Volume 36, Issue 1

Personal growth initiative may serve as an internal mechanism through which urban, educated women attain empowerment in environments marked by strong patriarchal structures and collectivist ideologies. This study examines the relationship between personal growth initiative – defined as a self-directed pursuit of psychological development – and perceived gender discrimination and gender role attitudes, aiming to explain changes in empowerment among urban, educated Pakistani women ( N  = 621, 23–59 years;  M  = 30.65, SD = 6.68). A moderated mediation model was tested, wherein personal growth initiative was conceptualized as both a protective factor and a moderator in the indirect relationship between gender role attitudes and empowerment, via perceived gender discrimination. Modern gender role attitudes were negatively associated with heightened perceptions of gender discrimination, and positively associated with women empowerment. Higher levels of personal growth initiative weakened this negative association of gender discrimination and women empowerment, both directly and indirectly. The findings highlight personal growth initiative as a promising psychological resource that may help urban, educated Pakistani women. By focusing on internal agency and personal development, the study offers insights into how individual-level strengths can support empowerment within challenging sociocultural environments.

This study examines the role of street murals and graffiti as instruments of resistance, memory, and social change during the 2020 #EndSARS movement in Nigeria. Through a qualitative analysis of over 20 protest artworks, semi-structured interviews with participating artists, and a review of media and non-governmental organisations reports, the study explores how visual culture shaped and sustained collective action against police brutality and systemic oppression. Drawing on theories of protest aesthetics, spatial justice, and the radical imagination, the study argues that these artistic expressions were not peripheral to the movement, but central to its identity, emotional resonance, and global reach. The findings reveal that protest art operated on multiple fronts: symbolically confronting state violence, reclaiming urban space, facilitating communal healing, and circulating transnationally through digital platforms. In doing so, the #EndSARS murals and graffiti extended civic participation beyond the streets, embedding resistance into the urban fabric and digital memory. The study contributes to the literature on African social movements by foregrounding the aesthetic dimension of protest, offering new insights into how art functions as a political and affective practice in authoritarian and postcolonial contexts. It also identifies areas for future research, including comparative protest aesthetics across African cities and the long-term impact of art in transitional justice processes.

This study examines selected ethical frameworks that shape hunting in Slovakia, focusing on the Code of Ethics and Hunting Regulations. The objectives and societal significance of hunting and game management in the context of current legislation and the conceptual foundations of contemporary Slovak hunting are outlined in the Introduction section. The following analytical sections examine selected ethical documents regulating hunting in Slovakia, focusing on their function, content, and form, ethical elaboration, normative relevance, and philosophical foundations. This study identifies the possible strengths and weaknesses of these normative ethical documents and proposes revisions to enhance their ethical and philosophical quality. The results show that both documents are primarily based on an anthropocentric philosophical framework. The analysis reveals that the Hunter’s Code of Ethics primarily fulfills an aspirational (ideational) function, whereas the Hunting Regulations serve a regulatory function. This study suggests that a reasonable integration of both documents would increase their professional value and support Slovakia’s institutionalization of hunting ethics.

Although previous research has consistently linked personality traits, with the experience of somatic symptoms, the mechanisms underlying this association remain unclear. In particular, it is not well understood how self-evaluative personality aspects such as inferiority and superiority contribute to the expression of somatic complaints. This study examined the relationships between somatic symptoms, inferiority and superiority complexes, and the Big Five personality traits to clarify whether inferiority and superiority contribute to variance in somatic symptoms. Short Inferiority Complex Scale-10, Superiority Complex Scale-10, Big Five Inventory-10, and The Patient Health Questionnaire–15 were utilized in the study. Somatic symptoms correlated positively with inferiority complex and neuroticism, and negatively with agreeableness and extraversion. Inferiority complex positively correlated with neuroticism and negatively with other personality traits, whereas superiority complex positively correlated with all traits except neuroticism. Multiple regression analyses showed that only inferiority complex and neuroticism were significantly associated with somatic symptoms. The findings support the robust associations among somatic symptoms, neuroticism, and inferiority, suggesting that individuals high in these variables may be particularly prone to somatization. Addressing maladaptive self-perceptions and improving emotional regulation may therefore represent important targets for intervention in individuals with prominent somatic symptoms.

Is it possible to explore the invisible? For people with disabilities whose social needs are often overlooked, participatory art-based methods may serve as a key to their expression. In the research described, working with clay combined with narrative expressions enabled participants with combined visual and hearing impairments to metaphorically “shape” their experiences related to the fulfilment of their social needs. The results indicate that such approaches not only reveal the barriers these individuals face but also strengthen their self-expression and enhance their social visibility. The study provides evidence that participatory methods can be an effective tool for social change, creating space for new approaches in inclusive practice, advocacy for social needs, and the empowerment of marginalized groups.

This article traces the evolution of Dariush Shayegan’s (1935–2018) conception of nihilism across three distinct phases of his thought. It argues that Shayegan’s work offers a crucial, non-Western perspective on nihilism, framing it not merely as a philosophical problem but as a central facet of Iran’s experience with modernity. In his early phase, influenced by Ahmad Fardid, he identified nihilism ( Nistengāri ) as a spiritual malady endemic to the West, which he contrasted with the perceived spiritual integrity of Eastern traditions. The 1979 Revolution precipitated a second phase, wherein Shayegan, deeply influenced by his mentor Henry Corbin, diagnosed nihilism as an internalized “disease” manifesting as the “ideologization of tradition” and a collective “schizophrenia.” His final phase, marked by a reading of Heidegger and Vattimo, moved from attempts to transcend nihilism towards its Verwindung (incorporation or recovery), finding in the poetry of Omar Khayyām a model for embracing a “pregnant nothingness” and affirming the present moment. Through this trajectory, Shayegan’s thought demonstrates how the Iranian intellectual tradition actively engaged with and transformed the concept of nihilism, contributing a unique intercultural response to a global philosophical concern.

This paper attempts to understand the interconnections between capitalism and nihilism: How does capitalism both afford and deny certain possibilities of meaning in life? By building upon Marx and Nietzsche, it argues that capitalism provides possibilities for meaning in life on a horizontal plane, consisting of projects of personal growth. Simultaneously, however, capitalism is nihilistic in the sense that, by keeping us occupied on the horizontal, it denies the vertical dimension of meaningfulness, defined by the unexpected breaking asunder of one’s self-centred frame. In place of such qualitatively transformative possibilities, capitalism offers only quantitative growth, a transcendent goal that is empty of existential substance but which can nonetheless offer meaningful identity projects.

This essay examines whether a shared anti-substantialist gesture yields comparable final commitments in Nietzsche and Madhyamaka Buddhism (prāsaṅgika reading). Both reject substantialist ontology and the presumed transparency of concepts; yet their trajectories diverge at the point of closure. Madhyamaka withholds any ultimate posit at the level of ultimate truth, returning normativity to the conventional domain; Nietzsche turns critique into an affirmative practice structured by will to power and the existential test of eternal recurrence. To diagnose – not to conflate – this divergence, the paper stages two controlled reconstructions: Nishitani to model ultimate-level suspension ( śūnyatā ) and Severino to model immanent necessity (recurrence). The analysis shows that a shared negation does not secure a shared “last step,” but issues in opposed closures. The two “stress-tests” – Nishitani’s suspension and Severino’s immanent necessity – serve only to sharpen the picture: they make the distance between Nietzsche’s affirmation and Madhyamaka’s suspension unmistakable.