Ibn Khaldun’s Theory of Social Change

1998 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 25-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fida Mohammad
Keyword(s):  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Social Knowledge ◽  
Philosophical Tradition ◽  
Historical Process ◽  
Ibn Khaldun ◽  
Historical Processes ◽  
The Will ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Compare And Contrast

In this article I shall compare and contrast Ibn Khaldun’s ideas aboutsociohistorical change with those of Hegel, Marx, and Durkheim. I willdiscuss and elaborate Ibn Khaldun’s major ideas about historical andsocial change and compare them with three important figures of modemWestern sociology and philosophy.On reading Ibn Khaldun one should remember that he was living in thefourteenth century and did not have the privilege of witnessing the socialdislocation created by the industrial revolution. It is also very difficult tocategorize Ibn Khaldun within a single philosophical tradition. He is arationalist as well as an empiricist, a historicist as well as a believer inhuman agency in the historical process. One can see many “modem”themes in his thinking, although he lived a hundred years beforeMachiavelli.Lauer, who considers Ibn Khaldun the pioneer of modem sociologicalthought, has summarized the main points of his philosophy.’ In his interpretationof Ibn Khaldun, he notes that historical processes follow a regularpattern. However, whereas this pattern shows sufficient regularity, itis not as rigid as it is in the natural world. In this regard the position ofIbn Khaldun is radically different from those philosophies of history thatposit an immutable course of history determined by the will of divineprovidence or other forces. Ibn Khaldun believes that the individual isneither a completely passive recipient nor a full agent of the historicalprocess. Social laws can be discovered through observation and datagathering, and this empirical grounding of social knowledge represents adeparture from traditional rational and metaphysical thinking ...

scholarly journals Diary as a Mystification of Reality in Vladimir Sharov’s Novels

2020 ◽  
pp. 43-63
Author(s):  
Irina V. Ashcheulova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Text Structure ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Russian History ◽  
Historical Process ◽  
Text Structures ◽  
The People ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Will ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Revolution

In Vladimir Sharov’s novels, the text structure of the narrative is of crucial importance. The text structures of Sharov’s novels are diverse: letters, diaries, archives, notes, treatises, dissertations, etc. Sharov consciously chooses the diary as a form of narration, as a stylisation of the document of one’s personal presence in history. The diary allows Sharov to reveal the characters’ psychology, to identify their attitude to reality, its perception, and image. The article analyses the form of the diary in the novels The Rehearsals (1992), The Old Girl (1998), Raising Lazarus (2003). In The Rehearsals, the diary of Jacques de Sertan, a French director and actor brought to Russia by the will of fate, becomes the key form of the narration. For several years (1660s), Sertan describes the plot of the rehearsals of a religious mystery about the life of Christ staged under the patronage of Patriarch Nikon. The meaning of the diary at the level of the author’s consciousness is to establish the laws of historical mystery. The author comes to the idea that the idea (political, theocratic, utopian) influences the historical process. Service to the idea and fascination with it entail a desire to change, remake reality. This is how, according to Sharov, the endless revolutions of Russian history arise leading to national divisions, opposition of one part of the people against another. The algorithm of Russian history is extremely clear: repeated splits lead to absurd dead ends. The narration in The Old Girl is connected with the comprehension of the most important event in Russian history for Sharov’s authorial historiosophy: the Revolution of 1917 and the political repressions of the 1930s. The basis of the narration is texts of different statuses that the author imitated: first of all, the diary of the main character Vera Radostina. The diary here is a personal document of one’s own life and a document of the historical era of the 1920s and 1930s. This is the narrative function of Vera Radostina’s diary, stories about the revolution, its role, its meaning for a person and for contemporaries. The author’s modeling of the diary of a character such as Vera is associated with the perception of the role of a person in the historical process of the 1920s and 1930s. Vera turns out to be identical with the epoch. She is fascinated by the grandeur and phenomenality of what is happening. She understands that the revolution should be involved in the general historical flow, that it is necessary to “enter the revolution into the history of Russia”. From the point of view of the author’s consciousness, with a common historical pattern, the revolution turns out to be a catastrophe in the national historical process. In Raising Lazarus, the diary performs three functions. At the plot level, it logically ends the search for the missing manuscripts. At the level of the consciousness of Nikolai Kulbarsov, the author of the diary, it “documents his identity”, confirming the continuity of his self. At the level of the author’s consciousness, the diary becomes a fact of the resurrection of the individual in the abyss of history.

Schopenhauer and the Unconscious

2020 ◽  
pp. 496-516
Author(s):  
Stephan Atzert
Keyword(s):  
Sigmund Freud ◽  
Arthur Schopenhauer ◽  
Death Drive ◽  
Central Idea ◽  
The Unconscious ◽  
Pleasure Principle ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Will ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Sabina Spielrein

This chapter explores the gradual emergence of the notion of the unconscious as it pertains to the tradition that runs from Arthur Schopenhauer via Eduard von Hartmann and Philipp Mainländer to Sabina Spielrein, C. G. Jung, and Sigmund Freud. A particular focus is put on the popularization of the term “unconscious” by von Hartmann and on the history of the death drive, which has Schopenhauer’s essay “Transcendent Speculation on the Apparent Deliberateness in the Fate of the Individual” as one of its precursors. In this essay, Schopenhauer develops speculatively the notion of a universal, intelligent, supraindividual unconscious—an unconscious with a purpose related to death. But the death drive also owes its origins to Schopenhauer’s “relative nothingness,” which Mainländer adopts into his philosophy as “absolute nothingness” resulting from the “will to death.” His philosophy emphasizes death as the goal of the world and its inhabitants. This central idea had a distinctive influence on the formation of the idea of the death drive, which features in Freud’s Beyond the Pleasure Principle.

Free Agent or ‘Conscious Automaton’? Contrasting Interpretations of the Individual in Spencer's Writing on Social and Moral Life

2003 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Offer
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Social Evolution ◽  
Care Needs ◽  
Philosophical Debate ◽  
Herbert Spencer ◽  
Freedom Of The Will ◽  
Policy Sociology ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Will ◽  
The Individual

Herbert Spencer remains an important and intriguing figure in thinking about political, social and moral matters. At present his writings in relation to idealist thought, social policy, sociology and ethics are undergoing reassessment. This article is concerned with some recent interpretations of Spencer on individuals in social life. It looks in some detail at Spencer's work on psychology and sociology as well as on ethics, seeking to establish how Spencer understood people as social individuals. In particular the neglect of Spencer's denial of freedom of the will is identified as a problem in some recent interpretations. One of his contemporary critics, J.E. Cairnes, charged that Spencer's own theory of social evolution left even Spencer himself the status of only a ‘conscious automaton’. This article, drawing on a range of past and present interpretative discussions of Spencer, seeks to show that Spencerian individuals are psychically and socially so constituted as to be only indirectly responsive to moral suasion, even to that of his own Principles of Ethics as he himself acknowledged. Whilst overtly reconstructionist projects to develop a liberal utilitarianism out of Spencer to enliven political and philosophical debate for today are worthwhile – dead theorists have uses – care needs to be taken that the original context and its concerns with the processes associated with innovation (and decay) in social life are not thereby eclipsed, the more so since in some important respects they have recently received little systematic attention even though the issues have contemporary relevance in sociology.

Volkswille: Reale Substanz oder notwendige Fiktion?

Der Staat ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 59 (3) ◽  
pp. 371-396
Author(s):  
Shu-Perng Hwang
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
The Real ◽  
The People ◽  
The Will ◽  
Right Wing Populism ◽  
The Individual

Angesichts des markanten Aufstiegs des Rechtspopulismus in den vergangenen Jahren drängt sich die Frage immer wieder auf, ob oder inwiefern das Parlament den eigentlichen Volkswillen (noch) vertreten kann, und wie im Zeitalter der Globalisierung und Digitalisierung der eigentliche Volkswille überhaupt festzustellen und effektiv durchzusetzen ist. In dieser Hinsicht steht das Vertrauen in die Fähigkeit des Parlaments, den wahren Volkswillen herauszubilden und zu artikulieren, erneut vor großen Herausforderungen. Durch eine vergleichende Analyse zwischen den Demokratietheorien Böckenfördes und Kelsens zeigt der vorliegende Beitrag, weshalb und inwiefern das weitverbreitete Verständnis des Volkswillens und dessen Rolle in der parlamentarischen Demokratie gerade vor dem heutigen Hintergrund eine kritische Besinnung verdient. Es wird argumentiert, dass gerade in demokratischer Hinsicht nicht die Suche nach dem „wahren Volkswillen“, sondern nach wie vor die Gewährleistung der Menschen- bzw. Grundrechte der Einzelnen und insbesondere der Minderheiten von zentraler Bedeutung sein soll. In view of the spread of right-wing populism in recent years, the question as to how the will of the people is to be ascertained and expressed has attracted much attention in constitutional scholarship. In particular, the issue of whether or to what extent the parliament is (still) capable of representing and demonstrating the will of the people has been repeatedly discussed and debated. Through a comparative analysis of Böckenförde’s und Kelsen’s democratic theories, this article critically examines the problems of the widespread understanding of the will of the people as a real-empirical existence and its significance for the realization of democracy. Accordingly, it points out why and in what sense the reference to the so-called real will of the people would undermine rather than promote democracy. This article concludes by arguing that, precisely for the sake of democracy, what is crucial is not to determine what the “real will of the people” is, but rather to guarantee the freedom of the individual and especially of the minorities.

scholarly journals A Wealth of Evidence: The Identity of the Man Commemorated at Sutton Hoo

Elements ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dmitri Phillips
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Round Table ◽  
King Arthur ◽  
Burial Mound ◽  
World War ◽  
East Anglia ◽  
The North ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Individual

The history of England did not begin with the Industrial Revolution and not everything supposed about the Anglo-Saxons reduces to the myth of King Arthur and the Round Table. Contrary to commonly held beliefs, the Dark Ages of the North were full of splendor and brilliance; the only thing dark about them is their enshrouded history, but that only makes them all the more fascinating. The great burial mound at Sutton Hoo in East Anglia, discovered just before World War II, shines as one of the most grandiose sepulchers in history, yet the identity of its occupant remains a mystery. Was it a wealthy merchant, a warrior from overseas, or a great king? This paper gathers, presents, and scrutinizes the evidence and arguments from ancient records, opulate grave-goods, and contemporary investigations in an attempt to determine the most likely candidate for the individual interred in Mound 1 at Sutton Hoo.

scholarly journals The Relevance of Language as a Predictor of the Will for Independence in Catalonia in 1996 and 2020

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 426-438 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jordi Argelaguet
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
First Language ◽  
Reform Process ◽  
Place Of Birth ◽  
Powerful Predictor ◽  
Exogenous Variables ◽  
The Will ◽  
Logistic Regressions ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Secessionist Movement

The Catalan secessionist parties, if added together, have won all the elections to the Parliament of Catalonia from 2010 to 2021. Their voters have been increasingly mobilized since the start of the controversial reform process of the Statute of Autonomy (2004–2010). The aim of this article is twofold. First, it intends to test whether language is the strongest predictor in preferring independence in two separate and distinct moments, 1996 and 2020. And second, to assess whether its strength has changed—and how—between both years. Only the most exogenous variables to the dependent variable are used in each of two logistic regressions to avoid problems of endogeneity: sex, age, size of town of residence, place of birth of the individual and of their parents, first language (L1), and educational level. Among them, L1 was—and still is—the most powerful predictor, although it is not entirely determinative. The secessionist movement not only gathers a plurality of Catalan native speakers, but it receives a not insignificant level of support among those who have Spanish as their L1. Conversely, the unionist group, despite being composed primarily by people who have Spanish as their L1 and have their family origins outside Catalonia, has a native Catalan-speaking minority inside. This imperfect division, which is based on ethnolinguistic alignments—and whose relevance cannot be neglected—alleviates the likelihood of an ethnic-based conflict.

scholarly journals Gypsy Policy and Roma Activism: From the Interwar Period to Current Policies and Challenges

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 260-264 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena Marushiakova ◽  
Vesselin Popov
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Interwar Period ◽  
Research Council ◽  
Thematic Issue ◽  
European Research ◽  
European Research Council ◽  
Historical Processes ◽  
The Individual

The editorial introduces the key ideas of this thematic issue, which originated within the European Research Council project ‘RomaInterbellum. Roma Civic Emancipation between the Two World Wars.’ The period between WWI and WWII in the region of Central, Southeastern and Eastern Europe was an era of worldwide significant changes, which marked the birth of the Roma civic emancipation movement and impacted Roma communities’ living strategies and visions about their future, worldwide. The aspiration of this thematic issue is to present the main dimensions of the processes of Roma civic emancipation and to outline the role of the Roma as active participants in the historical processes occurring in the studied region and as the creators of their own history. The editorial offers clarifications on the terminology and methodology employed in the articles included in this issue and their spatial and chronological parameters while also briefly introducing the individual authored studies of this issue.

‘TRANS-’ APPROACH TO ARCHITECTURE AND MUSIC INTERACTION: THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MARCOS NOVAK’S LIQUID ARCHITECTURE AND MUSIC

2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (21) ◽  
pp. 0-0
Author(s):  
Gizem ÖZKAN ÜSTÜN ◽  
Pınar DİNÇ KALAYCI
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Historical Process ◽  
Music And Architecture ◽  
New Form ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Architecture And Music ◽  
Process Method ◽  
The Way

Aim: The aim of this research is to identify the Novak’s relationship of ‘liquid architecture and music’ as an approach that diverges from the architecture music relationships that have been built throughout the historical process. Method: In describing the approach, initially, the intellectual and critical foundations and features of liquid architecture were emphasized, and subsequently, its relationship with music was discussed through case studies in comparison to the current relationship between architecture and music. Results: When the current relationships of the architecture and music are evaluated, the attitude apart from the arising sensations and affections doesn’t exist within the relationship of liquid architecture and music. Liquid architecture, which has characteristics such as continuity, timelessness, plurality, poetry and obscurity, acquires the characteristics of the individual varying based on his/her body, senses, perceptions, and emotions as the way of producing architecture. It is claimed that the liquidity approach will influence music and architecture in different ways than is known, and that music will transform into a new form of architecture, while architecture becoming a new form of music. In this context, it extends ‘beyond (trans-)’ the limits of current approaches. Conclusion: The sixth category of methodical approaches in architecture music interaction can be defined as the relationship of liquid architecture and music. The way it relates to music and the way it produces architecture also suggests a direction of development to concrete architecture and virtually warns about renewing its theory and tools.

Artificial Intelligence Assisted Learning (AIAL) Blueprint

2020 ◽  
pp. 317-338
Author(s):  
Alexiei Dingli ◽  
Lara Caruana Montalto
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Educational System ◽  
Assembly Line ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Quality Of Teaching ◽  
The Moment ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Case Basis

Education is facing various challenges at the moment and needs to be reinvented. Some of the methods used have been inspired by the industrial revolution when an assembly line one-size-fits-all approach was setup in schools. Today, teachers are struggling to manage the number of students in a class thus making the quality of teaching inconsistent. Furthermore, they have to deal with students having different abilities in the same class which makes it impossible to give each and every student the individual attention they deserve. Through the artificial intelligence assisted learning (AIAL) system, the authors believe that they can personalise the learning and thus free a lot of time for the teacher which can be used to focus on those students that are really in need. This will be done on a case by case basis, thus creating a fairer educational system which is personalized for the needs of each and every student which guarantees equity.

Historical Roots of Existentialism

2020 ◽  
pp. 56-71
Author(s):  
Jennifer Anna Gosetti-Ferencei
Keyword(s):  
Religious Conversion ◽  
Human Freedom ◽  
The Self ◽  
Philosophical Tradition ◽  
Critical Engagement ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Context Features ◽  
Freedom And Responsibility

This chapter shows the inheritance by existentialism of ideas from the philosophical tradition. Socrates serves for Kierkegaard and Marcel as a model for the authentic practice of philosophy and for initiating interior reflection of the self. Sartre, Beauvoir, and Camus debated Stoicism’s understanding of freedom from external circumstances. Husserl and Heidegger interpreted Augustine’s conception of time, while Heidegger along with Beauvoir adapted, in a secular context, features of his conception of religious conversion. Augustine, Shakespeare, and Montaigne explored inner reflection and the nature of the self which came to be critically echoed in existentialist conceptions. The Enlightenment generated a philosophy of human freedom, defending the rational autonomy of the individual. Critical engagement of these ideas is shown to have shaped existentialist conceptions of authenticity, subjectivity, inwardness, freedom, and responsibility.

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