically reflecting the selection of a target item among distractors. Moreover, when targets are known in advance, the visual search process is guided by representations of target features held in working memory at the time of search, thus guiding attention to objects with target-matching features. Previous studies have shown that manipulating working memory availability via concurrent tasks or within task manipulations influences visual search performance and the N2pc. Other studies have indicated that visual (non-spatial) vs. spatial working memory manipulations have differential contributions to visual search. To investigate this the current study assesses participants\u27 visual and spatial working memory ability independent of the visual search task to determine whether such individual differences in working memory affect task performance and the N2pc. Participants (n = 205) completed a visual search task to elicit the N2pc and separate visual working memory (VWM) and spatial working memory (SPWM) assessments. Greater SPWM, but not VWM, ability is correlated with and predicts higher visual search accuracy and greater N2pc amplitudes. Neither VWM nor SPWM was related to N2pc latency. These results provide additional support to prior behavioral and neural visual search findings that spatial WM availability, whether as an ability of the participant\u27s processing system or based on task demands, plays an important role in efficient visual search
Population Aging, Economic Growth, and the Importance of Capital
No full textThis paper argues that the impact on economic growth from the on-going demographic transition in the population age-distribution depends critically on the relative importance of labor versus capital in production. Our key insight is that as the working fraction of the population decreases, output per person does not necessarily fall. Within an Overlapping Generations model with a Cobb-Douglas aggregate production function, population aging can increase output per person, if production is sufficiently capital intensive. Cross-country regressions provide empirical support for our theory
Opportunities for interaction: Natural observations of children’s social behavior in five societies.
Get PDFWe examine the opportunities children have for interacting with others and the extent to which they are the focus of others’ visual attention in five societies where extended family communities are the norm. We compiled six video-recorded datasets (two from one society) collected by a team of anthropologists and psychologists conducting long-term research in each society. The six datasets include video observations of children among the Yasawas (Fiji), Tanna (Vanuatu), Tsimane (Bolivia), Huatasani (Peru), and Aka (infants and children 4–12 years old; Central African Republic). Each dataset consists of a series of videos of children ranging in age from 2 months to 12 years in their everyday contexts. We coded 998 videos and identified with whom children had opportunities to interact (male and female adults and children) as well as the number of individuals and the proportion of observed time that children spent with these individuals. We also examined the proportion of time children received direct visual gaze (indicating attention to the child). Our results indicate that children less than 5 years old spend the majority of their observed time in the presence of one female adult. This is the case across the five societies. In the three societies from which we have older children (Aka, Yasawa, Peru), we find a clear shift around 5 years of age, with children spending the majority of their time with other children. We also coded the presence or absence of a primary caregiver and found that caregivers remained within 2 ft of target children until 7 years of age. When they were in the company of a primary caregiver, children older than seven spent the majority of their time more than 2 ft from the caregiver. We found a consistent trend across societies with decreasing focal attention on the child with increasing child age. These findings show (1) remarkable consistency across these societies in children’s interaction opportunities and (2) that a developmental approach is needed to fully understand human development because the social context is dynamic across the lifespan. These data can serve as a springboard for future research examining social development in everyday contexts
‘Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast’: Use and Abuse of Culture in International Strategy Research
No full textInternational strategy, as a subfield of strategic management, has too often settled for simplistic and rote approaches to bringing the international setting into the analysis of cross-border strategies and their consequences. We examine the application of national culture in international strategy research as perhaps the most common expression of locational awareness. We begin by considering the many critical assessments of current theoretical and empirical research on the culture-strategy interaction. We summarize multiple meta-analytic studies and examine a sample of empirical articles from the past 40 years more closely to offer our own criticism of the theories, settings, data, models, and variables used and the conclusions drawn by these scholars. We then go beyond critique to offer an extensive set of recommendations for future work that we believe can both correct the ever-clearer problems with extant research and offer innovative and more considered insights on the role of national culture in international strategy scholarship and practice
[Introduction to] Paradoxes of Care: Children and Global Medical Aid in Egypt.
Get PDFEach year, billions of dollars are spent on global humanitarian health initiatives. These efforts are intended to care for suffering bodies, especially those of distressed children living in poverty. But as global medical aid can often overlook the local economic and political systems that cause bodily suffering, it can also unintentionally prolong the very conditions that hurt children and undermine local aid givers. Investigating medical humanitarian encounters in Egypt, Paradoxes of Care illustrates how child aid recipients and local aid experts grapple with global aid\u27s shortcomings and its paradoxical outcomes.
Rania Kassab Sweis examines how some of the world\u27s largest aid organizations care for vulnerable children in Egypt, focusing on medical efforts with street children and out-of-school village girls. Her in-depth ethnographic study reveals how global medical aid fails to save these children according to its stated aims, and often maintains—or produces new—social disparities in children\u27s lives. Foregrounding vulnerable children\u27s responses to medical aid, Sweis moves past the unquestioned benevolence of global health to demonstrate how children must manage their own bodies and lives in the absence of adult care. With this book, she challenges readers to engage with the question of what medical caregivers and donors alike gain from such global humanitarian transactions.https://scholarship.richmond.edu/bookshelf/1394/thumbnail.jp
