Anti-extremist legislation in Russia has been designed to prosecute both common security threats, such as incitement to hatred, and the promotion of views deemed unacceptable by the authorities. The dual nature of this legislation is clearly evident in the religious sphere. In this sphere, we are also observing how legislation and law enforcement mix common security threats with imaginary threats based on anti-cultist prejudices. Consequently, what is emerging is the binary opposition extremism/traditionalism instead of extremism/social order. The author analyzes the anti-extremist legislation, its development in the last ten years, and its application in relation to the religious sphere. As applied the protection of public safety is increasingly taking a back seat to the suppression of non-mainstream beliefs or actions. At the same time, the repressive policy cannot be said to develop in a linear manner: the flywheel of repression in the religious sphere may speed up or slow down unexpectedly, as happened, for example, in connection with the beginning of the large-scale war against Ukraine in 2022. What can be said definitively is that repressive policy covers an increasingly wide range of targets understood as hostile to traditionalism.

The phonological status of Old English (OE) fricatives has been a vexed one, the general agreement being that the distribution of voiced ([v ð z ɣ]) and voiceless ([f θ s x]) fricatives was allophonic (Fulk 2001; Minkova 2011, 2014). We argue that OE was a fortis–lenis language specified for [spread] in terms of laryngeal realism, or ‘glottal width’ (GW) (Avery & Idsardi 2001). We discuss OE lenis and fortis stops, the structure of voiceless geminates ([ff], [ss], [tt], etc.) and voiceless geminate‑like structures ([sp], [st], [xt], etc.) and conclude that OE had phonologically marked fricatives for GW, found as the first member of phonetically voiceless (partial) geminates ([ff] /fGWf0/, [sp] /sGWb0/). Unmarked singleton fricatives, by contrast, were phonetically enhanced with GW in strong positions (foot‑initially in trochees and degenerate feet) and with ‘glottal tension’ (GT) in post‑tonic foot‑internal intersonorant position, which is less controversial. They were, however, unenhanced word‑finally and when couched between unstressed vowels, and thus phonetically variably voiced. We explore some of the consequences of entertaining such ideas.

Migrant care workers are a marginalised group within Austrian society. Based on semi-structured interviews, this paper explores their real-life experiences and the problems they face and asks whether and how the law is relevant to their struggles. In short, migrant care workers are aware of some aspects of the law of the country in which they work, but they are reluctant to mobilise the law. Instead, they avoid disputes by using strategies such as leaving, denying or playing down conflicts. This behaviour can be understood by looking at the situation of migrant care workers in Austria. This paper also highlights the important role of migrant care workers’ networks and how these networks compensate for the lack of individual legal mobilisation.

How do Māori deaf people use and perceive variable features of New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) to invoke ethnolinguistic identity? Previous research has documented motivation among Māori deaf people to signal ethnic identity linguistically within and outside the NZSL community (McKee, McKee, Smiler, & Pointon 2007), but how this plays out in situated language practices has not been explored. This study proceeds from Eckert's (2012:98) contention that local ideologies which imbue linguistic variants with social meaning ‘are part of the active—stylistic—production of social differentiation’. With a focus on social meaning, this study combines micro-analysis of two features (pronominal pointing variants, and mouthing with signs) with consideration of metapragmatic data to explore how these features are believed to index ‘Māori deaf’ identity. Usage data and signers’ metalinguistic accounts suggest that these features are deployed to construct Māori identity in particular interactional contexts and roles, rather than indicating ethnicity as a macro-social category in NZSL. (New Zealand Sign Language, Māori deaf, ethnicity, identity, variation)*

Comme arriver, atteindre, aboutir et accéder, notamment, parvenir relève de la catégorie des verbes spatiaux dynamiques dénotant un changement de relation final précédé d’un déplacement antérieur présupposé. En dépit de ce schéma spatio-temporel commun, les verbes intransitifs ou transitifs indirects de cette classe semblent manifester un comportement hétérogène vis-à-vis de certaines constructions, comportement qui distingue, en particulier, arriver de aboutir, accéder et parvenir. Basé sur une analyse approfondie en corpus, cet article examine les constructions auxquelles donnent lieu les emplois spatiaux de parvenir. Concomitamment, l’étude qualitative des exemples s’attache à dégager les propriétés conceptuelles qui sous-tendent le contenu du verbe et ses situations d’emploi, et le singularisent au sein de sa classe d’appartenance : obstacle ou difficulté du déplacement, intentionnalité, « déplacement réglé », processus perceptifs. L’hypothèse est également faite que certaines constructions minoritaires de parvenir (exclues par aboutir et accéder) sont rendues possibles par des facteurs sémantico-pragmatiques liés aux propriétés préalablement mises en évidence.

There is no consensus on how to infer welfare from inconsistent choices. We argue that theorists must be explicit about the values they endorse to characterize individual welfare. After formalizing a set of values and their relationship with context-independent choices, we review the literature and discuss the advantages and drawbacks of each approach. We demonstrate that defining welfare a priori may violate normative individualism, arguably the most desirable value to maintain. To uphold this value while addressing individuals’ errors, we propose a weaker version of consumer sovereignty, which we label ‘consumer autonomy’.

This article examines the philosophical and theological implications of artificial intelligence (AI) and the technological singularity for core religious concepts. The predictive capacities of AI challenge traditional accounts of divine omniscience, raising critical questions about the distinction between algorithmic foreknowledge and theological models of perfect knowledge. The increasing determinacy of human behaviour through data-driven systems complicates classical formulations of human freedom and moral responsibility. Additionally, the potential for artificial suffering demands an expansion of theodicy and a reassessment of the creator-creature relationship in light of human technological agency. Finally, emerging technological eschatologies, promising digital immortality and transcendence, confront religious soteriology with novel anthropocentric models of salvation.

This study argues that the philosophy of religion must critically rearticulate its categories of knowledge, suffering, and eschatological hope to remain conceptually viable in a world mediated by intelligent systems.

What gives the benefit principle its moral appeal as an idea of tax justice? And what can count as a benefit for that purpose? My claim is that we can trace the moral force of various versions of the principle to five ideas: individual justification, causal feedback, reciprocity, opposable valuation and non-objectionable baseline. I develop those ideas into an account of the moral permissibility of benefit-based taxation, and explain how that account addresses problems about the quantification and valuation of benefits and the relationship between benefit and the justice of the background distribution.

The oeuvre of the philosopher Leo Strauss (d.1973) pivots on the audacious thesis that political esoterism – the protective covering of truth through an exoteric shell – has been central to Islamic intellectual life. Strauss’s work focusses on philosophy, but this article argues that it can be productively extended – while not applied integrally - to Sufism, Islam’s similarly contested, primary esoteric tradition. It investigates the Straussian thesis in a Sufi discussion on valāyat, “spiritual authority” or “Friendship with God,” which idea is central both to Shiite Sufism and Shiism generally. The discussion concerns the Valāyat-nāme, an Iranian treatise of the early twentieth century by the Neᶜmatollāhī master Solṭānᶜalīshāh (d.1909), revealing the dilemmas that Shiite Sufis have faced in simultaneously retaining identity and acceptance to the juristically dominated canon. Four sub-topics are elaborated to assess the validity of Straussian analysis in rendering the treatise and its author: persecution as a context for esoterism; esoterism as a veil for dangerous knowledge; the drive for epistemic subordination; and the political nature of religious knowledge. It is proposed that rather than as “between the lines” dissimulation, as per Strauss, the Neᶜmatollāhīs’ political esoterism ought to be read more subtly as accommodation “along the lines” of Shiite orthodoxy.