Maree Ann's profileINTERNATIONAL FOUNDATION...PhotosBlogListsMore  |  Tools Help |
|
December 12 BE AWAREAccessed December 12 2008
  Night Stalkers - Japan <<CLICK HERE (Video): Western girls hoping to work as hostesses in Japan. BEWARE.
Every year, thousands of Western girls head for Tokyo, where they're easy prey for rich Japanese men. Killers like cannibal Issei Sagawa or Joji Obara target mainly foreigners. "I really wanted to eat her. She looked very delicious," confides Japan's most notorious cannibal, Issei Sagawa. Twenty years ago, he murdered and ate a French student. Protected by his wealthy father, he escaped prison and regularly trawls the bars of Tokyo. The murder of British hostess Lucy Blackman revealed just how dangerous working in Tokyo can be. Leading suspect, Joji Obara, filmed himself drugging and raping more than 150 girls. Worryingly, he's not the only rapist targeting foreign hostesses. "Sexual violation to a hostess would happen every night," alleges nightclub worker Rob Cox. He claims Tokyo's police are in the pay of the Mafia. "The police and Mafia work hand in hand to make sure the sex industry keeps spinning." November 20 300 WOMEN WHO CHANGED THE WORLD: Part TwoAccessed November 2008
300 WOMEN WHO CHANGED THE WORLD: Part OneAccessed November 2008
For millennia, women have left their mark on the world, at times changing the course of history and at other times influencing small but significant spheres of life. Only in the past century, however, have concerted efforts been made to represent women's contributions more fully in history books. Consequently, changes in status for many women in modern times—the right to own property, to vote, and to choose their own careers—may obscure the accomplishments made by women of earlier eras. In profiling 300 women who changed the world, Encyclopædia Britannica has chosen those whose contributions have endured through the ages. Some, though they lived centuries ago, are still alive in popular culture; music and poetry by the Roman Catholic abbess Hildegard can be heard in contemporary recordings, and Murasaki Shikibu's The Tale of Genji is one of the greatest works of Japanese literature. Many women overcame the oppression of their surroundings through determination and ingenuity: Harriet Tubman escaped slavery and risked her life helping others to freedom. Other women grew up in privileged surroundings; the philosopher and mathematician Hypatia and the historian Ban Zhao were born to families that permitted the education of girls in an era when females were rarely even taught to read. Not all of these women changed the world for the good. Filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl produced propaganda films that glorified Adolf Hitler's brutal Third Reich. Many suffered through the deeds of Jiang Qing, who fought bitterly to advance her own political powers during China's Cultural Revolution. Some were warriors such as Boudicca, who led a bloody rebellion against the Romans. Others advocated peace: Bertha, baroness von Suttner, influenced the creation of the Nobel Peace Prize that would eventually be won by many women, including Wangari Maathai and Mother Teresa. Like Mother Teresa, many were driven by religious conviction. Khadijah's belief in her husband Muhammad's revelations helped lay the foundation of Islam. Joan of Arc's divine inspiration led the French in a decisive victory against the English. Her feats were celebrated by the poet Christine de Pisan, who also penned some of the earliest commentaries on women's roles in society.
BIOGRAPHIES A-Z
August 14 VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN: Facts and FiguresUNIFEM – http://www.unifem.org/
Accessed August 14 2008
Violence against women and girls continues unabated in every continent, country and culture. It takes a devastating toll on women’s lives, on their families, and on society as a whole. Most societies prohibit such violence — yet the reality is that too often, it is covered up or tacitly condoned. — UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, 8 March 2007 Violence against women and girls is a problem of pandemic proportions. At least one out of every three women around the world has been beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused in her lifetime — with the abuser usually someone known to her. Perhaps the most pervasive human rights violation that we know today, it devastates lives, fractures communities, and stalls development. Statistics paint a horrifying picture of the social and health consequences of violence against women. For women aged 15 to 44 years, violence is a major cause of death and disability. In a 1994 study based on World Bank data about ten selected risk factors facing women in this age group, rape and domestic violence rated higher than cancer, motor vehicle accidents, war and malaria. Moreover, several studies have revealed increasing links between violence against women and HIV/AIDS. Women who have experienced violence are at a higher risk of HIV infection: a survey among 1,366 South African women showed that women who were beaten by their partners were 48 percent more likely to be infected with HIV than those who were not. The economic cost of violence against women is considerable — a 2003 report by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that the costs of intimate partner violence in the United States alone exceed US$5.8 billion per year: US$4.1 billion are for direct medical and health care services, while productivity losses account for nearly US$1.8 billion. Violence against women impoverishes individuals, families and communities, reducing the economic development of each nation. In 1996, the United Nations General Assembly established the UN Trust Fund to Eliminate Violence against Women. The Trust Fund is managed by UNIFEM and is the only multilateral grant-making mechanism that supports local, national and regional efforts to combat violence. Since it began operations in 1997, the Trust Fund has awarded more than US$19 million to 263 initiatives to address violence against women in 115 countries. Raising awareness of women’s human rights, these UNIFEM-supported efforts have linked activists and advocates from all parts of the world; shown how small, innovative projects impact laws, policies and attitudes; and has begun to break the wall of silence by moving the issue onto public agendas everywhere. DOMESTIC AND INTIMATE PARTNER VIOLENCE
Domestic and intimate partner violence includes physical and sexual attacks against women in the home, within the family or within an intimate relationship. Women are more at risk of experiencing violence in intimate relationships than anywhere else.
In no country in the world are women safe from this type of violence. Out of ten counties surveyed in a 2005 study by the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 50 percent of women in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Peru and Tanzania reported having been subjected to physical or sexual violence by intimate partners, with figures reaching staggering 71 percent in rural Ethiopia. Only in one country (Japan) did less than 20 percent of women report incidents of domestic violence. An earlier WHO study puts the number of women physically abused by their partners or ex-partners at 30 percent in the United Kingdom, and 22 percent in the United States.
In a recent survey by the American Institute on Domestic Violence, 60 percent of senior executives said that domestic violence, which limits women’s workplace participation, has an adverse effect on company productivity. The survey found that domestic violence victims lose nearly 8 million days of paid work per year — the equivalent of 32,000 full-time jobs.
Based on several surveys from around the world, half of the women who die from homicides are killed by their current or former husbands or partners. Women are killed by people they know and die from gun violence, beatings and burns, among numerous other forms of abuse. A study conducted in São Paulo, Brazil, reported that 13 percent of deaths of women of reproductive age were homicides, of which 60 percent were committed by the victims’ partners. According to a UNIFEM report on violence against women in Afghanistan, out of 1,327 incidents of violence against women collected between January 2003 and June 2005, 36 women had been killed — in 16 cases (44.4 percent) by their intimate partners.
According to the Secretary-General’s In-Depth Study on All Forms of Violence against Women, by 2006 89 States had some form of legislative prohibition on domestic violence, including 60 States with specific domestic violence laws, and a growing number of countries had instituted national plans of action to end violence against women. This is a clear increase in comparison to 2003, when UNIFEM did a scan of anti-violence legislation and found that only 45 countries had specific laws on domestic violence. Yet high levels of violence against women persist. There is clearly a need for greater focus on implementation and enforcement of legislation, and an end to laws that emphasize family reunification over the rights of women and girls.
Limited availability of services, stigma and fear prevent women from seeking assistance and redress. This has been confirmed by a study published by the WHO in 2005: on the basis of data collected from 24,000 women in 10 countries, between 55 percent and 95 percent of women who had been physically abused by their partners had never contacted NGOs, shelters or the police for help.
The UN Trust Fund to Eliminate Violence against Women supported a project to combat domestic violence in Nigeria. The project aimed to sensitize the general public by producing and airing a TV drama series on VAW, entitled "Trauma." It also held workshops and advocacy meetings with stakeholders and legislators in order to support the adoption of a pending domestic violence bill. During project implementation, the bill was adopted in several states in Nigeria. SEXUAL VIOLENCE Although women are more at risk of violence from their intimate partners than from other persons, sexual violence by non-partners is also common in many settings. According to the 2006 In-Depth Study of the Secretary-General: "Sexual violence by non-partners refers to violence by a relative, friend, acquaintance, neighbour, work colleague or stranger. Estimates of the prevalence of sexual violence by non-partners are difficult to establish, because in many societies, sexual violence remains an issue of deep shame for women and often for their families. Statistics on rape extracted from police records, for example, are notoriously unreliable because of significant underreporting". It is estimated that worldwide, one in five women will become a victim of rape or attempted rape in her lifetime. In a randomly selected study of nearly 1,200 ninth-grade students in Geneva, Switzerland, 20 percent of girls revealed they had experienced at least one incident of physical sexual abuse. According to the 2005 multi-country study on domestic violence undertaken by the WHO, between 10 and 12 percent of women in Peru, Samoa and Tanzania have suffered sexual violence by non-partners after the age of 15. Other population-based studies reveal that 11.6 percent of women in Canada reported sexual violence by a non-partner in their lifetime, and between 10 and 20 percent of women in New Zealand and Australia have experienced various forms of sexual violence from non-partners, including unwanted sexual touching, attempted rape and rape. In many societies, the legal system and community attitudes add to the trauma that rape survivors experience. Women are often held responsible for the violence against them, and in many places laws contain loopholes which allow the perpetrators to act with impunity. In a number of countries, a rapist can go free under the Penal Code if he proposes to marry the victim. HARMFUL TRADITIONAL PRACTICES Harmful traditional practices are forms of violence that have been committed against women in certain communities and societies for so long that they are considered part of accepted cultural practice. These violations include female genital mutilation or cutting (FGM), dowry murder, so-called "honour killings," and early marriage. They lead to death, disability, physical and psychological harm for millions of women annually. Female Genital Mutilation (FGM)
FGM refers to several types of deeply-rooted traditional cutting operations performed on women and girls. Often part of fertility or coming-of-age rituals, FGM is sometimes justified as a way to ensure chastity and genital "purity." It is estimated that more than 130 million girls and women alive today have undergone FGM, mainly in Africa and some Middle Eastern countries.and two million girls a year are at risk of mutilation. Cases of FGM have been reported in Asian countries such as India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Sri Lanka, and it is thought to be performed among some indigenous groups in Central and South America. FGM is also being practiced among immigrant communities in Europe, North America and Australia.
Since the late 1980s, opposition to FGM and efforts to combat the practice have increased. According to the Secretary-General’s In-Depth Study, as of April 2006, 15 of the 28 African States where FGM is prevalent made it an offence under criminal law. Of the nine States in Asia and the Arabian Peninsula where female genital mutilation/cutting is prevalent among certain groups, two have enacted legal measures prohibiting it. In addition, ten States in other parts of the world have enacted laws criminalizing the practice.
UNIFEM supported a project in Kenya, which involved local communities developing alternative coming-of-age rituals, such as "circumcision with words" — celebrating a young girl’s entry into womanhood with words instead of genital cutting. The project involved close cooperation with circumcisers, religious leaders, and men and boys in the communities. Another project in Mali, with support from the UN Trust Fund to Eliminate Violence against Women, is currently working to foster dialogue and build capacities among government ministries, parliamentarians, civil society and traditional and religious leaders that can lead to changes in harmful practices and attitudes. Dowry Murder
Dowry murder is a brutal practice involving a woman being killed by her husband or in-laws because her family is unable to meet their demands for her dowry — a payment made to a woman’s in-laws upon her engagement or marriage as a gift to her new family. It is not uncommon for dowries to exceed a family’s annual income.
While cultures throughout the world have dowries or similar payments, dowry murder occurs predominantly in South Asia. According to official crime statistics in India, 6,822 women were killed in 2002 as a result of such violence. Small community studies have also indicated that dowry demands have played an important role in women being burned to death and in deaths of women being labelled suicides. In Bangladesh, there have been many incidents of acid attacks due to dowry disputes, leading often to blindness, disfigurement, and death. In 2002, 315 women and girls in Bangladesh were victims of acid attacks; in 2005 that number was 267. "Honour Killings" In many societies, rape victims, women suspected of engaging in premarital sex, and women accused of adultery have been murdered by their relatives because the violation of a woman’s chastity is viewed as an affront to the family’s honour. The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) estimates that the annual world-wide number of "honour killing" victims may be as high as 5000 women. According to a 2002 report by the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, "honour killings" take place in Pakistan, Turkey, Jordan, Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, Iran, Yemen, Morocco and other Mediterranean and Gulf countries. It also occurs in countries such as Germany, France and the United Kingdom within immigrant communities. It is not only in Islamic countries or communities that this act of violence is prevalent. Brazil is cited as a case in point, where killing is justified to defend the honour of the husband in the case of a wife’s adultery. According to a government report, 4,000 women and men were killed in Pakistan in the name of honour between 1998 and 2003, the number of women being more than double the number of men. In a study of female deaths in Alexandria, Egypt, 47 percent of the women were killed by a relative after the woman had been raped. In Jordan and Lebanon, 70 to 75 percent of the perpetrators of these so-called "honour killings" are the women’s brothers. In Sudan, the UN Trust Fund to Eliminate Violence against Women supported a project to combat "honour killings" in the Nuba Mountains region. The project trained local and religious leaders, women leaders and teachers to become advocates in their communities against "honour killings" and other forms of violence against women. They organized trainings and group discussions, as a result of which "honour killings" were for the first time discussed in public. The project led to positive changes in knowledge, attitudes and practices among community members who increasingly began to regard "honour killings" as a crime, rather than a legitimate means to defend a tribe’s honour. Early Marriage The practice of early marriage is prevalent throughout the world, especially in Africa and South Asia. This is a form of sexual violence, since young girls are often forced into the marriage and into sexual relations, which jeopardizes their health, raises their risk of exposure to HIV/AIDS and limits their chance of attending school. Parents and families often justify child marriages by claiming it ensures a better future for their daughters. Parents and families marry off their younger daughters as a means of gaining economic security and status for themselves as well as for their daughters. Insecurity, conflict and societal crises also support early marriage. In many African countries experiencing conflict, where there is a high possibility of young girls being kidnapped, marrying them off at an early age is viewed as a way to secure their protection. According to a 2006 report by the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women on her mission to Afghanistan, an estimated 57 percent of girls in Afghanistan are married before the age of 16. Economic reasons are said to play a significant role in such marriages. Due to the common practice of "bride money," the girl child becomes an asset exchangeable for money or goods. Families see committing a young daughter (or sister) to a family that is able to pay a high price for the bride as a viable solution to their poverty and indebtedness. The custom of bride money may motivate families that face indebtedness and economic crisis to "cash in" the "asset" as young as 6 or 7, with the understanding that the actual marriage is delayed until the child reaches puberty. However, reports indicate that this is rarely observed, and that young girls may be sexually violated not only by the groom, but also by older men in the family, particularly if the groom is a child too. TRAFFICKING IN WOMEN AND GIRLS
Trafficking involves the recruitment and transportation of persons, using deception, coercion and threats in order to place and keep them in a situation of forced labour, slavery or servitude. Persons are trafficked into a variety of sectors of the informal economy, including prostitution, domestic work, agriculture, the garment industry or street begging.
While exact data are hard to come by, estimates of the number of trafficked persons range from 500,000 to two million per year, and a few organizations have estimated that up to four million persons are trafficked every year. Although women, men, girls and boys can become victims of trafficking, the majority of victims are female. Various forms of gender-based discrimination increase the risk of women and girls becoming affected by poverty, which in turns puts them at higher risk of becoming targeted by traffickers, who use false promises of jobs and educational opportunities to recruit their victims. Trafficking is often connected to organized crime and has developed into a highly profitable business that generates an estimated US$7-12 billion per year.
Trafficking is in most cases a trans-border crime that affects all regions of the world: according to a 2006 UN global report on trafficking, 127 countries have been documented as countries of origin, and 137 as countries of destination. The main countries of origin are reported to be in Central and South-Eastern Europe, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and Asia, followed by West Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. The most commonly reported countries of destination are in Western Europe, Asia and Northern America. By 2006, 93 countries had prohibited trafficking as a matter of law.
Russian NGO, Syostri, used a grant from the Trust Fund to Eliminate Violence against Women to create a website that has become a hub of information on trafficking. The site lists organizations involved in combating the problem and includes facts and figures along with policy recommendations, national laws and international anti-trafficking agreements. The project also focused on preparing analytical reports for each country, revealing that many women are vulnerable to trafficking within the CIS, not only from the CIS to other areas, as often assumed. This knowledge was used in educational material, including brochures for adolescents explaining how trafficking can happen and ways to guard against it. HIV/AIDS AND VIOLENCE
Women’s inability to negotiate safe sex and refuse unwanted sex is closely linked to the high prevalence of HIV/AIDS. Unwanted sex — from being unable to say "no!" to a partner and be heard, to sexual assault such as rape — results in a higher risk of abrasion and bleeding, providing a ready avenue for transmission of the virus. A study conducted in Tanzania in 2001 found that HIV-positive women were over 2.5 times more likely to have experienced violence at the hands of their current partner than other women. Young women generally know significantly less about HIV/AIDS than their male counterparts. Just 1 in 5 married women in Bangladesh had heard of AIDS; in Sudan only 5 percent of women knew condom use could prevent HIV infection. Both realities — lack of knowledge and lack of power — obliterate women’s ability to protect themselves from infection.
Violence is also a consequence of HIV/AIDS: for many women, the fear of violence prevents them from declaring their HIV-positive status and seeking help and treatment. A clinic in Zambia reported that 60 percent of eligible women opt out of treatment due to fears of violence and abandonment resulting from disclosing their HIV-positive status. Such women have been driven from their homes, left destitute, ostracized by their families and community, and subjected to extreme physical and emotional abuse. In 1998 Gugu Dhlamini was stoned to death by men in her community in South Africa after she declared her HIV-positive status on radio and television on World AIDS Day.
Young women are particularly vulnerable to coerced sex and are increasingly being infected with HIV/AIDS. Over half of new HIV infections worldwide are occurring among young people between the ages of 15 and 24, and more than 60 percent of HIV-positive youth in this age bracket are female.
A 2002 UNIFEM-sponsored report on the impact of armed conflict on women underscores how the chaotic and brutal circumstances of armed conflict aggravate all the factors that fuel the AIDS crisis. Tragically and most cruelly, in many conflicts, the planned and purposeful infection of women with HIV has been a tool of war, often pitting one ethnic group against another, as occurred during the genocide in Rwanda in 1994.
The UN Trust Fund to Eliminate Violence against Women supported a project in Haiti that trained community-based human rights workers ( CRIMES AGAINST WOMEN IN SITUATIONS OF ARMED CONFLICT The victims in today’s armed conflicts are far more likely to be civilians than soldiers. Some 70 percent of the casualties in recent conflicts have been non-combatants — most of them women and children. Women’s bodies have become part of the battleground for those who use terror as a tactic of war — they are raped, abducted, humiliated and made to undergo forced pregnancy, sexual abuse and slavery. The 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) is the first treaty to expressly recognize this broad spectrum of sexual and gender-based violence as among the gravest breaches of international law. Today, almost half of all persons indicted by the ICC and other international tribunals - such as the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia; the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda; and the Special Court for Sierra Leone — are charged with rape or sexual assault, either as perpetrators or their superiors. Violence against women during or after armed conflicts has been reported in every international or non-international war-zone, including Afghanistan, Burundi, Chad, Colombia, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia, Peru, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Chechnya/Russian Federation, Darfur, Sudan, northern Uganda and the former Yugoslavia. In Rwanda, up to half a million women were raped during the 1994 genocide. The numbers were as high as 60,000 in the war in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Equally, in Sierra Leone, the number of incidents of war-related sexual violence among internally displaced women from 1991 to 2001 was as high as 64,000. When the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women visited the Darfur region in Sudan in 2004, she received testimonies of women and girls who had suffered multiple forms of violence committed by government-backed militia and security forces, including rape, killings, the burning of homes and pillage of livestock. Displaced women and girls living in refugee camps have reported rapes, beatings and abductions that occur when they leave the camps for necessities. Victims of rape have faced numerous obstacles in accessing justice and health care, for instance, being accused of having made false accusations, having had consensual sex before marriage, or having committed adultery in violation of the Penal Code. A 2002 UNIFEM-sponsored report on the issue quoted a UN official in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), on the terror of daily life for people in the region: "From Pweto down near the Zambian border right up to Aru on the Sudan/Uganda border, it’s a black hole where no one is safe and where no outsider goes. Women take a risk when they go out to the fields or on a road to a market. Any day they can be stripped naked, humiliated and raped in public. Many, many people no longer sleep at home, though sleeping in the bush is equally unsafe. Every night, another village is attacked. It could be any group, no one knows, but they always take away women and girls". Recently, UN Emergency Relief Coordinator John Holmes described the situation of rape victims in a hospital in the South Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of Congo, saying that he saw evidence and heard stories from survivors of "sexual violence so brutal it staggers the imagination." He reported that more than 32,000 cases of rape and sexual violence have been registered in South Kivu Province alone since 2005 — though this represents just a fraction of the total number of women subjected to such extreme suffering. Protection and support for women survivors of violence in conflict and post-conflict areas is woefully inadequate. Access to social services, protection, legal remedies, medical resources, and places of refuge is limited despite the valiant efforts of numerous local NGOs to provide assistance. A climate of impunity further exacerbates the situation, and serves as an incentive to ongoing violence. UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security of 2000 calls for women’s equal participation in peace and security issues, yet seven years later it is evident that much more effort is needed to strengthen mechanisms to prevent, investigate, report, prosecute and remedy violence against women in times of war, and to ensure their voices are heard in building peace. The UN Trust Fund to Eliminate Violence against Women supported a project to train female ex-combatants in Rwanda — many of whom had been victims of sexual violence during the armed conflict — on women’s human rights and violence against women. The training provided participants with a safe space to speak about their experiences of violence and trauma. It also empowered the women to play a leading role in the fight against sexual violence and HIV/AIDS in their communities. VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN AS A HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATION In 2006, the Secretary-General’s In-Depth Study confirmed that violence against women — whether in the home, workplace or elsewhere — is a particularly egregious human rights violation that must be eradicated. Although the 1981 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) does not explicitly mention violence against women, the Committee to Eliminate Discrimination against Women, which is responsible for interpreting and monitoring the implementation of CEDAW, has clarified in its General Recommendation No. 19 (1992) that States Parties to the Convention are under an obligation to take all appropriate means to eliminate violence against women. NOTES
(1) General Assembly. In-Depth Study on All Forms of Violence against Women: Report of the Secretary General, 2006. A/61/122/Add.1. 6 July 2006.
(2) Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe 2002, Recommendation 1582 (2002) on Domestic Violence against Women.
(3) World Bank 1993, World Development Report: Investing in Health, New York, Oxford University Press.
(4) Referred to by UNAIDS, UNFPA, UNIFEM, Women and HIV/AIDS: Confronting the Crisis. Geneva, New York. 2004. 47-48.
(5) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2003, Costs of Intimate Partner Violence against Women in the United States, Atlanta.
(6) General Assembly. In-Depth Study on All Forms of Violence against Women: Report of the Secretary General, 2006. A/61/122/Add.1. 6 July 2006. 52.
(7) García-Moreno et al. 2005. WHO Multi-country Study on Women’s Health and Domestic Violence against Women. Initial results on prevalence, health outcomes and women’s responses, Geneva: WHO.
(8) Krug et al. 2002. World Report on Violence and Health. Geneva: WHO. 90-91.
(9) American Institute on Domestic Violence. 2001. Domestic Violence in the Workplace Statistics.
(10) Krug et al. 2002. World Report on Violence and Health. Geneva: WHO. 93.
(11) Referred to by S.G. Diniz, A F. d’Oliveira. International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics. 63 Suppl. 1 (1998). 34.
(12) UNIFEM Afghanistan, Julie Lafreniere. Uncounted and Discounted. A Secondary Data Research Project on Violence against Women in Afghanistan. 2006. 31. – 8 –
(13) García-Moreno et al. 2005. WHO Multi-country Study on Women’s Health and Domestic Violence Against Women. Initial results on prevalence, health outcomes and women’s responses, Geneva: WHO. 74.
(14) General Assembly. In-Depth Study on All Forms of Violence against Women: Report of the Secretary General, 2006. A/61/122/Add.1. 6 July 2006. 41.
(15) Referred to by María José Alcalá. State of World Population 2005. The Promise of Equality: Gender Equity, Reproductive Health and the Millennium Development Goals. UNFPA. 2005. 65.
(16) D Halperin et al. Prevalence of child sexual abuse among adolescents in Geneva: results of a cross-sectional survey. British Medical Journal. 1996. Vol. 312, 1326-9.
(17) Referred to by General Assembly. In-Depth Study on All Forms of Violence against Women: Report of the Secretary-General, 2006. A/61/122/Add.1. 6 July 2006. 41.
(18) Radhika Coomeraswamy. Integration of the Human Rights of Women and the Gender Perspective: Violence against Women. Report of the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences. Cultural practices in the family that are violent towards women. E/CN.4/2002/93. 31 January 2002. 19.
(19). Referred to by General Assembly. In-Depth Study on All Forms of Violence against Women: Report of the Secretary-General, 2006. A/61/122/Add.1. 6 July 2006. 39.
(20) Radhika Coomaraswamy. Integration of the Human Rights of Women and the Gender Perspective: Violence against Women. Report of the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences. Cultural practices in the family that are violent towards women. E/CN.4/2002/93. 31 January 2002. 10.
(21) Referred to by General Assembly. In-Depth Study on All Forms of Violence against Women: Report of the Secretary-General, 2006. A/61/122/Add.1. 6 July 2006. 39.
(22) General Assembly. In-Depth Study on All Forms of Violence against Women: Report of the Secretary-General, 2006. A/61/122/Add.1. 6 July 2006. 40.
(23) Cheywa Spindel, Elisa Levy, Melissa Connor, With an End in Sight: Strategies from the UN Trust Fund to Eliminate Violence against Women. New York 2000. 23-33.
(24) Referred to by General Assembly. In-Depth Study on All Forms of Violence against Women: Report of the Secretary-General, 2006. A/61/122/Add.1. 6 July 2006. 90.
(25) Carrin Benninger-Budel and Anne-Laurence Lacroix. World Organisation against Torture, Violence against Women: A Report 1999. Geneva. OMCT.
(26) Bangladesh: Death for Man who Maimed Girl, New York Times, 30 July 2003.
(27) BBC News, Dhaka, Roland Buerk, Bangladesh’s Acid Attack Problem, 28 July 2006.
(28) UNFPA. 2000. The State of the World Population.
(29) Radhika Coomaraswamy. Integration of the Human Rights of Women and the Gender Perspective: Violence Against Women. Report of the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences. Cultural practices in the family that are violent towards women. E/CN.4/2002/93. 31 January 2002. 12. – 9 –
(30) General Assembly. In-Depth Study on All Forms of Violence against Women: Report of the Secretary-General, 2006. A/61/122/Add.1. 6 July 2006. 40.
(31) Krug et al. 2002. World Report on Violence and Health. Geneva: WHO. 93.
(32) UNIFEM. 2002. Regional Scan, Arab Region.
(33) Early Marriage in a Human Rights Context — Background Information prepared by the Working Group on Girls for the May 10, 2002, Supporting Event of the UN Special Session on Children 8-10 May 2002.
(34) Yakin Ertürk. Integration of the Human Rights of Women and the Gender Perspective: Violence Against Women. Report of the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences. Addendum. Mission to Afghanistan (9 to 19 July 2005). E/CN.4/2006/61/Add.5. 15 February 2006. 7-8.
(35) UNESCO Trafficking Statistics Project. 2004. http://www.unescobkk.org/fileadmin/user_upload/culture/Trafficking/project/Graph_Worldwide_Sept_2004.pdf
(36) Referred to by María José Alcalá et al. State of World Population 2006. A Passage to Hope. Women and International Migration. UNFPA. 2006.
(37) Referred to by General Assembly. In-Depth Study on All Forms of Violence against Women: Report of the Secretary-General, 2006. A/61/122/Add.1. 6 July 2006. 43.
(38) UNIFEM, A Life Free of Violence Is Our Right! The UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women: 10 Years of Investment, 2007, 14-15.
(39) Maman, S., Mbwambo, J., Hogan M., Kilonzo, G., Sweat, M. and Weiss, E. (2001). HIV and Partner Violence: Implications for HIV Voluntary Counselling and Testing Programs in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. New York: The Population Council Inc. 30.
(40) UNAIDS, Demographic & Health Surveys (2000-2005) at http://www.measuredhs.com/
(41) J. Fleischman, Strengthening HIV/AIDS Programs for Women: Lessons for US Policy from Zambia and Kenya. Washington DC. The Centre for Strategic and International Studies, May 2005
(42) Rehn, E., and Sirleaf Johnson, E., The Independent Experts’ Assessment on the Impact of Armed Conflict on Women and the Role of Women in Peace-building, Progress of the World’s Women, Vol.1, 2002, UNIFEM.
(43) Referred to by General Assembly, In-Depth Study on All Forms of Violence against Women: Report of the Secretary-General, 2006. A/61/122/Add.1. 6 July 2006. 45.
(44) Vlachova, Biason (editors). Women in an Insecure World. Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces. 2005.
(45) Yakin Ertürk. Integration of the Human Rights of Women and the Gender Perspective: Violence Against Women. Report of the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences. Addendum. Visit to the Darfur region of the Sudan. E/CN.4/2005/72/Add.5. 23 December 2004. 3.
(46) Rehn, E., and Sirleaf Johnson, E., The Independent Experts’ Assessment on the Impact of Armed Conflict on Women and the Role of Women in Peace-building, Progress of the World’s Women, Vol.1, 2002, UNIFEM. – 10 –
(47) John Holmes, UN Undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator. Congo’s Rape War, Los Angeles Times, October 11 2007.
(48) UN General Assembly. 1979. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/cedaw/text/econvention.htm
(49) Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. 1992. General Recommendations no. 19, 11th Session, "Violence against Women." http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/cedaw/recommendations/recomm.htm#recom19
November 2007
July 03 VIRTUE: Part 2Virtue in Chinese philosophy"Virtue", translated from Chinese de (德), is also an important concept in Chinese philosophy, particularly Daoism. De (Chinese: 德; pinyin: dé; Wade-Giles: te) originally meant normative "virtue" in the sense of "personal character; inner strength; integrity", but semantically changed to moral "virtue; kindness; morality". Note the semantic parallel for English virtue, with an archaic meaning of "inner potency; divine power" (as in "by virtue of") and a modern one of "moral excellence; goodness". Confucian moral manifestations of "virtue" include ren ("humanity"), xiao ("filial piety"), and zhong ("loyalty") In Confucianism the notion of ren according to Simon Leys means "humanity" and "goodness". Originally ren had the archaic meaning in the Confucian Book of Poems of "virility", then progressively took on shades of ethical meaning. (On the origins and transformations of this concept see Lin Yu-sheng: "The evolution of the pre-Confucian meaning of jen and the Confucian concept of moral autonomy," Monumenta Serica, vol31, 1974-75.) The Daoist concept of De, however, is more subtle, pertaining to the "virtue" or ability that an individual realizes by following the Dao ("the Way"). One important normative value in much of Chinese thinking is that one's social status should result from the amount of virtue that one demonstrates rather than from one's birth. In the Analects, Confucius explains de: "He who exercises government by means of his virtue may be compared to the north polar star, which keeps its place and all the stars turn towards it." (2/1, tr. James Legge) Chinese Martial Morality
Samurai valuesIn Hagakure, the quintessential book of the samurai, Yamamoto Tsunetomo encapsulates his views on 'virtue' in the four vows he makes daily:
Tsunetomo goes on to say:
Nietzsche on VirtuePhilosopher Friedrich Nietzsche often took a more cynical view on virtue. A few of his key thoughts:
Virtue and viceThe opposite of a virtue is a vice. One way of organizing the vices is as the corruption of the virtues. Thus the cardinal vices would be folly, venality, cowardice and lust. The Christian theological vices would be blasphemy, despair, and hatred. However, as Aristotle noted, the virtues can have several opposites. Virtues can be considered the mean between two extremes, as the Latin maxim dictates in medio stat virtus - in the centre lies virtue. For instance, both cowardice and rashness are opposites of courage; contrary to prudence are both over-caution and insufficient caution. A more "modern" virtue, tolerance, can be considered the mean between the two extremes of narrow-mindedness on the one hand and soft-headedness on the other. Vices can therefore be identified as the opposites of virtues, but with the caveat that each virtue could have many different opposites, all distinct from each other. Capital vicesThe seven capital vices or seven deadly sins suggest a classification of vices and were enumerated by Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century. The Catechism of the Catholic Church mentions them as "capital sins which Christian experience has distinguished, following St. John Cassian and St. Gregory the Great." "Capital" here means that these sins stand at the head (Latin caput) of the other sins which proceed from them, e.g., theft proceeding from avarice and adultery from lust. These vices are pride, envy, avarice, anger, lust, gluttony, and sloth. The opposite of these vices are the following virtues: meekness, humility, generosity, tolerance, chastity, moderation, and zeal (meaning enthusiastic devotion to a good cause or an ideal). These virtues are not exactly equivalent to the Seven Cardinal or Theological Virtues mentioned above. Instead these capital vices and virtues can be considered the "building blocks" that rule human behaviour. Both are acquired and reinforced by practice and the exercise of one induces or facilitates the others. Ranked in order of severity as per Dante's Divine Comedy (in the Purgatorio), the seven deadly vices are:
Several of these vices interlink, and various attempts at causal hierarchy have been made. For example, pride (love of self out of proportion) is implied in gluttony (the over-consumption or waste of food), as well as sloth, envy, and most of the others. Each sin is a particular way of failing to love God with all one's resources and to love fellows as much as self. The Scholastic theologians developed schema of attribute and substance of will to explain these sins. The 4th century Egyptian monk Evagrius Ponticus defined the sins as deadly "passions," and in Eastern Orthodoxy, still these impulses are characterized as being "Deadly Passions" rather than sins. Instead, the sins are considered to invite or entertain these passions. In the official Catechism of the Catholic Church published in 1992 by Pope John Paul II, these seven vices are considered moral transgression for Christians and the virtues should complement the Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes as the basis for any true Morality. Virtue in modern psychologyMartin Seligman, Christopher Peterson, and other researchers involved in the positive psychology movement, recognizing the deficiency inherent in psychology's tendency to focus on dysfunction rather than on what makes a healthy and stable personality, set out to develop a list of "Character Strengths and Virtues" See alsoNotes
VIRTUE: Part 1Accessed July 3 2008http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue 
Virtue (Latin virtus; Greek ἀρετή) is moral excellence of a person. A virtue is a trait valued as being good. The conceptual opposite of virtue is vice. According to its etymology the word virtue (Latin virtus) signifies manliness or courage. Taken in its widest sense virtue refers to excellence, just as vice, its contrary, denotes the absence of such. In its strictest meaning, however, as used by moral philosophers and theologians, virtue is an operative habit essentially good, as distinguished from vice, an operative habit essentially evil. The four cardinal (hinge) virtues are Justice, Courage, Wisdom, and Moderation. These were enumerated by the Greek philosophers. The three supernatural virtues of Faith, Hope and (unselfish) Love are part of the tradition of Pauline Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Virtue can also be meant in another way. Virtue can either have normative or moral value; i.e. the virtue of a judge is to justly convict criminals, the virtue of an excellent judge is to specialise in justly convicting criminals (this is its normative value) vs. the virtues of reason, prudence, chastity, etc. (which have moral value). In the Greek it is more properly called ἠθικὴ ἀρετή (ēthikē aretē). It is "habitual excellence". It is something practiced at all times. The virtue of perseverance is needed for all and any virtue since it is a habit of character and must be used continuously in order for any person to maintain oneself in virtue. However, Friedrich Nietzsche stated that 'when virtue has slept, it will arise all the more vigorous'.
Virtues and valuesVirtues can be placed into a broader context of values. Each individual has a core of underlying values that contribute to our system of beliefs, ideas and/or opinions (see value in semiotics). Integrity in the application of a value ensures its continuity and this continuity separates a value from beliefs, opinion and ideas. In this context a value (e.g., Truth or Equality or Greed) is the core from which we operate or react. Societies have values that are shared among many of the participants in that culture. An individual's values typically are largely, but not entirely, in agreement with their culture's values. Individual virtues can be grouped into one of four categories of values:
A value system is the ordered and prioritized set of values (usually of the ethical and doctrinal categories described above) that an individual or society holds. Some virtues (a virtue is a character trait valued as being good) recognized in various Western cultures of the world include:
Four classic Western virtues
The four classic Western cardinal virtues are:
This enumeration is traced to Greek philosophy, and was listed at least by Plato, if not also by Socrates, from whom no attributable written works exist. Plato also mentions "Holiness". It is likely that Plato believed that virtue was, in fact, a single thing, and that this enumeration was created by others in order to better define virtue. In Protagoras and Meno, he states that the separate virtues cannot exist independently, and offers as evidence the contradictions of acting with wisdom (prudence), yet in an unjust way, or acting with bravery (fortitude), yet without wisdom (prudence). Aristotle's golden meanIn his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle describes every virtue as a balance point between a deficiency and an excess of a trait. The point of greatest virtue lies not in the exact middle, but at a "golden mean" closer to one of the extremes than the other. E.g.:
Prudence and virtueSeneca, the Roman Stoic, said that perfect prudence is indistinguishable from perfect virtue. Thus, in considering all consequences, a prudent person would act in the same way as a virtuous person. The same rationale was followed by Plato in Meno, when he wrote that people only act for what they perceive will maximize the good. It is the lack of wisdom which results in the making of a bad choice, rather than a good one. In this way, wisdom is the central part of virtue. However, he realized that if virtue was synonymous with wisdom, then it could be taught, a possibility he had earlier discounted. He then added "correct belief" as an alternative to knowledge, proposing that knowledge is merely correct belief that has been thought through and "tethered". Roman virtues
Christian virtues
In Christianity, the theological virtues are faith, hope and charity or love/agape, a list which comes from 1 Corinthians 13:13 (νυνι δε μενει πιστις ελπις αγαπη τα τρια ταυτα μειζων δε τουτων η αγαπη pistis, elpis, agape). These are said to perfect one's love of God and Man and therefore (since God is super-rational) to harmonize and partake of prudence.
The Holy Bible : New Revised Standard Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989). 22 Ὁ δὲ καρπὸς τοῦ πνεύματός ἐστιν ἀγάπη χαρὰ εἰρήνη, μακροθυμία χρηστότης ἀγαθωσύνη, πίστις 23 πραΰτης ἐγκράτεια· κατὰ τῶν τοιούτων οὐκ ἔστιν νόμος. Barbara Aland, Kurt Aland, Matthew Black, Carlo M. Martini, Bruce M. Metzger and Allen Wikgren, The Greek New Testament, 4th ed. (Federal Republic of Germany: United Bible Societies, 1993, c1979). Virtues in IslamIn Islam, there are many virtues, such as honesty, mercy, patience, sincerity ..etc scholars may have different ways while putting them in different categories. The Quran, God's Word in Islam, and Prophet Mohammad speak about each virtues in its own content and contexts while linking the virtues together when appropriate, without listing them all in one place. Hindu VirtuesHinduism, or Sanatana Dharma (Dharma means moral duty), has pivotal virtues that everyone keeping their Dharma is asked to follow. For they are distinct qualities of manusya (mankind), that allow one to be in the mode of goodness. There are three modes of material nature (guna), as described in the Vedas and other Indian Scriptures: Sattva (goodness, creation, stillness, intelligence), Rajas (passion, maintenance, energy, activity) , and Tamas (ignorance, restraint, inertia, destruction). Every person harbours a mixture of these modes in varying degrees. A person in the mode of Sattva has that mode in prominence in his nature, which he obtains by following the virtues of the Dharma . The modes of Sattva are as following.
Buddhist virtuesBuddhist practice as outlined in the Noble Eightfold Path can be regarded as a progressive list of virtues.
Buddhism's four brahmavihara ("Divine States") can be more properly regarded as virtues in the European sense. They are:
There are also the Paramitas ("perfections"). In Theravada Buddhism's canonical Buddhavamsa[5] the Ten Perfections (dasa pāramiyo) are (original terms in Pali):
In Mahayana Buddhism, the Lotus Sutra (Saddharmapundarika), lists the Six Perfections as (original terms in Sanskrit):
In the Ten Stages (Dasabhumika) Sutra, four more Paramitas are listed:
June 25 CHILDREN LEARN WHAT THEY LIVEBy Russ Berrie and Company
Art by Mark Ryden
If a child lives with criticism,
He learns to condemn.
If a child lives with hostility,
He learns to fight.
If a child lives with ridicule,
He learns to be shy.
If a child lives with shame,
He learns to feel guilty.
If a child lives with tolerance,
He learns to be patient.
If a child lives with encouragement,
He learns confidence.
If a child lives with praise,
He learns to appreciate.
If a child lives with fairness,
He learns justice.
If a child lives with security,
He learns to have faith.
If a child lives with approval,
He learns to like himself.
If a child lives with acceptance and friendship,
He learns to find love in the world. October 27 FREE HUGS IN BRISBANE'Hands' Jewel If I could tell the world just one thing August 14 WOMEN'S RIGHTSAccessed August 14 2007http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women's_rights
Women’s rights, as a term, typically refers to the freedoms inherently possessed by women and girls of all ages, which may be institutionalized, ignored or illegitimately suppressed by law, custom, and behavior in a particular society. These liberties are grouped together and differentiated from broader notions of human rights because they often differ from the freedoms inherently possessed by or recognized for men and boys, and because activism surrounding this issue claims an inherent historical and traditional bias against the exercise of rights by women. Feminism and most modern sociological theory maintain that the differences between men and women are, at least in part, socially constructed 'differences', (i.e. determined through history by specific human groups), rather than biologically determined, immutable conditions. See article on women, a term some feminists see as a "gender unbiased term." Issues commonly associated with notions of women's rights include, though are not limited to, the right: to bodily integrity and autonomy; to vote (universal suffrage); to hold public office; to work; to fair wages or equal pay; to own property; to education; to serve in the military; to enter into legal contracts; and to have marital, parental and religious rights. Today, women in most nations, can vote, own property, work in many different professions, and hold public office. These are some of the rights of the modern woman. But women have not always been allowed to do these things, similar to the experiences of the majority of men throughout history. Women and their supporters have waged and in some places continue to wage long campaigns to win the same rights as modern men and be viewed as equals in society.
Historical backgroundMost early peoples considered women to be inferior to, or less than, men. Through laws and mythology (stories describing beliefs), the view that women were weak was passed on from one generation to the next. However, some ancient civilizations knew powerful women. For example, Queen Hatshepsut ruled Egypt as a mighty pharaoh in the 15th century BC. As time progressed, most women still enjoyed few, if any, rights. Their futures tended to be tied to the fortunes of their husbands or other male relatives. Yet even in periods dominated by men, some women became extraordinary leaders. For example, Queen Elizabeth I ruled England for 45 years, beginning in 1558. She became so influential that the era was named for her; during the Elizabethan Age, England emerged as a world power. Similarly Catherine the Great ruled over 18th-century Russia. During the late 1700s, in a time called the Enlightenment, or the Age of Reason, some free-thinking women began planting the seeds of change. For example, in 1792 English author Mary Wollstonecraft wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. She boldly proposed that women receive the same opportunities as men in education, work, and politics. Suffrage, the right to vote
The ideas that were planted in the late 1700s took root during the 1800s. Women knew that if they were going to change society they must win the right to vote. In this way they could participate in government and, in so doing, influence policies and laws. United StatesIn the United States the campaign to secure voting rights was closely tied to the movement to end slavery. American reformers Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were leaders in both struggles. In July 1848 they invited women reformers to gather in Seneca Falls, New York (see Seneca Falls Convention, Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments). The convention issued a statement calling for voting rights for women as well as recognition of a woman's right to pursue a career and attend college. Two years later the first national Women's Rights Convention was held in Worcester, Massachusetts. There Lucy Stone delivered a stirring speech about women's right to vote. Another convention held in Syracuse, New York, was organized by activist Susan B. Anthony. In addition, reformers staged marches and other public events to raise awareness of voting rights. When the American Civil War ended in 1865, women who had worked hard to end slavery hoped that government would extend the full rights of citizenship to freed blacks as well as to all women. But the 14th and 15th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, adopted in 1868 and 1870, granted citizenship and voting rights only to black men. Women reformers had to continue their fight. Women's struggle to secure voting rights was won little by little. The territories of Wyoming and Utah granted women the right to vote in territorial elections. The Western states of Colorado and Idaho followed the example, but Eastern states resisted. Beginning in 1878 amendments to the U.S. Constitution were proposed in every session of Congress, but each time the voting rights measure failed to pass. When the United States entered World War I in 1917, many women reformers pledged their support. Volunteering in hospitals and government offices, they hoped to be recognized for their patriotism and win the right to vote. In June 1919 Congress passed the women's voting rights bill. It became the 19th Amendment to the Constitution in August of 1920, after the required number of state legislatures ratified, or approved, it. Great BritainIn Great Britain, women reformers were divided into two groups — the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies and the Women's Social and Political Union. Leaders in the struggle were the radical Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughter Christabel. Their fight also proved slow and frustrating. In 1918 the British Parliament finally passed a bill allowing women over the age of 30 to vote. In 1928 the age limit was lowered to 21. Other countriesIn some nations women were granted full voting rights earlier than in the United States and Britain. Women won the right to vote in New Zealand in 1893, Australia in 1902, and Finland in 1906. But many other nations proved much slower to change. For example, women in France were not given voting rights until 1944. However, in some of these countries only women in the ruling population were able to vote at first. For example, Aboriginal women in Australia were not allowed to vote until they became citizens in 1967. Today women in some conservative Arab countries still do not have the right to vote (see Women in Islam). A modern movementIn the 1960s women's rights again became an important issue in the United States. Now the movement was called “feminism” or “women's liberation.” Reformers wanted the same pay as men, an equal rights amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and the freedom to plan their families or not have children at all. Their efforts were met with mixed results.
In 1966 the National Organization of Women (NOW) was created with the purpose of bringing about equality for all women. NOW was one important group that fought for the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). This amendment stated that “equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of sex.” But there was disagreement on how the proposed amendment would be understood. Supporters believed it would guarantee women equal treatment. But critics feared it might deny women the right be financially supported by their husbands. The amendment died in 1982 because not enough states had ratified it. In the last three decades of the 20th century, American women knew a new freedom: medical advances helped them control if and when they would have children. Called birth control, this enabled women to plan their adult lives, often making way for both career and family. The movement had been started in the 1910s by pioneering social reformer Margaret Sanger. ProgressOver the course of the 20th century women took on a greater role in society. For example, many women served in the U.S. government — some as senators and others as members of the President's Cabinet. Many women took advantage of opportunities to become educated. In the United States at the beginning of the 20th century less than 20 percent of all college degrees were earned by women. By the end of the century this figure had risen to about 50 percent. Opportunities also expanded in the workplace. Fields such as medicine, law, and science opened to include more women. At the beginning of the 20th century about 5 percent of the doctors in the United States were women. As of 1998, 23 percent of all doctors were women, and today, women make up more than 50 percent of the medical student population. While the numbers of women in these fields increased, many women still continued to hold clerical, factory, retail, or service jobs. For example, they worked as office assistants, on assembly lines, or as cooks. TodayIn the developed nations of the world, women have continued to struggle against discrimination. With many women working outside the home and having children, new issues have arisen about how to balance a career and a family. This is especially true because women are often expected to be the main caregivers for their children and home even while they are working. There are also still far fewer women in positions of leadership than there are men. For example, as of 2001, only 19 women have ever served as a United States governor. But women continue to make great strides in the workplace, government, and society in general. In some developing nations women continue to be denied basic rights. But through the United Nations and its agencies, as well as many other independent groups concerned with the fair treatment of all people, the role of women in the world continues to evolve. Notable women’s rights activistsSee also
External linksJuly 27 Passive-Aggressive BehaviorAccessed July 2007http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive-aggressive_behavior
Passive-aggressive behaviorPassive-aggressive behavior refers to passive, sometimes obstructionist resistance to following authoritative instructions in interpersonal or occupational situations. It can manifest itself as resentment, stubbornness, procrastination, sullenness, or repeated failure to accomplish requested tasks for which one is assumed, often explicitly, to be responsible. It is a defensive mechanism and, more often than not, only partly conscious. For example, people who are passive-aggressive might take so long to get ready for a party they do not wish to attend, that the party is nearly over by the time they arrive.
Passive-aggression as a personality disorderPassive-aggressive personality disorder (also called negativistic personality disorder) is a controversial personality disorder said to be marked by a pervasive pattern of negative attitudes and passive, usually disavowed resistance in interpersonal or occupational situations. It was listed as an Axis II personality disorder in the DSM-III-R, but was moved in the DSM-IV to Appendix B ("Criteria Sets and Axes Provided for Further Study") because of controversy and the need for further research on how to categorize the behaviors in a future edition. On that point, Cecil Adams writes:
When the behaviors are part of a person's disorder or personality style, repercussions are usually not immediate, but instead accumulate over time as the individuals affected by the person come to recognize the disavowed aggression coming from that person. People with this personality style are often quite unconscious of their impact on others, and thus may be genuinely dismayed when held to account for the inconvenience or discomfort caused by their passive-aggressive behaviors. In that context, there is a failure to see how they might have provoked a negative response, so they feel misunderstood, held to unreasonable standards, and/or put upon. Treatment of this disorder can be difficult: efforts to convince the patient that their unconscious feelings are being expressed passively, and that those feelings inspire other people's anger or disappointment with the patient, are often met with resistance. Individuals with the disorder will frequently leave treatment claiming that it did no good. Since the effectiveness of various therapies have yet to be proven, these individuals may be correct. In the psychoanalytic theory of transactional analysis, many types of passive-aggressive behavior are interpreted as "games" with a hidden psychological payoff, and are classified with names like "See What You Made Me Do" and "Look How Hard I've Tried" into stereotypical scenarios. Similarly, other types of passive-aggressive behaviors can be described by names like "You Forgot To Do That On Purpose, Didn't You" or "I Don't Want To Be Treated Like This; Do You?" Passive aggressive disorder is said to stem from a specific childhood stimulus (e.g. overbearing parental figures, or alcohol/drug addicted parents). HistoryThe term "passive-aggressive" was first used by the U.S. military during World War II, when military psychiatrists noted the behavior of soldiers who displayed passive resistance and reluctant compliance to orders. Common signs of passive-aggressive personality disorderThere are certain behaviors that help identify passive-aggressive behavior.
A passive-aggressive may not have all of these behaviours, and may have other non-passive-aggressive traits. References
External links
July 17 LOVE: Part 2Religious viewsLove in early religions was a mixture of ecstatic devotion and ritualized obligation to idealized natural forces (pagan polytheism).Later religions shifted emphasis towards single abstractly-oriented objects like God, law, church and state (formalized monotheism). A third view, pantheism, recognizes a state or truth distinct from (and often antagonistic to) the idea that there is a difference between the worshiping subject and the worshiped object. Love is reality, of which we, moving through time, imperfectly interpret ourselves as an isolated part.
The Bible speaks of love as a set of attitudes and actions that are far broader than the concept of love as an emotional attachment. Love is seen as a set of behaviors that humankind is encouraged to act out. One is encouraged not just to love one's partner, or even one's friends but also to love one's enemies. The Bible describes this type of active love in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8:
Romantic love is also present in the Bible, particularly the Song of Songs. Traditionally, this book has been interpreted allegorically as a picture of God's love for Israel and the Church. When taken naturally, we see a picture of ideal human marriage:
The passage dodi li v'ani lo, i.e. "my beloved is mine and I am my beloved", from Song of Songs 2:16, is an example of a biblical quote commonly engraved on wedding bands. The Bible states love is a characteristic of God. I John 4:8 states "God is Love". In essence, God is the epitomy of love - in action and relation. It is God that first loved mankind and desired a relationship. (John 3:16-17) Love is the underlying drive in most people. The search for love seems endless within the human race, throughout the ages. The Bible defines God as being the completeness of love. Love, as being defined by Him, is demonstrated in his character and personality. Another way of defining this type of love is "godly love", a love shown through the example of Christ's sacrifice on the cross. However, this "sacrificial" love can also be expressed by humans, although imperfectly. For example, the love of a mother for her child. Many mothers would sacrifice anything for their children. It is this type of love that the Bible teaches us to follow and to share with one another. Love, in the end, is truly a sacrifice, ultimately expressed in the crucifixion of Jesus as described in the New Testament. C.S. Lewis discusses Christian ideas about love in his book The Four Loves Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science, defines Love as one of 7 synonyms for God. This indicates that Deity is more than a being that has benevolent concerns for mankind, but rather that God is Love itself. Love is also synonymous with Principle, Mind, Soul, Spirit, Life, and Truth and indicate the depth and wholeness of Love. In Aramaic, the language that Jesus spoke, there are six words for Unconditional Love (Kenoota, Khooba, Makikh, Abilii, Rukha and Dadcean Libhoun) which are untranslatable and are all translated as the one word “Love” in the English Bible. They are explained here The Bhagavad Gita, a Hindu scripture, helps devotees to see that love conquers all. It says, "Sattva—pure, luminous, and free from sorrow—binds us to happiness and wisdom" (Number 6). Sattva, translated as purity, helps one to see that love evolves from selflessness. Cultural views
Although there exist numerous cross-cultural unified similarities as to the nature and definition of love, as in there being a thread of commitment, tenderness, and passion common to all human existence, there are differences. See alsoNotes
References Look up love in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
In other languages
LOVE: Part 1Accessed July 17 2007http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love
Love is a constellation of emotions and experiences related to a sense of strong affection or profound oneness. The meaning of love varies relative to context. Romantic love is seen as an ineffable feeling of intense attraction shared in passionate or intimate attraction and intimate interpersonal and sexual relationships. Though often linked to personal relations, love is often given a wider connection, a love of humanity, of nature, with life itself, or a oneness with the universe, a universal love or karma. Love can also be construed as Platonic love, religious love, familial love, and, more casually, great affection for anything considered strongly pleasurable, desirable, or preferred, to include activities and foods. This diverse range of meanings in the singular word love is often contrasted with the plurality of Greek words for love, reflecting the concept's depth, versatility, and complexity.
DefinitionsThe definition of love is the subject of considerable debate, enduring speculation and thoughtful introspection. The difficulty of finding a universal definition for love is typically tackled by classifying it into types, such as passionate love, romantic love, and committed love. These types of love can often be generalized into a level of sexual attraction. In common use, love has two primary meanings, the first being an indication of adoration for another person or thing, and the second being a state of relational status. Love is an act of identifying with a person or thing, capable of even including oneself (cf. narcissism). Dictionaries tend to define love as deep affection or fondness. In colloquial use, according to polled opinion, the most favored definitions of love involve altruism, selflessness, friendship, union, family, and bonding or connecting with another. Thomas Jay Oord has defined love in various scholarly publications as acting intentionally, in sympathetic response to others (including God), to promote overall well-being. Oord means for his definition to be sufficient for research in ethics, religion, and science. The different aspects of love can be roughly illustrated by comparing their corollaries and opposites. As a general expression of positive sentiment (a stronger form of like), love is commonly contrasted with hate (or neutral apathy); as a less sexual and more mutual and "pure" form of romantic attachment, love is commonly contrasted with lust; and as an interpersonal relationship with romantic overtones, love is commonly contrasted with friendship, although other connotations of love may be applied to close friendships as well. The very existence of love is sometimes subject to debate. Some categorically reject the notion as false or meaningless. Others call it a recently-invented abstraction, sometimes dating the "invention" to courtly Europe during or after the Middle Ages. Others maintain that love really exists, and is not an abstraction, but is undefinable, being essentially spiritual or metaphysical in nature. Some psychologists maintain that love is the action of lending one's "boundary" or "self-esteem" to another. Others attempt to define love by applying the definition to everyday life. Cultural differences make any universal definition of love difficult to establish. Expressions of love may include the love for a soul or mind, the love of laws and organizations, love for a body, love for nature, love of food, love of money, love for learning, love of power, love of fame, love for the respect of others, etc. Different people place varying degrees of importance on the kinds of love they receive. Love is essentially an abstract concept, easier to experience than to explain. Because of the complex and abstract nature of love, discourse on love is commonly reduced to a thought-terminating cliché, and there are a number of common proverbs regarding love, from Virgil's "Love conquers all" to The Beatles' "All you need is love".
Scientific viewsThroughout history, philosophy and religion have done the most speculation on the phenomenon of love. In the last century, the science of psychology has written a great deal on the subject. In recent years, the sciences of evolutionary psychology, evolutionary biology, anthropology, neuroscience, and biology have added to the understanding of the nature and function of love. Biology of love
Biological models of sex tend to view love as a mammalian drive, much like hunger or thirst. Helen Fisher, a leading expert in the topic of love, divides the experience of love into three partly-overlapping stages: lust, attraction, and attachment. Lust exposes people to others, romantic attraction encourages people to focus their energy on mating, and attachment involves tolerating the spouse long enough to rear a child into infancy. Lust is the initial passionate sexual desire that promotes mating, and involves the increased release of chemicals such as testosterone and estrogen. These effects rarely last more than a few weeks or months. Attraction is the more individualized and romantic desire for a specific candidate for mating, which develops out of lust as commitment to an individual mate forms. Recent studies in neuroscience have indicated that as people fall in love, the brain consistently releases a certain set of chemicals, including pheromones, dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin, which act similar to amphetamines, stimulating the brain's pleasure center and leading to side-effects such as an increased heart rate, loss of appetite and sleep, and an intense feeling of excitement. Research has indicated that this stage generally lasts from one and a half to three years. Since the lust and attraction stages are both considered temporary, a third stage is needed to account for long-term relationships. Attachment is the bonding which promotes relationships that last for many years, and even decades. Attachment is generally based on commitments such as marriage and children, or on mutual friendship based on things like shared interests. It has been linked to higher levels of the chemicals oxytocin and vasopressin than short-term relationships have. In 2005, Italian scientists at Pavia University found that a protein molecule known as the nerve growth factor (NGF) has high levels when people first fall in love, but these levels return to as they were after one year. Specifically, four neurotrophin levels, i.e. NGF, BDNF, NT-3, and NT-4, of 58 subjects who had recently fallen in love were compared with levels in a control group who were either single or already engaged in a long-term relationship. The results showed that NGF levels were significantly higher in the subjects in love than as compared to either of the control groups. Psychology of love
Following developments in electrical theories, such as Coulomb's law, which showed that positive and negative charges attract, analogs in human life were developed, such as "opposites attract". Over the last century, research on the nature of human mating, such as in evolutionary psychology, agree that pairs unite or attract to each other owing to a combination of opposites attract, e.g. people with dissimilar immune systems tend to attract, and likes attract, such as similarities of personality, character, views, etc. In recent years, various human bonding theories have been developed described in terms of attachments, ties, bonds, and or affinities. Some Western authorities disaggregate into two main components, the altruistic and the narcissistic. This view is represented in the works of Scott Peck, whose works in the field of applied psychology explored the definitions of love and evil. Peck maintains that love is a combination of the"'concern for the spiritual growth of another", and simple narcissism. In combination, love is an activity, not simply a feeling. Philosophical viewsPeople, throughout history, have often considered phenomena such as "love at first sight" or "instant friendships" to be the result of an uncontrollable force of attraction or affinity. One of the first to theorize in this direction was the Greek philosopher Empedocles, who in the 4th century BC argued for the existence of two forces, love (philia) and strife (neikos), which were used to account for the causes of motion in the universe. These two forces were said to intermingle with the classical elements, i.e., earth, water, air, and fire, in such a manner that love served as the binding power linking the various parts of existence harmoniously together. Later, Plato interpreted Empedocles' two agents as attraction and repulsion, stating that their operation is conceived in an alternate sequence. From these arguments, Plato originated the concept of "likes attract", e.g., earth is attracted to earth, water to water, and fire to fire. In modern terms this is often phrased in terms of "birds of a feather flock together". Bertrand Russell describes love as a condition of "absolute value", as opposed to relative value. Thomas Jay Oord defines love as acting intentionally, in sympathetic response to others (including God), to promote overall well-being. Oord means for his definition to be adequate for religion, philosophy, and the sciences. Robert A. Heinlein, one of the most prolific science fiction writers of the 20th century, defined love in his novel Stranger in a Strange Land as the point of emotional connection which leads to the happiness of another being essential to one's own well being. This definition ignores the ideas of religion and science and instead focuses on the meaning of love as it relates to the individual. Also, an ancient proverb states that love is a high form of tolerance. This view is one that many philosophers and scholars have researched, and is widely accepted. July 16 PHILOSOPHY: Part 2Pragmatism
Phenomenology
Setting out to revise his views on the foundation of mathematics, and influenced by the philosopher and psychologist Franz Brentano, under whom he had studied in Vienna, Husserl began to lay the foundations for an ambitious account not just of the kinds of experiences that underly and make possible mathematical judgments, but of the structure of conscious experience in general. In the first part of his two-volume work, the Logical Investigations (1901), he launched an extended attack on the psychologism of which he had been accused by Frege. In the second part, he began to develop the technique of descriptive phenomenology, with the aim of showing how objective judgments are indeed grounded in conscious experience – not, however, in the first-person experience of particular individuals, but in the properties essential to any experiences of the kind in question. He also attempted to identify the essential properties of any act of meaning. He developed the method further in Ideas (1913) as transcendental phenomenology, proposing to ground actual experience, and thus all fields of human knowledge, in the structure of consciousness of an ideal, or transcendental, ego. Later, he attempted to reconcile his transcendental standpoint with an acknowledgement of the intersubjective life-world in which real individual subjects interact. Husserl published only a few works in his lifetime, which treat phenomenology mainly in abstract methodological terms; but he left an enormous quantity of unpublished concrete analyses. Husserl's work was immediately influential in Germany, with the foundation of phenomenological schools in Munich and Göttingen. Phenomenology later achieved international fame through the work of such philosophers as Martin Heidegger (formerly Husserl's research assistant), Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Jean-Paul Sartre. Indeed, through the work of Heidegger and Sartre, Husserl's focus on subjective experience influenced aspects of existentialism. ExistentialismExistentialism is a philosophical movement that rejects any predetermined role for human beings. Unlike tools, which are designed in order to fill some preconceived role (for example, a knife's preconceived role, or essence, is to cut), human beings are capable, to some extent at least, of deciding for themselves what constitutes their own essence.Although they didn't use the term, the 19th-century philosophers Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche are widely regarded as the fathers of existentialism. Their influence, however, has extended beyond existentialist thought. Two of the targets of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche's writings were the philosophical systems of Hegel and Schopenhauer respectively, which they had each admired in their youths. Kierkegaard thought Hegel ignored or excluded the inner subjective life of living human beings, while Nietzsche thought Schopenhauer's pessimism led people to live an ascetic, or self-hating, life. Kierkegaard suggested that truth is subjectivity, arguing that what is most important to a living individual are questions dealing with one's inner relationship to life. Nietzsche proposed perspectivism, which is the view that truth depends on individual perspectives. Although Kierkegaard was among his influences, the extent to which the German philosopher Martin Heidegger should be considered an existentialist is debated. However, in Being and Time he presented a method of rooting philosophical explanations in human existence (Dasein) to be analysed in terms of existential categories (existentiale); and this has led many commentators to treat him as an important figure in the existentialist movement. In The Letter on Humanism, Heidegger explicitly rejected the existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre. Sartre, along with Albert Camus and Simone de Beauvoir, became perhaps the best-known proponent of existentialism, exploring it not only in theoretical works such as Being and Nothingness , but also in plays and novels. Sartre, Camus, and de Beauvoir all represented an avowedly atheistic branch of existentialism, which is now more closely associated with their ideas of nausea, contingency, bad faith, and the absurd than with Kierkegaard's spiritual angst. Nevertheless, the focus on the individual human being, responsible before the universe for the authenticity of his or her existence, is common to all these thinkers.
The analytic traditionThe term analytic philosophy roughly designates a group of philosophical methods that stress clarity of meaning above all other criteria. The philosophy developed as a critique of Hegel and his followers in particular, and of speculative philosophy in general. Some schools in the group include 20th-century realism, logical atomism, logical positivism, and ordinary language. The motivation is to have philosophical studies go beyond personal opinion and begin to have the cogency of mathematical proofs. In 1921, Ludwig Wittgenstein published his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, which gave a rigidly "logical" account of linguistic and philosophical issues. At the time, he understood most of the problems of philosophy as mere puzzles of language, which could be solved by clear thought. Years later he would reverse a number of the positions he had set out in the Tractatus, in for example his second major work, Philosophical Investigations (1953). Investigations encouraged the development of "ordinary language philosophy", which was promoted by Gilbert Ryle, J.L. Austin, and a few others. The "ordinary language philosophy" thinkers shared a common outlook with many older philosophers (Jeremy Bentham, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and John Stuart Mill), and it was this style of philosophical inquiry that characterized English-language philosophy for the second half of the 20th century.
Ethics and political philosophy in the WestHuman nature and political legitimacyFrom ancient times, and well beyond them, the roots of justification for political authority were inescapably tied to outlooks on human nature. In The Republic, Plato declared that the ideal society would be run by a council of philosopher-kings, since those best at philosophy are best able to realize the good. Even Plato, however, required philosophers to make their way in the world for many years before beginning their rule at the age of fifty. For Aristotle, humans are political animals (i.e. social animals), and governments are set up in order to pursue good for the community. Aristotle reasoned that, since the state (polis) was the highest form of community, it has the purpose of pursuing the highest good. Aristotle viewed political power as the result of natural inequalities in skill and virtue. Because of these differences, he favored an aristocracy of the able and virtuous. For Aristotle, the person cannot be complete unless he or she lives in a community. His The Nicomachean Ethics and The Politics are meant to be read in that order. The first book addresses virtues (or "excellences") in the person as a citizen; the second addresses the proper form of government to ensure that citizens will be virtuous, and therefore complete. Both books deal with the essential role of justice in civic life. Nicolas of Cusa rekindled Platonic thought in the early 15th century. He promoted democracy in Medieval Europe, both in his writings and in his organization of the Council of Florence. Unlike Aristotle and the Hobbesian tradition to follow, Cusa saw human beings as equal and divine (that is, made in God's image), so democracy would be the only just form of government. Cusa's views are credited by some as sparking the Italian Renaissance, which gave rise to the notion of "Nation-States". Later, Niccolò Machiavelli rejected the views of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas as unrealistic. The ideal sovereign is not the embodiment of the moral virtues; rather the sovereign does whatever is successful and necessary, rather than what is morally praiseworthy. Thomas Hobbes also contested many elements of Aristotle's views. For Hobbes, human nature is essentially anti-social: people are essentially egoistic, and this egoism makes life difficult in the natural state of things. Moreover, Hobbes argued, though people may have natural inequalities, these are trivial, since no particular talents or virtues that people may have will make them safe from harm inflicted by others. For these reasons, Hobbes concluded that the state arises from a common agreement to raise the community out of the state of nature. This can only be done by the establishment of a sovereign, in which (or whom) is vested complete control over the community, and which is able to inspire awe and terror in its subjects. Many in the Enlightenment were unsatisfied with existing doctrines in political philosophy, which seemed to marginalize or neglect the possibility of a democratic state. Jean-Jacques Rousseau was among those who attempted to overturn these doctrines: he responded to Hobbes by claiming that a human is by nature a kind of "noble savage", and that society and social contracts corrupt this nature. Another critic was John Locke. In Second Treatise on Government he agreed with Hobbes that the nation-state was an efficient tool for raising humanity out of a deplorable state, but he argued that the sovereign might become an abominable institution compared to the relatively benign unmodulated state of nature. Following the doctrine of the fact-value distinction, due in part to the influence of David Hume and his student Adam Smith, appeals to human nature for political justification were weakened. Nevertheless, many political philosophers, especially moral realists, still make use of some essential human nature as a basis for their arguments.
Consequentialism, deontology, and the aretaic turn
One debate that has commanded the attention of ethicists in the modern era has been between consequentialism (actions are to be morally evaluated solely by their consequences) and deontology (actions are to be morally evaluated solely by consideration of agents' duties, the rights of those whom the action concerns, or both). Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill are famous for propagating utilitarianism, which is the idea that the fundamental moral rule is to strive toward the "greatest happiness for the greatest number". However, in promoting this idea they also necessarily promoted the broader doctrine of consequentialism. Adopting a position opposed to consequentialism, Immanuel Kant argued that moral principles were simply products of reason. Kant believed that the incorporation of consequences into moral deliberation was a deep mistake, since it would deny the necessity of practical maxims in governing the working of the will. According to Kant, reason requires that we conform our actions to the categorical imperative, which is an absolute duty. An important 20th-century deontologist, W.D. Ross, has argued for weaker forms of duties called prima facie duties. More recent works have emphasized the role of character in ethics, a movement known as the aretaic turn (that is, the turn towards virtues). One strain of this movement followed the work of Bernard Williams. Williams noted that rigid forms of both consequentialism and deontology demanded that people behave impartially. This, Williams argued, requires that people abandon their personal projects, and hence their personal integrity, in order to be considered moral. G.E.M. Anscombe, in an influential paper, "Modern Moral Philosophy" (1958), revived virtue ethics as an alternative to what was seen as the entrenched positions of Kantianism and consequentialism. Aretaic perspectives have been inspired in part by research of ancient conceptions of virtue. For example, Aristotle's ethics demands that people follow the Aristotelian mean, or balance between two vices; and Confucian ethics argues that virtue consists largely in striving for harmony with other people. Virtue ethics in general has since gained many adherents, and has been defended by such philosophers as Philippa Foot, Alasdair MacIntyre, and Rosalind Hursthouse.
Applied philosophyThough often seen as a wholly abstract field, philosophy is not without practical applications. The most obvious applications are those in ethics – applied ethics in particular – and political philosophy. The political and economic philosophies of Confucius, Sun Zi, Ibn Khaldun, Ibn Rushd, Ibn Taimiyyah, Niccolò Machiavelli, Gottfried Leibniz, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Karl Marx, John Stuart Mill, Mahatma Gandhi, and others – all of these have been used to shape and justify governments and their actions. A modern example is the political movement Neoconservatism, which began as a philosophical tradition at the University of Chicago centered around Leo Strauss and his unique interpretations of the work of Plato. This intellectual movement went on to shape major parts of the politics of the George W. Bush presidency, demonstrating that seemingly "ivory tower" movements can have a profound impact on real world events. In the field of philosophy of education, progressive education as championed by John Dewey has had a profound impact on educational practices in the United States in the 20th century. Descendants of this movement include the current efforts in philosophy for children. Carl von Clausewitz's political philosophy of war has had a profound effect on statecraft, international politics, and military strategy in the 20th century, especially in the years around World War II. Logic has become crucially important in mathematics, linguistics, psychology, computer science, and computer engineering. Other important applications can be found in epistemology, which aid in understanding the requisites for knowledge, sound evidence, and justified belief (important in law, economics, decision theory, and a number of other disciplines). The philosophy of science discusses the underpinnings of the scientific method and has affected the nature of scientific investigation and argumentation. Deep ecology and animal rights examine the moral situation of humans as occupants of a world that has non-human occupants to consider also. Aesthetics can help to interpret discussions of music, literature, the plastic arts, and the whole artistic dimension of life. In general, the various "philosophies of..." strive to provide workers in their respective fields with a deeper understanding of the theoretical or conceptual underpinnings of their fields. Often philosophy is seen as an investigation into an area not sufficiently well understood to be its own branch of knowledge. What were once philosophical pursuits have evolved into the modern day fields such as psychology, sociology, linguistics, and economics, for example. But as such areas of intellectual endeavour proliferate and expand, so will the broader philosophical questions that they generate.
Eastern philosophyMany societies have considered philosophical questions and built philosophical traditions based upon each other's works. Eastern and Middle Eastern philosophical traditions have influenced Western philosophers. Russian (which to many people still counts as Western), Jewish, Islamic, African, and recently Latin American philosophical traditions have contributed to, or been influenced by, Western philosophy: yet each has retained a distinctive identity. The differences between traditions are often well captured by consideration of their favored historical philosophers, and varying stress on ideas, procedural styles, or written language. The subject matter and dialogues of each can be studied using methods derived from the others, and there are significant commonalities and exchanges between them. Eastern philosophy refers to the broad traditions that originated or were popular in India, Persia, China, Japan, and to an extent, the Middle East (which overlaps with Western philosophy due to the spread of the Abrahamic religions and the continuing intellectual traffic between these societies and Europe.) PHILOSOPHY: Part 1Accessed July 16 2007
Philosophy is the discipline concerned with questions of how one should live (ethics); what sorts of things exist and what are their essential natures (metaphysics); what counts as genuine knowledge (epistemology); and what are the correct principles of reasoning (logic). The word itself is of Greek origin: φιλοσοφία (philosophía), a compound of φίλος (phílos: friend, or lover) and σοφία (sophía: wisdom). Though no single definition of philosophy is uncontroversial, and the field has historically expanded and changed depending upon what kinds of questions were interesting or relevant in a given era, it is generally agreed that philosophy is a method, rather than a set of claims, propositions, or theories. Its investigations are based upon reason, striving to make no unexamined assumptions and no leaps based on faith or pure analogy. Different philosophers have had varied ideas about the nature of reason, and there is also disagreement about the subject matter of philosophy. Some think that philosophy examines the process of inquiry itself. Others, that there are essentially philosophical propositions which it is the task of philosophy to prove. Although the word "philosophy" originates in the Western tradition, many figures in the history of other cultures have addressed similar topics in similar ways. The philosophers of the Far East are discussed in Eastern philosophy, while the philosophers of North Africa and the Near East, because of their strong interactions with Europe, are usually considered part of Western Philosophy.
Western philosophy
To give an exhaustive list of the main divisions of philosophy is difficult, because various topics have been studied by philosophers at various times. Ethics, metaphysics, epistemology, and logic are usually included. Other topics include politics, aesthetics, and religion. In addition, most academic subjects have a philosophy, for example the philosophy of science, the philosophy of mathematics, and the philosophy of history. Metaphysics was first studied systematically by Aristotle, though he did not use that term. He calls it "first philosophy" (or sometimes just "wisdom"), and says it is the subject that deals with "first causes and the principles of things". The modern meaning of the term is any inquiry dealing with the ultimate nature of what exists. Within metaphysics, ontology is the inquiry into the meaning of existence itself, sometimes seeking to specify what general types of things exist (though sometimes the term is taken to be equivalent to metaphysics). The philosophy of mind is a part of metaphysics. Epistemology is concerned with the nature and scope of knowledge, and whether knowledge is possible. Among its central concerns has been the challenge posed by skepticism: the idea that all our beliefs and thoughts may be somehow illusory or mistaken. Ethics, or 'moral philosophy', is concerned with questions of how agents ought to act. Plato's early dialogues constitute a search for definitions of virtue. Metaethics is the study of whether ethical value judgments can be objective at all. Ethics can also be conducted within a religious context. Logic has two broad divisions: mathematical logic (formal symbolic logic) and what is now called philosophical logic, the logic of language. The history of Western philosophy is often divided into three periods: Ancient philosophy, Medieval philosophy, and Modern philosophy.
Greco-Roman philosophy
Medieval philosophyMedieval philosophy is the philosophy of Western Europe and the Middle East during what is now known as the medieval era or the Middle Ages, roughly extending from the fall of the Roman Empire to the Renaissance period. Medieval philosophy is defined partly by the process of rediscovering the ancient culture developed by Greeks and Romans in the classical period, and partly by the need to address theological problems and to integrate sacred doctrine (in Christianity and Judaism) and secular learning. Some problems discussed throughout this period are the relation of faith to reason, the existence and unity of God, the object of theology and metaphysics, the problems of knowledge, of universals, and of individuation.
Early modern philosophy (c. 1600 - c. 1800)Modern philosophy is usually considered to begin with the revival of skepticism and the genesis of modern physical science. Canonical figures include Montaigne, Descartes, Locke, Spinoza, Leibniz, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant. Chronologically, this era spans the 17th and 18th centuries, and is generally considered to end with Kant's systematic attempt to reconcile Newtonian mechanics with traditional metaphysical topics.
Later modern philosophy (c. 1800 - c. 1960)Later modern philosophy is usually considered to begin after the philosophy of Immanuel Kant at the beginning of the 19th-century. German idealists, such as Hegel, expanded on the work of Kant by maintaining that the world is entirely rational and its nature is fundamentally knowable. Rejecting idealism, other philosophers, many working from outside the university, initiated lines of thought that would occupy academic philosophy in the early and mid-20th century:
Mill's utilitarianism and Marx & Engels' Marxism dominated discussions in political philosophy until Rawls' 1971 work A Theory of Justice.
Contemporary philosophy (c. 1960 - present)In the last hundred years, philosophy has increasingly become an activity practised within the modern research university, and accordingly it has grown more specialized and more distinct from the natural sciences. Much philosophy in this period concerns itself with explaining the relation between the theories of the natural sciences and the ideas of the humanities or common sense. It is arguable that later modern philosophy ended with contemporary philosophy's shift of focus from 19th century philosophers to 20th century philosophers. Philosophers such as Heidegger, the later Wittgenstein, and Dewey, occupied philosophical discourses exemplified in thinkers such as Derrida, | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
.jpg)