In her paper ‘What’s Critical about Critical Theory?’, Nancy Fraser allies herself with Marx’s definition of a critical theory. In her words: ‘[No] one has yet improved on Marx’s 1843 definition of Critical Theory as “the self-clarification of the struggles and wishes of the age.”[1] In this paper, I intend to place myself in this …
Continue reading Empowerment over Diversity: Why the Diversity Discourse is Misguided
In dit paper zal ik de term ‘postmodernisme’ onder de loep nemen. Het is een controversiële en veelzijdige term – zo kan het onder andere slaan op een stroming binnen de kunst, literatuur, architectuur, filosofie, of zelfs een cultureel tijdperk. Ik zal mij in dit paper alleen bezighouden met ‘postmodernistische’ filosofie. Ik zal pleiten voor …
In this paper I will examine whether we are morally responsible for our actions and whether it is important that we are. The intuitive conception is that we are morally responsible for our actions, but I will challenge this view with a theory called ‘situationism’. The situationists claim that we are not responsible for our …
Continue reading Are We Morally Responsible for Our Actions?
“I think Islam hates us” is a shallow claim made by Donald Trump, which depicts a certain narrow-minded mainstream image of Islam in society nowadays. It reinforces the apparent gap between the West and the Middle East, defining Islam as a belligerent religion, instead of trying to understand its multiple facets. What Islam are we …
This essay discusses Dignāga’s theory of perception, whereby close attention is payed to the contemporary relevance of his phenomenological analysis of cognitive processes. At first I give a brief overview of the general discussion surrounding Dignāga’s theory to situate his ideas within the philosophical climate of his time. Afterwards I describe the twofold process of …
Popular opinion concerning Islam is shaped by an Anglo-American dominance of the media, which influences the image that its consumers have of Islam. Groups such as ISIS or Al Quaeda terrorize the minds of people with their cruel and inhumane deeds. Both the creation of a misinformed, polemicised and poorly researched image by the media …
Certainly, it seems natural for us to have some preconceptions in mind when we hear the word Islam or Islamic but do we really know what it means? In this essay I would like to go beyond these commonly held preconceptions in order to put emphasis on its multi-faced dimensions. By keeping ‘What is Islam’ …
