Category Archives: Rationalism

Is critical race theory a way of understanding how American racism has shaped public policy, or a divisive discourse that pits people of color against white people? Liberals and conservatives are in sharp disagreement.

The topic has exploded in the public arena this springespecially in K-12, where numerous state legislatures are debating bills seeking to ban its use in the classroom.

In truth, the divides are not nearly as neat as they may seem. The events of the last decade have increased public awareness about things like housing segregation, the impacts of criminal justice policy in the 1990s, and the legacy of enslavement on Black Americans. But there is much less consensus on what the governments role should be in righting these past wrongs. Add children and schooling into the mix and the debate becomes especially volatile.

School boards, superintendents, even principals and teachers are already facing questions about critical race theory, and there are significant disagreements even among experts about its precise definition as well as how its tenets should inform K-12 policy and practice. This explainer is meant only as a starting point to help educators grasp core aspects of the current debate.

Critical race theory is an academic concept that is more than 40 years old. The core idea is that racism is a social construct, and that it is not merely the product of individual bias or prejudice, but also something embedded in legal systems and policies.

The basic tenets of critical race theory, or CRT, emerged out of a framework for legal analysis in the late 1970s and early 1980s created by legal scholars Derrick Bell, Kimberl Crenshaw, and Richard Delgado, among others.

A good example is when, in the 1930s, government officials literally drew lines around areas deemed poor financial risks, often explicitly due to the racial composition of inhabitants. Banks subsequently refused to offer mortgages to Black people in those areas.

Today, those same patterns of discrimination live on through facially race-blind policies, like single-family zoning that prevents the building of affordable housing in advantaged, majority-white neighborhoods and, thus, stymies racial desegregation efforts.

CRT also has ties to other intellectual currents, including the work of sociologists and literary theorists who studied links between political power, social organization, and language. And its ideas have since informed other fields, like the humanities, the social sciences, and teacher education.

This academic understanding of critical race theory differs from representation in recent popular books and, especially, from its portrayal by criticsoften, though not exclusively, conservative Republicans. Critics charge that the theory leads to negative dynamics, such as a focus on group identity over universal, shared traits; divides people into oppressed and oppressor groups; and urges intolerance.

Thus, there is a good deal of confusion over what CRT means, as well as its relationship to other terms, like anti-racism and social justice, with which it is often conflated.

To an extent, the term critical race theory is now cited as the basis of all diversity and inclusion efforts regardless of how much its actually informed those programs.

One conservative organization, the Heritage Foundation, recently attributed a whole host of issues to CRT, including the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, LGBTQ clubs in schools, diversity training in federal agencies and organizations, Californias recent ethnic studies model curriculum, the free-speech debate on college campuses, and alternatives to exclusionary disciplinesuch as the Promise program in Broward County, Fla., that some parents blame for the Parkland school shootings. When followed to its logical conclusion, CRT is destructive and rejects the fundamental ideas on which our constitutional republic is based, the organization claimed.

(A good parallel here is how popular ideas of the common core learning standards grew to encompass far more than what those standards said on paper.)

The theory says that racism is part of everyday life, so peoplewhite or nonwhitewho dont intend to be racist can nevertheless make choices that fuel racism.

Some critics claim that the theory advocates discriminating against white people in order to achieve equity. They mainly aim those accusations at theorists who advocate for policies that explicitly take race into account. (The writer Ibram X. Kendi, whose recent popular book How to Be An Antiracist suggests that discrimination that creates equity can be considered anti-racist, is often cited in this context.)

Fundamentally, though, the disagreement springs from different conceptions of racism. CRT thus puts an emphasis on outcomes, not merely on individuals own beliefs, and it calls on these outcomes to be examined and rectified. Among lawyers, teachers, policymakers, and the general public, there are many disagreements about how precisely to do those things, and to what extent race should be explicitly appealed to or referred to in the process.

Heres a helpful illustration to keep in mind in understanding this complex idea. In a 2007 U.S. Supreme Court school-assignment case on whether race could be a factor in maintaining diversity in K-12 schools, Chief Justice John Roberts opinion famously concluded: The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race. But during oral arguments, then-justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg said: Its very hard for me to see how you can have a racial objective but a nonracial means to get there.

All these different ideas grow out of longstanding, tenacious intellectual debates. Critical race theory emerged out of postmodernist thought, which tends to be skeptical of the idea of universal values, objective knowledge, individual merit, Enlightenment rationalism, and liberalismtenets that conservatives tend to hold dear.

Scholars who study critical race theory in education look at how policies and practices in K-12 education contribute to persistent racial inequalities in education, and advocate for ways to change them. Among the topics theyve studied: racially segregated schools, the underfunding of majority-Black and Latino school districts, disproportionate disciplining of Black students, barriers to gifted programs and selective-admission high schools, and curricula that reinforce racist ideas.

Critical race theory is not a synonym for culturally relevant teaching, which emerged in the 1990s. This teaching approach seeks to affirm students ethnic and racial backgrounds and is intellectually rigorous. But its related in that one of its aims is to help students identify and critique the causes of social inequality in their own lives.

Many educators support, to one degree or another, culturally relevant teaching and other strategies to make schools feel safe and supportive for Black students and other underserved populations. (Students of color make up the majority of school-aged children.) But they dont necessarily identify these activities as CRT-related.

As one teacher-educator put it: The way we usually see any of this in a classroom is: Have I thought about how my Black kids feel? And made a space for them, so that they can be successful? That is the level I think it stays at, for most teachers. Like others interviewed for this explainer, the teacher-educator did not want to be named out of fear of online harassment.

An emerging subtext among some critics is that curricular excellence cant coexist alongside culturally responsive teaching or anti-racist work. Their argument goes that efforts to change grading practices or make the curriculum less Eurocentric will ultimately harm Black students, or hold them to a less high standard.

As with CRT in general, its popular representation in schools has been far less nuanced. A recent poll by the advocacy group Parents Defending Education claimed some schools were teaching that white people are inherently privileged, while Black and other people of color are inherently oppressed and victimized; that achieving racial justice and equality between racial groups requires discriminating against people based on their whiteness; and that the United States was founded on racism.

Thus much of the current debate appears to spring not from the academic texts, but from fear among critics that studentsespecially white studentswill be exposed to supposedly damaging or self-demoralizing ideas.

While some district officials have issued mission statements, resolutions, or spoken about changes in their policies using some of the discourse of CRT, its not clear to what degree educators are explicitly teaching the concepts, or even using curriculum materials or other methods that implicitly draw on them. For one thing, scholars say, much scholarship on CRT is written in academic language or published in journals not easily accessible to K-12 teachers.

As of mid-May, legislation purporting to outlaw CRT in schools has passed in Idaho, Iowa, Oklahoma, and Tennessee and have been proposed in various other statehouses.

The bills are so vaguely written that its unclear what they will affirmatively cover.

Could a teacher who wants to talk about a factual instance of state-sponsored racismlike the establishment of Jim Crow, the series of laws that prevented Black Americans from voting or holding office and separated them from white people in public spacesbe considered in violation of these laws?

Its also unclear whether these new bills are constitutional, or whether they impermissibly restrict free speech.

It would be extremely difficult, in any case, to police what goes on inside hundreds of thousands of classrooms. But social studies educators fear that such laws could have a chilling effect on teachers who might self-censor their own lessons out of concern for parent or administrator complaints.

As English teacher Mike Stein told Chalkbeat Tennessee about the new law: History teachers can not adequately teach about the Trail of Tears, the Civil War, and the civil rights movement. English teachers will have to avoid teaching almost any text by an African American author because many of them mention racism to various extents.

The laws could also become a tool to attack other pieces of the curriculum, including ethnic studies and action civicsan approach to civics education that asks students to research local civic problems and propose solutions.

The charge that schools are indoctrinating students in a harmful theory or political mindset is a longstanding one, historians note. CRT appears to be the latest salvo in this ongoing debate.

In the early and mid-20th century, the concern was about socialism or Marxism. The conservative American Legion, beginning in the 1930s, sought to rid schools of progressive-minded textbooks that encouraged students to consider economic inequality; two decades later the John Birch Society raised similar criticisms about school materials. As with CRT criticisms, the fear was that students would be somehow harmed by exposure to these ideas.

As the school-aged population became more diverse, these debates have been inflected through the lens of race and ethnic representation, including disagreements over multiculturalism and ethnic studies, the ongoing canon wars over which texts should make up the English curriculum, and the so-called ebonics debates over the status of Black vernacular English in schools.

In history, the debates have focused on the balance among patriotism and American exceptionalism, on one hand, and the countrys history of exclusion and violence towards Indigenous people and the enslavement of African Americans on the otherbetween its ideals and its practices. Those tensions led to the implosion of a 1994 attempt to set national history standards.

A current example that has fueled much of the recent round of CRT criticism is the New York Times 1619 Project, which sought to put the history and effects of enslavementas well as Black Americans contributions to democratic reformsat the center of American history.

The culture wars are always, at some level, battled out within schools, historians say.

Its because theyre nervous about broad social things, but theyre talking in the language of school and school curriculum, said one historian of education. Thats the vocabulary, but the actual grammar is anxiety about shifting social power relations.

Original post:

What Is Critical Race Theory, and Why Is It Under Attack? - Education Week

EUR: When Ancient Meets Modern.

EUR (which is the acronym of Esposizione Universale di Roma, meaning Romes Universal Exposition) is a metaphysical district of Rome that dates back to the Fascist era.

The original project was inspired by Fascist ideology and by the classical Roman urban planning, adding the elements of Italian Rationalism. The layout of the EUR district includes wide streets, and majestic and imposing architectural buildings, that are massive and square, mostly built with white marble to recall the classical monuments of the Ancient Imperial Rome.

This district detaches from the rest of the city of Rome as its architecture is uniquely modern and presents any visitor with the perception of being in a timeless place, characterized by the sharp and tall buildings as well as the many green areas and massive artificial lake, creating a contrast between its modernity and the ancient buildings in the centre of Rome. The clean white marble buildings, the ancient roman architecture, along with the majestic fountains make this district seem like it was meant to be the return of the Ancient

Roman Empire with the influence of the Fascist ideology. So, how did this district come to life and how did it change throughout the years?

In 1937, the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini announces the start of construction for this district, designing a project planned to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the March on Rome in 1942. Due to the Second World War, an anti-bomb bunker was constructed 14 meters underground extending for 475 sqmin order to continue the construction regardless of the war.

However, after the events of the war and the loss of Mussolini, the exhibition never took place and the district was abandoned in 1942, the same year in which the original project was intended to be inaugurated. In between the 1950s and 1960s, the EUR district was revived, and new buildings were constructed, such as the Palazzo dello Sport (Sport Palace) in occasion of the Olympics Games of 1960, as well as the Piscina delle Rose (Rose Swimming Pool), an Olympic outdoor pool in the Central Park of the Lake.

The ambitious urban and architectural complexes attract tourists and inhabitants with the magnificence of buildings that rise mighty to the sky of Rome. EURs rationalist architecture characterizes many monuments that distinguish this district to the rest of the city. A symbolic monument of the district is the Square Colosseum, which is a nickname given to the Palazzo della Civilt Italiana (Palace of Italian Civilization), and was built by the architects Guerrini, La Padula and Romano inspired by metaphysical art. The district also benefits a sophisticated and well- connected system of underground galleries 4 meters below the ground that extend for 18 kilometres and provide water to the artificial lake as well as the rest of the district, as well as the optic fibre for a faster internet connection for the inhabitants.

The structural design and internal psychology of the districts architecture was commented by the notorious Italian director Federico Fellini, during an episode of a series released in 1970 by RAI.

In this series, Fellini walks through the architectural scenography of EUR and illustrates the reasons that led him to choose the metaphysical and abstractscenarios of this district to set some of his films, such as La Dolce Vita (1960) and Boccaccio 70 (1962).

According to Fellini, the space of EUR provides its visitors with an artistic atmosphere as if you were in a painting, beyond any law except perhaps the aesthetic ones. A place where there are no relationships other than those with solitude and objects. This reflection argues that this district hosts a metaphysical environment in which the monumental architecture is uniform and in harmony with its wide surroundings.

The urban development of EUR has continued to this day with the construction of the new Congress Centre called La Nuvola di Fuksas (Fuksas Cloud), a massive keel anchored to the ground by three solid metal feet, placed inside a giant glass and steel container and covered by an opalescent white fabric giving the complex the appearance of a cloud. Today, EUR is a Roman urban area in which most of the buildings are owned by the state-owned company EUR Spa.

EUR has thus become the most important financial pole of the capital with the presence of numerous banks, such as Unicredit, BNL and others, as well as public and private buildings, such as Poste Italiane (Italian Post Office) and theItalian multinational oil and gas company (ENI). The district also hosts the Museum of Roman Civilization and the National Museum of Popular Arts and Traditions, affirming its strong cultural connection to the past.Ph:MarcelloCerauloPortfolio / Shutterstock.com

Top ph:Marco Rubino / Shutterstock.com

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Introducing the EUR district in Rome - Wanted in Rome

Introduction

Over the last decade or so it seems geopolitical risk has become of greater significance for investors particularly with the 2016 Brexit vote and Donald Trumps election, and tensions with China from 2018. However, beyond lots of noise around President Trump and the US election, geopolitical risk took a back seat for most of the last year in terms of relevance for global investment markets as coronavirus dominated. But, after a period of relative calm following the handover to President Biden, there is a growing risk that it may make a bit of a comeback with tensions building in a number of areas.

Although significant geopolitical events impacted investment markets in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s (with notably two Gulf Wars and 9/11), the broad trend in terms of geopolitical influence was reasonably positive for investment markets with the embrace of free market/economic rationalism (after the perceived failure of widespread government intervention in the 1970s), the collapse of communism and associated surge in global trade, the peace dividend and the dominance of the US as the global cop. However, over the last decade geopolitical developments have arguably started to move in a direction which is less favourable for investment markets. There are three big geopolitical developments contributing to this:

The political pendulum is swinging back to the left the slow post-global financial crisis recovery, rising inequality, a dimming in memories of the malaise associated with interventionist economic policies and high inflation in the 1970s, and stress around immigration in various developed countries has contributed to a backlash against establishment politics and economic rationalist policies. This has been showing up in support for re-regulation, nationalisation, increased taxes and protectionism and other populist responses. While aspirational politics ruled in the 1980s & 1990s its since been replaced with scepticism about trickle-down economics. The trend towards bigger government has been pushed along by the pandemic, which has seen last decades fiscal austerity ditched in favour of big government spending and big budget deficits made possible by very low interest rates.

The swing of the political pendulum to the left is most acute in Anglo Saxon countries as it was here that the pendulum swung most towards free markets in the 1980s and 1990s. This swing is clearly evident under President Biden who is ushering in a greater focus on public spending to fix economic and social problems, partly financed by increased taxes and with bigger budget deficits. Its also evident in Australia with the budget repair focus of last decade now on the backburner and the Government focussed on pushing unemployment below 5%. But the swing to the left is also evident in German politics. And scepticism about western capitalist democracy has also become more evident in some countries, notably China which has backed away from becoming more like the West.

In the short term, big government spending could boost growth and productivity and may be seen as necessary to save capitalism from itself (as FDRs New Deal did). Longer term, big government could act as a dampener on productivity growth and boost inflation but if the post-WW2 experience is anything go by that could take a while to be a major issue.

The relative decline of US power this is shifting us away from the unipolar world that dominated after the Cold War when the US was the global cop, and most countries were moving to become free market democracies. Now we are seeing the rise of China at the same time that its strengthening the role of the Communist Party, Russia revisiting its Soviet past and efforts by other countries to fill the gap left by the US in parts of the world, resulting in a multi-polar world and increased tensions all of which has the potential to upset investment markets at times.

Third, social media is allowing us to make our own reality resulting in entrenched division and less scope for cooperation amongst socio-political groups to achieve common goals. As politicians pander to this, the danger is that economic policy making will be less rational and more populist.

The main geopolitical risks to key an eye on this year are:

US/China tensions, particularly regarding Taiwan this is probably the biggest risk. Trumps tariffs have not been reduced and Biden has maintained a hard line on China reflecting US public opinion. Tensions are heating up again as the US is preparing to sell weapons to Taiwan with military exercises in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, and some in China threatening to reunify Taiwan by force. The issue is arguably being accentuated by US restrictions on semiconductor sales to China and, of course, Taiwan has a state-of-the-art semiconductor industry. Its hard to see China reunifying Taiwan by force given the economic costs that would flow from trade sanctions and it all sounds like a lot of posturing, but the risks have gone up and markets may start to focus on it more, particularly if there are accidental military clashes in the area. And there are reportedly signs Europe may be moving towards the USs side on the broader US-China issue. Key to watch will be the Biden Admins review of US policy on China in coming months and Bidens first bilateral meeting with President Xi.

Australia/China tensions these have been building since Australia banned Huawei from participating in its 5G rollout and intensified last year after Australia called for an independent inquiry into the source of coronavirus, and China put bans and tariffs on various imports from Australia. The tensions may be escalating again with the Federal Government cancelling Victorias Belt and Road Initiative with China which could result in a further escalation in bans and tariffs on Australian exports to China. So far these have not had a major macroeconomic impact because the value of the products affected is small (less than 1% of GDP) and the impact has been swamped by the strength in iron ore exports and prices. And with Australia accounting for 50% of iron ore exports globally, there is insufficient iron ore supply from other countries for China to move to other sources. It could become more of an issue over the longer term if the tensions continue to worsen and ultimately impact iron ore, and this may already be showing up as a risk premium in Australian assets with the $A trading lower against the $US than might be suggested by the level of commodity prices and the trade surplus, and this may also be constraining the relative performance of the Australian share market. So any easing of tensions could boost the $A and Australian shares, but it could also go the other way if tensions escalate.

Iran/Israel tensions the US is looking to return to the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran in order to continue its pivot to Asia and given its energy independence making it less reliant on Middle East oil. Iran wants a return to the deal to take pressure of its economy. But Israel is not keen, is strongly opposed to Irans nuclear ambitions and has allegedly sabotaged some Iranian facilities with Iran vowing retaliation. Ideally Biden needs to get a deal done before August when a more hawkish Iranian president may take over. Reports indicate US/Iran talks are making progress, but there is a long way go and tensions between Iran & Israel and Saudi Arabia & Iran could flare up in the interim with potential to impact oil prices although beyond short term spikes the impact here is not what it used to be.

Russia tensions Biden has taken a hard line against Russia. It could insist that Germany cancel the Nord Stream 2 (Russian/German gas) pipeline which would risk Russian retaliation possibly with another incursion into Ukraine. A full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine is unlikely as it would unite Europe & the US against Russia and be costly economically, but another incursion is a risk. Tensions have faded in the last few weeks but could flare up again ahead of Russian elections in September with Putin looking for something to rally political support. Note though that the Russian invasion of Crimea and the shooting down of MH17 only saw brief 2% and 1% dips respectively in US shares in 2014 in what was a solid year.

German election with Angela Merkel stepping down after nearly 16 years as Chancellor in Germany, polls indicate there is a good chance that the Greens will win control of government in the 26th September elections or if not then be a part of it. However, while this will likely need to be in coalition with the Christian Democrats which would limit the Greens more extreme left-wing policies, its likely to see German policy tilt to the left with more fiscal stimulus (a direction the Christian Democrats are leaning in anyway) which will boost recovery in Europe and be a further force for European integration. So, a Green win could actually be a positive risk for European shares.

Terrorism The risks here have subsided, but new attacks cant be ruled out. However, economies and markets seem to have become desensitised to them to a degree.

North Korea Biden appears to be set on taking a more incremental approach to resolving issues with North Korea than Trump did, but more North Korean provocations could occur before progress is made. Note though that North Korean provocations had little lasting impact on markets in 2017.

US tax hikes so far, the US share market has not been too concerned much about the Biden Administrations proposed tax hikes on the assumption the negative impact will be offset by extra spending and congress will scale them back which they probably will. This could change if they are not scaled back.

Australia the main risk is an early election but differences between the Government and Labor are minor compared to the 2019 election. The Coalition is now eschewing fiscal austerity in favour of boosting growth to deliver a tight jobs market and higher wages. And Labor Leader Anthony Albanese has dropped most of the big end of town taxes it proposed in 2019. A Labor Government would take a tougher stance on climate and a more interventionist approach, however, a significant impact on the economy from a change of government is low compared to the 2019 election. To avoid separate House and Senate elections, the latest the next election can be is 21 May 2022. Recent controversies have reduced the chance of an early election.

Our view is that share markets will head higher this year as recovery continues and this boosts earnings. However, investor sentiment is very bullish which is negative from a contrarian perspective and we are coming into a seasonally softer period of the year for shares, as the old saying sell in May and go away.. reminds us and the next chart illustrates (although Australian shares can push higher into July). Geopolitical risks as noted above along with a resumption of the bond market tantrum as inflation rises further and maybe a new coronavirus scare could provide a trigger for a short-term correction.

That said, there are several points for investors to bear in mind. First, geopolitical issues create much interest, but as we seen with, eg, Brexit, North Korea and trade wars, they rarely have lasting negative impacts on markets. Second, its hard to quantify geopolitical risks as you have to understand each issue separately. Finally, trying to time negative geopolitical shocks & pick their impact is not easy and it often makes more sense for investors to respond once they are factored into markets as the worst usually doesnt happen, rather than permanently sheltering from them in low returning cash.

Read the rest here:

The Return of Geopolitical Risk? What to Watch over the Remainder of 2021 ShareCafe - ShareCafe

Review of Being Left-Wing in Australia: Identity, Culture and Politics after Socialism, by Geoff Robinson (Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2019).

Over the last decade, left-populist and socialist politics have made a comeback in the United States, UK, and Europe, but so far Australia has been an exception to this trend. Explaining this is as difficult as it is pressing. Geoff Robinsons book Being Left-Wing in Australia: Identity, Culture and Politics After Socialism, published in 2019, is perhaps the most thorough attempt to do so yet.

Being Left-Wing in Australia traverses the large-scale collapse of collective politics that has plagued Australia for thirty years. Robinson adopts a broad understanding of the Left based on how individuals and groups define themselves. He surveys a range of organizations and leaders, from far-left groups to the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and the Greens, not to mention contemporary political archetypes like the green capitalist or the human rights bureaucrat.

In particular, Robinson pays close attention to the shift away from socialism toward liberalism, and to the development of what he calls progressive neoliberalism within the ALP. Despite the continued grip of this doctrine on the party, it constitutes an exhausted political project Robinson compares it to a ghost begging for release.

Being Left-Wing in Australia is an intellectual history, but not a history of intellectuals alone. Robinson goes to great lengths to document the disintegration of the world that once sustained Australias Left.

During the twentieth century, a proletarian public sphere thrived, comprising working-class parties, unions, bookshops, newspapers, and publishers. This world existed both within and against a wider system of corporate liberalism, namely, a society based on the relations between groups, rather than one based on relations between individuals and the state.

The dissolution of the Communist Party of Australia (CPA) in 1991 was a watershed moment in the decline of this working-class political culture. Prior to 1991, as Robinson notes, the CPA had occupied a central position in the culture of the left as an alternative focus to the ALP, and had been a long-running source of intellectual sustenance for the Labor Left.

Yet the Australian left was not simply a passive victim swept away by historical processes beyond its control. Indeed, parts of the Left including left-aligned unions and the CPA itself were active participants in establishing and shaping the paradigm that followed.

In Australia, as in much of the world, neoliberalism sought to ensure the smooth continuation of capitalism following the high-water mark of class struggle in the 1970s. Australia was exceptional, however, because this project led by Bob Hawke, from Labors right faction required the cooperation of the trade union and ALP left. This allowed the ALPs left-wing tendency to come closer to power than ever before. On its own terms, it was, for a time, highly successful.

In similar fashion to Elizabeth Humphrys, author of How Labour Built Neoliberalism, Robinson demonstrates the role figures from the Left played in laying the bedrocks of Australian neoliberalism. In particular, this involved helping push through the Prices and Incomes Accord between the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) and the ALP. While Humphrys focuses on the mechanisms whereby militant union leaders and activists are incorporated into state projects of restructuring, Robinson places the accord in the context of broader ideological compromises that were taking place.

In 1969, Bill Brown, president of the Victorian Labor Party, addressed a party conference with the following message:

Only the conscious organization of production in which production and distribution are carried on in a planned way can save the world from destruction. This cannot be achieved by simply winning seats in Parliament and seeking to change capitalism into a morally good society. It can only be realized by a complete break from capitalist institutions, culture and morality.

Victorias Socialist Left faction was the most left-wing of all state Labor factions. Yet just compare Browns words with the career of Brian Howe, a leading figure in the Victorian Socialist Left.

Symbolizing the de-radicalization of the Labor Left, Howe oversaw a series of devastating cuts as a minister in the Hawke and Keating governments. Labors commitment to social justice offset those cuts, according to Howe. In practice, this meant that he urged the Left and the labor movement to accept the broad direction of government macroeconomic policy in exchange for support from the right on social policy.

The goal of social policy ceased to be social or economic transformation. Instead, the ALP confined the welfare state to a much more modest role in helping societys very poorest members with relief of poverty replacing a broader egalitarianism. His service in Paul Keatings razor gang earned Howe a promotion to deputy prime minister in 1991, just over twenty years after Bill Brown had denounced parliamentarism.

As ALP prime ministers Bob Hawke and Paul Keating spearheaded a process of market-led reforms that transformed Australian society, much of the Left dropped even a vague commitment to socialism. This coincided with the hollowing out of the social sphere. The result was a new form of politics that bore little resemblance to what had preceded it.

Pragmatism and policy replaced ideology. Party-political insiders and wonks supplanted activists and organizers. In place of Australias tradition of working-class autodidacticism, a new breed of public intellectual arose who believed that technocratic governance could improve society.

At the same time, social movements declined and became marginal or were incorporated into the state. Communities that had formerly been collectively organized for example, many Indigenous communities were atomized into groups of individualized clients. Unions traded militancy and shop-floor organization away to become arbitrators of industrial policy. This made them reliant on federal industrial relations institutions they had previously opposed, reducing their political role to that of pressure groups on the ALP.

This was the world that gave birth to what Robinson calls progressive neoliberalism. In his understanding, this was a form of ideology and political practice combining cultural politics that were broadly socially liberal with advocacy for economic rationalism, as neoliberalism was then known in Australia. It still dominates the Australian center left. Spend five minutes in the company of a typical ALP or Greens politico, and youll likely encounter a worldview built around these concepts.

However, these shifts only lay the basis for Robinsons account of a contemporary Australian left, whose origins he dates back to 2001 and the reelection of Liberal PM John Howard. Howards triumph that year was traumatic for the Left. Many had begrudgingly explained his 1996 victory over the ALP as a consequence of economic uncertainty and even as a vote against the model put in place by the accord.

In contrast, as Robinson notes, the 2001 election seemed to demand a cultural explanation. Having long since discarded a substantively different view of organizing society and the economy, the Australian left responded rather with a moral declaration of opposition to racism and xenophobia. For the center-left this led to an awkward politics that stressed balancing the interests of the working class and an enlightened middle class, with the latter supposedly being motivated by post-materialist issues.

For Robinson, Robert Manne exemplifies the Lefts embrace of liberalism during this period. Manne was an anticommunist onetime conservative who had voted for John Howard in 1996. By 2001, he had become a key intellectual figure on the Left thanks to his moral critique of aspects of Australian society and Howards leadership.

Robinson does not argue that the Australian left lost its traditional working-class base as a result of embracing social liberalism and identity politics. Instead, he demonstrates that this base had been eroding well before there was any cultural turn. That turn itself was a consequence of the collapse of collective, class-based politics.

Desperate to win back the base, sections of the ALP engaged in anguished acrobatics, appealing to socially conservative attitudes, or attempting to develop a new class identity politics, which regarded working-class as a cultural identity, rather than a socioeconomic reality. Robinson treats these strategies with the derision they deserve. His sensitivity to the subject and the breadth of source material he draws on allow him to trace the Lefts prioritization of culture and identity back to multiple sources.

For one example, Robinson cites Julia Gillards attempts to redefine working-class identity as distinctively male, white, ageing, socially conservative, left behind and susceptible to the appeal of the populist right. He suggests that this view evolved along a crooked road that can be traced back to the last years of the CPA specifically, the Socialist Forum, a right-wing split from the Communist Party. This shift toward prioritizing culture and identity was also encouraged by an academic left that had largely abandoned Marxism in favor of theorists like Michel Foucault and new disciplines such as cultural studies.

Having abandoned its social, economic, and political vision, the ALP as a whole increasingly found itself unable to differentiate itself from the Australian right on any basis other than culture and identity. Meanwhile, Labors Left faction came to distinguish itself internally from the Labor Right in similar terms. The ALP that emerges in Robinsons book is a party that lacks an engaged membership, led by a political elite still waging old faction fights that date back to the Cold War, with little or no grounding in contemporary Australian politics and society.

Identity also became key to the way the Left in and around the ALP understood itself. Shorn of its organic connection to collective politics, ideology became a matter of moral identification. Today, an online subculture known as Raindrop Twitter is emblematic of this trend. Doggedly committed to Labor, its a kind of baby-boomer liberalism that breathlessly decries corruption and media concentration while staying largely silent on privatization, Indigenous deaths in custody, or rising rates of casualization.

Robinson also looks back at an earlier online left that responded to any criticism of the ALP with defensive hostility. Bad news about the party, he suggests, was met with complaint and deflection and with general cycles of outrage produced on social media. This center-left, Labor-adjacent milieu increasingly boasted of its technocratic superiority to the Right, while claiming to be the true inheritors of Australias supposed egalitarian traditions of fairness and mateship.

If this all sounds depressingly familiar, its because the ALP hasnt really changed in over a decade. Even the great financial crash of 2008 did little to dislodge Labor from its progressive neoliberal rut. The party has not won a federal election since 2010. Robinson traces the partys microscopic shifts: some more social conservatism here, a greater focus on fairness there. But these modifications have virtually no meaning.

For socialists, Being Left-Wing in Australia can be a challenging read. Although it confirms much about what we thought was wrong, we only play a bit part in Robinsons account. Although occasionally correct in our analysis, we have lacked the strength in numbers or connection with the working class that could make our project meaningful. But Robinson helps us understand the unique and badly outdated world of Australian progressive neoliberalism that must be replaced. He tells us what not to do the rest will be up to us.

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How the Myths of Progressive Neoliberalism Hollowed Out Australia's Left - Jacobin magazine

View that moral principles are knowable a priori, by reason alone

Moral rationalism, also called ethical rationalism, is a view in meta-ethics (specifically the epistemology of ethics) according to which moral principles are knowable a priori, by reason alone.[1] Some prominent figures in the history of philosophy who have defended moral rationalism are Plato and Immanuel Kant. Perhaps the most prominent figure in the history of philosophy who has rejected moral rationalism is David Hume. Recent philosophers who have defended moral rationalism include Richard Hare, Christine Korsgaard, Alan Gewirth, and Michael Smith.

Moral rationalism is similar to the rationalist version of ethical intuitionism; however, they are distinct views. Moral rationalism is neutral on whether basic moral beliefs are known via inference or not. A moral rationalist who believes that some moral beliefs are justified non-inferentially is a rationalist ethical intuitionist. So, rationalist ethical intuitionism implies moral rationalism, but the reverse does not hold.

There are two main forms of moral rationalism, associated with two major forms of reasoning. If moral reasoning is based on theoretical reason, and is hence analogous to discovering empirical or scientific truths about the world, a purely emotionless being could arrive at the truths of reason. Such a being wouldn't necessarily be motivated to act morally. Beings who are motivated to act morally can also arrive at moral truths, but needn't rely upon their emotions to do so.

Many moral rationalists believe that moral reasoning is based on practical reason, which involves choices about what to do or intend to do, including how to achieve one's goals and what goals one should have in the first place. In this view, moral reasoning always involves emotional states and hence is intrinsically motivating. Immanuel Kant expressed this view when he said that immoral actions do not involve a contradiction in belief, but a contradiction in the will, that is, in one's commitment to a principle which one intends to motivate actions. Christine Korsgaard's elaboration of Kantian reasoning tries to show that if ethics is actually based on practical reasoning, this shows that it can be objective and universal, without having to appeal to questionable metaphysical assumptions.

Moral sense theorists (or sentimentalists), such as David Hume, are the key opponents of moral rationalism. In Book 3 of A Treatise of Human Nature and in An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (EPM), Hume argues (among other things) that reason and emotions (or the "passions" as he often calls them) are quite distinct faculties and that the foundations of morality lie in sentiment, not reason. Hume takes it as a fact about human psychology and morality that moral judgments have an essentially emotional, sentimental, or otherwise non-rational or cognitive character to them. According to Hume, "...morality is determined by sentiment. It defines virtue to be whatever mental action or quality gives to a spectator the pleasing sentiment of approbation; and vice the contrary" (EPM, Appendix 1, 10).

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Moral rationalism - Wikipedia

August 5, 2011 Posted by koshal

Empiricism and rationalism are two schools of thoughts in philosophy that are characterized by different views, and hence, they should be understood regarding the differences between them. First let us define these two thoughts. Empiricism is an epistemological standpoint that states that experience and observation should be the means of gaining knowledge. On the other hand, Rationalism is a philosophical standpoint that believes that opinions and actions should be based on reason rather than on religious beliefs or emotions. The main difference between the two philosophical standpoints is as follows. While rationalism believes that pure reason is sufficient for the production of knowledge, empiricism believes that it is not so. According to empiricism, it should be created through observation and experience. Through this article let us examine the differences between the two philosophical thoughts while gaining a comprehensive understanding of each standpoint.

Empiricism is an epistemological standpoint that states that experience and observation should be the means of gaining knowledge. An empiricist would say that one cannot have the knowledge about God by reason. Empiricism believes that all kinds of knowledge related to existence can be derived only from experience. There is no place for the pure reason to get the knowledge about the world. In short, it can be said that empiricism is a mere negation of rationalism.

Empiricism teaches that we should not try to know substantive truths about God and the soul from reason. Instead, an empiricist would recommend two projects, namely, constructive and critical. Constructive project centers on commentaries of religious texts. Critical projects aim at the elimination of what is said to have been known by the metaphysicians. In fact, the elimination process is based on experience. Thus, it can be said that empiricism relies more on experience than pure reason.

David Hume was an empiricist

Rationalism is a philosophical standpoint that believes that opinions and actions should be based on reason rather than on religious beliefs or emotions. The rationalist would say that one can get the knowledge of God by mere reason. In other words, pure reason would suffice for one to have a thorough understanding of the Almighty.

Even when it comes to their acceptance of the sources of knowledge, these two standpoints are different from one another. Rationalism believes in intuition, whereas empiricism does not believe in intuition. It is important to know that we can be rationalists as far as the subject of mathematics is concerned, but can be empiricist as far as the other physical sciences are concerned. Intuition and deduction may hold good for mathematics, but they may not hold good for other physical sciences. These are the subtle differences between empiricism and rationalism.

Plato believed in rational insight

Empiricism is an epistemological standpoint that states that experience and observation should be the means of gaining knowledge.

Rationalism is a philosophical standpoint that believes that opinions and actions should be based on reason rather than on religious beliefs or emotions.

An empiricist would say that one cannot have the knowledge about God by reason. Empiricism believes that all kinds of knowledge related to existence can be derived only from experience.

The rationalist would say that one can get the knowledge of God by mere reason.

Empiricism is a mere negation of rationalism.

Empiricism teaches that we should not try to know substantive truths about God and the soul from reason.

An empiricist would recommend two projects, namely, constructive and critical.

Rationalism would ask to follow pure reason.

Empiricism does not believe in intuition.

Rationalism believes in intuition.

Images Courtesy:David Humeand Plato via Wikicommons (Public Domain)

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Difference Between Empiricism and Rationalism | Compare ...

Rationalism vs. Mysticism: Schisms in Traditional Jewish Thought

by Rabbi Dr. Natan Slifkin

Published and Distributed by The Torah and Nature Foundation/ Gefen Books

All proceeds from books sold on this website go directly to supporting the Biblical Museum of Natural History

576 pp. Hardcover. Please allow several weeks for delivery to US, Canada, and Europe. For Israel orders, we also offer the option of delivery to a pickup collection in your city. For orders from Australia and South Africa, please email [emailprotected].

KNOWLEDGE

Do we obtain reliable knowledge about the world from ongoing supernatural revelation, or from scientific investigation?

NATURE

Is it preferable to perceive God as working through nature, or through supernatural miracles?

SUPERNATURAL ENTITIES

Are we surrounded by all kinds of supernatural forces and entities, such as endless conscious angels, demons and the Evil Eye?

MITZVOT

Do the commandments function solely to change our thoughts and behavior, or primarily to manipulate mystical forces?

TORAH

Is Torah a Divine guide for life, or is it also a metaphysical blueprint for existence with all kinds of supernatural qualities?

Rationalism vs. Mysticism is a thorough study of how these questions were answered very differently by various rabbinic scholars over history, reflecting two fundamentally different views of the nature of Judaism. It will profoundly deepen your understanding of Judaism and many of the intellectual conflicts that have arisen in Jewish history.

* * *

Rabbi Dr Natan Slifkin has for years been a courageous, learned, and witty exponent of rationalist Judaism. This new book is a philosophically sophisticated analysis of some of the main elements of that vision of Torah. Rationalism vs. Mysticism: Schisms in Traditional Jewish Thought is exceptional in its learning, the clarity of its exposition, and the authors refusal to reject other traditional understandings of Judaism as illegitimate. Unlike many of his opponents, Rabbi Slifkin believes that these and these are the words of the living God. Anyone seeking a contemporary statement of Maimonides worldview need look no further. Menachem Kellner, Shalem College (Jerusalem) and University of Haifa (emeritus)

This vigorous, wide-ranging book makes an important contribution to Orthodox thought. This is not only because of the authors keen argumentation, multifaceted erudition, lucid style, and sensitivity to the social consequences of worldviews. It is also because of his systematically presented conviction that both his favored position (Jewish rationalism) and the opposing perspective (Jewish mysticism) have a rich tradition to draw on, and neither can be waved away. Beyond the many specifics of the issues he considers and the case he makes for rationalism, he provides an appealing model of how disagreements in Orthodoxy should proceed. David Shatz, Ronald P. Stanton University Professor of Philosophy, Ethics, And Religious Thought, Yeshiva University

Rabbi Natan Slifkin has emerged as a central figure in the ultra-Orthodox struggle to define the proper place of science within Judaism. The Wall Street Journal

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Rationalism Vs. Mysticism The Biblical Museum of Natural ...

Recently, Gallup released polling data indicating that fewer than half of Americans are members of churches, mosques or synagogues. In 1937, 73 percent of Americans claimed some form of religious membership. Today that figure is 47 percent. This decline plays into what sociologists call the "secularization thesis," the presumption that as modernity barrels onward, religiosity slowly gives way to rationalism and technocratic ways of devising meaning.

But before secularism claims complete victory over religiosity, note that the Gallup poll reveals an almost even split between the two. Religiosity and secularism are not going anywhere, even as they interact in troubling ways via the "culture war." As the chasm that separates these worldviews seems only to widen, there is all the more reason to find ways to coexist peaceablyand a return to religious freedom will be a necessary ingredient for a more tranquil future.

Everyone, religious and non-religious alike, has an interest in defending religious liberty if we hope to have a public square that accurately reflects American demography. Even if you are not religious, consider that the First Amendment protections that all Americans enjoy emanate from a religious milieu. The Framers recognized that, before individuals are citizens of the state, they are persons attempting to make meaning and bring order to their lives. Everyone desires to live in accordance with what they believe to be true about the world.

The architect of our Constitution, James Madison, expressed this sentiment in his Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments. "Before any man can be considered as a member of Civil Society," he wrote, "he must be considered as a subject of the Governour of the Universe." Madison argues that religion recognizes realities that impress truths upon individuals prior to the authority of the state. Whether someone is expressly religious or not, every conscience must reckon with what is true or false, and then seek to live accordingly. The presumption of liberty means that we grant such freedoms insofar as they pose no unmistakable threat to society.

As a conservative evangelical Christian, I have a stake in protecting the right of expression of views I disagree withas much as I would hope to persuade you to protect mine, too. I use my religious liberty to proclaim the gospel and its implications for all of lifejust as a non-Christian possesses the right to proclaim his or her worldview, persuade others of its conclusions and live according to its implications. Our rights are reciprocally bound with one another's. The political philosopher Leo Strauss captured the political tension we must all balance if we hope to maintain a habitable system in which people disagree: "the political question par excellence is how to reconcile order which is not oppression with freedom that is not license." That, in summary, is the delicate balancing act of liberal democracy.

If religious freedom is going to work, it will require virtues that are in short supply, such as empathy and goodwill. Religious freedom requires me to believe that, despite what I may assume, others' moral and religious arguments are being made in good faith. It forces me to reckon with our common humanity and shared desires. Religious liberty channels our better angels in that it appeals to magnanimity as a form of cultural currency and moral grammar.

To be sure, as a conservative evangelical, I hold to convictions about the exclusivity of Jesus Christ and the nature of gender and sexuality that would cause many readers to recoil. I'm not contending for religious liberty just to be left alone, but to advocate for truths that benefit the common good and human flourishing. A robust understanding of religious liberty requires a humble understanding that cultural orthodoxies will ebb and flow, because today's victors can easily fall out of fashion. The back-and-forth of cultural exchange allows freedom to prosper, better ideas to gain traction and dictatorships that rely on stifling orthodoxies to be rejected.

The decline of religious liberty is a major reason our culture wars are so brutal. By looking to the government to adjudicate our divisions, we've outsourced debate on what is true or false. We ask a central authority to declare one side the victor and the other side the loser. Government cannot be agnostic about everything, but the great thing about religious liberty is that, rather than looking to the government to decide every important question, it allows each person freedom of conscience to decide how to act. Perhaps our political culture would be healthier if questions of ultimate meaning were not on the ballot every four years or divined by Supreme Court justices, and instead, were worked out in institutions, local communities and ultimately, in individual consciences.

Secularization is ascendent today. But the branch of religious conservatism I represent is not going anywhere, and we have to find ways to live together. Deliberation and persuasion must rise to the surface of our public discourse to settle conflicts. I'm going to continue to exercise my religious liberty to point to the truths that I believe are necessary for human beings and societies to flourish. If you think I'm wrong, convince medon't banish me.

Andrew T. Walker is Associate Professor of Christian Ethics at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and a Fellow with the Ethics and Public Policy Center. He is author of Liberty for All: Defending Everyone's Religious Freedom in a Pluralistic Age.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.

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Could Religious Liberty Help End the Culture War? | Opinion - Newsweek

In a June 23, 2011 essay forThe New Republic, the American journalist Leon Wieseltier writes that the ability to reason has a long history of being hounded by the hegemony of passions.

According to Wieseltier, the general perception is that reason ever since it became one of the primary pillars of the Age of Enlightenmenthas been the dominant human faculty from the 19th century onwards. But to Wieseltier, reason has come under attack over and over again by those who find it to be cold, devoid of emotion and therefore amoral.

Political, economic and social modernity, of which the faculty of reason was a major contributor, has consistently faced an onslaught from various quarters.

The whole so-called post-modernist movement, which took off in certain influential European and American academic circles, attempted to prove that notions such as unreason, irrationalism and superstition should be treated as expressions of localised knowledge and not discarded just because they did not suit the ideas of reason and rationalism as defined by the philosophies of the European Enlightenment.

Post-modernism was an extension of 18th century romanticism that glorified subjectivity and emotion, and searched for wisdom and inspiration in mediaeval ethos. These were rejected by the Enlightenment and replaced with an emphasis on progress, driven by science, free enterprise and rational thought.

Those who believe they can continue to pragmatically pander to irrational passions in the country must keep in mind what happened to Z.A. Bhutto

Post-modernism which, ironically, used reason to critique the dominance of reason, generated detailed rationalisations for those who refused to let go of myths, rituals and mindsets rooted in an emotional and traditional understanding of society and faith. Many critics of post-modernism have blamed it for aiding the resurgence of irrational movements.

The American sociologist David Lyon, in his bookJesus in Disneyland, writes that postmodernism turned faith into a commodity, sold by religious outfits that are operated like companies selling spirituality. These can be the non-traditional New Age spiritualism movements or involve people and organisations running traditional institutions of faith as businesses.

For Lyon, the tradition of religious obligation has been turned into consumption. Modernity had pushed religious obligation into the personal/private sphere through secularism whereas, uncannily, postmodernism pushed it back into the public sphere, but by turning it into a commodity that can be advertised, bought and sold like a product or brand.

Wieseltiers idea of the hegemony of passions can also be understood as the proliferation of irrationalism as a creed designed by amoral operators exploiting religious emotions through variations of faith, to capture political power and economic influence. Their success in this context depends on retaining the hegemony of passions, within which they can most effectively operate, and with which they can disrupt or entirely eliminate reason, which is seen as an enemy.

In Pakistan, religious groups were quick to establish the hegemony of passions, especially after the acrimonious departure of East Pakistan in 1971. The departure was explained as a failure of modernity or of the rational interpretation of Islam advocated by the founders of the country. The modernist/rationalist project was criticised for being elitist and Westernised.

Indeed, the so-called Muslim modernists in the countrys pre-1971 state institutions and the intelligentsia were attempting to evolve an Islamic theology in the manner in which European Enlightenment philosophers had evolved Christian Protestantism into a rational creed, which complimented secularism and scientific progress. But it is also a fact that almost all Muslim modernists claimed to have been inspired by the 9th century Muslim rationalists called the Mutazila.

From the 19th century South Asian Muslim scholar and reformer Sir Syed Ahmad Khan to the 20th century Islamic scholar Fazlur Rahman Malik who was instrumental in aiding the states desire to institutionalise Islamic Modernism in the 1960s all referred to themselves as neo-Mutazila.

There is now very little available in the countrys textbooks about the Mutazila. This, despite the fact that Mutazila doctrines had become the dominant creed in the Islamic world in the 9th and 10th centuries, during what is known as the golden age of Islam. Patronised by the Abbasid rulers, the Mutazila advocated a rational understanding of Islams sacred texts. They encouraged open debate and the assimilation of Greek philosophies to enrich Islamic sciences, when European realms were plagued by superstition.

However, when the Abbasid Empire plunged into a cycle of succession crises, the caliphs began to distance themselves from the Mutazila, especially when the Mutazila doctrines were attacked by ulema who managed to gain popularity among the masses impacted by the crises.

In the 11th century, when the first Christian crusade was successful in capturing Jerusalem, the theologian Al-Ghazali dealt the final blow to the Mutazila doctrine by upholding the orthodoxy of the ulema. To the state of Pakistan, the fall of Dhaka in 1971 was what the fall of Jerusalem was to Ghazali. Rational theology was criticised as the source of disunity. Open debate came to be seen as a threat.

In 1974, the so-called left-liberal government of Z.A. Bhutto tried to co-opt the increasing interest in religiosity in post-1971 Pakistan by agreeing to allow the parliament to oust the Ahmadiyya from the fold of Islam. But this only strengthened the hegemony of passions. It expanded two-fold, especially from the 1980s onwards. Politicians and the state have tried to use it for entirely political purposes, despite the fact that this hegemony is not bothered by the irrationalism of marginalising religious minorities as well as Muslims opposed to it.

The irrationalism in this context is about how many among those marginalised were/are highly talented in the fields of economics, science, sports, arts, etc., and important to the health of the state and polity.

But this hegemony has also become a quagmire for the state and politicians. They have to pragmatically mouth the emotive declarations of this hegemony, as they did recently during a parliamentary debate on whether to send the French ambassador back because of the French regimes refusal to curb Islamophobia. The debate thus became a contest between the treasury benches and the opposition, both claiming they were better Muslims than the other.

Ironically, reason, in this case at least, was only applied by the otherwise populist centre-right PM Imran Khan when he tried to explain that, in a globalised economy, Pakistan cannot afford to cut off ties with any of its trading partners.

The truth is, those who believe they can continue to pragmatically navigate the countrys hegemony of passions must keep in mind what happened to Z.A. Bhutto. In 1974, he congratulated himself for doing just this but, three years later, the very forces he had appeased overthrew him. This hegemony has no room for even the pragmatic dimensions of reason.

Published in Dawn, EOS, May 2nd, 2021

Excerpt from:

SMOKERS CORNER: THE HEGEMONY OF PASSIONS - DAWN.com

PROF.HAMID NSEEM RAFIABADI

Revelation is an English term for Wahy,which is often given by Allah (SWT) to His chosen servants known as prophets ormessengers (AS) through an archangel Gabriel (AS).This may sometimes change like in the case of prophetMoses (AS) to whom Allah (SWT) spokedirectly. Generally, the revelation bringsa drastic change either in the specific area of the world as in the case ofprophet Abraham (AS) or the overallsystem of the world, which can be seen in case of prophet Muhammad (SAW); the last and final prophet of Islam. Itbasically reforms the society by changing the internal as well as the externalactivities of the system.

In one line, revelation shifts the worldfrom the disobedience to the obedience of Allah (SWT), which further prospers the nations not only in this life butalso in the life hereafter. Through revelation,Allah (SWT) guides His creation how totake the world to its peak without compromising morality. In this sense, it wouldnt be wrong to say thatrevelation often brings revolution. The most modern example of this can be seenin the life of prophet Muhammad (SAW). With the assistance of the revelation, he (SAW)reformed the world within the 23years of his (SAW)reign, which was free from all sorts of impurityand immorality.It was complete in every pure sense and comprehensive inevery moral aspect.

His (SAW)revelation or revolution has gripped the world not only with the aestheticconcepts such as love, care, brotherhoodbut also with rational concepts like justice, equity, equality, etc. thatholistically promoted and highly supported the concept of humanity over theyears. Unlike other revolutions, which are based on finite ideas, therevolution of prophet Muhammad (SAW), which is completely based on the infiniteprinciples, teach humanity that the revolution without morality is paralysed and morality without revolution isincomplete, which means with the changing times and requirements, mankindshould look for different avenues, both from the rational as well as aestheticpoint of view that leads to the zenith of knowledge and wisdom, which will inturn not only benefit the present generation but also flourishes the futuregenerations.

As it is not possible to get acomprehensive view of human beings by separating them with spirit, soul, heart,intellect, or body. In the same way, the concept of revelation wholly andsolely cannot be understood by the principle of rationality. However, there area group of philosophers, psychologists, or scientists who with their worms eyeview claim that whether revelation or anything else, whatever is proven by thereason, mathematics, or statistics is true and acceptable the remaining isuntrue and unacceptable.

This view,however, took its roots in the 18th century where all thenatural sciences, social sciences, as well as historiography were deeplyinfluenced by Eurocentric and scientificlearning. These two terms have directly affectedthe unfortified human intellect and broadly changed its thinking patterns,which today is popularly known as scientific rationalism. Thescientific rationalism purely regards reason as a primary source of trueknowledge, which dominantly impresses the assumption that things which cannotbe perceived or experienced through the senses or is not measurable either quantitativelyor statistically are certainly unreliable.

Cartesian epistemology,the philosophicalandscientificmethod, which isoften associated with Ren Descartes who was a French philosopher,mathematician, and scientist. He identified reasons exclusively with scientificrationality and introduced experiences into sensory data. Based on thisprinciple, the Cartesianepistemology considers other modes and sources ofknowledge such as introspection, insight, empathy, intuition as an illusion. This epistemology has basically dichotomised categories of knowledge. It hasdrawn a sharp line of separation between subject and object, fact and value,reason and morality. However, there is a fundamental incompatibility betweenCartesian epistemology and Islamic epistemology.

Islamic epistemology eschews therationalistic fallacies and pitfalls of Cartesian epistemology and escortsintegration of knowledge, unitary, where all the sources of knowledge arecombined together. Islamic epistemology takes two cognisance of multiplicity modes or sources of knowledge andexperiences including sense perception, imagination, introspection, intuition,empathy, and revelation. This epistemology holds the opinion that even thoughthere is a disjunction between fact andvalue, or reason and revelation, they still are closely intertwined with eachother.

(Author is Head,Department of Religious Studies, Central University of Kashmir. Former Director, Shah-i-Hamadan Institute of Islamic Studies, Universityof Kashmir Srinagar. He can be reached on hamidnaseem@gmail.com)

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Dimensions of Revelation with special reference to Islam - Rising Kashmir