Teasing ‘Islam’: ‘Islam’ as the Other Side of ‘Tolerance’ in Contemporary Dutch Politics

This article deals with the role of ‘Islam’ in contemporary Dutch political discourses on tolerance. I will show how Islam is described as an ideology (and not as a religion) competing with liberal values. I argue that political disputes are not at all about Islam as a living religion, but about ‘Islam’ as a culturally presumed menace to, or negative projection of, dominant Dutch imaginaries, such as tolerance and free speech, that are taken as elementary conditions for a liberal democratic state. The first part of this article deals with the staging and development of ‘Islam’ in Dutch politics since the 1970s. Part two develops a theoretical understanding of the framing of ‘Islam’ as the opponent of ‘tolerance’ and argues that this position shows a typical modern stance.     

Reconsidering the will to power in Heidegger's ‘Nietzsche’

In this paper, I reconsider Martin Heidegger's well-known interpretation of the Nietzschean conception of the will to power that emerges during the 1930s and 40s, focusing specifically on his conception of the will to power as the principle that suspends (or to use Heidegger's word, ‘permanentises’) becoming. After revealing the difficulties that this reading presents, I provide my own tentative interpretation of the doctrine. Specifically, I argue that Heidegger's opposition of the will to power and becoming cannot be sustained, and provide a so-called ‘strong’ reading of the will to power as an alternative.     

A Study on the Concept of ‘Māyā’ in Kashmir Śivādvayavādī Darśan

Journal of Indian Council of Philosophical Research - Trika philosophy or Kashmir Śaivism is one of the major nondual philosophical systems of India where both esoteric and exoteric practices...     

Learning to think in a ‘war zone’

This paper describes an experimental investigation of Winnicott's set situation as described by him in 1941. Three groups of South African infants, 7 to 9 months old, selected from white, black and institutionalized samples were tested three times in the set situation to validate Winnicott's findings and explore new ways of extending the usefulness of the set situation. The study also attempts to explore phantasy in infancy. The results show no significant differences between the black and white infants in the standard presentation, validating Winnicott's observations across different ethnic groups. However, significant differences in the institutionalized group were found, revealing considerable deviations and disturbances. In the second testing, where frustration was introduced, there were, however, significant differences in response to frustration between the black and white infants. Individual examples reveal the uniqueness of the responses to the situation. The situation provides a semi-structured infant observation which can be used as a diagnostic thermometer by professionals in the field of mental health.     

‘Nature’ and ‘Elementary Nature’ in Phenomenology and Sāṅkhya

Journal of Indian Council of Philosophical Research - This is a comparative study. It is in two parts: ‘nature’ and ‘elementary nature’. ‘Nature (of things)’ as...     

‘Transcendental knowledge’ in Tibetan Mādhyamika Epistemology

At least in as much as it is accessible to ‘transcendental wisdom’, Tsong khapa and Go rampa both maintain that ultimate truth is an object of knowledge. So granting that ultimate truth is an object of knowledge and that transcendental wisdom its knowing subject, this paper attempts to address one key epistemological problem: how does transcendental wisdom know or realise ultimate truth? The responses from the Tibetan Mådhyamikas entail that transcendental wisdom knows ultimate truth in at least two different ways: firstly, ‘by way of not seeing it’ (ma gzigs pa'i tshul gyis gzigs); and, secondly, ‘by way of transcending the conceptual elaborations’ (spros bral gyis sgo nas gzigs tshul), therefore by way of the non-dual engagement (gnyis snang dral ba'i sgo nas gzigs tshul). Although the emphasis is slightly different in each of the two modes of engagement, they are nevertheless alike in that both represent epistemic pathways geared towards the same non-conceptual realisation of ultimate truth. So what does each of these epistemic modes really mean in relation to ultimate truth? This paper addresses this question at issue by means of undertaking a comparative analysis of Tsong khapa's and Go rampa's epistemological traditions regarding the matters at question.     

‘Calling’ and ‘Training’: Role Innovation and Religious De-differentiation in Commercialised Indonesian Islam

Abstract

This article explores parallels between emergent Islamic popular culture in the commercial arena in Indonesia and popular religion propagated through the mass media in Europe and North America. Focusing on two emergent types of emicly distinguished but eticly overlapping lay religious roles, that of the da’i (lay preacher) and the ‘trainer’, it shows how borrowing from globally disseminated genres of secular culture by Islamic lay leaders in the commercial arena in Indonesia partially blurs the boundaries between religiously marked and unmarked communications, despite the popularity there of Islamicly marked dress styles and consumables. This is suggestive of a similar, if partial, de-differentiation of the religious and other communication spheres in Indonesia such as Hubert Knoblauch found in Europe. However, as in his reading of European popular religion, it does not further imply Weberian ‘disenchantment’, since leading exemplars of Indonesian Islamic commercialised ‘preaching’ and ‘training’, such as those examined in case material presented here, still focus consumers on the transcendent, while those proselytisers yet work to overcome the compartmentalisation of Indonesian selves in their differentiated modern society.     

The ‘new’ barbarians: governmentality, securitization and Islam in Western Europe

In the post 9/11 context new forms of governance of Muslims based on the resurfacing of old colonial ideas have emerged. Micro-surveillance measures involving the hyper-legalization of settled Muslim populations in Western Europe have led to a curtailment of rights through legal measures and political discourses. A new form of governmentality identifies signs of religious belief, such as the hijab, as a potential threat to national identity and security. Operating through a combination of legal mechanisms and popular narratives based on themes associated with colonial governance, Muslims have been ‘cast out’ of law and politics. With decolonization, this narrative has been transformed into one about a ‘home-grown’ alien force whose transnational attachments, thought to be evident in a refusal to confine religious identity to the private sphere, are presented as a risk that needs to be contained. European Muslims have rebelled against their removal from the protection of the law by declaring their rights as citizens and as humans as a way of combating religious and cultural discrimination. Historically, human rights have emerged out of processes of containment and exclusions. Today, a new generation of Muslims has appropriated the language of rights to protest against these exclusions, holding the mirror up to the transgressors of human rights: their original proponents. This is a case of ‘realized citizenship’ in which European Muslims gain access to and mobilize resources and skills to bridge the gap between the promise of citizenship and human rights.     

Reconsidering ‘spatial memory’ and the Morris water maze

The Morris water maze has been put forward in the philosophy of neuroscience as an example of an experimental arrangement that may be used to delineate the cognitive faculty of spatial memory (e.g., Craver and Darden, Theory and method in the neurosciences, University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, 2001; Craver, Explaining the brain: Mechanisms and the mosaic unity of neuroscience, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2007). However, in the experimental and review literature on the water maze throughout the history of its use, we encounter numerous responses to the question of “what” phenomenon it circumscribes ranging from cognitive functions (e.g., “spatial learning”, “spatial navigation”), to representational changes (e.g., “cognitive map formation”) to terms that appear to refer exclusively to observable changes in behavior (e.g., “water maze performance”). To date philosophical analyses of the water maze have not been directed at sorting out what phenomenon the device delineates nor the sources of the different answers to the question of what. I undertake both of these tasks in this paper. I begin with an analysis of Morris’s first published research study using the water maze and demonstrate that he emerged from it with an experimental learning paradigm that at best circumscribed a discrete set of observable changes in behavior. However, it delineated neither a discrete set of representational changes nor a discrete cognitive function. I cite this in combination with a reductionist-oriented research agenda in cellular and molecular neurobiology dating back to the 1980s as two sources of the lack of consistency across the history of the experimental and review literature as to what is under study in the water maze.     

Islamic piety against the family: from ‘traditional’ to ‘pure’ Islam

One might suppose that a foundational element of proper Muslim behaviour is respect for one’s parents. However, it is not unusual in the contemporary Islamic world, both in Muslim-majority countries and in the diaspora, for young people to be much more ‘Islamic’ in behaviour, dress and lifestyle than their parents. As this may suggest, modernist Islamic piety is not infrequently directed by young people against their parents, as a mode of resistance to parental authority. However, wearing the hijab, becoming a follower of a Sufi shaykh, or marrying a ‘good’ Muslim spouse from another ethnic group to one’s own, are different kinds of resistance from, for example, joining an inner-city youth gang, or rejecting one’s parents’ Asian cultural background for a more globalised identity. I discuss some of the ways in which Islamic piety can be deployed in resistance to parental authority through case studies from my Economic and Social Research Council-funded field research in Bangladesh and the UK, and consider in what ways these forms of behaviour resemble, and differ from, more familiar forms of resistance.     

Sensory consciousness explained (better) in terms of ‘corporality’ and ‘alerting capacity’

How could neural processes be associated with phenomenal consciousness? We present a way to answer this question by taking the counterintuitive stance that the sensory feel of an experience is not a thing that happens to us, but a thing we do: a skill we exercise. By additionally noting that sensory systems possess two important, objectively measurable properties, corporality and alerting capacity, we are able to explain why sensory experience possesses a sensory feel, but thinking and other mental processes do not. We are additionally able to explain why different sensory feels differ in the way they do.     

Islam offline—living ‘The message’ behind the screens

This article is an ethnographic account of the Social Section of Arabic language Islam Online. It focuses on what Krüger has called the ‘hidden knowledge’ of religious websites. Drawing on longitudinal fieldwork in the Islam Online offices in Cairo, Egypt, this article brings forth and analyzes rich data about Islam Online employees’ work practices and meaning-making activities. Drawing on an organizational ethnographic approach, this article highlights new aspects of this influential Islamic website. More specifically, the author employs Linde’s concept of an ‘institutional narrative’ to conceptualize and analyze the strong institutional identity and corporate values that are in play in everyday work practices. Focusing on key tropes such as ‘the message’, ‘professional’, ‘pluralistic’, and ‘pioneers’, the article demonstrates how Islam Online’s Islamist institutional narrative includes a creation story and set of organizational values that play out in the execution of work tasks. Moreover, the author argues that the objective of the emic concept of “the message” is to contribute to both self- and societal-reform in the Arab world, and that Islam Online’s own work environment represents a micro-cosmos of this ideal.     

Understanding the ‘active’ in ‘enactive’

Much recent work on cognition is characterized by an augmentation of the role of action coupled with an attenuation of the role of representation. This coupling is no accident. The appeal to action is seen either as a way of explaining representation or explaining it away. This paper argues that the appeal to action as a way of explaining, supplementing, or even supplanting, representation can lead to a serious dilemma. On the one hand, the concept of action to which we appeal cannot, on pain of circularity, be a representational concept. Such an appeal would presuppose representation and therefore can neither explain it nor explain it away. On the other hand, I shall argue, if the concept of action to which we appeal is not a representational one, there is every reason for supposing that it will not be the sort of thing that can explain, or supplement, let alone supplant, representation. The resulting dilemma, I shall argue, is not fatal. But avoiding it requires us to embrace a certain thesis about the nature of action, a thesis whose broad outline this paper delineates. Anyone who wishes to employ action as a way of explaining or explaining away representation should, I shall argue, take this conception of action very seriously indeed. I am going to discuss these issues with respect to a influential recent contribution to this debate: the sensorimotor or enactive model of perception developed by Kevin O’Regan and Alva Noë.     

‘Aloneness’ and the problem of realism in classical Sākhya and yoga

The concept of kaivalya (literally, ‘aloneness’) is of crucial importance to the systems of classical Indian philosophy known as Sākhya and Yoga. Indeed, kaivalya is the supreme soteriological goal to which these systems are directed. Various statements concerning this final goal appear in the classical texts—namely, the Sākhyakārikā and Yogasūtra—and yet there is no consensus within modern scholarship about how the concept is to be interpreted. More specifically, there appears to be a great deal of confusion over the implications of kaivalya for the existence of the empirical world. In this article I discuss the principal difficulties encountered by existing interpretations of kaivalya, and propose that these difficulties result from an unwarranted assumption that Sākhya and Yoga take a realist view with regard to the empirical world. I further propose that these difficulties can, in large part, be overcome when the assumption of realism is set aside.