Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

This paper is based on a study of museum visitors’ experience of paintings: in particular, the experience of adult non-art specialists. Phenomenology, a form of inquiry that seeks to articulate lived experience, provided the philosophical and methodological framework for the study. Descriptions and themes relating to the experience of paintings were generated from interviews conducted with eight participants. These themes were categorized into two major areas: the articulated aspects and the non-articulated aspects. The former refers to aspects that people can (...) articulate when they describe their experience. For example, they talk about the formal qualities of paintings, related textual information, and the museum environment. The latter refers to aspects that people cannot articulate. For example, they have difficulty in expressing their feelings, their relationship with time, and an understanding of the role of the body. This paper focuses on the aspects that museum visitors cannot articulate when they describe their experience. This inarticulateness provides insights into certain overlooked features of the experience: the embodied nature of the experience, the way time is experienced, and the viewer’s feelings about paintings. The paper ends with a discussion of the implications of the study for art educators. It is suggested that teachers should prepare students in ways that will enable them to make use of their various cognitive, social and cultural frameworks in experiencing works of art. (shrink)

The challenge of realizing the democratic power of publics through public sphere remains acute but not hopeless. While claiming that Habermas communicative social theory offers a way forward in spite of a productive but constraining turn towards a modified social liberal frame, nonetheless three limitations of the theory are identified. The first bears on the insufficiency of the sociological evolutionist description of society relevant to the public sphere drawn from classical sociological accounts of differentiation and integration. The second identifies learning (...) theoretical limitations of the normative interactionist, proceduralist account of democracy and democratization potentials. And the third observes on the disconnection between the theory of communicative reasoning from, on the one hand, the critique of pathologies of reasoning, and, on the other, from its implications for lifeworld rationalization. These identified limitations are intended to provide new impetus to radically rethink the public sphere as intrinsic to solving contemporary problems of democracy that Habermas’s more recent account of deliberative theory, with the public sphere merely supplementary, cannot fully do. Yet, with Habermas, this should be on the basis of advancing the communication theory of democracy. (shrink)

Literacy, specifically the use of writing for rational purposes, adds a new dimension to the traditional problem of the relation between language, thought and rationality. Central to rational thought are the logical relations expressed by such terms as “is”, “or”, “and” and “not”. Whereas some see these concepts as fundamental and innate, it is here argued that such terms exhibit a diverse range of uses in speech and thought but through literacy and education they become explicit objects of thought and (...) formalized or ‘normed’ into logical operators as part of a literate rationality. This more formal orientation to language is seen as metarepresentational and may be shown to have both an historical and a developmental trajectory. (shrink)

Literacy, specifically the use of writing for rational purposes, adds a new dimension to the traditional problem of the relation between language, thought and rationality. Central to rational thought are the logical relations expressed by such terms as “is”, “or”, “and” and “not”. Whereas some see these concepts as fundamental and innate, it is here argued that such terms exhibit a diverse range of uses in speech and thought but through literacy and education they become explicit objects of thought and (...) formalized or ‘normed’ into logical operators as part of a literate rationality. This more formal orientation to language is seen as metarepresentational and may be shown to have both an historical and a developmental trajectory. (shrink)

Is there a significant difference between Plato's texts and what is known as 'Platonism', that is, the philosophical tradition that claims Plato as its progenitor? Focusing on the Symposium, an attempt is made here to show that, far from merely fitting neatly into the categories of Platonism—with its neat distinction between the super-sensible and the sensible—Plato's own text is a complex, tension-filled terrain of countervailing forces. In the Symposium this tension obtains between the perceptive insights, on the one hand, into (...) the nature of love and beauty, as well as the bond between them, and the metaphysical leap, on the other hand, from the experiential world to a supposedly accessible, but by definition super-sensible, experience-transcending realm. It is argued that, instead of being content with the philosophical illumination of the ambivalent human condition—something consummately achieved by mytho-poetic and quasi-phenomenohgical means—Plato turns to a putatively attainable, transcendent source of metaphysical reassurance which, moreover, displays all the trappings of an ideological construct. This is demonstrated by mapping Plato's lover's vision of 'absolute beauty' on to what Jacques Lacan has characterized as the unconscious structural quasi-condition of all religious and ideological illusion. (shrink)

In this essay, I examine the concept of thinking in Hannah Arendt's writings. Arendt's interest in the experience of thinking allowed her to develop a concept of thinking that is distinct from other forms of mental activity such as cognition and problem solving. For her, thinking is an unending, unpredictable and destructive activity without fixed outcomes. Her understanding of thinking is distinguished from other approaches to thinking that equate it with, for example, problem solving or knowledge. Examples of a ‘problem-solving’, (...) skills-based approach to thinking that place a premium on behavioural change are drawn from the context of the prison. I offer an alternative example of thinking with others from my philosophy classes in the prison. I draw upon Arendt's insights to develop a concept of ‘thinking-in-concert’. Whilst Arendt believes that thinking must be a solitary activity, I argue that the concept of ‘thinking-in-concert’ helps to capture experiences of thinking with others in a manner that is more hesitant and provisional than some descriptions of communities of enquiry or democratic education. The embodied presence of others matters when ‘thinking-in-concert’. I describe this approach as educational as well as conversational. This helps to communicate the way in which we turn towards others and may be pulled up short by them as we strive to think together or experience moments of conversion or insight whilst enjoying the ordinary activity of talking with others. This concept may help us to understand the difference between the experience of thinking, teaching and learning when we are physically present to one another and the experience of virtual learning or teaching. (shrink)

This is a critical theoretical investigation of Hubert Dreyfus’ ‘phenomenology of everyday expertise’ (PEE). Operating mainly through the critical perspective of the ‘emancipatory interest’ the article takes issue with the contention that when engaged in expert action human beings are in non-deliberative, reason-free absorption. The claim of PEE that absorbed actions are not amenable to reconstruction places those actions outside the space of reasons. The question of acting under the wrong reasons – the question upon which the emancipatory interest rests (...) – is thereby rendered groundless. A further difficulty for the emancipatory interest is the elimination by PEE of reflective agency. Framing expert action as perception- and affordance-driven, PEE diminishes practical reasoning. Furthermore, it understands freedom – consistently with its notion of action as affordance – as primarily the capacity of human beings to submit themselves to processes rather than to step back reflectively from them. Several criticisms of the philosophical delimitations created by methodology of PEE – phenomenology – are also developed. (shrink)

This study explored tacit knowledge based on an expert nurse's practice who cares for stroke patients by using the hermeneutic phenomenological approach. The participant (‘Ms. A’) was a nursing researcher and college faculty member involved in the education of advanced practice nurses; her specialty was stroke rehabilitation nursing. She was asked to describe the meaning and value she gained from her memorable nursing experiences. Four interviews—approximately 1 h each—were conducted, and the associated data were interpreted together with the participant based (...) on the method of interpretive circulation. Notably, the analysis was ended when a fusion of horizons was recognized. The participant recalled her nursing experiences based on six model cases. During the analysis, the following five elements were extracted: [belief in the ability of vulnerable people to survive]; [being together]; [respect for human dignity]; [preparedness to respond to and bear suffering together]; and [theoretical knowledge base approaches true understanding of patient experience]. Further, the nursing model—the Roy Adaptation Model—utilized by Ms. A in the process of recognizing humans as whole beings was deeply interpreted and implemented as a guideline for her implicit advanced practice. Moreover, her deep understanding and utilization of theoretical knowledge base also built the foundation for her implicit advanced practice. In conclusion, Ms. A's tacit knowledge and the elements support the process of tacit knowledge acquisition. Her narratives, hermeneutic attitude as an interpreter, and learning attitude throughout interaction with others will strongly help her knowledge development. We intend to continue the study with multiple participants and explore the structure of tacit knowledge possessed by advanced practitioners. Future endeavours will include the development of a tacit knowledge learning strategy. (shrink)

In this paper, we explore the concept of virtue in nursing care. We particularly examine the description of ‘virtue’ offered by Aristotle, who considers it the mental constitution that forms the basis for laudable social behaviour. We then turn to Katie Eriksson's work on caritative caring ethics and draw parallels between the Aristotelian concept of virtue and being a good nurse. Eriksson suggests that embracing an ethos, a set of basic values, affects nurses’ attitudes as well as the way they (...) speak and take on their responsibility for the patient. We discuss these ideas in relation to a tentative ideal model of the movement from ethos to action to understand and address nurses’ ethical thinking and acting. Here, we focus on the catalytic role of virtue as a means for realizing a deliberate, intentional acting with the best of the patient in mind. As an outcome of our analysis, we suggest that the movement of virtue from ethos to action is most usefully conceptualized as knowledge about facts, habits of the heart, deeds of the hand and the power of words. Implications for nursing leadership are suggested, including incorporating organizational values through the means of ethical conversations. (shrink)

The Finnish nursing theorist Katie Eriksson's (1943–2019) theory of caritative caring represents a non‐medical paradigm concerning the phenomena of nursing. The aim of this article was to present an oversight of the development of Eriksson's theory of caritative caring from a human science point of view. The historical development of the theory is outlined, combined with a brief overview of its philosophical connections, its impact on contemporary caring science research and its implications for nursing care. Caring science is considered a (...) human science in the Nordic tradition, as it is deeply rooted in basic issues of human life and existence. The key ideas of Eriksson's theory of caritative caring are linked to the metaparadigm concepts of human being, health and suffering, caring and environment. All of these are permeated with the ethos of caritative caring, that is, the caritas thought of human love and mercy, and the honouring of the absolute dignity of human beings. Epistemologically, Gadamer is the most influential philosopher when it comes to the theory of caritative caring. Eriksson's theory is used in, for example, intercultural caring, caring for patients suffering from addiction, the importance of aesthetic surroundings, providing ethically good care for older people and mothers as patients in psychiatric care. In these fields of research, Eriksson's ideas of ethics, caring and suffering are highlighted in various clinical contexts. Beyond the areas of nursing care in which Eriksson's work has been cited and developed, there are at least two areas that have been actively enhanced by her works: the field of leadership and education for nursing teachers. According to Eriksson, it is momentous to ponder scientific results as not limited to empirically strengthened, randomized outcomes. Part of making the results of scientific work evident is up to the individual nurses and their being in the world. (shrink)

Charles Taylor called for a retrieval of the ethic of authenticity that has been distorted in modern notions of autonomy and self-fulfillment. Via exchanges with others who matter to us, he proposed that human identities develop through the use of rich language draped in shared horizons of significance. The fostering of these dialogical ties beyond purely instrumental purposes, along with the recognition of the human dignity in all, may avert the fallen ideal of authenticity. Nonviolent communication affords the skillful dialogue (...) with others cradled in a shared sense of significance and supports the development of a meaningful identity—one that is formed through the realization of what exists beyond the self. The purpose of this article is to argue that nonviolent communication facilitates the retrieval of the ethic of authenticity. Narratives from nursing students’ journals on the use of nonviolent communication skills will be used to support the argument. (shrink)

It is fundamental assumption in nursing theory that it is important for nurses to understand how patients experience states of ill health. This assumption is often related to aims of empathic understanding, but normative principles of social interpretation can have an important action‐guiding role whenever nurses seek to understand patients’ subjective horizons on the basis of active or passive expressions of meaning. The aim of this article is to present a philosophical theory of concept possession and to argue that it (...) can shed light on how nurses should seek to understand patients’ subjective perspectives on the meaning of illness. The two basic ideas in the theory are that patients’ beliefs and thoughts about their experiences involve concepts and that concepts can be communicated on the basis of shared implicit conceptions of what they mean. These conditions of understanding have a striking application: nurse‐patient communication is limited by many contextual factors, but it is often possible for nurses to detect shared implicit conceptions of the meaning of concepts of disease and illness. Furthermore, by acting as sympathetic linguistic experts and creating an atmosphere for dialogue, nurses can make patients feel comfortable about deferring to medical explanations of meaning that can constitute a communicative platform. The last part of the article uses a number of cases studies to show how these implications can be implemented as conceptual tools for securing meaningful communication about illness experiences in patient dialogue. (shrink)

It has been a fundamental assumption in management theory that communication is a key condition for successful management. This assumption has been linked to Habermas’ model of communicative rationality, but it is very difficult for managers to implement this model in real-life leadership relations. The reason is that practical obstacles, resource limitations and knowledge gaps make it impossible to achieve Habermas’ ideal aim of ‘shared horizons’. The article argues that it is possible for managers to meet fundamental communication conditions in (...) employee interaction and other forms of leadership relations if the holistic concept of a shared horizon is replaced with an idea of contextual agreement. Within this alternative conceptual framework, a key strategic aim for managers is to communicate as well as realistically possible how organisational strategies and action-guiding principles are justified. This presupposes that managers are able to uncover ‘hidden’ language meaning and transcend contextual power relations. Within a speech act theory of meaning, the article articulates three basic communication conditions that can function as conceptual tools for achieving these communicative aims. (shrink)

Hilary Putnam’s influential analysis of the ‘division of linguistic labour’ has a striking application in the area of doctor–patient interaction: patients typically think of themselves as consumers of technical medical terms in the sense that they normally defer to health professionals’ explanations of meaning. It is at the same time well documented that patients tend to think they are entitled to understand lay health terms like ‘sickness’ and ‘illness’ in ways that do not necessarily correspond to health professionals’ understanding. Drawing (...) on recent philosophical theories of concept possession, the article argues that this disparity between medical and lay vocabulary implies that it is, in an important range of cases, easier for doctors to create a communicative platform of shared concepts by using and explaining special medical expressions than by using common lay expressions. This conclusion is contrasted with the view that doctors and patients typically understand each other when they use lay vocabulary. Obviously, use of expressions like ‘sickness’ or ‘illness’ does not necessarily lead to poor communication, but it is important that doctors have an awareness of how patients interpret such terms. (shrink)

The present paper explores patients’ experience of lived space at the hospital and at home. To expand the understanding of the existential meaning of lived space the study revisited two empirical studies and a study of a meta-synthesis on health and caring. Phenomenological philosophy was chosen as a theoretical framework for an excursive analysis. The paper demonstrates that existential dimensions of lived space at the hospital and at home differ significantly. For the patients, the hospital space means alien territory as (...) opposed to the familiar territory of home. To some extent the experienced differences are due to the physical environment; however, as our analysis shows, other and more significant meanings are also involved. For patients, lived space at the hospital primarily concerns the influence of complex institutional power structures and specific cultural and social conventions, e.g. the role of the good patient and the ambiance of hospitals. Home, on the other hand, offers familiar lived space in which patients feel protected and safe. Further, the paper relates patients’ experience of lived space to a phenomenological view of lived space in order to illustrate the radical influence of illness on patients’ lifeworld and experience of lived space. The combination of illness and general discomfort may influence patients’ experience of home negatively; the former experience of home as a sanctuary changes into feelings of being left on one’s own and burdened by too much responsibility. Consequently, in the light of the increasing focus on patients’ self-monitoring at home, it is important for healthcare professionals to recognize the influence of spatial aspects on patients’ well-being both at the hospital and at home. (shrink)

As we rapidly approach the 50th year of the much‐celebrated ‘cognitive revolution’, it is worth reflecting on its widespread impact on individual disciplines and areas of multidisciplinary endeavour. Of specific concern in this paper is the example of the influence of cognitivism's equation of mind and computer in education. Within education, this paper focuses on a particular area of concern to which both mind and computer are simultaneously central: educational technology. It examines the profound and lasting effect of cognitive science (...) on our understandings of the educational potential of information and communication technologies, and further argues that recent and multiple ‘signs of discontent’, ‘crises’ and even ‘failures’ in cognitive science and psychology should result in changes in these understandings. It concludes by suggesting new directions that educational technology research might take in the light of this crisis of cognitivsm. (shrink)

While health promotion is widely acknowledged as a practice field where multidisciplinary teamwork is important, within nursing's discipline‐specific literature, a strong argument can be discerned regarding the profession's belief that it has a clear and unique role to play in that field. Yet rarely is this unique role, how it arises, and specifically how its effects are to be demarcated, attended to within the discipline‐specific literature. Two philosophical perspectives on science are presented and we demonstrate the extent to which these (...) two perspectives influence nursing scholarship, including nursing practice within the field of health promotion. We then go on to argue that, for nurses to sustain their claim to a unique and important contribution within health promotion, clear articulation of the philosophical premises underpinning practice methodologies is warranted. Specifically we argue the importance of such clarity within the context of an analysis of the discourse of multidisciplinary practice as a strategy for avoiding confronting the ways in which bio‐medical authority has already significantly demarcated how health promotion practice can proceed. (shrink)

Using discussion from Gadamer, Burbules and Rice, and Banks, and practical examples from a multicultural teacher education classroom, this paper examines the effects of community on the construction of identities and on the development and overcoming of prejudice.

By exploring the meaning construction of Chinese citizenship stipulated in Chinese legislation and its interaction with social identities and human nature in the Chinese society, the present study investigates the nature and evolution of the conception of Chinese citizens through three selected cases from Chinese legislations, which illuminate that Chinese citizens are essentially persons with independent personalities defined by the rights and obligations stipulated in legislation. This conception is further strengthened by the entitlement to private properties and equality before law. (...) This conception of Chinese citizenship is concrete and meaningful in the sense that it is underpinned with reference to social identities as person, people and personality in Chinese legislations. The reference of the conception to human being constitutes the essence of Chinese legislation. The meaning construction of Chinese citizenship is indeed a dynamic process engineered in the social and cultural process. The findings on the evolution of the construction of Chinese citizenship in Chinese legislation suggest that the formation of legal identity through legislation varies greatly in different countries. Nevertheless, the realization of the conception of citizenship will necessarily be backed up by social identities as person, people and personality, which will be further strengthened and expanded by the legitimating of private properties and equality before law. Citizenship is achieved by social participants through mediation engineered within the social and cultural process. (shrink)

A key assumption in the person-oriented approach is that a person must be understood as a complex, integrated system, represented by patterns of within-person variation rather than scores on separate variables. The term ‘system’ does, however, have multiple meanings, which are not clearly distinguished in the person-oriented literature. I try to disentangle causal interactionism, which describes the psychological consequences and functions of each component of the system as dependent upon its causal interaction with other system components, from content holism, which (...) describes the system components as in part constituted by their relations to each other and the system as a whole. Although the terms ‘interactionism’ and ‘holism’ are often treated as combinable and interchangeable, causal interactionism and content holism pertain to distinct kinds of research problems. Causal interactionism construes the person in terms of the hierarchically structured mechanistic systems that underpin his or her attributes and shape them over time, and can be exemplified in terms of Magnusson’s developmental approach, whereas content holism is integral to our understanding of the person as an intentional system, whose mental states and actions are interweaved through principles or logic and rationality rather than material causality, and can be exemplified in terms of Stephenson’s Q-methodological approach. (shrink)

Through an international case study, this paper illustrates how a conversation method was used effectively to address a cross-cultural ethics problem. The method included as moments in one continuous process three different dimensions of postmodernism-Gadamer reconstruction, Derrida deconstruction, and Rorty neopragmatism. In addition to including different dimensions of postmodernism, the method combines effective mutual learning and effective action. Strengths and limitations of the approach are discussed. The article demonstrates how it can be beneficial to build bridges between and within the (...) postmodernism and organization ethics literatures. Also, the article demonstrates how postmodernism can be positively ethical and not necessarily aethical or nihilistic. (shrink)

It is well established within the ethics and institutional theory literatures that institutions can have conflicting logics with ethical dimensions and that there are solutions to the conflicts. Within institutional, ethics, and change leadership theory, quantitative, mixture solutions such as distributive solutions have been frequently considered. The ethics, institutional, and change leadership theory literatures have recognized that there are qualitative transformational solutions that are different than quantitative mixture solutions. However and for the most part, with the notable exception of the (...) Thornton et al. :801–843, 2012) typology of solutions, the institutional, change leadership, and ethics literatures have not considered typologies of transformational solutions. And more specifically with respect to this article, the institutional, change leadership, and ethics literatures have not considered different types of transformational solutions to institutional logic conflicts with ethical dimensions. This article: develops a typology of transformational solutions; applies the typology with historical examples of conflicting institutional ethics logics within factory, cultural, and institutional social change leadership cases; and, considers practical and theoretical implications for institutional ethics change leadership for achieving and/or resisting different types of transformational solutions. (shrink)

Organization ethics praxis is theory and method of appropriate action for addressing ethics issues and developing ethical organizations. The perspective of praxis (theory and method of action) is important and different from the perspectives of theoria (theory of understanding), epistemology (ways of knowing), and ontology (ways of being/existing). Praxis is the least developed area within the field of organization ethics. Differences between theoria and praxis are considered within the context of Kohlberg—Gilligan developmental ethics where part of the controversy may be (...) unnecessary due to Kohlberg’s concentrating on epistemology and theoria, but not praxis; and, Gilligan’s considering aspects of praxis with epistemology and theoria. Differences between epistemology and praxis perspectives are considered in the contexts of two cases: Socratic “double-loop” action-learning conversations the night before the Challenger explosion; and, “triple-loop״ action-learning in a cross-cultural Boston—Indonesia child worker safety, acid-washed jeans case. (shrink)

Ethical problems with stakeholder relationships sometimes occur because organizational members are operating out of narrowly scripted organizational routines that do not include an explicit ethical component. In this article we describe methods of single-loop, double-loop, and triple-loop action learning that aim at helping organizational members develop understandings that incorporate conscious ethical considerations in stakeholder relationships. We describe the extent to which these methods achieve "second-order" change in the direction of ethical stakeholder relationships, give examples of the use of each of (...) the methods, and we consider their strengths and limitations for achieving the desired change. (shrink)

There is a practical five-step method of ethics dialog developed by John Woolman, an 18th c. businessman and ethical activist, that was used by Robert K. Greenleaf, a 20th c. A.T.&T. Corporate Vice-President, that includes: (a) friendly, emotive affect; (b) discussion of mutual commonalities; (c) discussion of issue entanglements; (d) discussion of potential experimental solutions; and, (e) trial and feedback discussion. This method of dialog appears to proceed with a type of consciousness considered by John Woolman and Bernard Lonergan as (...) one where the I is conscious that I and Others are part of a more foundational, larger and prior We. This type of dialog is different than Socratic dialog. The corresponding type of consciousness is different than the more derivative, e.g., two allies being united in their response to a common goal. It is also different than Buber's I and Thou appreciative consciounsess of the interestingness, value, diversity, and uniqueness of others. Woolman dialog as seen in four cases appears to be a concrete method that has some value both as an end in itself and as instrumental means that can: be issue effective, help build ethical organization/community culture, and help facilitate peaceful, evolutionary change and development. Limitations of the method are also considered. The method may also be a several hundred year anticipation of experiment based pragmatist philosophy that is anthropologically sensitive to cultural entanglements. No man is an Iland, intire of it selfe, ... Each is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine.... John Donne (17th c.). (shrink)

Dialogic leadership as ethics method respects, values, and works toward organizational objectives. However, in those situations where there may be conflicts and/or contradictions between what is ethical and what is in the material interest of individuals and/or the organization, the dialogic leader initiates discussion with others (peers, subordinates, superiors) about what is ethical with at least something of a prior ethics truth intention and not singularly a value neutral, constrained optimization of organizational objectives. Cases are considered where dialogic leadership: (1) (...) helped build ethical organizational culture; (2) was effective; and, (3) as a by-product, produced integrative win-win results. Philosophical foundations for the method as well as differences between dialogic leadership and Theory X forcing leadership, Theory Y win-win integrative leadership, industrial democracy, participative management, action inquiry, and double-loop learning action science are explored. Limitations of the method are also explored. (shrink)

Abstract:There can be ethical understanding of organizational policy issues and that is important. However, there can be policy understanding about what the organization should do without understanding of individual level responsibility. There can be cognitive understanding of both policy and individual level ethics responsibilities and that is important. However, there can be cognitive understanding without affective, emotive concern. Intellectual understanding without affective concern can lead to understanding without motivation. There can be cognitive understanding and affective concern and that is important, (...) but not enough. There can be cognitive understanding and affective concern without effective political method. An action-learning approach to organizational ethics can join cognitive understanding of policy and individual level issues with both affective concern and effective political method. Joining of cognitive understanding, affective concern, and effective political method can stimulate and enable ethical character. (shrink)

Abstract:There can be ethical understanding of organizational policy issues and that is important. However, there can be policy understanding about what the organization should do without understanding of individual level responsibility. There can be cognitive understanding of both policy and individual level ethics responsibilities and that is important. However, there can be cognitive understanding without affective, emotive concern. Intellectual understanding without affective concern can lead to understanding without motivation. There can be cognitive understanding and affective concern and that is important, (...) but not enough. There can be cognitive understanding and affective concern without effective political method. An action-learning approach to organizational ethics can join cognitive understanding of policy and individual level issues with both affective concern and effective political method. Joining of cognitive understanding, affective concern, and effective political method can stimulate and enable ethical character. (shrink)

Crisis management can be simultaneously a content specific problem solving process and an opportunity for stimulating and enabling an organizations ethical tradition. Crisis can be an opportunity for ethical organizational development. Kierkegaardian upbuilding dialog method builds from within the internal ethical tradition of an organization to respond to crises while simultaneously adapting and protecting the organizations tradition. The crisis itself may not be a directly ethical crisis, but the method of responding to the crisis is built upon the ethical foundations (...) of an organizations tradition. A limitation of this method is that it may be less applicable to organizations with questionably ethical traditions. The concept of upbuilding dialog is derived from Kierkegaard, but here is applied to organizational crisis management. The method is illustrated and discussed in the context of a wrongful death crisis of the Dana- Farber Cancer Institute, a nonprofit organization, and an economic survival crisis at Ben and Jerrys, a business organization. (shrink)

Crisis management can be simultaneously a content specific problem solving process and an opportunity for stimulating and enabling an organization's ethical tradition. Crisis can be an opportunity for ethical organizational development. Kierkegaardian "upbuilding" dialog method builds from within the internal ethical tradition of an organization to respond to crises while simultaneously adapting and protecting the organization's tradition. The crisis itself may not be a directly ethical crisis, but the method of responding to the crisis is built upon the ethical foundations (...) of an organization's tradition. A limitation of this method is that it may be less applicable to organizations with questionably ethical traditions. The concept of "upbuilding" dialog is derived from Kierkegaard, but here is applied to organizational crisis management. The method is illustrated and discussed in the context of a wrongful death crisis of the Dana- Farber Cancer Institute, a non-profit organization, and an economic survival crisis at Ben and Jerry's, a business organization. (shrink)

This article examines the respective interpretations of the Arrernte tribe of central Australian Aborigines adopted by the English biologist Baldwin Spencer and the German missionary Carl Strehlow. These interpretations are explored in relation to the broader theoretical debates in the theory of myth that took place in England and Germany in the latter half of the 19th century. In Britain, these debates were initially shaped by the comparative philology of F. Max Müller, before being transformed by the evolutionism of Edward (...) Burnett Tylor and James George Frazer. The article shows how the research of Spencer and Strehlow was both influenced by and exerted an influence upon these theoretical debates, before assessing their research findings in relation to the philosophical hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer and the theories of myth offered by Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer and Hans Blumenberg. (shrink)

The paradigm of the interaction of "own" and "foreign", Russia and Europe defined Russian culture during the 18th-20th centuries. The utopian idea of creating a "new kind" of people, which appeared in the circle of Catherine II under the influence of European Enlightenment ideas, accurately characterizes this paradigm. The Enlightenment was a radical rejection of the traditional feudal worldview, a rejection of the old foundations of life. The author emphasizes that Catherine II and her entourage were not determined to radically (...) change the existing social order in the spirit of enlightenment, choosing a more conservative path of "enlightenment absolutism". In addition, the project of creating a "new person" through education in isolated institutions points to the paradoxical nature of this idea and its implementation in the history of Russia. (shrink)

The overall purpose of this cross-country Nordic study was to gain further knowledge about maintaining and promoting dignity in nursing home residents. The purpose of this article is to present results pertaining to the following question: How is nursing home residents’ dignity maintained, promoted or deprived from the perspective of family caregivers? In this article, we focus only on indignity in care. This study took place at six different nursing home residences in Sweden, Denmark and Norway. Data collection methods in (...) this part of this study consisted of individual research interviews. Altogether, the sample consisted of 28 family caregivers of nursing home residents. The empirical material was interpreted using a hermeneutical approach. The overall theme that emerged was as follows: ‘A feeling of being abandoned’. The sub-themes are designated as follows: deprived of the feeling of belonging, deprived of dignity due to acts of omission, deprived of confirmation, deprived of dignity due to physical humiliation, deprived of dignity due to psychological humiliation and deprived of parts of life. (shrink)

In recent scholarship, a widely agreed upon definition of post-truth has proved elusive, particularly because the term is used in tandem with so-named alternative facts, fake news, misinformation, and references to an anti-expert, anti-intellectual climate. This paper will consider recent educators’ efforts in the Australasian region to address the political and cultural disruption that post-truth has evoked, by inquiring into how their pedagogy mirrors or differs from that used in public spaces by protest movements. In the first section, scholarship on (...) post-truth will be examined for how it constitutes a form of revisionist history, in which the present has been corrupted over time by comparison to a more idealised and distant past. The second section will focus on how theories about the construction of knowledge, such as Latour’s notion of hybridised modernity and notions of historical consciousness, can be used to frame forms of activism as means to educate the public and disrupt the dominant political ideologies. The focus in the last section will be on examining how educators might enable learners’ critical literacy so they can accommodate and overcome the negativity, cynicism, and disempowerment which characterises a post-truth paradigm. (shrink)

This article concerns the electronic archive, in relation to the academy and to culture. It explores the metaphors by which the archive is con ceived, proposing as an exploratory and imaginative device an installa tion of the archived material from a contemporary newspaper database. The debates over the electronic archive are then viewed through four voices, each with a distinctive ethos, voices which draw on the other voices of Kant, Baudrillard and Derrida, of the Bible and contempor ary social theory.

Starting from the often-used metaphor of the “horizon of experience” this article discusses three different types of intercultural hermeneutics, which respectively conceive hermeneutic interpretation as a widening of horizons, a fusion of horizons, and a dissemination of horizons. It is argued that these subsequent stages in the history of hermeneutics have their origin in—but are not fully restricted to—respectively premodern, modern and postmodern stages of globalization. Taking some striking moments of the encounter between Western and Chinese language and philosophy as (...) example, the particular merits and flaws of these three types of hermeneutics are being discussed. The claim defended is that although these different types of hermeneutics are mutually exclusive from a theoretical point of view, as interpreting beings in the current era we depend on each of these distinct hermeneutic practices and cannot avoid living them simultaneously. (shrink)

Meaning in literary texts such as poetry and novel etc., is not determined on the basis of a literal understanding of the words in it, but through a total evaluation of the devices such as metaphors and similes. This paper deals with metaphor to show its significance, to make us aware that metaphoric expressions do give a different kind of knowledge, and to pave the way to disclose a different kind of truth which is perhaps, more valuable than what the (...) literal sense provides. Ordinarily metaphorical use is taken for rhetorical purposes. Literalists of the Western and Indian philosophical traditions believe that it is only the literal or primary meaning that can give us a precise account of language. Metaphors are viewed by them as fuzzy, lies, not corresponding to actual states of affairs, non-propositional in character, not having truth-conditions, and thus not providing us with any knowledge or truth. However, this paper tries to work out the fundamentality of metaphor, how metaphor widens our experience of the world, and how it has the power to take us to an alternative world to introduce with some new truth by exploring certain notions of the Indian aestheticians. (shrink)