The African Philosophy Reader
by P.H. Coetzee (Editor), A.P.J. Roux (Editor)
The African Philosophy Reader , Second Edition, is a substantially revised and greatly enhanced collection of writings on African philosophy. Editors P.H. Coetzee and A.P.J. Roux have brought together thirty-seven philosophers, thirty-three of whom are black Africans, representing the most current philosophical discussions on the African continent. While working within categories and using concepts traditionally associated with philosophy such as epistemology, ontology and metaphysics, this pathbreaking work shows how these are being used to deal with the diverse and multinational range of issues and problems facing Africans today: decolonization and globalization; justice and reconciliation; tradition and modernization; politics, race and gender. Introductions to each of the volume's eight sections offer accessible overviews of primary themes, thinkers and theories that will be appreciated by scholars, students and others coming to the study of African philosophy for the first time. This considerably revised second edition of The African Philosophy Reader provides a comprehensive look inside the many debates and issues in philosophy in Africa today.
Friday, 15 May 2009
Monday, 11 May 2009
The Results from My BBC Personality Test
Your answers suggest you are a Mastermind
The four aspects that make up this personality type are:
Summary of Masterminds
Visionaries who put energy into achieving their goals
Prefer to work independently and dislike inefficiency
Think of themselves as logical, thorough, and bright
Values practicality and common sense above ideas and theories
More about Masterminds
Masterminds create a vision for the future by gathering and organising information. They then develop strategies to achieve their goals. They have a rare gift for looking at almost anything and seeing how it can be improved. These skills and the Masterminds' high standards often allow them to reach leadership positions at work.
Mastermind is the least common personality type in the UK, according to a nationwide survey.
Masterminds value independence and prefer to work on their own. Once they have decided on a course of action, Masterminds rarely change their minds, although they can be persuaded by clear reasoning by someone they respect.
In situations where they can't use their talents or are unappreciated, Masterminds may cut themselves off from a group and criticize people who don't understand their plans. Under extreme stress, Masterminds may overindulge in sensory experiences like eating, shopping or watching television.
Masterminds often have an unusual sense of humour, which arises from their ability to spot surprising links between seemingly unconnected facts.
Mastermind Careers
Masterminds are drawn to jobs requiring logical analysis or abstract thinking common in science or technical fields.
It's important to remember that no survey can predict personality type with 100 percent accuracy. Experts say that we should use personality type to better understand ourselves and others, but shouldn't feel restricted by our results.
The four aspects that make up this personality type are:
Summary of Masterminds
Visionaries who put energy into achieving their goals
Prefer to work independently and dislike inefficiency
Think of themselves as logical, thorough, and bright
Values practicality and common sense above ideas and theories
More about Masterminds
Masterminds create a vision for the future by gathering and organising information. They then develop strategies to achieve their goals. They have a rare gift for looking at almost anything and seeing how it can be improved. These skills and the Masterminds' high standards often allow them to reach leadership positions at work.
Mastermind is the least common personality type in the UK, according to a nationwide survey.
Masterminds value independence and prefer to work on their own. Once they have decided on a course of action, Masterminds rarely change their minds, although they can be persuaded by clear reasoning by someone they respect.
In situations where they can't use their talents or are unappreciated, Masterminds may cut themselves off from a group and criticize people who don't understand their plans. Under extreme stress, Masterminds may overindulge in sensory experiences like eating, shopping or watching television.
Masterminds often have an unusual sense of humour, which arises from their ability to spot surprising links between seemingly unconnected facts.
Mastermind Careers
Masterminds are drawn to jobs requiring logical analysis or abstract thinking common in science or technical fields.
It's important to remember that no survey can predict personality type with 100 percent accuracy. Experts say that we should use personality type to better understand ourselves and others, but shouldn't feel restricted by our results.
Tuesday, 5 May 2009
By Henry Chu
February 12, 2009
Reporting from Downe, England -- The house that helped rock the world is spacious but not grand. It sits on a country lane in the south of England, at the edge of a tranquil meadow recently whitewashed by an unusual snowfall.
Here, the great scientist worked with inexhaustible patience in his Victorian study, staring for hours at specimens through a microscope or pondering the riddle of life. In a black armchair specially fitted with wheels, Charles Darwin wrote "On the Origin of Species," the book that forever changed the way we look at the world around us -- and at ourselves.
For 40 years, Down House was the perfect place for Darwin to think, write and enjoy family life out of the spotlight.
"The country is extraordinarily rural and quiet, with narrow lanes and high hedges and hardly any ruts," Darwin wrote. "It is really surprising to think London is only 16 miles off."
But so much for retiring from public view. Today, 200 years after his birth on Feb. 12, 1809, Darwin seems to be everywhere in his native land.
His bushy-bearded face graces numerous television programs exploring the impact of his ideas. Prominent Britons dissect his life and times on the radio. The city of Shrewsbury, Darwin's birthplace, is lighting up buildings at night with huge projected images and films relating to its most famous son.
Libraries, zoos, art galleries, choral groups, universities, museums and, a little ironically, churches all own a piece of the extravaganza celebrating Darwin's bicentennial, a yearlong series of 300 events that make up one of the most extensive national commemorations of a single person ever to be held in this country.
That may only be fitting for someone whose revolutionary theory of how life evolved leaped over the boundaries of pure science and into so many other spheres -- politics, religion, economics, the arts.
"It's difficult to overstate how pervasive Darwin's work is," said Robert M. Bloomfield, coordinator of the umbrella organization Darwin200 and head of special projects at London's Natural History Museum. "He undoubtedly produced the biggest idea in science in the 19th century and, some people say, of all time. Because when you question your relationship to nature, you question everything."
A recent editorial by the Times of London went so far as to argue: "Darwin is not merely a man of his time. The extent of his achievement gives him a plausible claim to be counted the greatest figure in this nation's history."
That a scientist whose ideas still rile conservative religious groups can be so effusively feted is a testament to how secular Britain is, at least in the public square. There have been few hiccups of protest over the attention being lavished on Darwin or the money spent on ballyhooing his legacy.
"It isn't polarized like it is in the U.S.," Bloomfield said. "There are people who rant on the interplay between science and faith, but it's not the same sort of political debate in the U.K."
Still, even the critically acclaimed "Darwin: Big Idea, Big Exhibition" at Bloomfield's museum gives a nod to the controversies spawned by the concept of evolution through natural selection. Under the heading "Sticker Shock," a biology textbook from Georgia bears a warning label mandated by the local education board: "Evolution is a theory, not a fact." A short video also addresses the friction between Darwinism and religion.
But the thrust of the exhibition is the evolution, as it were, of Darwin's own thinking, how the seed of a blockbuster idea was planted and nourished over a long period.
Crucial to that was his five-year voyage around the world on the Beagle, which launched in 1831 and took the budding naturalist to exotic destinations full of creatures he had never heard of, whose variety and subtle gradations set his mind racing.
The captain, Robert FitzRoy, considered Darwin "a very superior young man," and on display are some of the notebooks kept by the wide-eyed Cambridge undergraduate, with pages crossed out after he meticulously transcribed them upon his return to England. (Not available, unfortunately, and perhaps no longer extant is Darwin's copy of "Paradise Lost," which, poignantly enough, was one of only four books he brought on board with him.)
In another case lies the Holy Grail of Darwiniana: the red notebook Darwin kept back in London containing his famous drawing of the "Tree of Life," on which he mapped out the development of different forms of life from a common primordial root. Modestly written at the top of the page are the words: "I think."
As someone who once entertained the ambition of becoming a country parson, Darwin knew the outrage his theory would trigger in a society that largely clung to the biblical view of creation. Voicing his opinions was, he confided to a friend, like "confessing a murder."
Perhaps that made him value his quiet country life all the more and the temple of domesticity he built with his wife, Emma, in the village of Downe. (The village added an "E" to its name before the Darwins arrived, but the couple never bothered to change the spelling of Down House.)
The home has undergone a three-month, $1.3-million makeover for the bicentennial and is to reopen to local residents on Darwin's birthday, today, and the general public Friday.
The organization that runs the house, English Heritage, hopes visitors get a sense of Darwin the man as much as Darwin the scientist.
The study where he painstakingly cataloged and pored over innumerable plant and animal specimens from his garden still boasts his wheeled black chair, which he used to glide from one part of the room to another, his books on the shelves and the stool he inherited from his father. A few steps away is the billiard room where Darwin shot pool with his butler, Parslow, during breaks from work.
Outside, visitors can retrace Darwin's steps around the Sandwalk, the route he strolled three times a day without fail. In the garden, 60% of the plantings are of varieties of flowers and plants that were there during Darwin's time, said Cathy Power, a senior curator with English Heritage.
"This is his home. This is where he worked. This is where he wrote 'Origin of Species,' " Power said. "It places him in context. . . . He had his massive voyage, but after that he didn't go anywhere else."
By all accounts, Darwin was an indulgent, loving father to 10 children, seven of whom survived to adulthood. At the Museum of Natural History, one of the few precious surviving manuscript pages of "On the Origin of Species" has a colorful drawing on the back by one of Darwin's boys, Francis.
The death of his eldest daughter, Annie, at age 10 devastated Darwin and apparently confirmed his rupture with religion. He never attended services again, but would leave his family at the door of the church on Sundays.
Then he would walk back home, his haven for four decades.
"My life goes on like clockwork," Darwin wrote, "and I am fixed on the spot where I shall end it."
True to his word, Darwin died at Down House on April 19, 1882.
henry.chu@latimes.com
Saturday, 2 May 2009
'Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine as children do. It's not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own lights shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.'
From the movie, Coach Carter
From the movie, Coach Carter
Sunday, 26 April 2009
Hitler has only got one bull (and it's alive and well in the West Country)
Ancient breed resurrected by Nazis to 'purify' the countryside set up home here
By Cahal Milmo, Chief Reporter
Hitler wanted them to be Aryan cows – ancient beasts resurrected from a time before Europe was populated by "racially degenerate" wildlife.
Hermann Goering was so keen to recreate the one-time prey of Roman hunters that he employed two Nazi scientists to breed the once mighty aurochs back into existence.
The project seemed to have ended with the Second World War when nearly all the cattle kept in Berlin and Munich's zoos were destroyed.
But some 70 years later, the fruit of this deluded labour to bring back to life the gargantuan bovines which roamed Eurasia can now be found peacefully chewing the cud in a few fields on the Devon-Cornwall border.
A herd of 13 Heck cattle, named after the two German zoologist brothers who bred the long-horned, stocky cattle in the Nazi-funded project, has been acquired by a West Country conservationist as part of a rare breeds farm.
Derek Gow, who already has a collection of beavers, polecats and water voles, bought the nine cows and four bulls from a Belgian conservation park which had bred a herd of the shaggy Heck cattle from the few surviving animals left in Munich's Hellabrunn Zoo after 1945.
Mr Gow, 44, who runs a farm at Lifton, near Dartmoor, said: "The Nazis wanted to recreate the aurochs to evoke the power of the folklores and legends of the Germanic peoples. Between the two wars there was thinking that you could selectively breed animals – and indeed people – for Aryan characteristics that were rooted in runes and folklore. Young men hunted these bulls as preparation for battle and leadership in war. Hunting was a very big part of what people like Goering did. This was something that was considered very manly to do."
The aurochs, which weighed up to a tonne and were up to two metres high, was lauded by Julius Caesar as being "a little below the elephant in size" with "extraordinary strength and speed". The animals were hunted into extinction across most of Europe by the 16th century with just a few remaining in early Polish zoos by the 1700s.
Such was the obsession of Goering – the head of the Luftwaffe and Hitler's designated successor – with reproducing a menagerie of ancient "noble" animals to be pursued by the Nazi high command on his personal hunting reserves in Prussia and modern-day Poland that he personally authorised Heinz and Lutz Heck to pursue their programme, begun in the 1930s, to "breed back" through existing cattle varieties to create an aurochs.
Heinz Heck, the director of the Munich zoo who with his brother was an admirer of Eugen Fischer, one of the fathers of the Nazi pseudo-science of race, set about cross-breeding strains including Highland cattle, Freisians and even Corsican cows. Lutz Heck, who ran Berlin's main zoo, crossed Spanish fighting bulls with other breeds and, along with Heinz's cows, the resulting cattle were declared to be the resurrection of the aurochs.
The Munich-based brother wrote after the war that he prized the brute power of his creation, which he said "must be eager to fight to the death". It is now accepted that the Heck cows, some of which were sent to Goering's private shooting estate south of Berlin, were in reality genetically far removed from the aurochs and the brothers had succeeded in creating only a facsimile of the primitive cow. Modern genetics has long established the impossibility of recreating an extinct species.
But Mr Gow strongly denies that his animals are besmirched by their Nazi associations, saying their hardiness means they could eventually be allowed to roam freely like the aurochs.
"I don't think there is anything more sinister in owning Heck cattle than there is driving a Volkswagen," he said. "They were a fantasy breed. But they are also quality cattle and a pedigree breed that is remarkably robust. They could one day be returned to a wild environment and become one of the big super-animals that roamed the forests."
By Cahal Milmo, Chief Reporter
Hitler wanted them to be Aryan cows – ancient beasts resurrected from a time before Europe was populated by "racially degenerate" wildlife.
Hermann Goering was so keen to recreate the one-time prey of Roman hunters that he employed two Nazi scientists to breed the once mighty aurochs back into existence.
The project seemed to have ended with the Second World War when nearly all the cattle kept in Berlin and Munich's zoos were destroyed.
But some 70 years later, the fruit of this deluded labour to bring back to life the gargantuan bovines which roamed Eurasia can now be found peacefully chewing the cud in a few fields on the Devon-Cornwall border.
A herd of 13 Heck cattle, named after the two German zoologist brothers who bred the long-horned, stocky cattle in the Nazi-funded project, has been acquired by a West Country conservationist as part of a rare breeds farm.
Derek Gow, who already has a collection of beavers, polecats and water voles, bought the nine cows and four bulls from a Belgian conservation park which had bred a herd of the shaggy Heck cattle from the few surviving animals left in Munich's Hellabrunn Zoo after 1945.
Mr Gow, 44, who runs a farm at Lifton, near Dartmoor, said: "The Nazis wanted to recreate the aurochs to evoke the power of the folklores and legends of the Germanic peoples. Between the two wars there was thinking that you could selectively breed animals – and indeed people – for Aryan characteristics that were rooted in runes and folklore. Young men hunted these bulls as preparation for battle and leadership in war. Hunting was a very big part of what people like Goering did. This was something that was considered very manly to do."
The aurochs, which weighed up to a tonne and were up to two metres high, was lauded by Julius Caesar as being "a little below the elephant in size" with "extraordinary strength and speed". The animals were hunted into extinction across most of Europe by the 16th century with just a few remaining in early Polish zoos by the 1700s.
Such was the obsession of Goering – the head of the Luftwaffe and Hitler's designated successor – with reproducing a menagerie of ancient "noble" animals to be pursued by the Nazi high command on his personal hunting reserves in Prussia and modern-day Poland that he personally authorised Heinz and Lutz Heck to pursue their programme, begun in the 1930s, to "breed back" through existing cattle varieties to create an aurochs.
Heinz Heck, the director of the Munich zoo who with his brother was an admirer of Eugen Fischer, one of the fathers of the Nazi pseudo-science of race, set about cross-breeding strains including Highland cattle, Freisians and even Corsican cows. Lutz Heck, who ran Berlin's main zoo, crossed Spanish fighting bulls with other breeds and, along with Heinz's cows, the resulting cattle were declared to be the resurrection of the aurochs.
The Munich-based brother wrote after the war that he prized the brute power of his creation, which he said "must be eager to fight to the death". It is now accepted that the Heck cows, some of which were sent to Goering's private shooting estate south of Berlin, were in reality genetically far removed from the aurochs and the brothers had succeeded in creating only a facsimile of the primitive cow. Modern genetics has long established the impossibility of recreating an extinct species.
But Mr Gow strongly denies that his animals are besmirched by their Nazi associations, saying their hardiness means they could eventually be allowed to roam freely like the aurochs.
"I don't think there is anything more sinister in owning Heck cattle than there is driving a Volkswagen," he said. "They were a fantasy breed. But they are also quality cattle and a pedigree breed that is remarkably robust. They could one day be returned to a wild environment and become one of the big super-animals that roamed the forests."
Friday, 20 March 2009
Anger Over Taxes 'Puts Bermuda At Risk'
3/20/2009 11:17:00 AM BDA SUN
Anger over taxes 'puts BDA at risk'
Job cuts overseas put pressure on politicians to act against offshore centres, says U.K. finance expert
Public and political anger towards offshore centres like Bermuda is reaching fever pitch in Britain and the U.S.
That is the opinion of Michael Foot, a British banking expert who arrived on the island yesterday to carry out a high-level financial review. Mr. Foot - who is conducting the first such inspection of Britain's overseas territories in a decade - said the U.K. particularly could pose a major threat to the way Bermuda does business. Mounting job losses in Britain, combined with a general election 15 months away, could add up to a perfect storm that causes politicians to try to close down Bermuda's tax advantages.
In recent months leaders in Europe have joined President Obama in promising to shut down so-called tax havens. Most experts here have tended to agree that Bermuda is relatively safe because it has a reputation as being transparent and cooperative.
However, Mr. Foot said: "You probably don't get the sense of it here in Bermuda, but the political atmosphere is very, very sore in these bigger countries... I have no doubt the people in the street are very, very angry. You can understand why they are angry. For every 500,000 jobs that go in America - and I think 130,000 went in Britain this month - that atmosphere gets more febrile. And that increases the pressure on politicians. And politicians may be pressed to make decisions that on broader reflection turn out to be horribly wrong."
He continued: "At least in the U.S. there is a brand new government, which is likely to have a whole set of different priorities. But in the U.K. we are 15 months or so away from an election, which the opinion polls suggest is going to be pretty close, so politicians are under pressure to act." He said some decisions made in the pressured environment of the Great Depression were catastrophic for the world economy and took decades to reverse.
Now Chairman of the U.K. office of Promontory Financial Group, Mr. Foot held several top posts during a 29-year career with the Bank of England. He also worked for several years in the Bahamas. He said: "I have a lot of sympathy with smaller jurisdictions. Their arguments are often not well heard. It can be frustrating."
He said offshore centres like Bermuda offer huge benefits to bigger countries and to individuals in those countries. Bermuda's success rests more on the talented experts who live here than on tax advantages, he said. While there is a legitimate need to target tax abuse in countries like Switzerland, the danger for Bermuda is that it will get "put in the same box" despite having its house in order.
U.K. Chancellor Alaistair Darling announced the financial review of nine of its overseas territories that have "significant financial centres." Mr. Foot is being asked to look at a wide range of issues, including international transparency and the ability of jurisdictions to manage financial crises. He will be meeting with Minister of Finance Paula Cox, heads of banks and insurance companies and officials from the Bermuda Monetary Association.
Who would be liable for losses?
Mr. Darling ordered the review following the financial crisis that hit Iceland banks - the fallout from which cost British investors millions of dollars in Guernsey and the Isle of Man. The U.K. may be liable to repay such losses in its overseas territories. One of Mr. Foot's main objectives is to establish who would be liable if Bermuda savings were to suffer a major crash. "What would that mean for U.K. Inc.?" he said. "Who would pay? It is 10 years since a review like this was carried out. That's a heck of a long time. Sometimes it's helpful to have someone independent coming in and looking with fresh eyes." Mr. Foot's remit does not include any question of Bermuda's autonomy of Government, nor with Bermuda's tax treaties.
Anger over taxes 'puts BDA at risk'
Job cuts overseas put pressure on politicians to act against offshore centres, says U.K. finance expert
Public and political anger towards offshore centres like Bermuda is reaching fever pitch in Britain and the U.S.
That is the opinion of Michael Foot, a British banking expert who arrived on the island yesterday to carry out a high-level financial review. Mr. Foot - who is conducting the first such inspection of Britain's overseas territories in a decade - said the U.K. particularly could pose a major threat to the way Bermuda does business. Mounting job losses in Britain, combined with a general election 15 months away, could add up to a perfect storm that causes politicians to try to close down Bermuda's tax advantages.
In recent months leaders in Europe have joined President Obama in promising to shut down so-called tax havens. Most experts here have tended to agree that Bermuda is relatively safe because it has a reputation as being transparent and cooperative.
However, Mr. Foot said: "You probably don't get the sense of it here in Bermuda, but the political atmosphere is very, very sore in these bigger countries... I have no doubt the people in the street are very, very angry. You can understand why they are angry. For every 500,000 jobs that go in America - and I think 130,000 went in Britain this month - that atmosphere gets more febrile. And that increases the pressure on politicians. And politicians may be pressed to make decisions that on broader reflection turn out to be horribly wrong."
He continued: "At least in the U.S. there is a brand new government, which is likely to have a whole set of different priorities. But in the U.K. we are 15 months or so away from an election, which the opinion polls suggest is going to be pretty close, so politicians are under pressure to act." He said some decisions made in the pressured environment of the Great Depression were catastrophic for the world economy and took decades to reverse.
Now Chairman of the U.K. office of Promontory Financial Group, Mr. Foot held several top posts during a 29-year career with the Bank of England. He also worked for several years in the Bahamas. He said: "I have a lot of sympathy with smaller jurisdictions. Their arguments are often not well heard. It can be frustrating."
He said offshore centres like Bermuda offer huge benefits to bigger countries and to individuals in those countries. Bermuda's success rests more on the talented experts who live here than on tax advantages, he said. While there is a legitimate need to target tax abuse in countries like Switzerland, the danger for Bermuda is that it will get "put in the same box" despite having its house in order.
U.K. Chancellor Alaistair Darling announced the financial review of nine of its overseas territories that have "significant financial centres." Mr. Foot is being asked to look at a wide range of issues, including international transparency and the ability of jurisdictions to manage financial crises. He will be meeting with Minister of Finance Paula Cox, heads of banks and insurance companies and officials from the Bermuda Monetary Association.
Who would be liable for losses?
Mr. Darling ordered the review following the financial crisis that hit Iceland banks - the fallout from which cost British investors millions of dollars in Guernsey and the Isle of Man. The U.K. may be liable to repay such losses in its overseas territories. One of Mr. Foot's main objectives is to establish who would be liable if Bermuda savings were to suffer a major crash. "What would that mean for U.K. Inc.?" he said. "Who would pay? It is 10 years since a review like this was carried out. That's a heck of a long time. Sometimes it's helpful to have someone independent coming in and looking with fresh eyes." Mr. Foot's remit does not include any question of Bermuda's autonomy of Government, nor with Bermuda's tax treaties.
Thursday, 22 January 2009
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