General Discourses on Relating Honor Crimes to Islam and Muslim World： Implications of Cultural Relativism and Essentialist Approach

If women ＂violate＂ the unwritten laws and codes of honor, which are supposed to ＂damage＂ the social reputation of the family in the community, they are killed in the name of honor, in order to restore the perceived ＂lost honor＂. This paper explores the phenomenon of honor killings by examining the general discourses and scholarly critiques, regarding the implications for associating honor crimes with Islam and restricted to the Muslim-dominant societies, which of course create a binary between ＂superior＂ West and ＂backward＂ East. Scholarly research on honor crimes pinpoints the great debate on associating such crimes to culture and especially to Muslim culture. The current study attempts to identify the implications of essentialist approach of honor killings that portraits women as ＂helpless＂ and ＂passive＂ victims and men as ＂powerful＂ and ＂dominant＂ perpetrators. This paper discusses as well how cultural relativism is used to blame Muslim immigrants as responsible for honor crimes. In conclusion, the researcher argues that by holding such a view has its implication since it portraits ＂East＂ as an oppressive culture where the brutality of such crimes is justified by tradition, religion, cultural and customary norms and laws. Therefore, in order to avoid these implications, the paper discusses another approach that considers honor killings as gendered violence, perpetuated by the kinship and marriage structures of patriarchal societies.

Grounding the View from Nowhere？ Essentialism, Liberal Universalism, and Cultural Relativism

How can Western political thought engage non-Western cultures if liberalism is--in Thomas Nagel＇s famous formulation-a view from nowhere？ This paper seeks to investigate the philosophical problems at the nexus of moral relativism and liberal universalism that Martha Nussbaum attempted to come to terms with in her essay Human Functioning and Social Justice： In Defense of Aristotelian Essentialism. I argue not against the idea of essentialism but rather for greater care in the concept＇s application.

Examining the Role of Cultural Relativism in Intercultural Communication

This paper attempts to examine the role of cultural relativism in intercultural communication for the purpose of eliminating or at least reducing the conception of ethnocentrism and strengthening mutual understanding so as to promote intercultural communication.Only acknowledging and accepting cultural differences and seeking understanding and harmony,not going extreme can the world be a place of peace to live.

Human Rights and Cultural Diversity: Evolving Dynamics of Universality and Relativism——Safeguarding the rights of others is the most noble and beautiful end of a human being～Khalil Gibran

1. Introduction Culture is a defining feature of an individual＇s identity. It embraces everything from the traditions, beliefs and values of an individual＇s family and community. It is also the language one speaks, and place of worship. Culture is all of these elements and the way they connect to make up one＇s way of life. It is often the source for serf-definition, expression, and sense of group belonging.

Universality and Relativism of Human Rights from Perspective of International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

There has been much discussion in the recent decade on the universality or particularity or relativism or on the relations between the universal values and standard systems and cultural diversity or pluralism. But most of the discussions are concentrated on the abstract or conceptual terms, with few touching upon international human fights standards. This is strange, because the disputes will never end and it is impossible to arrive at any conclusions of value if discussions only focus on the different concepts and systems of different countries or civilizations instead of on what has been universally accepted or at least on the international human rights treaties and the customary international human rights laws that are binding to the great number of state parties.

Breaking Through Ethnocentrism Downside in International Communication

Ethnocentrism exists in all cultures and everyone is ethnocentric to some extent.People always tend to hold a stand on the side of their own cultural beliefs,values and manners to judge what is correct and what is wrong with regard to the cultures and traditions of other countries.Some feasible ways are given to adjust ethnocentric tendency in people's minds in the future intercultural communication.Besides that,this paper also describes the author's attributions to this study and gives some prospects for the future study to the ethnocentric phenomenon.

The Pathway to Legitimacy and Universality of Human Rights from a Cross-Cultural Perspective——A Brief Review of An-Na'im's Theory of Human Rights Legitimacy and Dialogue

Within the international human rights circle,Abduliahi AhmedAn-Na’im is regarded as a representative of Southern voices."Under such a circumstance that the confrontation between the West and non-Western countries on human rights has become a routine reality,An-Na’im advocates a contingent universality of human rights or"contingent universality of human rights,"and insists that the universality of human rights be based on the cultural legitimacy of human rights.While he sees the internal dialogue of human rights in all non-Western countries,including Islamic ones,as a basic way to ensure the international human rights standards be accepted gradually,he also believes the cross-cultural dialogue among different societies can eventually lead to the reconstruction of the legitimacy of international human rights standards or even the standards themselves.An-Na’im’s theory of moderate cultural relativism points a way to achieve universality of human rights for developing countries,but there are a few questions that need to be further addressed.

Interpreting Kuhn＇s Incommensurability-Thesis： Its Different Meanings and Epistemological Consequences

Kuhn＇s incommensurability-thesis is crucial for consequences for the pursuit of epistemology. A interpreting his views on the development of science and their commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the publication of the original version of Kuhn＇s epoch-making book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions （henceforth： SSR） should thus provide a thorough reflection on this thesis. However, this thesis is not easy to interpret. It is not only complex in itself but has also undergone a historical development--in Kuhn＇s own hands and in those of his interpreters. In this article, I sort out the different interpretations of it, in particular, in Part A. In Part B, I demonstrate their epistemological consequences. Under closer scrutiny, Kuhn＇s incommensurability-thesis contains several sub-theses Different senses of ＂incommensurability＂ thus need to be distinguished. However, the way in which those distinctions are drawn in Kuhn-scholarship differs. In paragraph I of Part A, I provide an overview of the reception of the incommensurability-thesis in Kuhn-scholarship. In Paragraph II, I trace its development in Kuhn＇s later writings： given its importance and contested nature, Kuhn later clarifies his original thesis. Those later clarifications＇ main function consists in domesticating the most radically relativistic aspects his original incommensurability-thesis had, at least, in the eyes of his interpreters. The upshot of Part A （Paragraphs I and II） is to provide a coherent interpretation of Kuhn＇s incommensurability-thesis. To that end, I distinguish in line with much of Kuhn-scholarship a semantic from a methodological sense of incommensurability. In part B, the question is raised： What sort of epistemological consequences follow from both senses of incommensurability？ In particular, what consequences follow for the issues of reference, subjectivity （objectivity）, pluralism, and realism？ The underlying question is to what extent Kuhnian incommensurability caters to a relativistic understanding of those issues. This question is answered in Paragraph Ill with the help of the analyses of a currently leading Kuhn-scholar, C. H. Sankey. His answers are taken as a vantage point for my concluding evaluation of the consequences of Kuhnian incommensurability in Paragraph IV.

The Definition of Pornography and Avoiding Normative Silliness： A Commentary Adjunct to Rea＇s Definition

Many definitions of pornography implicitly involve begging the question concerning its moral value. One exception to this is Michael Rea＇s 2001 definition. The present paper identifies some counter-intuitive consequences of this definition of pornography and seeks to amend it. The aim of the paper is to separate a definitional understanding of pornography from a normative understanding of pornography in order to lay the foundations for future, coherent moral thinking on the subject.

On the Benefits and Burdens of the Notion of＂Standpoint＂

Despite the widespread endorsing of multiculturalism, the progress of enquiry into it and multicultural education have been impeded by a suspicion of cultural relativism and intellectual insularity. This paper reveals that such a suspicion is spurious by paying special attention to the notion of＂standpoint＂ which has a relative but substantial effect. The proper recognition of this point highlights the sense in which the insights drawn from multiculturalism and their educational embodiments are crucial for the future of humanity as a whole, which is far beyond the enduring controversy about universality and particularity.

To Be Scientistic or to Advocate Scientism:That Is the Question

How is the significance of the doctrine Scientism to be understood?To answer that question,it will be necessary to distinguish three stances towards scientific activity.This can be done by developing distinctions already delineated between Relativistic,Methodological and Dogmatic Scientism.In the present paper,the first two senses are best characterized as the scientistic:Scientistic Relativism and Scientistic Methodologism.Dogmatic Scientism arises in two forms:a Janus-faced Scientism and an Essentialist form.The former can be understood as advocating a public tolerance of behaviourism in relation to other people’s responses,cast as spatio-temporal events whilst adopting,at the same time,a private existentialism so that one’s own first person evaluations remain valid.An Essentialist form sustains a predictive and normative stance where any human action or communication is cast as“a natural object of investigation of the empirical sciences”.After distinguishing these four ways of interpreting scientific activity,Ladyman and Ross’s own contribution to this debate can be elucidated through examining five theses carried by their text Every Thing Must Go,and ideas forwarded subsequently in Ladyman’s article“Scientism with a Humane Face”:(1)the attack upon conceptual analysis;(2)the defence of metaphysics;(3)the advocacy of scale relative ontology;(4)the rehabilitation of Peirce’s philosophy;and(5)the rejection of a traditional conception of materialism.It may then become possible to ascertain how far their approach to scientific activity can be identified with either a Scientific Methodologism or some form of Scientism itself.

Time Varying Gravitational Constant G via Entropic Force

If the uncertainty principle applies to the Verlinde entropic idea, it leads to a new term in the Newton＇s second law of mechanics in the Planck＇s scale. This curious velocity dependent term inspires a frictional feature of the gravity. In this short letter we address that this new term modifies the effective mass and the Newtonian constant as the time dependent quantities. Thus we must have a running on the value of the effective mass on the particle mass m near the holographic screen and the G. This result has a nigh relation with the Dirac hypothesis about the large numbers hypothesis （L.N.H.）. We propose that the corrected entropie terms via Verlinde idea can be brought as a holographic evidence for the authenticity of the Dirac idea.

God Is a Porcupine—Brain, Consciousness and Spacetime Physics

Whereas the human body requires a vast numbers of atoms to maintain its intricate anatomical functions, we assert that the human brain requires “something extra” to carry out its higher mental and emotional functions. Recently, neuroscientists are beginning to suspect brain cells are not fast enough, or intricate enough, to correlate complex spatiotemporal information into cognitive understanding. They conclude that spacetime fields may be necessary to assist the brain during neurological processing—in much the same way magnetic and electric fields are essential for the propagation of light. This “something extra,” we argue, is spacetime itself—where structures in the brain, called facilitators (somewhat like Descartes pineal gland), have evolved biologically in such a way, so as to be able to store and retrieve spacetime quanta for the formation and generation of consciousness and memory. In this way, cognition is not a thing complete. Rather it is emergent, and accumulates as discretized spacetime quanta in the brain so rapidly, we perceive our own awareness to be continuous, events spontaneous. In this paper, we consider spacetime to be a field (like all quantum fields), which can be excited into quanta particles called gravitons. We then apply this quanta excitation to help explain the brain’s cognitive processes. If the brain has indeed evolved to interact with discretized spacetime, then with the advent of improved functional imaging equipment, we might be able to map detailed correlations between neural processes, conscious experience and spacetime. In so doing, it might be possible to learn more about the fundamental workings of spacetime itself.

Completing the Standard Model with Gravity by General Relativizing Quantum Physics (RQP) (Coupling Spin-2 Gravitons with Spin-0 Particles to Generate Higgs Mass)

After a straightforward general relativistic calculation on a modified flat-spacetime metric (developed from the fluctuating vacuum energy interacting with a graviton field), a pair of n-valued covariant and contravariant energy momentum tensors emerged analogous to quantized raising and lower operators. Detaching these operators from the general relativistic field equations, and then transporting them to act on extreme spacetimes, these operators were able to generate fundamental particle boson masses. In particular, the operators precisely generated Higgs mass. Then by applying a consistency approach to the gravitational field equations—similar to how Maxwell applied to the electromagnetic ones—it allowed for the coupling of spin-to-mass, further restricting the particle mass to be in precise agreement with CODATA experimental values. Since this is a massless field approach integrated discretely with a massive one, it overcomes various renormalizing difficulties;moreover it solves the mass hierarchal problem of the Standard Model of particle physics, and generates its spin and therefore shows quantum physics to be a subset of General Relativity, just as Einstein had first imagined.

Relativized Quantum Physics Generating <i>N</i>-Valued Coulomb Force and Atomic Hydrogen Energy Spectrum

Though not well-known, Einstein endeavored much of his life to general-relativize quantum mechanics, (rather than quantizing gravity). Albeit he did not succeed, his legacy lives on. In this paper, we begin with the general relativistic field equations describing flat spacetime, but stimulated by vacuum energy fluctuations. In our precursor paper, after straightforward general relativistic calculations, the resulting covariant and contravariant energy-momentum tensors were identified as n-valued operators describing graviton excitation. From these two operators, we were able to generate all three boson masses (including the Higgs mass) in precise agreement as reported in the 2010 CODATA (NIST);moreover local, as-well-as large-scale, accelerated spacetimes were shown to naturally occur from this general relativized quantum physics approach (RQP). In this paper, applying the same approach, we produce an n-valued Coulombs Force Law leading to the energy spectrum for atomic hydrogen, without assuming quantized atomic radii, velocity and momentum, as Bohr did.

Einstein’s Gravitational Field Approach to Dark Matter and Dark Energy—Geometric Particle Decay into the Vacuum Energy Generating Higgs Boson and Heavy Quark Mass

During an interview at the Niels Bohr Institute David Bohm stated, “according to Einstein, particles should eventually emerge … as singularities, or very strong regions of stable pulses of (the gravitational) field” [1]. Starting from this premise, we show spacetime, indeed, manifests stable pulses (n-valued gravitons) that decay into the vacuum energy to generate all three boson masses (including Higgs), as well as heavy-quark mass;and all in precise agreement with the 2010 CODATA report on fundamental constants. Furthermore, our relativized quantum physics approach (RQP) answers to the mystery surrounding dark energy, dark matter, accelerated spacetime, and why ordinary matter dominates over antimatter.

A Contrastive Study on Relativization Strategies of English and Chinese:Based on the NPAH Theory

Relativization is a common feature shared by almost every language,which also needs to be analyzed from the contrastive perspective.Considering about the NPAH theory,two questions has been solved here:what are the similarities and differences between English and Chinese selativization strategies;whether the data gained from analyzing the corpus could support the NPAH theory.By analyzing the corpus,2 points has been found:1)Relative-pronoun strategy is the most frequently used strategy in English,in spite of Chinese RC has no relative-pronoun strategy.2)The accessibility for English RC with+case strategy starts from IO,but Chinese starts from DO.Generally,both English and Chinese relative clause can support the accessibility hierarchy of the NPAH.

Calculating God from the God Particle

Can the existence of “God” be calculated from known science and mathematics? We argue yes, provided the question is restricted to whether or not memory and consciousness are properties of spacetime. In this sense, we are seeking the god of Spinoza and Einstein, where the Universe is thought to be identical with divinity—but with the added characteristic of “awareness”. Currently, memory and consciousness and their relationship to spacetime and matter are of great interest to many prominent physicist, neurosurgeons, anesthesiologists, and philosophers. To show “Space-time Thinks,” we begin with a thought experiment formulated in 1867 by James Clerk Maxwell— together with Leó Szilárd’s discovery that memory and information are intimately related to the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Finally, we verify that memory and consciousness are properties of spacetime through an analogous Maxwell-Szilárd thought experiment associated with the creation of the God Particle—Higgs boson.

Can Rawls＇ Constructivism Avoid the Euthyphro Dilemma？ In Reply to Shafer-Landau

In this essay, I consider two challenges implicit in Russ Shafer-Landau’s criticism of constructivists: the realism challenge and the relativism challenge, respectively. I do not try to offer a decisive set of objections to the challenges; instead I argue that some objective versions of constructivism, especially Rawls’s constructivism, are not susceptible to the criticisms.

Different Conceptions and a General Concept of Human Rights

In this study, I show that human fights are historical projects. They are legal inventions and institutional structures and respond to historical injustices and serious atrocities suffered by people, or which threaten them. It is useful therefore to first distinguish, both historically and systematically, different conceptions of human fights from a concept of human fights. I will distinguish three conceptions： national, international and transnational. Included in national conceptions are the human fights declarations of North America （1776） and France （1789）. The starting event of the international conception is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations after the Second World War in 1948. And it can be argued that a transnational conception of human fights that better fits the globalised world and the already global developments in intemational law and governance is needed.