Islamic Political Thought: Reviving a Rationalist Tradition

This work develops the foundations of an Islamic argument for secular, liberal democracy from within the Islamic discursive tradition. First, it challenges the presentation of contemporary Islamic political thought as a unified, continuous development of the classical canon by showing the influence of the now marginalized medieval rationalists in the development of Islamic political thought. The classical rationalist concern with divine justice forced the founders of Sunni orthodoxy to state their epistemologies and their positions on ethical ontology. The orthodox positions, and their related methods of legal-juristic reasoning, are shown to be incapable of accommodating the modern Islamic positions on political representation, slavery, and just war. This leads to the second argument of the work, that the modern Islamic discourse is better understood as a reflection of the central concern with justice and its rationalist epistemology and ethical ontology we find in the writings of classical rationalists. This argument is made by examining the works of three classical rationalists, a theologian, a philosopher, and a historian. Their political positions, shaped by their rationalism and concern with justice, challenged their orthodox contemporaries, and provide substantive critiques of the classical political accommodations, methods of politico-legal reasoning, and hence, of modern Islamist political projects. The final chapter reveals how far the mainstream of Islamic political thought has deviated from the classical discourses, since the 19th century, by adopting the language and ideals of the European Enlightenment. This shift is presented as a triumph of classical rationalism over literalism, whose epistemological foundations and ontological implications have yet to be acknowledged and appreciated.

I'm Not Who I Thought I Was: A Contextual Resolution to the Identity Loss of Combat PTSD.

Given the historical rates of combat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), one can expect 30% of soldiers returning from current military conflicts to suffer from PTSD. For these individuals, various cognitive behavioral therapies (CBT) are the most commonly employed treatments. Unfortunately, however, symptom relapse can be expected with the various CBT approaches, as traumatic memories remain. Soldiers are imbued with a militarized identity, and the identity loss experienced by those soldiers who suffer from PTSD is particularly painful for this population, as the militarized identity effectively disavows personal suffering. For this reason, many combat veterans diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder experience undue, prolonged suffering as they struggle to make sense of the different person they fear they have become. This paper contrasts certain versions of Western philosophy, which view the self as a fixed and reified entity with certain versions of Eastern philosophy, which view the self as more contextual and fluid, in order to illuminate the value of employing third wave behavioral treatments, specifically Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), to treat the identity loss experienced by military veterans with PTSD. ACT echoes the Buddhist principle that attachment to verbally-constructed conceptual notions of self contribute to undue suffering, and that more vital living can be achieved by assuming a more contextual and experiential perspective on identity. Research and anecdotal accounts are cited to illustrate why treatment for identity loss associated with combat PTSD should be less focused on reconstructing a historically substance-oriented self and more focused on an epistemological reorientation to a deconstructed, contextual self.

“Fall” and Redemption in the Thought of Martin Heidegger and Jacques Lacan

This dissertation examines and develops Martin Heidegger’s concept of “falling” as a significant historical-philosophical principle. Falling, however, is primarily understood as a concept of the early Heidegger, whereas I argue that Heidegger continues to rely upon it, both explicitly and implicitly, throughout his career. Falling is a description ofphilosophical and Western history, known as metaphysics, and the description of man’s relationship to Being. Thus, falling relates to the most significant streams in Heidegger’s later thought, too, including the truth of Being, the death of God, the gods, the overcoming of metaphysics, and meditative thinking. I then reinterpret the traditional theology of the Fall narrative from Genesis in light of falling as philosophical concept, extending Heidegger’s own “destruction” of Western metaphysics in relation to one of its grounding myths. I move on to demonstrate the significance of a falling understanding in a rereading of the death of God and the end of metaphysics by examining Heidegger’s engagement with Nietzsche. I conclude by incorporating Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalysis as a further extension of Heidegger’s discourse on falling, showing that the subject’s discourse and relationship to the truth of Being is at the core of his constitution and neurosis.

Everyday Indivisibility: How Exclusive Religious Practices Explain Variation in Subnational Violence Outcomes

This project explores the puzzle of religious violence variation. Religious actors initiate conflict at a higher rate than their secular counterparts, last longer, are more deadly, and are less prone to negotiated termination. Yet the legacy of religious peacemakers on the reduction of violence is undeniable. Under what conditions does religion contribute to escalated violence and under what conditions does it contribute to peace? I argue that more intense everyday practices of group members, or high levels of orthopraxy, create dispositional indivisibilities that make violence a natural alternative to bargaining. Subnational armed groups with members whose practices are exclusive and isolating bind together through ritual practice, limit the acceptable decisions of leaders, and have prolonged timeframes, all of which result in higher levels of intensity, intransigence and resolve during violent conflict. The theory challenges both instrumentalist and constructivist understandings of social identity and violence. To support this argument, I construct an original cross-national data-set that employs ethnographic data on micro-level religious practices for 724 subnational armed groups in both civil wars and terror campaigns. Using this data, I build an explanatory “religious practice index” for each observation and examine its relationship with conflict outcomes. Findings suggest that exclusive practice groups fight significantly longer with more intensity and negotiate less. I also apply the practice model to qualitative cases. Fieldwork in the West Bank and Sierra Leone reveals that groups with more exclusive religious practicing membership are principle contributors to violence, whereas those with inclusive practices can contribute to peace. The project concludes with a discussion about several avenues for future research and identifies the practical policy applications to better identify and combat religious extremism.

Influence of Religious Institutions in the Creation and Implementation of Public Policy: The Case of Roman Catholic Argentina and Secular Uruguay

The strong presence of religious institutions in Latin America, especially the Roman Catholic Church, and their participation in the creation and implementation of public policy within a sovereign state can be counter-productive for the social development and progress of that specific country. Argentina and Uruguay and the social controversy of social issues of abortion and same-sex marriage are used as examples to establish the accuracy of the above statement. Historical, statistical, and legislative information about both topics in both countries show that the political power that the Roman Catholic Church has in the region is more an outdated influence than a reality, and the principle of secularization appears to be the most stabilizing philosophy for modern nations.