This thesis engages in analysis and interpretation of certain ideas within the critical theory of Theodor W. Adorno. These analyses are placed into a constellational relationship with some filmic works of Andrei Tarkovsky and Michael Haneke. In doing so, I aim to highlight the ongoing relevance and validity of at least some core elements of Adornian theory in a contemporary context. The thesis consists of four substantive chapters. The first chapter functions as an extended introduction to and justification for the (...) thesis as a whole, and it provides the theoretical background to the project before explicating the idea of a constellational method. The second chapter explores the notion of mimesis in Adorno’s thought and Tarkovsky’s films as a crucial rejoinder to the prevailing ‘communicative’ paradigm instituted in large part by Jürgen Habermas’ work. The third chapter considers the importance of marginality to the task of social critique by analyzing Adorno’s theoretical reflections on the matter and how these can be related to and supported by Haneke’s filmic work. The fourth and final chapter examines the relationship between humanity and nature within two preeminent ecological discourses, in contrast to Adorno’s critical theory and some of Tarkovsky’s films, with the intention of showing how the latter offer a more nuanced and dialectical understanding of this relation. Throughout the analyses herein, I defend and demonstrate the fertility and pertinence of Adornian theory, for both the interpretation of film and robust criticism of extant social and political conditions. The thesis shows that by constellating Adorno’s critical theory with film one may bring out important insights that enhance and enable people’s capacity to critically respond to the woefully inadequate status quo. (shrink)

This paper aims to counter the recent opinion that there is a peculiar epistemology in the reformed Church which made it negative to natural theology. First, it is shown that there was an early and unanimous adoption of natural theology as the culmination of physics and the beginning of metaphysics by the sixteenth and seventeenth century philosophers of good standing in the reformed Church. Second, it is argued that natural theology cannot be based on revelation, should not assume a peculiar (...) analysis of knowledge and must not pass over demonstration. (shrink)

The emergence of local alphabets in archaic Greece, different from one another in the shapes of only few letters, is usually seen as accidental. Observing the use of local alphabets outside their area of origin especially, this article argues that they were consciously created so as to be recognizable from one another and closely associated with perceived ethnic boundaries within the Greek world. The use of the local alphabets should be observed in conjunction with the use of dialects, which appear (...) to have functioned in a similar way. (shrink)

An introduction to ancient Chinese ideas on how to live a good life.

Though Benjamin and Adorno’s various engagements with mass media suggest many possibilities for constructing approaches to descriptive and prescriptive critique, they have remained underexplored in media theory. Taken together, Adorno and Benjamin’s often incompatible views on the social significance of technological mediation offer a powerful framework for critical analysis of the political economies of contemporary socio-technological systems and practices, including mass online education, and for addressing persistent forms of technological determinism.

This thesis sets out a theoretical premise for design research into the space of the designer, working inside the design system or context. The designer is understood as actor, as active agency looking inwards in a comprehensive way to examine where ideas are located and then, how these new insights or perspective might be meaningfully introduced. In order to develop this research, personal journal writing is employed as to develop an understanding about how the designer/actor can actively engage with being (...) at once participant, and observer, of their own design practice. A series of design case studies are carried out, where the role of the designer as actor is critically examined through forms of personal journal writing. What this entails is the establishment of a form of autopoetic system for writing in several voices of the self, and self-as-other working in, and through as design project case studies. I critically evaluate these journal case studies to inform my understanding about the design of dialogic visual communication, where multiple perspectives of self, and self-as-other may be interwoven into the visual design artifact. As a result of conducting this research, I propose the existence of what I term the 'conversational self' as a means for developing new knowledge and knowing through conversational story-telling as design research. My research introduces the 'conversational self' as a generalisable theory for design research which addresses the ways in which the designer might effectively engage with the workings of personal tools and patterns of practice, thus building greater objectivity through recognition of local contexts, and the role of the designer as actor and as a situated self within the design process. My research findings describe a space for the 'conversational self' as the coming together of three linked knowledge systems for creation and learning. I describe this theory as 'agency-centred' design for research about design and experiential knowledge contexts through research into the development of project case studies where individual styles and approaches to learning and thinking which are recognised and valued as implicit tools of and for design practice. Firstly, the conversational journal writing format which I develop situates the designer/ researcher as both participant and observer within their design decision-making. As a result of the uses of the journal format as a practice-based research methodology through case studies, I observe the effect of producing what I term an 'autopoetic' (Maturana and Varela) self-producing system, which enables me to introduce both rational and intuitive content that works in my journal through a range of thinking styles and journal forms. My research strategy involves the writing of several concurrent and interacting levels of internal conversation across 'I', 'You', 'Me' and 'We' as parallel and interactive experiential voices of self through uses of a journal format where a range of experiences are documented as design project narratives. The conversational contexts which this approach offers provide a means for introducing multiple perspectives from self, and selfas- other (as designer, author, subject, agent, person) to explore topics and social knowledge themes through a range of creative conversational learning contexts (Pask, Glanville). In the course of developing this approach I draw on theories about personal constructs (Kelly, Thomas and Harri-Augustein); the self as forms as agency (Archer); about experiential learning and knowledge creation through learning conversations (Baker, Jensen and Kolb) ; and social knowledge as networks, flows and exchange processes (Boisot). Secondly, as a finding from my usage of this journal format, I propose the workings of what I describe as my 'unity of self' system construct as an enabling and generative system for working with social knowledge and the 'self' as forms of agency through internal conversations. Margaret Archer's theory describes the social self as forms of causal agency active in everyday social and experiential contexts. In my case studies I trace the internal dynamics and interactions of 'voices' of self in the journal text, which I evaluate as the workings of conversational levels and layers which engage with a range of details and perspectives for each project using written and non-verbal forms. The design case study projects each describes a particular context for design practice; including institutional, corporate, experimental, and personal design projects. In using this methodology for journal writing, I show how I am able to explore the social interplays of personal/public and individual/collective frameworks for design practice contexts. Thirdly, through my evaluations of the design project case study journals, I observe the emergence of topics and themes in each project around my understanding of the role of context for defining the social and experiential 'materials' (Schon) of the situation. The topics noted from conversations in design case inform what I term my 'contextual field' as the third learning system in my findings from this research. This 'contextual field' is a kind of topical map which provides signposts for working with social and experiential contexts, to design 'ecological narratives' (Krippendorff) as forms of language which are crafted as intentional and strategic design approaches, as responses to the research process of internal reflection about the materials of the situation (Schon) Through usage with my journal format, and unity of self construct, my contextual field topical map provides a framework for developing topics and themes for internal conversations to inform my design production in both 'service' and 'hand' craft project contexts. What results are rich use case studies documented as forms of conversational story-telling where new knowledge emerges as questions and possibilities around the design of visual artifacts and service contexts. (shrink)

The first collection of essays devoted to Heidegger’s contribution to understanding modern science.

Why should contemporary aesthetic production be concerned with making time, rather than history, appear? Vincent Adiutori argues that contemporary aesthetic production’s imperative is to produce rather than resolve contradiction. At a time when making history appear would seem the political task par excellence, to make time appear—as he argues Cormac McCarthy’s The Road does—is the negative task of aesthetics read politically. In short, irony is to time as allegory is to history.

This thesis argues for the continuing possibility of Adorno set against the backdrop of a post-modern proliferation of affects. A major theoretical contention is the concept of the subject: a sticking point within philosophy. The thesis takes this up and offers a new pathway without falling into the cliché of a renewal of Adorno’s position. Drawing on Adorno’s theoretical thoughts on the subject the thesis contends that the subject is that which by turns dissolves all eventualities or more proportionally acts (...) like a place-holder for the newly emerging: structures that cannot be explained by recourse to the laws that govern its parts. These experiential structures present a surface, resistance, or solidarity that upon closer examination dissolve back into the ephemeral. Although such structures are profligate and prolific, the thesis adopts as its major concern artworks and aesthetics. Following Adorno, a claim is made for artworks that present open-ended possibilities. They are able for example to critically challenge the dominant hegemony the profundity that all too easily sides with the oppressors of life. What philosophy, a critical tool in furtherance of the good life, a concept restaged, here takes from art is not a sense of equivalence, art and philosophy are held apart in a creative and critical tension, but the sense of yearning that animates the nonconceptual side of art which the concept negates. The yearning, being experiential, is always embodied. Its fulfilment negates the immediacies, the mere appearance of life, particularly in its systematically reflexive form. The conclusion concurs with Adorno in the thought that affinity with the object is achieved not as the resultant of identity thinking, but through the act of definite negation of identifying schema. (shrink)

The idea that insight is by nature incompatible with concentration has been a long-term focus of scholarly discussion regarding the interpretation of some sūtra passages that could suggest the occurrence of insight within concentration. In the Prajñāpāramitā literature, the set of three samādhis is identified with insight, the prajñāpāramitā. Some scholars identify the experience of emptiness in these samādhis with a state of concentration, very likely the absorption of extinction. I highlight elsewhere a passage in the Prajñāpāramitā in which preceding (...) vows play an important role in the practice of emptiness, that is, the prajñāpāramitā and may apply to the moment just before entering into the absorption of extinction. However, the problem of how the prajñāpāramitā is by nature incompatible with concentration could be practiced in the absorption of extinction remains. In the Sāgaramatiparipṛcchāsūtra there is a passage which illustrates the significance and effect of dedications preceding the practice of the three samādhis. According to this passage, the set of three samādhis is sometimes described as some very deep concentrations; at their emergence there could be two different attainments: either nirvāṇa or all-knowing accompanied by all qualities of the Buddha. This paper looks into the several steps immediately before the attainment of all-knowing by revealing a new usage of “dedications” in the Sāgaramatiparipṛcchāsūtra. (shrink)

The editor’s General Introduction is divided into two parts. The first part, ‘Context’, discusses Locke’s analysis of the nature of error, the causes of error and the prevention and cure of error in the Conduct. His enquiry is placed in the context of his way of ideas as given in his Essay concerning Human Understanding. Locke’s two-stage way of ideas, his occupation with our mental faculties and with method form the interrelated main ingredients of his logic of ideas. There is (...) a complicated relation of continuity and change between the content and the structure of this new logic on the one hand and the content and structure of works by both scholastic predecessors and novel philosophers on the other hand. Once this context is taken into account, the Conduct can be understood as work that has a function within the structure of Locke’s logic of ideas that runs parallel to the function of the De sophisticis elenchis in the Aristotelian Organon. The second part of the General Introduction, ‘Text’, gives a description of the relevant MSS, an overview of references to the Conduct in Locke’s correspondence, a history of the genesis of the Conduct until its first publication in 1706 in the Posthumous Works, an analysis of the evidence provided by the MSS on how the Conduct grew out of the Essay, and a statement of the principles that underlie the present editon. (shrink)