Science,philosophy, and religion today: Some reflections

The new developments of science have opened a new field of dialogue between science and theology as well as a further integration between science and philosophy. This new field is shown in its historical background and with its current theoretical issues.     

Policy evaluation in a time of fiscal stress: Some reflections from British experience

The debate on the use or nonuse of policy evaluation frequently starts from the normative assumption that is a rational and rewarding activity for governments to pursue. Failure to use evaluation is assumed to indicate political and organizational inefficiencies and weaknesses that can, and should, be corrected. This article argues that this is too simplistic an assumption that abstracts evaluation from the political and social context in which it is developed and utilized. In particular, the way that governments develop and use evaluation is conditioned, first by the macroeconomic climate in which they operate and second, by the ways they choose to respond to this and by the microeconomics of the budgetary process. These issues are explored in the context of recent developments in British central government. here a tight fiscal policy and a concern with administrative costs have led to move from top-down rational systems of evaluation to more pragmatic, bottom-up concerns with performance measures and performance indicators. It is concluded that policy evaluation is unlikely to regain and enhance its credibility unless a reshaping of administrative structures and processes take place. Andrew Gray and Bill Jenkins are respectively senior lecturer in adminiistrative studies and senior lecturer in interdisciplinary studies at the University of Kent at Canterbury, England. They have worked for a number of years on the development of management reforms in the UK government and have recently been involved in a research project on the evolution of the Financial Management Initiative (FMI) in British central government departments. Their publications includeAdministrative Politics in British Govenment (Wheatsheaf Books, 1985) and articles in such journals asFinancial Accountability and Management, Public Administration, andPublic Money and Management.     

United we stand,divided we fall: the early Nietzsche on the struggle for organisation

According to Nietzsche, both modern individuals and societies are pathologically fragmented. In this paper, I examine how he proposes we combat this affliction in his Untimely Meditations. I argue that he advocates a dual struggle involving both instrumental domination and eradication. On these grounds, I claim the following: 1. pace a growing number of commentators, we cannot categorise the species of conflict he endorses in the Untimely Meditations as agonistic; and 2. this conflict is better understood as analogous to the species of struggle that Schopenhauer describes in his account of purposive organisation.     

United we stand: Intergroup conflict moderates the intergroup sensitivity effect

Ingroup members who criticize their group face much less resistance than outgroup members who say the same thing (the intergroup sensitivity effect). In the context of intergroup conflict, however, it was predicted that treatment of ingroup critics would not be so generous. Muslim Indonesians read an extract from an interview in which the speaker criticized Muslims. The comments were attributed to either another Muslim or to a Christian. Before reading the criticism, half of the participants had read an article describing intense conflict between Muslims and Christians in Indonesia, whereas the other half read a neutral article. As predicted, negativity toward the ingroup critic and the ingroup critic's comments increased in the conflict salience condition, to the point that the intergroup sensitivity effect disappeared. However, conflict salience did not have an effect on attributions of motive or on agreement with the message. Implications for our understanding of “patriotic criticism” are discussed. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

United we stand, divided we fall: the education and training needs of clinical child psychologists

Reviews efforts to delineate training needs for psychologists who are providing clinical services to children, adolescents, and families. In particular, this article (a) describes efforts of clinical child and other psychologists who work with children, adolescents, and families to develop education and training guidelines; (b) discusses the overlap among various child and adolescent providers within psychology; and (c) highlights several key competencies that have been identified as important for all psychologists in practice roles with children and adolescents. In particular, we emphasize the need for greater collaboration and integration among various psychological specialties that focus on children, adolescents, and families and for greater system-wide discussion of training needs and priorities.     

Islamophobia and the therapeutic dialogue: Some reflections

In the atmosphere of fear and controversy that surrounds Muslims at this moment in time it is hardly surprising that they feel unable to voice their fears and concerns openly. Added to this is the fact that Muslims already underutilize mental health services (Patel et al., 2000 Patel, N, Bennett, E, Dennis, M, Dosanjh, N, Matitani, A, Miller, A and Nadirshaw, Z. 2000. Clinical Psychology: ‘Race’ and ‘Culture’: A training manual, Leicester: The British Psychological Society.  [Google Scholar]). In the counselling arena four distinct aspects of the counselling relationship are affected. First, the therapeutic alliance, second, the socio-political context in which counselling occurs, third, the awareness of personal characteristics and competencies that facilitate multicultural counselling and, finally, the training requirements of multicultural counsellors. This paper seeks to consider each of these aspects of the therapeutic encounter with regard to Muslim clients.     

Some reflections on the individuation of events

Theories in physics require reference to manifolds of locations and events. Abstract versions of these manifolds, ‘space’, ‘time’ and ‘space‐time’ are frequently used as reference systems. Should they be included in the ontology of physics as well as the material manifolds from which they are abstracted? This problem can be approached through a study of the identity conditions of events. The argument is offered that neither an abstract ‘time’ of moments is viable, nor is the assumption that events are individuated by their locations necessary. Taken together these conclusions would require reinterpretation of relativity as a grammar of histories and of the Einstein—Podolski‐Rosen experiment as displaying the possibility of spatially distributed events.