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Research Article
Spatial Variation and Change in Precipitation and Temperature: Mediating Science and Smallholder Farm Household Perspectives in North Eastern Ghana
Simon Kaba Kanlisi*
Issue:
Volume 14, Issue 5, October 2026
Pages:
384-398
Received:
22 July 2026
Accepted:
4 August 2026
Published:
2 September 2026
Abstract: This study analysed perspectives of smallholder farm households in the Kasena Nankana area on climate variability and change in comparison with meteorological data collected over a period of three decades. The study relied on descriptive and qualitative data that were collected through the administration of a household questionnaires, Focus Group Discussions, and Key Informant Interviews. The sample included 365 smallholder farmer household heads, 9 Key Informant Interviewees and 61 Focus Group Discussion Participants. The findings revealed that smallholder households viewed their climate to be one that has been very variable over the past three decades marked by a shift in the farming season in line with meteorological data analysed. It confirmed the view in previous studies that intense climate variability and change are causing major adverse impacts on smallholder farmers. Smallholder farm households concluded that variability of their climate is caused by cultural despondency by the youth who have been influenced by foreign cultures perceived as modern. The study recommends that policy formulators and development practitioners including Government and Non-Governmental Organisations need to seriously factor indigenous knowledge and culture into policy and interventions that seek to support smallholder farmers towards sustainable climate adaptation and resilience building.
Abstract: This study analysed perspectives of smallholder farm households in the Kasena Nankana area on climate variability and change in comparison with meteorological data collected over a period of three decades. The study relied on descriptive and qualitative data that were collected through the administration of a household questionnaires, Focus Group D...
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Research Article
Rut Björkman’s Spiritual Critique of the Church as an Impetus for a New Ecclesiology
Imre Koncsik*
Issue:
Volume 14, Issue 5, October 2026
Pages:
399-405
Received:
23 August 2026
Accepted:
2 September 2026
Published:
20 September 2026
Abstract: This text investigates the nature and concept of the Church through the dialectical tension between individual religious experience and institutional social structures, engaging critically with Rut Björkman’s spiritual critique. The analysis initially categorizes ecclesiological frameworks into two distinct foundational approaches. Bottom-Up Theories view the Church as an abstract, adaptable social entity emerging from the collective historical interactions of individual believers. Top-Down Theories emphasize primary divine agency, grounding the Church in a transcendent origin and an enduring, normative organizational structure. Furthermore, the text distinguishes factual diversity (plurality) from relativizing ideology (pluralism), as represented in the Pluralist Theology of Religions (PTR). PTR explicitly rejects the unique hypostatic union of Christ, level-setting doctrinal content to a non-binding universal religion. In contrast to exclusivist models, sacramental mediation envisions the Church as a participatory partner in Christ's work. At the center of the inquiry is Rut Björkman’s spiritual critique, which strongly targets institutionalized top-down ecclesiology and dogmatic restrictions. Björkman denies the unique incarnation and divine sonship of Jesus, viewing him instead as one exemplar among many who discovered the "Creator Spirit" in creation. She asserts that dogmas and doctrines obscure inner human access to the divine source, playing historical tradition against Jesus. In her view, redemptive power lies not in "faith in Jesus"-which she argues divides humanity-but in "believing like Jesus," thereby awakening the hidden divine power within every human being.
Abstract: This text investigates the nature and concept of the Church through the dialectical tension between individual religious experience and institutional social structures, engaging critically with Rut Björkman’s spiritual critique. The analysis initially categorizes ecclesiological frameworks into two distinct foundational approaches. Bottom-Up Theori...
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Research Article
Aesthetic Subtlety: A Scholarly Examination of the Indian Style Ghazal and Bidel Dehlavi
Issue:
Volume 14, Issue 5, October 2026
Pages:
406-412
Received:
3 May 2026
Accepted:
7 September 2026
Published:
22 September 2026
Abstract: Some scholars and cultivators have had disfavor and misjudgment regarding the Indian style Ghazal and Bidel Dehlavi (Mirza Abdul Qader Bidel), which leads to their lack of knowledge about Indian style Ghazal and Bidel. And the intellectuals who have an unpleasant feeling about the Indian style and Bidel Dehlavi and his sonnets, with their judgment that; the effort of imagination, the entrance of slang terms and words, fanciful thinking, over_ emphasis for finding specific words, avoiding the normal norm, etc. They have a negative view of all the poets who follow this style. Doesn’t such an incorrect arbitration and judgment indicate a lack of knowledge of the geography in which the great Indian style and Mirza Abdul Qader Bidel emerge? Bidel Dehlavi is the high pick of Indian style and an excellent example of Indian poetry and Ghazals. Indian style was prevalent in Dari Persian literature for about 150 years from the beginning of the 11th century to the middle of the 12th century. And great poets such as Bidel Dehlavi, Kalim Kashani, Saeb Tabrizi have been standard bearer of this style. Indian style Ghazal is different from all literary periods with its thin imagination and using of figurative languages, for this reason, the way to get to Bidel’s Ghazal and Indian style is to understand the stanza. By understanding the stanza, it is possible to gain a foothold in the Indian style and Bidel Dehlavi’s Ghazals. The effective method in this article is based on the analysis of Indian style Ghazal and Bodel Dehlavi’s poetry, which is done in library research way. On the other hand, Indian style Ghazal and Bidel poetry have been on a high literary position from the past to the present; therefore, we must remind that this research seems more pristine than any other research. The sources being used in this research have been attempted to be the best ones for introducing Bidel’s Indian style Ghazal.
Abstract: Some scholars and cultivators have had disfavor and misjudgment regarding the Indian style Ghazal and Bidel Dehlavi (Mirza Abdul Qader Bidel), which leads to their lack of knowledge about Indian style Ghazal and Bidel. And the intellectuals who have an unpleasant feeling about the Indian style and Bidel Dehlavi and his sonnets, with their judgment ...
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Research Article
The Determinacy of the Substance in Spinoza
Paolo Godani*
Issue:
Volume 14, Issue 5, October 2026
Pages:
413-419
Received:
11 September 2026
Accepted:
22 September 2026
Published:
20 October 2026
DOI:
10.11648/j.hss.20261405.14
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Abstract: In Spinoza scholarship, particularly in interpretations that explicitly or implicitly draw on the Hegelian reading of Spinoza, it has often been argued that substance is something indeterminate, since neither the attributes nor the modes are capable of determining its nature. On the one hand, it is maintained that, in order to serve as the substratum of a multiplicity of different attributes, substance cannot coincide with any one of them and therefore cannot be determined by any of them. On the other hand, it is argued that, since modes are nothing other than affections of substance, they cannot contribute to determining it. The thesis of the indeterminacy of substance consequently leads to a reduction of the attributes to intellectual forms and of the modes to evanescent entities. Spinoza’s philosophy would thus amount to an “acosmism,” insofar as it would deny the multiplicity of essences and entities that populate the world. For the same reason, it would amount to an empty monism. In this contribution, I will first address the problem of the determinacy or indeterminacy of substance by reformulating what I take to be the most compelling solution to the longstanding dispute over the attributes. I will then turn to the alleged evanescence of modes, arguing that it does not entail a denial of the multiplicity of things as such, but only the rejection of a particular way of conceiving them. Adopting a methodology that combines close textual reading with theoretical analysis, I argue that Spinoza’s monism is not an empty monism, but rather a dense monism: the substance is by no means indeterminate, but is instead defined by its attributes, understood as essence of the substance, and expressed through its modes, understood as properties of the substance.
Abstract: In Spinoza scholarship, particularly in interpretations that explicitly or implicitly draw on the Hegelian reading of Spinoza, it has often been argued that substance is something indeterminate, since neither the attributes nor the modes are capable of determining its nature. On the one hand, it is maintained that, in order to serve as the substrat...
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