1,720,957 research outputs found
Suicide and agency in African communitarian societies: a philosophical inquiry into the Basotho culture.
No full textMasters Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg.This thesis delves into the nuanced interplay between individual agency and communal responsibilities in addressing suicide, with a particular focus on suicide prevention within African Communitarian Societies (ACS), notably examining the Basotho culture as a case study. The study aims to fill the gap in the existing literature by providing a comprehensive analysis of how cultural practices, social structures, and traditional healing modalities within ACS contribute to suicide resilience and suicide prevention. The significance of this study lies in its exploration of limited communitarianism as a guiding framework for understanding and addressing suicide issues within ACS. Drawing on a wide range of sources, the research illuminates the intricate dynamics between individual autonomy and communal well-being in the context of suicide. Key arguments in the study revolve around the communal practices of the Basotho people, which serve as a testament to their understanding of suicide and well-being as collective responsibilities. The study underscores the significance of integrating cultural sensitivity and community engagement into suicide prevention strategies, advocating for the respect of both individual autonomy and communal responsibilities. In this thesis, I seek to argue that Limited Communitarianism is a viable framework that helps understand the idea of suicide better; hence, suicide is not just an individual act or issue but goes beyond to being a communal one. With this theory, it can be seen that the individual’s rights and dignity are advocated for since limited communitarianism takes each person’s individuality seriously and accords the right to determine their own actions
Rethinking universalism and particularism in African philosophy: towards an eclectic approach.
Get PDFDoctoral Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg.The study focuses on the dispute between the universalists and particularists in the characterization of the nature of African philosophy. In African philosophy the debate is formulated as a dichotomy between the universalists and the particularists. At the center of this debate is the notion of ‘universal’ and its relationship to the particular. The universalists argue that the nature of (African) philosophy–its methodology and subject matter–has to be universal and should be the same when applied to Western and African thought systems. In essence, the universalist thesis holds that African philosophy should be critical and not descriptive of African beliefs. Nevertheless, against this universalist thesis, the particularist camp argues that different cultures have different ways of explaining reality. Hence, Africans must have a philosophy different from other philosophies. It is evident from the foregoing that there is an impasse between the universalists and particularists’ conception of the nature of philosophy. The study contends that the solution to the impasse lies on investigating the true nature of ‘universal’ as it is at the center of the debate. The researcher is of the opinion that there is a need to go past the philosophical universalism as it neglects the true nature of universals. Consequently, there is a need for an alternative nature of (African) philosophy hinged on acknowledging that the nature of ‘universal’ is dependent on the ‘particular’ but not independent of its ‘particular’. It is argued that the viable and robust nature of (African) philosophy and what African philosophers should aspire to, is premised on their humanity; being a member of particular group and still be a member of homo sapiens at large
Metaphysics of race: revisiting four philosophical views.
Get PDFMasters Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg.What does race mean in post-apartheid everyday life? Is race real or an illusion? The answer to these questions lies in the idea of how race emerged and is made real in terms of racial categories. South African apartheid government used to classify South Africans by law into a hierarchy, with correspondingly differential access to human rights and freedoms. These racial categories were based on how one looked, how one lived, and what language one spoke. In this context, race in South Africa became normalized through the assumptions about racial culture understood as an expression of race-given essence. Racial categories further created defined places for people in the material and social world. South Africans came to see themselves as these categories, making them subjectively real. This history means that after apartheid, most South African’s experiences continued to be shaped by racialized material and subjective realities. In this regard, it is worth asking: are we warranted in using classifications? What role do they place in shaping our ordinary ontology of race? What influence do they have on racism, and what do people think about race? Hanslanger questions the importance of using racial classifications and asks if they are warranted. In light of this, this thesis answers the question left by Hanslanger about whether racial classifications give us a fruitful way of understanding facts about race. It will argue that racial categories are not warranted; race is an illusion
The function of “it” in Ifeanyi Menkiti’s normative account of personhood: a response to Bernard Matolino
No full textThis article is a response to Bernard Matolino’s criticisms against Ifeanyi Menkiti’s elucidations on the normative notion of personhood in African philosophy. This article argues that Menkiti’s article is best understood to be ultimately focused on articulating the normative notion of personhood; so understood, Menkiti’s analysis eschews many of the objections made against it by Matolino. We show that the confusion lies in a general failure in African philosophy to distinguish three distinct senses of the notion of a person. We further show how the referent ‘it’ as used to pick out infants by Menkiti, contrary to Matolino’s analysis that suggests that it is an instance of ‘mal-function’ may be charitably construed to be capturing the idea that infants have moral status and/or that they are morally neutral. A defense of Menkiti’s idea of personhood is crucial in a search for a robust African perfectionist ethics.Keywords: ‘It’, Moral agency, Moral Perfectionism, Moral status, Personhoo
On Limited Communitarianism: Matolino’s Thinking and the Changing African World
Get PDFIn the corpus of African philosophy, Bernard Matolino has made a substantial contribution to the development of communitarian theory, offering a fresh perspective on the concept. While his predecessors, such as Ifeanyi Menkiti and Kwame Gyekye, proposed radical and moderate forms of communitarianism, Matolino argues that these accounts are inadequate in capturing the rapidly evolving African reality. For instance, Menkiti’s radical communitarianism emphasized the community’s role in shaping individual identity, whereas Gyekye’s moderate approach sought to strike a balance between individual and communal interests. In response, Matolino introduces the concept of limited communitarianism, which acknowledges the dynamic nature of African societies and offers a more nuanced understanding of communitarianism. This concept recognizes that communities are not static entities but rather adapt to changing circumstances, and, thus, our understanding of communitarianism must also evolve. This article serves as a timely reminder to scholars and theorists of communitarianism to re-examine their assumptions and approaches to the African reality with a more nuanced and adaptable perspective. It underscores the importance of recognizing the complexities of our past, acknowledging the diversity of our present, and envisioning a future that is responsive to the changing needs and aspirations of African communities. By doing so, we can move beyond dogmatic and rigid interpretations of communitarianism and instead embrace a more inclusive and dynamic understanding of African reality
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
- …
