This article attempts to critically challenge Richard Rorty's view that the work of Jacques Derrida has no political utility. For Rorty, Derrida is a ‘private ironist’ whose quest for personal perfection renders him ineffectual as a ‘public liberal’. This view, I contend, is the consequence of looking at Derrida from the perspective of critics, such as Simon Critchley, who suggest that there is a strong ethico‐political strain in deconstruction on the basis of its Levinasian import. But to ally Derrida too (...) closely with Levinas, I maintain, runs the risk of obfuscating the rich and powerful insights regarding the nature of justice and democracy which Derrida has been developing for some time now. By showing how the theme of justice in Derrida differs from that encountered in Levinas, it becomes possible for us to show how Derrida's political intuitions bear remarkable and surprising similarity to those forged by Rorty. Derrida, on this reading, appears as a Utopian liberal in the pragmatic mode, one for whom progress in the political sphere is engendered by attending to the suffering of those about us and not (pace Marx, Althusser, and Foucault) by way of large‐scale revolution. The notion that solidarity is ultimately founded on our mutual susceptibility to suffering, I argue finally, is what serves to link Rorty's idea of a ‘liberal utopia’ to Derrida's ‘new international’, a comparison which significantly undermines the contention that the latter is useful for exclusively private purposes. (shrink)

Evidence‐based practice (EBP) first appeared on the healthcare horizon just over a decade ago. In 2003 its presence has intensified and extended beyond its initial relation to medicine embracing as it does now, nursing and the allied health disciplines. In this paper, I contend that its appearance and subsequent growth and development are the effects of potent ‘regimes of truth’, four of which bear the names: positivism, empiricism, pragmatism and economic rationalism. My aim is to show how EBP generates the (...) controversy it does because its nature and methods are inextricably interwoven with the way it has become politicised and professionalised. This exegesis is an attempt to outline how the combined effects of the four forms of rationality mentioned above allow for both the methods and objectives of EBP to be constructed as they are, while at the same moment producing the particular effects of knowledge and power in terms of who sells and who buys the idea of EBP in the culture of contemporary healthcare. (shrink)

The theological turn in continental philosophy has beckoned several new possibilities for theoretical discourse. More recently, the question of the absence of a political theology has been raised: Can an ethics of alterity offer a more substantive politics? In pursuing this question, the article considers the late work of Jacques Derrida and John D. Caputo. It argues that, contrary to caricatures of Caputo’s “theology of event,” his notion of theopoetics evinces a “materialist turn” in his mature thought that can be (...) considered the beginning of a “radical political theology.” This position is not without its challenges, however, raising concerns over deconstruction’s ability to navigate the immanent but necessary dangers of politics. In order to attempt to speak of a form of “radical political theology”—i.e. a movement from theopoetics to theopraxis—the article turns to some of the political writing of Simon Critchley. It is argued that a much desired “political viscerality” for a radical political theology is supplied by Critchley’s anarchic re­alism. The latter is neither conceived as utopian nor defeatist, but as a sustained program of inventive and creative political interventions, which act as responses to the singularity of the situation. (shrink)

Within educational philosophies that utilise the Heideggerian idea of ‘authenticity’ there can be distinguished at least two readings that correspond with the categories of ‘weak’ and ‘strong’ utopianism. ‘Strong-utopianism’ is the nostalgia for some lost Edenic paradise to be restored at some future time. Here it is the ‘world’ that needs to be transcended for it is the source of our inauthenticity, where we are the puppets of modernist-capitalist ideologies. ‘Authenticity’ here is a value-judgment, understood as something that makes you (...) a better person. The ‘inauthentic’ person is simply deceived. ‘Weak-utopianism’ is recognising the forces for change in the ‘everyday-immanent’ where we do not look to overcome the world but own it as ‘heritage’. ‘Authenticity’ here is an ontological choice, a modification of inauthenticity, not its opposite. The ‘cult of the authentic’ relates to the ‘strong utopianism’ where ‘authenticity’ has become fetishized, harking back to a purer, pre-modern state, untainted by the ideals of the Enlightenment and ethos of capitalism. ‘Authentic education’ is the overcoming of our environments and socio-historical contexts, opening up new horizons of meaning. The radical notion of freedom that this implies, where one is free from rather than free in the realisation of constraint, may also be another dividing line between the ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ readings, which lend themselves to a Messianic narrative. It will be argued that if ‘authentic education’ is understood through a ‘strong utopianism’ it actually re-enforces those very same dystopian ideals they look to overcome as characterised by ‘enframing’. (shrink)

Psychoanalytische Konzeptionen psychosomatischer Erkrankungen treffen sich mit Grundelementen psychoanalytischer Verstehens- und Bedeutungstheorie in der Kategorie der Negativität. Anschließend daran kann Freuds Bemerkung, das aktualneurotische (bzw. das somatisierte) Symptom trage »keinen Sinn, keine psychische Bedeutung«, anders gefolgt werden. Anhand einer Forschungs-Fallvignette einer teilstationären Behandlung wird aufgezeigt, inwiefern psychoanalytisch zu verstehen bedeutet, sich mit der nächsten, anderen Bedeutung auseinanderzusetzen. Ferner zeigen sich im Fall zwei Leitdimensionen zeitgenössischer psychoanalytischer Psychosomatik: die Psyche-Soma-Diskonnexion und die Selbst-Objekt-Organ-Verschmolzenheit. Dies wird zunächst im Hinblick auf psychoanalytische Krankheitslehre aufgearbeitet (...) und dann in Relation zu psychoanalytischer Hermeneutik als negative Hermeneutik gesetzt. Entscheidend ist die Annahme, dass der Anschluss an zeitgenössische philosophische Hermeneutiken für die Psychoanalyse insofern ertragreich ist, als eine Thematisierung der Negativität Bezugnahmen auf das dynamische Unbewusste erlaubt. (shrink)

Bruno Latour (2004) claims that modernist critique, the kind that removes the false veils of ideology, ‘has run out of steam’. Despite its theoretical variety, it often consists in pointing out how...

In this paper I tackle Gadamer’s and Dewey’s conceptions of art, showing a possible dialogue between American Pragmatism and Gadamerian Hermeneutics. Despite the obvious differences, it is possible to show fundamental commonalities between the two philosophies when it comes to the role of art. They share the double goal of critiquing the aestheticism of modern age, the conception of art as a mere “art for art’s sake,” and of recomposing the continuity between aesthetic experience and everyday life. I argue that (...) this common goal entails a reassessment of the relation between the work of art and the public, a reassessment that has fundamental consequences for the role of art in our societies. The present comparison will also help shed new light on Gadamer’s conception, often accused of being a merely conversative theory. For both Gadamer and Dewey art does not consist in a product of the elites that is given to the spectators: rather, the spectators cooperate with the author in the creation and development of the work of art itself. (shrink)

Phenomenology is a well‐founded qualitative methodology that is frequently used by nurse researchers and considered of value when addressing research questions in nursing practice and nurse education. However, at present, nurse researchers using phenomenology tend to divide phenomenological methodology into the descriptive and interpretive formats. The nursing literature suggests that there is a deep divide between researchers following the methodological underpinnings and basic precepts pertaining to these two camps. If we are to reach a clearer understanding of the theory underlying (...) phenomenological methods it would be more helpful if we started to recognise that there are also important associations between transcendental and interpretive phenomenology. One such association is that a paradigm of movement exists that is not unique to transcendental and interpretive phenomenology but is common to them, as well as being inherent within a variety of fields of study. If we consider the universality of such imagery, looking to examples through parallel texts, we can obtain insights into phenomenology and its transposition into a workable scientific method that can be of use to the nurse researcher. (shrink)

The dissociation between the domains of knowledge continues to perpetuate the fragmentation of people’s health and healing experiences. Of particular significance are the polarities that have been created between the objective, subjective and spiritual dimensions of knowledge and human experience. This paper offers a consideration of how faith might serve as a pragmatic avenue towards assuaging the polarities between knowledges and enhancing nurses’ ability to attend to the complex and mulitdimensional nature of health and healing processes.

Contemporary education now appears to be dominated by the continual drive for improvement measured against the assessment of what students have learned. It is our contention that a foundational relation with assessment organises contemporary education. Here we draw on a 'way of thinking' that is deconstructive in its intent. Such thinking makes clear the vicious circularity of the argument for improvement, wherein assessment valorised in discourses of improvement provides not only a rationalisation for improvement via assessment, but also the very (...) means of achieving such possibilities via targets grounded in limited specifications of assessment. On reading Heidegger's 'question concerning technology' we sought to reconsider the vicious circle of improvement in relation to Being. We claim that the means-ends driven technology of assessment, rather than being at our disposal and under our control, only serves to reveals the Real to us in accordance with the restricting principle of reason. The principle of reason, we argue, grounds 'Enframing' that ranks and orders the very beings of education as objects to produce an objective 'world as picture', rather than opening the possibility of their identity as belongings with a movement of difference. So, 'improvement' becomes normative and binding for institutions and practices on grounds of the principle of assessment, and renders agents of education as functionaries of 'Enframing'. (shrink)

In this paper I introduce John D. Caputo’s view of the divine and argue against his claim that we can preserve faith in God while dropping the idea of divine revelation. Despite Caputo’s apophatic point of view, he makes two claims with regard to God, or ’the divine’. First, he claims that we all have a divine call for justice and compassion in us. Secondly, he claims that God’s kingdom comes true if we make it happen and that this is (...) something we can hope for. In the first half of this paper I will argue that Caputo does not have to reject the idea of revelation if we understand revelation as involving an interpretation of the experiences with the divine. In the second half, I will claim that Caputo even has to allow for divine revelation if he wants to stick to his positive statements about God. We can only know that a desire is divine if we have criteria to distinguish the divine from the profane or the diabolic. Based on Richard Kearney and John Hick I argue that particular traditions offer such criteria and that they ultimately depend on what is taken to be God’s will. Likewise, to hope that the kingdom of God comes and to act in a way that realizes it presupposes that the agent believes this to be the way God wants him to live—and God’s will must have somehow been disclosed. (shrink)

In spite of the growing public awareness of those who would identify as transgender, very little has changed in attitudes that would accord such people full approbation. The author takes the reader on a 40‐year journey of discovery that has led her to an abiding interest in and dedication to the issues faced by people who do not fit within the gender binary of Western society. As well as describing a personal experience with someone who identifies as transsexual, the author (...) relates two troubling experiences from her nursing career. Included in the discussion are linguistics, sexuality, and vocabulary. A personal epistemology is explored that incorporates unknowing, intuition, and embodiment, and the difference this view can make to the care of those who identify as gender‐diverse. (shrink)

The philosophical orientation of Gadamerian hermeneutic phenomenology is explored in this paper. Gadamer offers a hermeneutics of the humanities that differs significantly from models of the human sciences historically rooted in scientific methodologies. In particular, Gadamer proposes that understanding is first a mode of being before it is a mode of knowing; what this effectively offers is an alternative to the traditional way of understanding in the human sciences. This paper details why the work of hermeneutics is not to develop (...) a procedure for understanding, but to clarify the conditions of understanding. In this explication, the author examines the hermeneutic experience and, in the process, relates it to both the practical and the historical horizons of the lifeworld of health professionals, particularly nurses. Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology<, Volume 7, Edition 2 September 2007. (shrink)

RESUMEN En este artículo problematizo el protagonismo del comprender en Ser y tiempo, para demostrar que la modificación conceptual que hace Nancy de la relación como remisión a la estructura relacional "ser-a" es el elemento clave para su transformación de la ontología heideggeriana en una ontología de los cuerpos. Para realizarlo, primero evalúo las implicaciones de la interpretación del lenguaje como dóxa en Heidegger. Luego, a partir de Nancy desarrollo la noción de sentido como transitividad del ser, soportada en la (...) estructura "ser-a". En tercer lugar, expongo otra noción de mundo correspondiente a la aperturidad ontológica sin ser apriorística, que atenta contra la preeminencia ontológica del humano y enfatiza la fundamentalidad del ser-con. Finalmente, resalto dos consecuencias de este cambio metodológico: la transformación de la existencia en creación de mundo en lugar de comprensión y de la comunidad como régimen ontológico singular-plural. ABSTRACT In this paper, I problematize the prominence of understanding in Being and Time. In order to demonstrate that the conceptual modification that Nancy does of the relation as "reference" to the relational structure "being-to" is the key element to transform the Heideggerian ontology into an ontology of bodies. To do it, first, I evaluate the implications of the interpretation of language as doxa in the first Heidegger. Then, departing from Nancy, I develop the notion of sense as transitivity of being, supported by the structure "being-to". In third place, I expose another notion of the world, corresponding to the ontological opening without being aprioristic; which works against the ontological preeminence of the human and emphasizes the fundamentality of being-with. Finally, I explain two consequences of this methodological change: the transformation of the existence as creation, instead of comprehension, and of the community as a singular-plural ontological regime. (shrink)

This article argues that educational thinking and practices based on knowledge as conversation understood from the perspective of philosophical hermeneutics will make schools more democratic institutions and education generally more sensitive to variously constructed social realities.

An argument is made for the relevance of phenomenological hermeneutics to economics, with special attention to recent debates on hermeneutics among economists of the Austrian school of Ludwig von Mises and F. A. Hayek. Hermeneutics is explicated in the context of Husserlian phenomenology, with special attention to phenomenology's Aristotelian roots. Naive and methodological forms of ?objectivism?; are contrasted with hermeneutics, which recovers the horizons of scientific knowledge: the whole, and the activities of the human knower. Finally, the charges that hermeneutics (...) entails pernicious forms of relativism and historicism are confronted. (shrink)

This paper is an exploration of the Cartesian paradigms of clarity and univocity and how these inform contemporary educational theory and practice. Phenomenology is discussed as a way of disrupting Descartes' visions of clarity and distinctness as paradigms of knowledge and as a return of inquiry to life as it is actually lived. Analogical discourse is examined as a way of giving a voice to this sort of inquiry. Heidegger's notions of inquiry as obedience and thanksgiving are discussed.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Ethics & the Environment 10.2 (2005) 75-99 [Access article in PDF] Gynocentric Eco-Logics Trish Glazebrook All of our teachings come from things in nature, they come from the growing cycle, and everything is tied to the earth.1Ludwig Fleck describes in his Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact how the concept of syphilis is "a result of the development and confluence of several lines of collective thought" (Fleck 1979, (...) 23). Diagnosis and treatment of the disease required that its symptomatology undergo transformation from "an undifferentiated and confused mass of information about chronic diseases characterized by skin symptoms" (1979, 1) into the concept of a single disease. Identifying the Spirochaeta pallida bacterium and diagnosing syphilis by means of the Wasserman reaction was only possible when an unclearly related collection of symptoms could be experienced as belonging together in a unified phenomenology.Likewise, I wish to provide a diagnosis and etiology, and suggest a curative possibility for a disease of modernity I will call phallic logic. Symptomatic of this sickness are wide-spread social alienation, global domination and oppression on the basis of gender, race, class and color, and epidemic eco-destruction. A body of critique exists in ecofeminist analyses that experiences these symptoms as a single disease: the phallic logic of modernity. "Logic" in this context does not mean the formal discipline [End Page 75] in which rules for the proper manipulation of abstract statements are laid down. Rather, "logic" in the sense used here is an epistemological term. It means the ways that understanding is structured. Phallic logic is the structure of understanding that permeates patriarchy. This logic takes its paradigm from scientific objectivity, but even voices from within the sciences themselves are arguing that contemporary human being must establish new ways of thinking about nature.I propose that such new eco-logics, that is, ways of thinking about nature, take their guidance from the physical environment. If nature informs knowledge claims, then knowledge itself is construed organically: it is finite and changing rather than fixed and eternal. Such logics can encompass the finitude of physical embodiment as an epistemological principle, and hence I identify them as gynocentric. They are not grounded in the disembodied Cartesian subject that feminists have shown so often and clearly to be typical of androcentric philosophizing. These logics draw instead on the physicality of environmental elements as well as of the thinker, and thus they allow nature's temporality to resonate within knowledge itself. They are not satisfied with a conceptual contrast between nature's on-going coming-to-be and passing-away and the alleged universality of knowledge. Rather, they take nature as a model for truth and acknowledge that nature infuses the things we say to be truth.There is an abundance of arguments for the differences between male and female writing and thinking.2 I speak in accord with these voices, but I frame my project differently. I will begin by presenting evidence of a call for alternative epistemologies from within the sciences, and then use ecofeminist analyses to argue that the scientists in question are moving away from a phallic logic toward gynocentric eco-logics. Next I will make clear three assumptions that underlie my account. The first two are Heideggerian. I accept his argument that the logic of modernity is scientific objectivity, and I use his account of truth and essence to argue that knowledge is situated rather than universal. Hence gynocentric eco-logics entail an essentialism that is historical rather than biological. I give up biology as the fixative for essence, but avoid a decline into what is entirely arbitrary and subjective by fixing essence in terms of cultural and historical location. Hence I am using a Heideggerian notion of situatedness, but applying it specifically to gender such that I can maintain that the category of "woman" is neither universal, nor shattered irreparably into [End Page 76] fragmented individualism. My Heideggerianism is further qualified in that I am not writing in the spirit of Heidegger's life-time project. I will take the force of his insights to be epistemological rather than metaphysical or ontological... (shrink)

This paper addresses the teaching of citizenship in schools and focuses on the monarchy as an example of one issue often ignored within curriculum discourse. We argue that to conflate subjecthood and citizenship in unacknowledged ways may serve to perpetuate the status quo and is potentially unhelpful to the development of young people's critical thinking.

This investigation concerns first what Jacques Derrida and Paul Ricœur consider to be «the question of writing» in Plato’s Phaedrus, and then whether their conception of a general philosophical problem of writing finds support in the dialogue. By contrast to their attempts to «determine» the «status» of writing as the general condition of knowledge, my investigation has two objections. (1) To show that Plato’s concern is not to define writing, but to reflect on what is involved in honest and dishonest (...) inquiry. (2) To argue that Derrida’s and Ricœur’s determination of the instrumental (epistemic and moral) «status» of writing, overlooks crucial difficulties of dishonest writing that Plato’s discussion of the pharmakon reveals. The argument proposed is that honest and dishonest inquiry is not tied to the moral status that writing, as an invention or instrument, unconditionally involves, but to the moral quality of what a human being does when inquiring. (shrink)

Engaging with the philosophical writings of Iris Murdoch, we submit that there are difficulties associated with providing a good description of morality that are intimately connected with difficulties in understanding other human beings. We suggest three senses in which moral philosophical reflection needs to account for our understanding of others: (1) the failure to understand someone is not merely an intellectual failure, but also engages us morally; (2) the moral question of understanding is not limited to the extent to which (...) we understand a particular person, but also presents itself in how we picture difficulties in understanding people; and (3) “philosophical pictures of morality” fundamentally shape the conceptual framework we use to investigate morality, as well as the analysis of morality we find illuminative and satisfactory. Exploring the implications of these claims, we ask what it means to think of others as the same, or as different, from ourselves. We then consider the ethical significance of finding, or not finding, our feet in our encounters with others, dwelling on how the metaphor of movement reveals one way in which we are never at peace in the exploration of morality. (shrink)

Although the need to theorize ethics within the complexities of nursing practice has been identified within the nursing literature, to date the link between ethics epistemology and specific nursing actions has received limited attention. In particular, little exploration has been carried out to examine how nurses ‘know’ what is ethical and the knowledge they draw upon to inform their nursing actions within the complexities of their everyday practice. This study describes a participatory inquiry project that focused on developing and articulating (...) an epistemology of ethics while in the midst of everyday nursing work. Epistemological and methodological insights are discussed in light of the challenges nurses face in contemporary healthcare contexts. (shrink)

This essay argues for a formative, and not simply abstract, aspect to the philosophy of religion by attending to the practices of writing employed in Søren Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous work Repetition . By locating this text within an ethical tradition that focuses upon the practices that form subjects, rather than simply the formulation of a theory, its seemingly literary performances can be viewed as exercises. In particular, this text deploys and transforms the Stoic practices of self writing, in the form of (...) keeping notebooks and letter writing, so as to cultivate capabilities. This indirect ethical instruction does not, however, lead to the formation of autonomous ethical subjects, but to the cultivation of capabilities that are only possible in the relational space of vulnerability, service and dependence. (shrink)

The paper contrasts understandings of knowledge grounded in Enlightenment norms with the departures from those norms taken by some strands of feminism and hermeneutics, as well as the contributions made by the writing of Michel Foucault. A reading of Foucault's writings on knowledge, power and the discursive constitution of self and world is offered as a potentially useful frame within which to raise questions about nursing, nurses and knowledge.

(1991). Can feminism politicize hermeneutics and reconstruct deconstruction? Social Epistemology: Vol. 5, Postmodern Social Epistemology, pp. 361-369.

As a response to Moran's (1994) recommendation that Heidegger's Destruktion be extensively elaborated and critiqued, this paper suggests a way in which Heidegger's thinking can be more clearly understood as a search for how better to ‘say' the destruction. By briefly tracing how Heidegger's thinking on the Destruktion repeatedly turns against itself throughout his writings, it is demonstrated that Heidegger does indeed revise the notion by abandoning the term in his later writing; to replace it first with the concept of (...) ‘overcoming', and subsequently with the notion of Verwindung . This self-critical reworking of the Destruktion is evident in his turning towards these concepts; which is taken up by Derrida's deconstruction in its simultaneous turning towards and away from Heidegger's Destruktion . South African Journal of Philosophy Vol. 27 (1) 2008 pp. 52-68. (shrink)

Constructivist pedagogies cannot achieve their critical thinking ambitions. Constructivism, and constructivist epistemological presuppositions, actively thwarts the critical thinking process. Using Wittgenstein's private language argument, this paper argues that corrective mechanisms—the ability to correct a student's propositions and cognitions against the background of a shared, knowable world—are indispensible to critical thinking. This paper provides concrete examples of actual constructivist practice and shows how a particular constructivist classroom exercise can be modified to incorporate critical thinking elements as detailed by the American Philosophical (...) Association. Finally, the paper states the significance of these arguments, particularly as they extend from the educational arena into the public and governmental domains. (shrink)

The translation of the Guru Granth Sahib (GGS), or Sikh ‘scripture’, within the discourse of (European) colonial/modernity was enacted by the use of hermeneutics—which oversaw the shift from the openness of praxis to the closure of representation and knowledge. Such a shift demoted certain indigenous interpretive frames, wherein the GGS is assumed to enunciate an excess that far transcends the foreign demand to fix the text’s ‘call’ into singular meanings (beyond time), but rather transforms the hermeneutic desire into a process (...) of learning (Sikhi) through multiple meanings (in time). Thus the GGS is not translated according to a particular life-world, but actively transforms the life-world of those that respond to its excessive call. How should hermeneutics be reformed in this case? If the GGS as text demands interpretation, then the text as Guru demands engagement, and together they would necessarily call forth a radicalization of hermeneutics via a certain poetic reticence to all philosophical messengers. (shrink)

In this article I will consider John D. Caputo’s ‘radical hermeneutics’, with ‘undecidability’ as its major theme, in conversation with Martin Heidegger’s notion of ‘anticipatory resoluteness’. Through an examination of the positions of Caputo and Heidegger I argue that Heidegger’s notion of ‘anticipatory resoluteness’ reaches far beyond the claims of ‘radical hermeneutics’, and that it assumes a reconstructive process which carries within its scope the overtones of deconstruction, the experience of repetition and authenticity and also the implications of Gelassenheit. Further, (...) I am arguing that Caputo’s ‘radical hermeneutics’ is problematic and even erroneous when it comes to criticize Heidegger’s thought portraying it as being founded on ‘the myth of the early Greeks’. (shrink)

In this article I will consider John D. Caputo’s hermeneutics of deconstruction or what he calls ‘radical hermeneutics’, with ‘undecidability’ as its major theme, in conversation with Martin Heidegger’s notion of ‘resolute existence’. Through an examination of the different positions of Caputo, Heidegger, and also Kierkegaard, Derrida and Meister Eckhart on the possibility of repetition, the hermeneutical circle and the mystical way of prayer and faith, I am arguing that deconstruction is not the end of hermeneutics, it is not the (...) final destination of an interpretative task, and thus deconstructive hermeneutics has to concede a reconstructive process. Further, I am arguing that Caputo’s ‘radical hermeneutics’ is too reductionist to keep any meaning for the hermeneutic enterprise to aspire to. I am contending, rather, that it is resolute existence that theology aspires to as it is a move beyond ‘undecidability’. (shrink)

Mitä oleva on? Omaisuus ja elämä pureutuu tähän filosofian peruskysymykseen seuraten kahta länsimaisen filosofian jättiläistä, Aristotelestä ja Heideggeria. Siinä missä Aristoteles kysyy olevaa substantiivina ja tilana, etsii Heidegger olemisen mieltä verbinä ja tapahtumana. Nämä kaksi merkitystä löytyvät myös suomen olla-verbistä: "omistaa jotakin" ja "olla olemassa, elossa". Omaisuus ja elämä antavat peruslähtökohdat olevan tulkitsemiselle. Kirja vie lukijansa filosofian kreikkalaisille juurille ja sen uusimpiin, Heideggerin avaamiin mahdollisuuksiin.

My research into Virtual Reality technology and its central property of immersion has indicated that immersion in Virtual Reality (VR) electronic systems is a significant key to the understanding of contemporary culture as well as considerable aspects of previous culture as detected in the histories of philosophy and the visual arts. The fundamental change in aesthetic perception engendered by immersion, a perception which is connected to the ideal of total-immersion in virtual space, identifies certain shifts in ontology which are relevant (...) to a better understanding of the human being. This understanding was achieved through a broad inquiry into the histories of Virtual Reality, philosophy, and the visual arts and has lead to the formulation of an aesthetic theory of immersive consciousness indicative of immersive culture. The primary subject of this discourse is immersion then: an experience which will be identified within the dissertation as the indispensable characteristic of Virtual Reality. The understanding of immersion arrived at here will be used to fashion a synchronous theory of art particularly informed by encounters and concepts of immersion into virtuality. To sufficiently address this subject in a scholarly fashion, I have researched, found and accumulated aesthetic and philosophic examples of immersive tendencies, as found within the histories of art and philosophy, which subsequently contributed towards the articulation of what I have come to call immersive consciousness. As a result of formulating such an immersive consciousness, a good deal of the basis for the questioning of the Western ontological tradition has been found in the Western tradition itself when we look with new eyes and ask new uncertain questions. Moreover, this immersive consciousness will be used to propose some abstract questions encircling today's electronic-based culture. Through the structuring of the argument within the thesis - and overtly within the conclusion - I have articulated a non-teleological creative strategy which provides the basis for an unconstraining integration of noologies (ways of semblancing the thinking process). This strategy provides a means of exemplifying - and for honoring - various methods of thinking. This structuring strategy is consistent with the 'hacker ethic' as defined by Steven Levy, as a demand that access to computers - and anything which might teach us something about the way the world works - should be unlimited and total. To follow this strategy, this dissertation has set out to understand how topical conceptions of virtual immersion connect to pre-existing systems of thought as revealed in art as they have extended out of antecedent ontological self-understandings, historical human self-understandings which have evidenced themselves in the elaboration of technological objectives. To do this I have forged a certain rhizomatic paternity/maternity for Virtual Reality within this dissertation by joining choice immersive examples of simulacra technology into mental connections with the relevant examples culled from the histories of art, architecture, information-technology, sex, myth, space, consciousness and philosophy. (shrink)

This article intends to think a feminist theory in the speculative context that starts with the Hegelian metaphysics and continues with the French post-Hegelianism of J. Derrida, G. Deleuze and M. Foucault among others. The great challenge of these authors –and with them the great challenge of our time– consists in deconstructing the binary logic which has dominated western thought and culture, in order to overcome the political and social exclusion promoted by it. In this context lies the femininity-masculinity dualism, (...) whose overcoming we prefer to think as the intrinsic implication of a new relational and dynamic, multiple and concrete identity. (shrink)

Ladies and gentlemen, the story you are about to see is true. The names have been changed to protect the innocent.

The conduct of research as guided by philosophical tenets of hermeneutics, in particular the hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer, is a complex and sophisticated endeavor. In this paper, we offer that one of the things that guides the inquiry is the topic and that most often topics for discovery arrive with the experience of an address. We discuss the notion of the address of the topic, how a researcher discerns a topic to be studied and, from this address, develops appropriate research (...) questions that help to inform how the study will be conducted. (shrink)

The everyday experience of time can be disrupted by the events in our lives, and disquiet notions of predictability about the passage of time. In this work, I describe an alternate experience of time passing that occurred in the context of a car accident. The phrase "I saw my life flash before my eyes" situates the varietal experience of time in human existence, and invites the use of chosen hermeneutic tenets to explore the phenomena. I describe the mysterious personal experience (...) of time associated with the accident, as well as varietal experiences of time that occur for people during hospitalization, relating to experiences of nursing practice. The tension associated with the temptation to apply scientific explanations to metaphysical questions, and the inevitability of accepting ongoing wonder about the mysteries of time, are featured throughout. (shrink)

Several prominent contemporary philosophers, including Jürgen Habermas, John Caputo, and Robert Bernasconi, have at times painted a somewhat negative picture of Gadamer as not only an uncritical traditionalist, but also as one whose philosophical project fails to appreciate difference. Against such claims, I argue that Gadamer’s reflections on art exhibit a genuine appreciation for alterity not unrelated to his hermeneutical approach to the other. Thus, by bringing Gadamer’s reflections on our experience of art into conversation with key aspects of his (...) philosophical hermeneutics, we are able to better assess the viability of Gadamer’s contributions to contemporary discussions of difference and alterity. -/- Sections two through six focus on key concepts in Gadamer’s account of art’s dynamic ontology and our experience of art. Such concepts include the play structure of art, hermeneutic identity, tarrying with a work, and contemporaneity. The opening sections provide not only a discussion of these central themes, but they also (1) draw attention to the various ways in which difference and otherness are integral to Gadamer’s account, and (2) utilize relevant musical examples that prepare the reader for a more focused discussion of a Gadamerian approach to free jazz in section seven. By highlighting how Gadamer’s understanding of art possesses a dialogical play structure, is characterized by identity and difference, requires actively engaged spectators and auditors, and is amenable to what many criticize as an unintelligible musical expression, viz. free jazz, Gadamer’s project is shown as other-affirming and open to ambiguity and dynamism. That is, the essential structures and concepts characterizing Gadamer’s reflections on art are likewise central to his overall hermeneutical project, and hence are not rightly described as un-attuned to difference or other-negating. Rather, Gadamer’s philosophical project upholds difference, since it requires a dialogical interplay between self and other that creates the possibility for a transformative experience. (shrink)

Mental health nurses are frequently confronted by intense emotions within the therapeutic relationship. In this philosophical hermeneutic inquiry, five mental health nurses were interviewed to extend our understandings of how nurses are impacted by the interplay with the often emotion-laden narratives of their patients. Findings exposed the nurses journeyed between fluctuating needs to separate and protect their private from their work life. In order for this fluctuation to occur, they developed a sense of the world as requiring a sanctuary. This (...) ontological place of home is the extent to which they felt safe and sheltered in order for this process of awareness of self as person and self as nurse to unfold. This research brings to the forefront the ways in which mental health nursing practice, education, and research are reciprocally moved by the practical day-to-day activities of being in therapeutic relationships. (shrink)

Hermeneutics has been theorized and applied as a philosophical framework and interpretive research methodology which pays particular attention to linguistic, social, cultural, and historical contexts to understand the life world and human experiences. While adopted as a qualitative research approach in the fields of education, nursing, psychology, and legal studies, its use is emerging in other human service disciplines. The rich philosophical and theoretical legacy embedded in this research methodology often presents unique challenges and a steep learning curve for researchers, (...) particularly when the research is conducted in international settings. Drawing from insights gained from two hermeneutic studies conducted in Kenya and China, this paper presents considerations for designing a hermeneutic research inquiry. In addition to philosophical, practical, and ethical issues researchers need to consider when designing and implementing hermeneutic studies in international settings, we examine factors and strategies to facilitate successful data collection and interpretation. (shrink)

This article considers the limitations, but also the insights, of Gadamerian hermeneutics for understanding and responding to the crisis precipitated by the Covid-19 pandemic. Our point of departure is the experience of deep disagreements amid the pandemic, and our primary example is ongoing debates in the United States about wearing masks. We argue that, during this dire situation, interpersonal mutual understanding is insufficient for resolving such bitter disputes. Rather, following Gadamer’s account of our dialogical experience with an artwork, we suggest (...) that our encounter with the virus gives rise to new ways of seeing and experiencing ourselves and the world. Further, we draw on Gadamer’s account of the fusion of horizons to show how even competing perspectives on wearing masks arise within a shared space of meaning created by the virus. These insights provide hope for an improved model of political dialogue in the world of Covid-19. (shrink)

Recent American events have tended to energize me and remind me of a wider swath about our circumstances. We find ourselves fighting this issue on methodological, epistemological, and ontological grounds, but it is also a matter of power and market driven distortions, of issues of gender and how marginalization works to blame precisely those it then victimizes, and on and on. In this paper, I take up some of these ideas.