In this article, I consider the cases of religious Moorean propositions of the form ‘d, but I don't believe that d’ and ‘d, but I believe that ~d’, where d is a religious dogma, proposition, or part of a creed. I argue that such propositions can be genuinely and rationally asserted and that this fact poses a problem for traditional analysis of religious assertion as an expression of faith and of religious faith as entailing belief. In the article, I explore the possibility of undermining these commonly held assumptions and argue that the assertability of religious Moorean propositions can be justified by an account of faith as an intention to form religious beliefs. In the end, I also consider the consequences of such a stance, especially concerning the debate on the ethics of religious belief and doxastic voluntarism.

Why do oil-dependent developing countries exhibit divergent responses to oil crises? This study employs a comparative case study approach and utilizes a ‘most similar system design’ to examine the varying state responses to the 1973 oil shock in Turkey and South Korea. While the former refrained from implementing radical short-term adjustment policies and reforms, the latter adopted proactive measures to mitigate the worsening impact of escalating oil prices. This research contends that the existing literature, which emphasizes distinctions in industrialization strategies and fiscal policies among developing nations, offers an incomplete explanation for the divergent reactions of states to external price shocks. Instead, the study proposes a sociological perspective, focusing on the influence of varying degrees of state autonomy and the characteristics of bureaucratic systems on the decision-making processes of states. The key finding suggests that while pre-crisis economic policies and industrialization strategies may limit the array of policy tools available to counteract the adverse effects of an oil crisis, the extent of state autonomy and the organization of the bureaucracy – whether adhering to Weberian or non-Weberian principles – impact the efficacy of these policy tools and the determination of decision-makers to act in the best interests of the long-term public good.

Defensive infrastructure in the hinterland of the late Roman province of Germania Secunda hinged upon the widespread use of burgi. These defended settlements played a role in transforming villa estates, depopulated zones, and the expansion of the military footprint. They are common in the late third- and fourth-century landscape, spread throughout the loess belt of Belgium, Dutch Limburg, and the Rhineland, yet little has been done to quantify them. This article is dedicated to the chronology, morphology, and functional aspects of burgi, primarily in the loess plain of the Lower Rhine region. The author assembles data from a wide variety of burgi, to characterize them and reach meaningful conclusions about what they represent within the landscape, in the hope that it will act as a pilot project for future work in the field.

Compilers and editors of hymnals and scholars of hymnology have often lacked suitable tools for identifying the earliest sources of spirituals, or even key sources that serve as models for later arrangements. In the twenty-first century, the development of internet-based repositories of digital books has enabled the ability to search for publications of spirituals using strings of lyrics or keywords, but more importantly, these repositories allow researchers to examine the relevant sources and glean contextual information about those spirituals beyond what might exist in any list or index. Although African slaves had been present in North America since 1619, this unique musical artform was not considered a national treasure worth preserving and publishing until the onset of the Civil War, thus any study of sources of antebellum plantation spirituals really begins at the end of that era and moves forward from there. In order to understand the problem and the digital solution to tracing these songs, a brief overview of the longstanding publishing standard will be presented, followed by an overview of older research materials, then a detailed examination of three existing repositories (HathiTrust, Google, Internet Archive), and one forthcoming repository (Sounding Spirit). The publications located in these repositories have been tied together through a pair of web-based bibliographies at Hymnology Archive, covering the years 1862–1900 and 1901–1942.

Irish soldiers demobilised in London after major eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century wars were an important but overlooked source of unintentional Irish migrants to the capital. Their migration was linked to the centralised military pension system, which meant that servicemen in English regiments had to present themselves for a medical examination at Chelsea or Greenwich hospitals — both in the London area. A lack of provision available to then get these often very disabled and wounded men back home to Ireland meant that many stayed semi-permanently or permanently in London, and their presence can be measured decades later in the 1841 census. This challenges current understandings about the Irish diaspora in Britain by highlighting the role of the government in shepherding Irish men across the Irish Sea.