bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Decentralization as a Solution to the Problem of Cultured Diversity: An Example from Ethiopia
Authors: Hamer John 
Published: July 2008

ABSTRACTThe failure of the nation state in sub‐Saharan Africa has been a topic of great concern in recent years. In this article I explore in detail the historical experience of one ethnic group in the Horn of Africa, the Sidāma, and show how the nation state has had a comparatively negative effect upon another group in southern Ethiopia, the Maale. For the Sidāma, historic disparagement by the state, though discouraged by the present Ethiopian government, is shown to continue into the present in regard to dispute settlement and policy making by the elders. The Maale, though different in culture and social structure, experienced similar distrust and disparagement in Ethiopia's revolutionary period (1974–91). In the case of the Sidāma, indications are that this has continued into the post‐revolutionary period of state‐sponsored parliamentary democracy.As a solution I propose the ‘indirect state’ as a means not simply of maintaining the past culture of the Sidāma, but also of encouraging the people to originate change for themselves. Rather than institutional edicts being imposed from above by the nation state, the people will, in conjunction with other ethnic groups, negotiate both vertically and horizontally to reach consensual agreements for change.
Fighting Boys, Strong Men and Gorillas: Notes on the Imagination of Masculinities in Kinshasa
Authors: Pype Katrien 
Published: July 2008

ABSTRACTThe article provides insight into the current violent practices of urban youngsters in Kinshasa. At nightfall youth gangs transform the streets of Kinshasa's townships into arenas of the fight. Frequent regular clashes between these gangs create young violent leaders, who not only sow terror but also provide security for the inhabitants (young and old) of their territories. Although many of these boys and young men are trained in foreign fighting styles such as judo, jujitsu and karate, in the public clashes between the fighting groups, these boys and young men performmukumbusu. This fighting style, inspired and based on the gorilla, was invented during the last decade of colonialism, and is an original mixture of a traditional Mongo wrestling practice,libanda, and Asian and Western fighting practices. In the article, I scrutinize the practices of these young fighters through the diverse images of masculinity (kimobali) upon which they draw, such as the fighter and the soldier; and the models of masculinity that they contest, thesapeurand thestaffeur.
Violence, Sacrifice and Chiefship in Central Equatoria, Southern Sudan
Authors: Leonardi Cherry 
Published: July 2008

AbstractThis article explores specific oral histories and chiefship debates in the aftermath of the SPLA war in two Southern Sudanese chiefdoms. It argues that these local histories reveal much about the historical relationship between state and society – and in particular the mediation with external violence – which is central to understanding the legitimacy of local authority. Rather than being the strong arm of the state, chiefs have ideally mediated and deflected state (and rebel) violence. Unlike other African examples, they have been marginal both in landowning and patrician structures, so that chiefship has offered a more inclusive and pragmatic definition of community than have patrilineal discourses. As elsewhere in Southern Sudan, the early chiefs were often proxy mediators with marginal or outside origins and their access to government force has been balanced by the continuing authority of rain chiefs, elders, senior lineages and ‘maternal uncles’. Current governance interventions which treat chiefs as sole custodians of community land and customs may not be compatible with local understandings of the role of the chief. Oral histories of chiefship origins reflect a symbolic bargain made with government and with chiefs, whereby the latter use their ‘good speech’ to mediate violence, and if necessary sacrifice themselves to ‘bail’ people from external/government force.
The Cwezi-Kubandwa Debate: Gender, Hegemony and Pre-Colonial Religion in Bunyoro, Western Uganda
Authors: Doyle Shane 
Published: July 2008

AbstractThe Cwezi-kubandwa cult was the most prominent form of religious belief in the interlacustrine region of East Africa during the pre-colonial period. It has long been regarded as providing ideological support to monarchical regimes across the region. Recently, though, scholars have contrasted the hegemonic ambitions of the state with evidence that Cwezi-kubandwa also provided opponents of pre-colonial authority structures with both ideological and organizational resources. In particular historians of the cult have hypothesized that Cwezi-kubandwa offered women a refuge from patriarchal political and domestic institutions, and that Cwezi-kubandwa was dominated by women in terms of its leadership, membership and idioms. This article challenges the new orthodoxy by suggesting that both traditional religion's hegemonic and counter-hegemonic roles may have been over-estimated. A re-examination of the Nyoro sources indicates instead that Cwezi-kubandwa was far from homogeneous and dominant, that kubandwa was not obviously oppositional to other, supposedly male-dominated, religious beliefs, and that Cwezi-kubandwa brought female exploitation as well as empowerment. These findings require either a re-evaluation of the nature of Cwezi-kubandwa across the region, or recognition that the cult was much more geographically diverse than has hitherto been believed.
Reminiscences and Reflections at Eighty
Authors: Cohan Robert 
Published: July 2008

The memoirs which follow, resulted from three extensive interviews (on 22 and 23 May 2004 in Nîmes, France, and on 23 July 2004 in London); the transcripts were then edited and submitted to Mr Cohan for amendment and approval. The text that follows is a full encapsulation of what was said, apart from a lengthy excursus on orientalism in Miss Graham's work and a shorter one on improvisation in dance. This is a personal account, not a connected history of Mr Cohan's activities: many episodes from a long and varied life in dance were not encompassed in the interviews, notably the dance company Robert Cohan formed after he left the Graham Company for the first time and the work in Broadway musicals that he also undertook at this stage of his performing career. The commentary on the Graham repertory and that of London Contemporary Dance Theatre (LCDT) is also indicative rather than exhaustive. Robert Cohan is aware of major episodes from the Graham years – such as the first Asian Tour – that form no part of this account. Similarly, he does not seek to retrace the ground so amply covered in the history of London Contemporary Dance Theatre. On the other hand, some of the subjects that did come up, have been discussed before – usually with some differences of emphasis or detail. But it is worth recalling in this regard that memory can exercise a refining and a condensing, as well, sometimes, as a distorting influence. In establishing the ‘truth’ about any matter it is as useful to have several accounts by the same witness as it is to have one account by several witnesses – just as in an epistolary novel by Richardson, an event looked at and described by the same person several times or by a number of different people, can produce a richer version of ‘reality’ than a single ‘definitive’ statement. Although every attempt has been made to rectify errors of minor detail, the decision has been taken not to provide any scholarly notes to the text. This contribution to the journal is best received as a primary historical document. Those seeking a chronological account of the events mentioned in the text, or further guidance on matters of detail, are referred to the standard works.
Introduction: Perspectives on Testimony
Authors: Lackey Jennifer 
Published: July 2008

Almost everything we know depends in some way on testimony. Without the ability to learn from others, it would be virtually impossible for any individual person to know much beyond what has come within the scope of her immediate perceptual environment. The fruits of science, history, geography – all of these would be beyond our grasp, as would much of what we know about ourselves. We do not, after all, perceive that we belong to one family rather than to another – this is something we are told.Despite the overwhelming importance of testimony, it has been neglected to a large extent in the philosophical tradition. Arguably, this has resulted from a general sense that our other cognitive faculties, such as perception, are more basic and therefore ought to be the primary focus of our investigations. In recent years, however, the idea that testimony is of secondary importance has been forcefully challenged, and new ways of thinking of testimony have been fruitfully explored by a number of philosophers. The present issue of Episteme aims to build on this body of work and to broaden it by incorporating insights from three different groups of people: philosophers who have already done considerable work in social epistemology, philosophers who are for the first time applying their work in other areas of epistemology to testimony, and psychologists who study the development of our ability to learn from others. The papers in this issue, with one exception, were delivered at the fourth annual Episteme conference, held at Rutgers University in June, 2007.
Beyond Words: Communication, Truthfulness, and Understanding
Authors: Rysiew Patrick 
Published: July 2008

ABSTRACTTestimony is an indispensable source of information. Yet, contrary to ‘literalism’, speakers rarely mean just what they say; and even when they do, that itself is something the hearer needs to realize. So, understanding instances of testimony requires more than merely reading others' messages off of the words they utter. Further, a very familiar and theoretically well-entrenched approach to how we arrive at such understanding serves to emphasize, not merely how deeply committed we are to testimony as a reliable source of information, but that epistemological questions about testimonial belief are – perhaps even must be – posterior to such a commitment. This result does not itself dictate any particular views on the epistemology of testimony. However, not only does the failure of literalism not support the view that the justificatory basis of testimony-based beliefs is importantly inferential; it in fact undermines a key premise in one important argument for the view that one needs independent, positive reasons for accepting a given testimonial report. More generally, the present paper illustrates how discussions of the epistemology of testimony might usefully interact with an examination of the epistemology of understanding.
Testimony and A Priori Knowledge
Authors: Casullo Albert 
Published: July 2008

ABSTRACTTyler Burge offers a theory of testimony that allows for the possibility of both testimonial a priori warrant and testimonial a priori knowledge. I uncover a tension in his account of the relationship between the two, and locate its source in the analogy that Burge draws between testimonial warrant and preservative memory. I contend that this analogy should be rejected, and offer a revision of Burge's theory that eliminates the tension. I conclude by assessing the impact of the revised theory on the scope of a priori knowledge.
Reasonable Disagreement and Rational Group Inquiry
Authors: Moffett Marc 
Published: July 2008

ABSTRACTAccording to one widely held view, a belief is fully justified only if it holds up against the strongest available counterarguments, and we can be appropriately confident that it does hold up only if there is free and open critical discussion of those beliefs between us and our epistemic peers. In this paper I argue that this common picture of ideal rational group inquiry interacts with epistemic problems concerning reasonable disagreement in a way that makes those problems particularly difficult to resolve. By focusing on this idealized context, we get a clearer picture of the epistemic principles at issue. In the end, I argue that the best way to resolve the resulting epistemic conflicts is by appeal to the underdetermination of theory by evidence together with a principle of epistemic conservatism.
Introduction: Epistemic Approaches to Democracy
Authors: Estlund David 
Published: July 2008

The papers published in this special issue can fairly be unified under the heading “Epistemic Democracy,” but there is more variety among them than this might indicate. They exhibit the broad range of ways in which epistemological considerations are figuring in contemporary philosophical discussions of democracy. The authors range from young and promising to established and distinguished. I'd like to introduce a few of the issues that run through the papers, sprinkling references to the actual papers along the way.From the beginning, democratic forms of government have included discussion and debate. In real life the value of democracy can hardly be separated from the value of free public discussion, prior to voting, about the issues and candidates. This is not to say that either the discussion or the vote have always been inspiring, but whatever value democracy is thought to have, it seems inseparable from public political discussion. One way of accounting for the value of the discussion is to suppose that voters exchange reasons (not always cooperatively) about what to do. Even a quick look at the content of political debate seems to confirm that it is mostly about which decision would be best for the country or city whose laws or leaders are in question.
An Epistemic Defense of Democracy: David Estlund's Democratic Authority
Authors: Anderson Elizabeth 
Published: July 2008

ABSTRACTIn Democratic Authority, David Estlund (2008) presents a major new defense of democracy, called epistemic proceduralism. The theory claims that democracy exercises legitimate authority in virtue of possessing a modest epistemic power: its decisions are the product of procedures that tend to produce just laws at a better than chance rate, and better than any other type of government that is justifiable within the terms of public reason. The balance Estlund strikes between epistemic and non-epistemic justifications of democracy is open to question, both for its neglect of the roles of non-epistemic values of equality and collective autonomy in democracy, and for the ways his use of the public reason standard overshadows empirically based epistemic arguments for democracy. Nevertheless, Estlund presents telling critiques of rival theories and develops a sophisticated alternative that illuminates some central normative features of democracy.
Mysticism and Social Epistemology
Authors: Kukla André , Walmsley Joel 
Published: July 2008

This article deals with the grounds for accepting or rejecting the insights of mystics. We examine the social-epistemological question of what thenon-mystic should make of the mystic's claim, and what shemightbe able to make of it, given various possible states of the evidence available to her.For clarity, let's reserve the term “mystic” for one who claims to have had an ineffable insight. As such, there are two parts to the mystic's claim: first, asubstantiveinsight into the way the world works; second, a (perfectly effable)meta-insight that the substantive insight is ineffable. The two parts to the claim are independent: it is possible to accept that the mystic has been struck by an ineffable idea, but refuse to lend credence to the idea itself. Similarly, it is possible to accept the mystic's claim that she has had a veridical insight, whilst denying her claim that it is ineffable, or that she can know that it's ineffable. Thus, we could inquire into the grounds for accepting either part of the mystic's conjunctive claim. In this article, we deal only with the grounds for rejecting or accepting thesubstantiveinsight of a mystic, granting the meta-insight that the insight is ineffable.
Science as a Persuasion Game: An Inferentialist Approach
Authors: Bonilla Jesús Zamora 
Published: July 2008

ABSTRACTScientific research is reconstructed as a language game along the lines of Robert Brandom's inferentialism. Researchers are assumed to aim at persuading their colleagues of the validity of some claims. The assertions each scientist is allowed or committed to make depend on her previous claims and on the inferential norms of her research community. A classification of the most relevant types of inferential rules governing such a game is offered, and some ways in which this inferentialist approach can be used for assessing scientific knowledge and practices are explored. Some similarities and differences with a game-theoretic analysis are discussed.
Group Deliberation, Social Cohesion, and Scientific Teamwork: Is There Room for Dissent?
Authors: Tollefsen Deborah Perron 
Published: July 2008

ABSTRACTRecent discussions of rational deliberation in science present us with two extremes: unbounded optimism and sober pessimism. Helen Longino (1990) sees rational deliberation as the foundation of scientific objectivity. Miriam Solomon (1991) thinks it is overrated. Indeed, she has recently argued (2006) that group deliberation is detrimental to empirical success because it often involves groupthink and the suppression of dissent. But we need not embrace either extreme. To determine the value of rational deliberation we need to look more closely at the practice and practitioners of science. I offer a closer look here by exploring the joint agency of small research teams. Although there are factors that contribute to the suppression of dissent in group contexts, a closer look at the literature on group dynamics suggests that there are ways to mitigate the effects of groupthink. Thus, there is reason to be cautiously optimistic about the value of rational deliberation within certain scientific contexts.
When Experts Disagree
Authors: Coady David 
Published: July 2008

ABSTRACTAlvin Goldman has criticized the idea that, when evaluating the opinions of experts who disagree, a novice should “go by the numbers”. Although Goldman is right that this is often a bad idea, his argument involves an appeal to a principle, which I call the non-independence principle, which is not in general true. Goldman's formal argument for this principle depends on an illegitimate assumption, and the examples he uses to make it seem intuitively plausible are not convincing. The failure of this principle has significant implications, not only for the issue Goldman is directly addressing, but also for the epistemology of rumors, and for our understanding of the value of epistemic independence. I conclude by using the economics literature on information cascades to highlight an important truth which Goldman's principle gestures toward, and by mounting a qualified defense of the practice of going by the numbers.
The Case against Epistemic Relativism: Replies to Rosen and Neta
Authors: Boghossian Paul 
Published: July 2008

ABSTRACTUnlike the relativistic theses drawn from physics, normative relativisms involve relativization not to frames of reference but to something like our standards, standards that we have to be able to think of ourselves as endorsing or accepting. Thus, moral facts are to be relativized to moral standards and epistemic facts to epistemic standards. But a moral standard in this sense would appear to be just a general moral proposition and an epistemic standard just a general epistemic proposition. Pulling off either relativism, then, requires not just relativizing the facts in the domain in question to the relevant standards; it requires taking a non-absolutist view of the standards themselves. Otherwise a commitment to absolute truths in the domain in question will show up in one’s attitude towards the standards themselves. But it is very hard to see how to take a genuinely non-absolutist attitude towards the standards themselves. That, in essence, is the difficulty for a relativistic view of a normative domain that I tried to develop in Chapter 6 of Fear of Knowledge. In their commentaries, Gideon Rosen and Ram Neta come up with ingenious ways of attempting to circumvent that difficulty. In my reply, I try to explain why I don’t believe they succeed.
Why (Wittgensteinian) Contextualism Is Not Relativism
Authors: Williams Michael 
Published: July 2008

ABSTRACTThis article distinguishes Wittgensteinian contextualism from epistemic relativism. The latter involves the view that a belief’s status as justified depends on the believer’s epistemic system, as well as the view that no system is superior to another. It emerges from the thought that we must rely, circularly, on our epistemic system to determine whether any belief is justified. Contextualism, by contrast, emerges from the thought that we need not answer a skeptical challenge to a belief unless there is good reason to doubt the belief; so we need not rely on our epistemic system to determine whether a belief is justified. Accordingly contextualism is not committed to the view that a belief’s status depends on the believer’s epistemic system, nor to the view that no system is superior to another. The contextualist is not committed to epistemic relativism.
God as the Ultimate Conspiracy Theory
Authors: Keeley Brian L. 
Published: July 2008

ABSTRACTTraditional secular conspiracy theories and explanations of worldly events in terms of supernatural agency share interesting epistemic features. This paper explores what can be called “supernatural conspiracy theories”, by considering such supernatural explanations through the lens of recent work on the epistemology of secular conspiracy theories. After considering the similarities and the differences between the two types of theories, the prospects for agnosticism both with respect to secular conspiracy theories and the existence of God are then considered. Arguments regarding secular conspiracy theories suggest ways to defend agnosticism with respect to God from arguments that agnosticism is not a logically stable position and that it ultimately collapses into atheism, as has been argued by N. Russell Hanson and others. I conclude that such attacks on religious agnosticism fail to appreciate the conspiratorial features of God's alleged role in the universe.
Rational Fundamentalism? An Explanatory Model of Fundamentalist Beliefs
Authors: Baurmann Michael 
Published: July 2008

ABSTRACTThe article sketches a theoretical model which explains how it is possible that fundamentalist beliefs can emerge as a result of an individual rational adaptation to the context of special living conditions. The model is based on the insight that most of our knowledge is acquired by trusting the testimony of some kind of authority. If a social group is characterized by a high degree of mistrust towards the outer society or other groups, then the members of this group will rely solely on the authorities of their own group for their acquisition of knowledge. In this way they can adopt a corpus of beliefs which may seem absurd from an external point of view. However, they may be locked in a “fundamentalist equilibrium” in which particularistic trust, common sense plausibility, epistemic seclusion, social isolation and fundamentalist beliefs are mutually reinforcing - and in which individuals who adopt the “fundamentalist truths” of their group do not behave more irrationally than individuals in an open society who accept the “enlightened” worldview oftheirculture.