Islamic religious education in Belgian state schools: a post-secular perspective

Abstract

Based on Habermas’ normative theory of religion in post-secular society, this article elaborates on the organisation of Islamic religious education (RE) in state schools. Hereto, a brief sketch of the Habermasian concepts of reflexive religion and complementary learning processes will be given. Subsequently, the author addresses the role of RE in post-secular society and applies these Habermasian concepts to confessional RE, with particular attention to Islamic RE in Belgium, where this subject is included as an optional subject in the state school curriculum since 1975, but where it is also criticised today, in particular with regard to content, teacher-training, textbooks, and inspection. These deficiencies will lead us to one of the main problems of Islamic RE and of confessional RE in general: the absence of state control. Based on Habermas’ ideas, the author concludes that it is up to the state to elucidate under which conditions confessional RE can be part of the regular curriculum, and to facilitate these conditions, by funding and co-organising teacher training, reviewing curricula and textbooks, formulating a ‘core curriculum’ and controlling teachers, for example. If these conditions have not been met, confessional RE should not be a part of the regular curriculum in a liberal state.     

The Rationality of Dissensus: A Reply to Goodin

Robert Goodin claims that he has undermined my ``proof of theinevitability of rational consensus among all patient people of goodwill.' I did not intend my position as a proof of the inevitabilityof rational consensus, however, and, in fact, I insist on thereasonableness of dissensus in some cases. I welcome the opportunity,provoked by Goodin's interesting reflections, to clarify my position. Iproved with Carl Wagner that iterated weighted averaging converges towardconsensus under conditions of connectedness and constancy resulting fromthe positive weight that individuals give to each other. I allow, nevertheless,that individuals may rationally assign zero weight to each other in a waythat blocks convergence and yields dissensus. The assignment of zeroweight to others will be rational, for example, when the interests ormoral concerns of the individual would be co-opted as a result of givingpositive weight to others. The assignment of positive weight to othersrequires modification of one's position, however, for the refusal to modifyone's position is mathematically equivalent to assigning zero weight toothers. Dissent is rational to avoid being co-opted, but the cost ofdisensus may be the assignment of zero weight to others and theirrational reciprocation.     

中医药发展的挤出效应及制度耦合

制度与制度之间常常存在挤出效应,在医疗卫生服务制度体系内,价格管制、支付制度和医疗卫生服务评价制度等,造成了对中医药政策和中医药应用的挤出.而中医药在我国医改战略转型、医学模式转变和促进制度创新方面具有十分积极的意义.制度耦合是解决制度冲突、制度挤出的基本思想,把中西医统一到卫生事业发展的目标上来,把发挥中医药优势和特色作为中医药政策的核心,构建中西医并重的机制、优化医疗卫生服务制度结构和完善中医药评价体系,是缓解挤出效应,促进中医药发展的制度选择.     

Political liberalism and global justice

This article argues that political liberalism, of the type formulated by John Rawls and Charles Larmore and further developed in Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum's capabilities approach, is superior to more comprehensive political views both in domestic and in global affairs. Perfectionist liberalism as advocated by John Stuart Mill and Joseph Raz attempts to erase existing religions and replace them with the religion of utility or autonomy. This is wrong, because in the ethico-religious environment of reasonable disagreement that we inhabit all comprehensive forms of political morality pose a threat to people's liberty and equality. Only thin and narrow conceptions of value like the ones suggested by Rawls, Larmore, Sen, and Nussbaum can guarantee the respect for diversity that is needed in a pluralistic world. Although Rawls famously failed to extend this idea from domestic to transnational matters, the argument of the article is that not only do the principles of political liberalism apply to global matters, but that the reasons why they apply to global affairs are even more compelling transnationally than they are domestically.     

Spontaneity: a psychoanalytic inquiry

Abstract

This paper examines the experience of consulting to experiential groups and endeavours to draw some conclusions about this significant element in training.     

Participatory Policy-Making,Participatory Civil Society: A Key for Dissolving Elite Rule in New Democracies in the Era of Globalization

The author argues that in democracies a strong state and strong civil society are not mutually exclusive. Only a democratic, legitimate, and strong state can provide the environment for civil society activities to flourish; in return, only a strong and a participatory civil society can outline the reach of state strength vis-à-vis the society. The author discusses the need for civil society organizations to collaborate with policy-making institutions, in which they can negotiate policy concerns with ministers and officials while retaining an independent distance from the state and the political parties. Further, the author argues that an environment as such would provide for the transformative capacity of human agency to manifest itself in full in a globalizing world. The author discusses how participatory state and civil society structures will enhance the role of the human agency in order to dissolve elite rule, especially in new democracies.     

Three approaches to the connection between modernisation and traditionalism: a case study of the acquisition of academic education among ultra-Orthodox and Bedouin women

The current study investigates the way conservative societies confront the modernity process in the pursuit of higher education for women. Women in conservative societies serve as unique signifiers during processes of familial and societal change within their communities. The central thesis of this paper is an alternative approach to the evaluation of modernity changes occurring in religious and traditional societies, in light of developments in the Jewish ultra-Orthodox communities throughout Israel and the Bedouin community in the Negev. This new perspective could have a decisive influence on relations between minority conservative groups and the majority group in which they live, in the face of societal shifts.     

互联网成瘾问题的研究现状与展望

过度使用互联网将影响使用者的身心健康 ,从而导致互联网成瘾。作者根据现有文献对互联网成瘾的概念、诊断以及影响因素作了简要总结 ,介绍了互联网成瘾的现有治疗技术 ,并提出了该领域未来的研究方向和重点问题     

'This is not psychoanalysis': On the stony way of the Danish Psychoanalytical Society

When Freud founded the International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA), he wanted a network of local groups responsible for psychoanalytic training. The groups would function as ‘headquarters whose business it would be to declare: All this nonsense is nothing to do with analysis; this is not psychoanalysis. Today, with psychoanalytic pluralism, Tuckett (in press) has asked ‘Does anything go? He has pointed out that the psychoanalytic community has been increasingly willing to accept within its ranks apparently very varied approaches to theory and practice, and that this increasing diversity has many negative consequences for psychoanalytic institutions and especially for training schemas. The aim of this paper is to give an example of psychoanalysis that ‘did not go’, and how that led to a shaky start for the new Danish Psychoanalytical Society, with confusing boundary relations between psychoanalysis and psychotherapy and no training institute. Beginning with the written psychoanalytical contribution of the three founders of the Danish Society, the paper will try to identify factors that contributed to the ‘shaky start’. The paper will also examine how stones were removed from the path, thus paving the way for the members of the Society to discover ‘competent psychoanalysis’.