Symbolic Legislation: An Essentially Political Concept

Violence as an Essentially Contested Concept

Scientific understanding of human violence is one of the most urgent tasks of our time. Given this sense of urgency, it is shocking how little we seem to know about it (Turpin & Kurz, 1997: 1–2). In fact, even among scholars there is not even the beginning of an agreement concerning a definition of what exactly ‘violence’ is (Stanko, 2003: 3). One of the most common ways of defining violence is...

Circular economy as an essentially contested concept

The Circular Economy (CE) is currently a popular notion within the policy and business advocacy groups. Despite being visionary and provocative in its message, the research on the CE concept is emerging. The two intertwined objectives of the paper are; first to identify, discuss and develop the various definitions provided by the emerging literature. Secondly, to suggest an initial research app...

Medicine as an essentially contested concept.

W B Gallie's notion of essentially contested concepts remains of philosophical interest. I argue that medicine is one such concept and look at the consequences of this as regards the inappropriateness of looking for definitions and necessary and sufficient conditions to settle debates about what medicine is and is not.

The Political Economy of Climate Change Legislation: An Economist’s Perspective

The Concept of “Political Legitimacy” in Shia Political Thought (With Focus on Imam Khomeini’s Political Thought)

Legitimacy is always considered an important concept among basic topics of political science; since it has been already posed as the prerequisite of acceptability for exercising of power in the societies through history. Accordingly, all of the political philosophies made efforts to establish an intellectual apparatus that enforces the fundamentals of governance, dealt to some extent with the i...