The present study examines the development of complex sentences with non-finite clause combining with particular focus on clause chaining, in narratives of 40 Turkish-speaking 4- to 11-year-olds and six adults elicited by a wordless picture book. Results show a gradual increase by age in the variety of clauses combined, the length of the complex sentences and their frequency of use. Clause chains formed with converbal clauses are the earliest and most frequent type of clause combinations, already present in 4-year-olds’ complex (...) sentences with 1-non-finite clause. Older children’s and adults’ 2- or 3-non-finite clause complex sentences consist of some combinations of adverbial, complement, relative and converbal clauses. Developmentally, clause chains establish first, aspectual-temporal continuity, then temporal-causal continuity. Sentence-internal and cross-sentence-boundary referential continuities are present early, from age 4 onwards. These findings are discussed in terms of the demands of narrative organization as well as the syntactic and semantic complexity of the clause combination devices in Turkish. (shrink)

Two experiments were carried out to investigate the role of referential continuity in understanding discourse. In experiment 1, a group of university students listened to stories and descriptive passages presented in three different versions: the original passages, versions in which the sentences occured in a random order, and randomised versions in which referential continuity had been restored primarily by replacing pronouns and other terms with fuller and more appropriate noun phrases. The original stories were remembered better, and (...) rated as more comprehensible, than the random versions, but the restoration of referential continuity ameliorated the effects of randomisation. The descriptive passages had little referential continuity from one sentence to the next, and as expected the effects of randomisation on comprehensibility and memory were negligible. In experiment 2, a group of skilled comprehenders and a group of less skilled comprehenders were selected from a population of 7–8-year-old children. The difference between the groups was known to be largely their inferential ability in reading texts. Both groups read a series of short stories presented in the same three versions as used in the previous experiment. As predicted, the ameliorating effects on memory of restoring referential continuity in a randomised story were confined to the skilled group. The results are discussed in relation to the theories of story grammar, text microstructure, and mental models of discourse. (shrink)

There is an emerging consensus that we are experiencing radical change in the way that science is organized and performed. Frequently described as a shift from Mode 1 to Mode 2, this view emphasizes application, transdisciplinarity, collaboration, and accountability. This article examines the ways in which U.K. public sector scientists make sense of scientific endeavor. The data reveal that the extent to which science is being constructed varied both across and between institutions. Data highlight how individual scientists weave their own (...) paths through the changing discourses of science, constructing new understandings that do not fit neatly into any binary framework for understanding. (shrink)

Purpose: To show the connections and differences between Mitterer's concept, cultural theory, and sociology of knowledge in order to reproduce the development of non-dualizing philosophy. Problem: Mitterer's non-dualizing philosophy explicitly places emphasis on the continuation and coherence of discourses. Consequently, it grants an epistemological option that does not focus on the object as the end of cognition and description, but rather as the beginning. This perspective not only helps to overcome fundamental philosophical problems; it also concedes that the whole concept (...) of non-dualizing philosophy refers theoretical descriptions, on the one hand, to the status of "so far" and, on the other hand, can be described as "from now on." Solution: It seems necessary to exemplify obvious and hidden connections to cultural theories, especially those of the early 20th century (i.e., Karl Mannheim, Heinrich Rickert, Max Weber, William James), which predominantly concentrate on the relations between language and object, experience and world. The illustration of those relations should bring out Mitterer's arguments, as well as how his argumentation can be applied to itself. Benefits: To explain and avoid the epistemological problems of realism, as well as of constructivism, which emerge within a dualistic perspective. (shrink)

Continuing the dialogue: postcolonial feminist scholarship and Bourdieu — discourses of culture and points of connection Postcolonial feminist theories provide the analytic tools to address issues of structural inequities in groups that historically have been socially and economically disadvantaged. In this paper we question what value might be added to postcolonial feminist theories on culture by drawing on Bourdieu. Are there points of connection? Like postcolonial feminists, he puts forward a position that aims to unmask oppressive structures. We argue that, (...) while there are points of connection, there are also epistemologic and methodologic differences between postcolonial feminist perspectives and Bourdieu's work. Nonetheless, engagement with different theoretical perspectives carries the promise of new insights — new ways of ‘seeing’ and ‘understanding’ that might enhance a praxis‐oriented theoretical perspective in healthcare delivery. (shrink)

Chapter Introduction This work deals with two contrasting, but mutually interrelated capabilities of the human mind: reference and categorization. ...

The aim of the article is to contribute to the existing literature on continuing bonds with a deceased relative by exploration of discursive dimensions of the bonds through which the survivors construct their relationship with the person who died. The data come from five interviews with family members who survived the suicidal death of their relative. We argue that a focus upon the form and content of the survivors’ stories offers a complicated and heterogeneous picture of ‘bonding actions’. And so, (...) assuming a constructionist view of discourse, we show two kinds of bonds. First, it is a bond related to social expectations of bereaved families. Second, it is a personal bond, part of which is a bond with a reverse direction, established and maintained by the deceased person. (shrink)

This paper aims to deal with the change of sexual discourse through the rise of a feminist movement in Korea from a constructivist point of view. First, the paper discusses the Confucianism of the Chosun dynasty as an historical background of the issue of sexuality (since Confucianism still has a far-reaching grip and effect on many aspects of everyday life in Korea). Second, it deals with chastity ideology and the double standard of sexuality between men and women as ongoing (...) Confucian sexual discourses. Third, it focuses on three themes: (1) the change from sex for procreation to sex for pleasure, (2) the change from genitally-oriented sexuality to intimacy- or relationship-oriented sexuality, and (3) the change from a woman as a sexual object to a sexual subject as part of the changes of sexual discourses. Fourth, it tries to show clashes and/or alliances between the Confucian and feminist discourses on sexuality, which make up the process of the social construction of sexuality. This shows that sexuality is a socio-historical construction in Korea as elsewhere. (shrink)

Examining discourse markers (Schiffrin, 1987) in two transcribed discussions of controversial issues in an undergraduate 'critical thinking' class, we note frequent uses of 'I'm just saying' and related metadiscursive expressions (I'm/we're saying, I'm/we're not saying, etc.). Our central claim is that these 'saying' expressions are pragmatic devices by which speakers claim 'all along' to have held a consistent argumentative standpoint, one that continues through the discussion unless changed for good reasons. Through close analysis of a series of discourse (...) examples, we show how these discourse markers are used to display continuity, deflect counterarguments, and acknowledge the force of counterarguments while preserving continuity. In a concluding section we reflect critically on the use of these continuity markers with regard to four pragmatic functions that they potentially serve: to specify and clarify argumentative standpoints, to acknowledge a presumption of standpoint continuity, to acknowledge a normative expectation that discussion participants should have standpoints, and to avoid overt disagreement while saving face. (shrink)

The constructions of genders and sexualities in different global spaces continue to be influenced by Christian and imperial ideologies. In Africa, genders and sexualities were (mis)construed by colonial and missionary enterprises, and they continue to be defined according to Eurocentric terms and perceptions. This has produced ‘modern sexual repression’. The use of Biblical discourses to construct African genders and sexualities is one way that this repression is mirrored in South Africa. Because of this, African genders and sexualities are marginalised, treated (...) as taboo and depicted as backward and uncivilised, thus, promoting hegemonic heteronormative and monogamous marriages. This article examined how Biblical discourses contributed to this narrative. It further advanced a call for transforming this dominant narrative by engaging theology, gender and sexuality studies and socio-political sciences from the premise of a multidisciplinary epoch. The decolonial motif, with a focus on delinking African genders and sexualities from the Western agenda of sexual repression, serves as the theoretical framework for this research. On the other hand, race, gender and sexuality serve as lenses used to better understand the phenomenon and to explore the use of biblical discourses in this context. Thus, the article makes use of a secondary research approach to carry out this task.Contribution: This article seeks to add to the body of knowledge that endeavours to change the way that biblical discourses are used in South Africa today to construct a narrative that represses non-normative genders and sexualities. (shrink)

This paper aims to deal with the change of sexual discourse through the rise of a feminist movement in Korea from a constructivist point of view. First, the paper discusses the Confucianism of the Chosun dynasty as an historical background of the issue of sexuality (since Confucianism still has a far-reaching grip and effect on many aspects of everyday life in Korea). Second, it deals with chastity ideology and the double standard of sexuality between men and women as ongoing (...) Confucian sexual discourses. Third, it focuses on three themes: (1) the change from sex for procreation to sex for pleasure, (2) the change from genitally-oriented sexuality to intimacy- or relationship-oriented sexuality, and (3) the change from a woman as a sexual object to a sexual subject as part of the changes of sexual discourses. Fourth, it tries to show clashes and/or alliances between the Confucian and feminist discourses on sexuality, which make up the process of the social construction of sexuality. This shows that sexuality is a socio-historical construction in Korea as elsewhere. (shrink)

In the still highly politicized question of rupture or continuity between the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, elements of continuity are not hard to find, nor should this be a surprise, since a new state arose in the same geographical space and made use of the economic, intellectual, and demographic resources inherited from the Russian Empire. At the same time, the Soviet Union could not have been more different than the Russian Empire. It rejected a number of (...) key elements of the sociopolitical project that underlay the nationalizing tsarist empire and introduced radically new political and social principles for organizing that space. In particular, the Bolsheviks purposefully engaged in dismantling the tsarist efforts to build a great ethnic-Russian nation to stand at the center of the Russian Empire’s nationalities policy. The irreversible disintegration of post-Soviet space into separate nationalizing states became possible only toward the end of the twentieth century. At the same time, the imperial nature of the modern post-Soviet Russian core permits us to say that the imperial logic has survived. This is where we can find an element of inescapable continuity. We present studies of “continuities” and “ruptures” in modern academic discourse and in an updated format, gravitating toward “empirically nuanced” tools for analyzing multiple historical temporalities. (shrink)

Usporednom analizom odabranih povijesnih i suvremenih pedagoških dokumenata stručno usavršavanje se prepoznaje kao trajna i neodvojiva komponenta nastavničke profesije. Trajno usavršavanje odgojnoobrazovnih djelatnika nepravedno se pripisuje tek vremenu paradigme cjeloživotnog obrazovanja. Pedagoški teoretičari nastavničkoj profesiji od njezinih početaka i pokušaja zakonske regulative te njezina društvenog etabliranja propisuju trajnu potrebu stručnog usavršavanja u svrhu profesionalnog razvitka i karijernog napredovanja, kao i obvezu neprestanog učenja. Već u prvom zakonskom dokumentu iz 1874. godine propisano je individualno i produžno obrazovanje svih učitelja. Time stručno (...) usavršavanje postaje ključna sastavnica učiteljske profesije, a kasnije i svih odgojno obrazovnih djelatnika. Analizom povijesnih dokumenata utvrđena je sto pedeset godišnja zakonska i propisima regulirana trajna obveza stručnog usavršavanja nastavnika koja u praksi često nije ostvarena. Nakon dosegnute sveučilišne razine inicijalnog obrazovanja svih nastavnika i učitelja, potrebno je stvoriti uvjete za njihovo sustavno i učinkovito stručno usavršavanje. By comparative analysis of selected historical and contemporary pedagogical documents, professional development is recognized as a permanent and inseparable component of the teaching profession. Continuous training of educators is unfairly attributed only to the time of the lifelong education paradigm. Since its beginnings and attempts at legislation and its social establishment, pedagogical theorists have prescribed the continuing need for professional development for the purpose of professional development and career advancement, as well as the obligation of continuous learning. Already in the first legal document of 1874, individual and extended education of all teachers was prescribed. In this way, professional development becomes a key component of the teaching profession and later of all educational staff. The analysis of historical documents has determined the one hundred and fifty-year legal and statutory regulation of a permanent obligation for the professional development of teachers, which is often not achieved in practice. After reaching the university level of initial education of all teachers, it is necessary to create the conditions for their systematic and effective professional development. (shrink)

The work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau is presented in two volumes, together forming the most comprehensive anthology of Rousseau's political writings in English. This second volume contains the earlier writings such as the First and Second Discourses, the publication of which signalled the power and challenge of Rousseau's thinking. Rousseau's influence was wide reaching and has continued to grow since his death: major landmarks in world history, such as the American and French Revolutions, were profoundly affected by Rousseau's writing, as were (...) cultural and intellectual movements such as Romanticism and Idealism. This volume, like its successor, contains a comprehensive introduction, chronology and guide to further reading and will enable students to obtain a full understanding of the writings of one of the world's greatest thinkers. (shrink)

Discourses of interdisciplinary health‐care are becoming more centralised in the context of global healthcare practices, which are increasingly based on multisystem interventions. As with all dominant discourses that are narrated into being, many others have been silenced and decentralised in the process. While questions of the nature and constituents of interdisciplinary practices continue to be debated and rehearsed, this paper focuses on the discourse of interdisciplinary collaboration using psychiatry as an example, with the aim of highlighting competing and alternative (...) discourses. The fundamental premise of this paper is that collaborative relationships form the basis of interdisciplinary practices in psychiatry. Through a critical engagement and a deconstructive reading of the pretext, context and subtexts of interdisciplinarity, we interrogate the concept of interdisciplinary practice within psychiatry. We contend that an important part of understanding and further conceptualising the discourse is through fracturing it. This process is illustrated in the successive stages of our conceptual map of discourse development: establishing, maintaining and developing discourses. An understanding of interdisciplinary practice is not only critical for psychiatry, but also offers important insights into the performance of collaborative failures and indeed successes across nursing and allied health professions. (shrink)

This article uses critical discourse analysis to examine how the higher COVID-19 infection rates among South Asians in general, and Punjabis more specifically, have been represented by conservative politicians and their representatives as a consequence of cultural and religious practices. Two counter-narratives are discussed. The first substitutes the negative image of the Sikh Punjabi Canadian community with a celebratory and positive view of Sikh humanitarianism and community service. The second attributes the high numbers to class attributes such as precarious (...) jobs, poverty-level wages, employment insecurity, lack of sick days, over-crowded housing, racism and lack of access to healthcare. We argue that the conservative explanation as well as the first counter-narrative reveal continuities in culturalist understandings of South Asian immigrants, albeit in slightly different ways. The second counter-narrative represents a discursive resistance by advancing a structural analysis of health and disease in immigrant communities. (shrink)

In this article we argue that discourse structure constrains the set ofpossible constituents in a discourse that can provide the relevantcontext for structuring information in a target sentence, whileinformation structure critically constrains discourse structureambiguity. For the speaker, the discourse structure provides a set of possible contexts for continuation while information structure assignment is independent of discourse structure. For the hearer, the information structure of a sentence together with discourse structure instructs dynamic semantics how rhematic (...) information should be used to update the meaning representation of the discourse. (shrink)

Managing aggression in mental health hospitals is an important and challenging task for clinical nursing staff. A majority of studies focus on the perspective of clinicians, and research mainly depicts aggression by referring to patient-related factors. This qualitative study investigates how aggression is communicated in forensic mental health nursing records. The aim of the study was to gain insight into the discursive practices used by forensic mental health nursing staff when they record observed aggressive incidents. Textual accounts were extracted from (...) the Staff Observation Aggression Scale-Revised (SOAS-R), and Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis was used to identify short narrative entries depicting patients and staffs in typical ways. The narratives contained descriptions of complex interactions between patient and staff that were linked to specific circumstances surrounding the patient. These antecedents, combined with the aggression incident itself, created stereotyping representations of forensic psychiatric patients as deviant, unpredictable and dangerous. Patient and staff identities were continually (re)produced by an automatic response from the staff that was solely focused on the patient’s behavior. Such response might impede implementation of new strategies for managing aggression. (shrink)

Poststructuralist discourse theory is enjoying increasing recognition for its potential to contribute to the study of institutional change and continuity. Yet the most fruitful approach to realizing this potential has hitherto not been found. The main proposition so far has been to operationalize DT’s insights and concepts by adopting them into the framework of discursive institutionalism. However, an ongoing debate about the compatibility of the ontologies underlying DT and DI has cast doubts over whether such a combination is (...) theoretically feasible. The critical literature review in the first part of this article indeed finds insurmountable ontological differences between the discourse-theoretical and the discursive-institutionalist traditions, as their clashing notions of what is understood as a ‘discourse’ result in diverging views on power, agency, and subjectivity. Instead of merging DT into DI, I suggest to empower the former as a self-sufficient paradigm for institutional analysis. To achieve this, the second part of this article re-articulates the ‘logics framework’ proposed by Jason Glynos and David Howarth into a middle-range theory for the study of institutionalization and politicization in a discourse-theoretical fashion. The purpose of this re-articulation is to dispel various arguments against the viability of an autonomous poststructuralist approach to institutions. (shrink)

_Discourses on Livy_ is the founding document of modern republicanism, and Harvey C. Mansfield and Nathan Tarcov have provided the definitive English translation of this classic work. Faithful to the original Italian text, properly attentive to Machiavelli's idiom and subtlety of thought, it is eminently readable. With a substantial introduction, extensive explanatory notes, a glossary of key words, and an annotated index, the _Discourses_ reveals Machiavelli's radical vision of a new science of politics, a vision of "new modes and orders" (...) that continue to shape the modern ethos. "[Machiavelli] found in Livy the means to inspire scholars for five centuries. Within the _Discourses_, often hidden and sometimes unintended by their author, lie the seeds of modern political thought.... [Mansfield and Tarcov's] translation is careful and idiomatic."—Peter Stothard, _The Times_ "Translated with painstaking accuracy—but also great readability."—_Weekly Standard_ "A model of contemporary scholarship and a brave effort at Machiavelli translation that allows the great Florentine to speak in his own voice."—_Choice_. (shrink)

Excerpt: 1. Introduction This chapter provides insight into the diverse ethical debates on genetics and epigenetics. Much controversy surrounds debates about intervening into the germline genome of human embryos, with catchwords such as genome editing, designer baby, and CRISPR/Cas. The idea that it is possible to design a child according to one’s personal preferences is, however, a quite distorted view of what is actually possible with new gene technologies and gene therapies. These are much more limited than the editing and (...) design metaphors suggest. Such metaphors are therefore highly problematic phrases in the context of new gene technologies, for two reasons. On one hand, to design a child of choice by modifying the genome would require modifying any gene of choice, which is more than can be done with current gene technologies, such as CRISPR/Cas. On the other hand, a modification of genes would need to be enough to create any characteristic of choice in the future child. The latter presupposes the assumption of genetic determinism. Moreover, the CRISPR/Cas technology can not only be used in a potentially therapeutic manner at the germline level. In addition, there is the (more likely) scenario of a future clinical therapeutic use of these new gene technologies for modifying the DNA sequence of other cells of the body (somatic genome editing). There is also the option of modifying the epigenome, that is, the spatial configuration of DNA (epigenome editing) (see table 1). Like genetics and genome editing, epigenetics has been at the center of recent popular scientific and ethical discourse as well as scientific debates. The concept of epigenetics has given rise to very different notions of inheritability and responsibility for health, which, however, are oftentimes based on scientifically controversial basic assumptions. That there continues to be covert genetic determinism in the form of epigenetic determinism (see table 2) in debates about epigenetics has been pointed out in ethical analyses of epigenetics. Neither genetic determinism nor epigenetic determinism has been confirmed scientifically. It is therefore important to recognize the concepts that are discussed (and sometimes harshly criticized) in debates about genome editing and epigenetics—for example, concepts about the causal role of DNA for our own life course. This importance is based on the fact that if we understand such controversial concepts, we will be able to remain critical when evaluating scientific knowledge and ethical arguments about genome editing and epigenetics. This chapter, therefore, explains some of these concepts. For an ethical analysis of epigenetics as well as of genome editing, it is necessary to understand and critically reflect upon the underlying concepts of genetic determinism and other, related -isms. The following section offers a detailed introduction to these -isms (section 2; see also table 2). Section 3 provides an ethical analysis of genome editing and epigenetics based on the explanations in section 2. Section 3 focuses on inheritability and responsibility, justice, safety, the problem of consent, and the effects of genome editing and epigenetics on embryos and future generations. This section does not discuss in detail further points that can be found in ethical debates about epigenetics as well as in ethical debates about genome editing. These points include (among others): • fear that the findings of epigenetics and that the methods of genome editing are misused—this also with respect to eugenics and enhancement; • naturalness—an issue we mention in passing a few times in the following analysis; • a possible connection between the genome/epigenome and the concept of human dignity, and the derived danger of instrumentalization and infringement of autonomy when intervening in the genome or epigenome. Since current discourse about ethical issues associated with genome editing focuses mainly on germline interventions, which are, for instance, interventions into a human embryo’s genome, we mainly focus on germline interventions when comparing the debates on genome editing and on epigenetics in section 3. (shrink)

Who are we today? That deceptively simple question continued to be asked by the French historian and philosopher, Michel Foucault, who for the last three decades has had a profound influence on English-speaking scholars in the humanities and social sciences.; This text is designed for undergraduates and others who feel in need of some assistance when coming to grips with Foucault's voluminous and complex writings. Instead of dealing with them chronologically, however, this book concentrates on some of their central concepts, (...) primarily Foucault's rethinking of the categories of "discourse", "power", and " the subject".; Foucault's writings contribute collectively to what he himself calls "an ontology of the present". His historical research was always geared towards showing how things could have been and still could be otherwise. This is especially the case with respect to the production of human subjects. (shrink)

_Discourses on Livy_ is the founding document of modern republicanism, and Harvey C. Mansfield and Nathan Tarcov have provided the definitive English translation of this classic work. Faithful to the original Italian text, properly attentive to Machiavelli's idiom and subtlety of thought, it is eminently readable. With a substantial introduction, extensive explanatory notes, a glossary of key words, and an annotated index, the _Discourses_ reveals Machiavelli's radical vision of a new science of politics, a vision of "new modes and orders" (...) that continue to shape the modern ethos. "[Machiavelli] found in Livy the means to inspire scholars for five centuries. Within the _Discourses_, often hidden and sometimes unintended by their author, lie the seeds of modern political thought.... [Mansfield and Tarcov's] translation is careful and idiomatic."—Peter Stothard, _The Times_ "Translated with painstaking accuracy—but also great readability."—_Weekly Standard_ "A model of contemporary scholarship and a brave effort at Machiavelli translation that allows the great Florentine to speak in his own voice."—_Choice_. (shrink)

Modern humans spend much of their time deploying a very rarefied form of intelligence, manipulating abstract symbols while their muscled body is mostly inert. Other animals, in a constant and largely unmediated relation with their earthly surroundings, think with the whole of their bodies. This kind of distributed sentience, this intelligence in the limbs, is especially keen in the case of birds of flight. Unlike most creatures of the ground, who must traverse an opaque surface of only two-plus dimensions as (...) we make our way through the world, a soaring bird continually adjusts minute muscles in its wings to navigate an omnidimensional plenum of currents and interference patterns that alter from moment to moment. Flight itself may usefully be considered as a kind of thinking—as a sort of gliding within the mind. Moreover, since birds are commonly the most mobile inhabitants of any woodland, able to fly over and scan numerous events occurring on the ground, their varied utterances provide a crucial source of information for many other animals. This paper, written as a philosophic essay, explores avian cognition from a phenomenological standpoint. It then reflects upon the vocalizations of birds—noting the major role that such avian calls, cries, and songs have played in the development of human culture. (shrink)

This book, which represents probably the most comprehensive discussion of the emergence of modem social science yet produced, is of far more than merely historical interest. The contributors set out to rewrite the history of the social sciences and to show the limitations of conventional conceptions of their development. These tasks they accomplish with great success and much distinction. Yet in so doing they contribute in a direct way to our understanding of the relation between social analysis and the nature (...) of human societies today. The brilliant and distinctive perspective of the papers in this collection is to demonstrate, with many specific examples, that social science and modem institutions have helped shape each other in mutual interplay. Modem systems are in some part con stituted through the reflexive incorporation of developing social science knowledge; on the other hand, the social sciences organise themselves in terms of a continuing reflection upon the evolution of those systems. Such a perspective, as Wagner and Wittrock in particular make clear, does not in any way either impugn the status of knowledge claims made within social science or destroy the independent reality of social institutions. The book questions the notion that the institutionalising of the social sciences can be understood as a process of their increasing autonomy from extemal social connections. 'Autonomy' forms a mode of legitima tion and a basis of power rather than a distinctive phenomenon as such. (shrink)

Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is a continuously developing and problem-oriented interdisciplinary research field. It is interested in ‘analyzing hidden, opaque, and visible structures of domina...

This article examines two recent alternatives to the traditional conception of human rights as natural rights: the account of human rights found in discourse ethics and the ‘political conception’ of human rights influenced by the work of Rawls. I argue that both accounts have distinct merits and that they are not as opposed to one another as is sometimes supposed. At the same time, the discourse ethics account must confront a deep ambiguity in its own approach: are rights (...) derived in a strong sense from the conditions of ‘communicative freedom’ or are they developed from the participants’ own reflection upon their ongoing and continuously changing practices and institutions? The political conception recently proposed by Joshua Cohen can, I argue, contribute to the resolution of this ambiguity, though not without some modifications of its own. Keywords: human rights; discourse ethics; The ‘political conception’ of rights; Seyla Benhabib; John Rawls; Rainer Forst; Michael Ignatieff; Thomas Pogge; Joshua Cohen (Published: 10 March 2009) Citation: Ethics & Global Politics. DOI: 10.3402/egp.v2i1.1938. (shrink)

In the face of pluralism, moral constructivists attempt to salvage cognitivism by separating moral and ethical issues. Divergence over ethical issues, which concern the good life, would not threaten moral cognitivism, which is based on identifying generalizable interests as worthy of defending, using reason. Yet this approach falters given the inability of the constructivist to provide us a sure path by which to discern generalizable interests in difficult cases. Still, even if this approach to constructivism fails, cognitivist aspirations may not (...) be defeated if we can continue discursively in a project of identifying and appreciating the interests of others. Grasping the interests of others may require a transformation of moral sensibility such that agents recognize values they have not acknowledged before. This view calls for external moral discourse—that is, moral discourse that makes no appeal to an agent's present interests or desires but rather engages in description of the moral situation in hopes of bringing about a change in moral sensibility. (shrink)

The conceptualization of human agency is one of the oldest and most debated challenges in political theory. This essay defends the continuous relevance of this endeavour against a proliferating theoretical pessimism. Instead of engaging the much rehearsed structure-agency debate, the author conceptualizes agency in relation to discourses. However, such an approach inevitably elicits suspicion. Is discourse not merely a faddish term, destined to wax and wane with fleeting intellectual trends of the postmodern and poststructural kind? Does the concept of (...) discourse, as many fear, suck us into a nihilistic vortex and deprive us of the stable foundations that are necessary to ground our thoughts and actions? Not so, argues this essay, and defends an anti-essentialist stance as the most viable chance for retaining an adequate understanding of how people situate themselves as agents and influence their socio-political environment. The ensuing analysis, which focuses on everyday forms of resistance, demonstrates how the very acceptance of ambiguity, often misrepresented as relativism, is a crucial precondition not only for the conceptualization of human agency, but also for its actual application in practice. (shrink)

The notion of ‘discourse’, as developed in some contemporary approaches to political analysis, has its distant roots in what can be called the transcendental turn in modern philosophy – i.e. a type of analysis primarily addressed not to facts but to their conditions of possibility. The basic hypothesis of a discursive approach is that the very possibility of perception, thought and action depends on the structuration of a certain meaningful field which pre‐exists any factual immediacy. A transcendental enquiry as (...) an investigation of the conditions of possibility of experience started with Kant, for whom space, time and the categories of understanding constitute the a priori dimension in the constitution of phenomena. And in the early twentieth century Husserl's phenomenology strictly differentiated an intuition of facts from an intuition of essences, and asserted that the latter is constitutive of all ‘givenness’. These classical transcendental approaches differ, however, in two crucial respects from contemporary theories of discourse. The first is that, while in a philosophy like Kant's the ‘a priori’ constitutes a basic structure of the mind which transcends all historical variations, contemporary discourse theories are eminently historical and try to study discursive fields which experience temporal variations in spite of their transcendental role – i.e. that the line separating the ‘empirical’ and the ‘transcendental’ is an impure one, submitted to continuous displacements. A second differentiating feature is that the concept of ‘discursive fields’ in contemporary approaches depends on a notion of structure which has received the full impact of Saussurean and post‐Saussurean linguistics. (shrink)

We analyse managerial discourse in corporate communication (‘CEO-speak’) during a 6-month period following a legitimacy-threatening event in the form of an incident in a German nuclear power plant. As discourses express specific stances expressed by a group of people who share particular beliefs and values, they constitute an important means of restoring organisational legitimacy when social rules and norms have been violated. Using an analytical framework based on legitimacy as a process of reciprocal sense-making and consisting of three levels (...) of analysis which capture the relationship between text and context, we investigate the discourse used by CEOs in their initial and subsequent accounts of the incident. We find that CEOs aim to negotiate a resolution between their initial account and organisational audiences’ incongruent interpretations of the event by adopting an ad hoc normative attitude to stakeholders. This manifests itself in the strategic use of the discourse of stakeholder engagement as a means of signalling change, yet maintaining the status quo. It suggests that CEOs strategically use discourse to manufacture organisational audiences’ consent regarding the continued operation of the nuclear power plant affected by the incident. Our findings contribute to the critical corporate communication literature which regards corporate narrative reporting as a means of consolidating the private interests of corporations, rather than increasing transparency and accountability. (shrink)

Do the two rival schools of Indian Buddhist philosophy, Madhyamaka and Yogācāra, share more in common than it may appear at first blush? Interpretation of Madhyamaka that see it as a philosophical enterprise concerned with language games, conceptual holism, and the limits of philosophical discourse, it is argued, miss the point about its distinctly epistemic concern with conventions of everyday practice. Likewise, interpretations of Yogācāra that regard it as a form of pure idealism overlook its uniquely phenomenological epistemology. Offering (...) a detailed analysis of the two-truths and three natures doctrines, this paper makes the case for continuity while examine the impact of philosophical trends in modern approaches to Buddhist philosophy. (shrink)

Ethnicity and im/migrant classification systems and their constituent categories have a long history in the construction of public health knowledge on tuberculosis in the United Kingdom. This article critically examines the categories employed and the epidemiological discourses on TB, im/migrants, and ethnic minorities in health reporting between 1965 and 2015. We employ a Sociology of Knowledge Approach to Discourse Analysis to trace the continuities and changes in the categories used and in the discursive construction of im/migrants, ethnic minorities, and (...) TB. These continuities and disjunctures are analysed within their socio-historical context to demonstrate the historical contingency of epidemiological knowledge production. We outline two historical phases in knowledge construction. The first coincides with the period of decolonisation, which witnessed a change in discursive identity ascriptions from ‘immigrants’ to ‘ethnic groups’ in health reporting as the ‘other’. The second commenced after 1991, when the adoption of the census ethnicity categories as a standard in the collection of population statistics entrenched ethnicity categories in health reporting. We argue the health reporting discourse reveals that the ‘new’ public health exhibits continuities with the ‘old’ by targeting the immigrant ‘other’ through biosecuritisation practices. We contend that these categories originated within a postcolonial paradigm and that increasing immigration and new forms of mobility are creating the preconditions for new discourses on identity construction that have implications for the current collaborative TB strategy. (shrink)

The human immunodeficiency virus since its genesis has continued to affect a large number of the population in the African region and has caused exponential deaths. At the same time, new infections have been reported in South Africa. However, religion as a vehicle of change through the institution of the church has been acting on the contrary, since it discourages the use of condoms and moralising the pelvic area in its characterisation against the commandment of God. Such a perspective has (...) largely been drawn from the Christian doctrine. We argue that in its condemnation and moralisation of the virus, the church, through its pastors, engaged in biblical discourse.Contribution: The article applies a qualitative phenomenological approach and system theory as theoretical lenses. Furthermore, the article locates the study within Christian communities located in Thulamela Municipality, Limpopo province. It proposes Christian practices that can be useful in combating the virus. (shrink)

This article is part of a larger study on teachers’ co-construction of social support on a social networking site. The aim of this article is to elucidate how a topic introduced in the Facebook Status updates are negotiated with/by Friends through the Comment function. Adopting discourse topic management as its theoretical framework, the article presents the findings related to topical action of continuing topic observed in the Comments on Timelines, which reflects the strong presence of support on the site (...) in the sense that Friends show their interest in taking up the topic. The analysis shows that strategies for continuing topics in face-to-face conversations are creatively employed by teachers on Timelines and this leads to the emergence of unique characteristics of this new mode of online interaction. In this respect, this article contributes to the expansion of discourse topic theory by highlighting the characteristics of Timeline conversations that emerged from the analysis of topic continuation. (shrink)

In this article, the author examines an exemplary part of the Soviet media discussion following the Chernobyl disaster. She traces transformations in this discourse affecting the concepts of risk and uncertainty and indicates their relevance for the reconfiguration of the relationships between the state, scientific experts, and the public. Chernobyl occurred during a period of unprecedented potential for change: in the wake of Gorbachev’s perestroika, newly emerging environmental groups gradually managed to gain access to a previously closed forum, the (...) national print media. During the ensuing public debates between environmentalists and energy officials, nuclear risks or uncertainties were used as powerful, yet flexible, rhetorical tools for articulating political positions, for assigning or denying authority and legitimacy, and for reconceptualizing “the public.” The shorthand “Chernobyl” came to be deployed strategically to solicit change, to challenge old practices, and to legitimize the continuation and extension of these practices. (shrink)

The current study examines informal, practitioner-directed ethical discourses within the Canadian CA profession for the 1912–1997 period. Starting from the premise that ethical discourse within practitioner journals are less constrained, more flexible and timely than formal ethical codes in communicating "important" ethical information to the lay membership, we examine: (1) is the CA profession''s current interest in ethics a recent phenomena?, (2) what was meant by the term ethics in earlier periods?, and (3) are current-day ethical discourses a continuation (...) of – or break with – prior discourses? We expect that the analysis provides a necessary historical context for understanding the state of current-day ethical discussions with public accountancy. (shrink)

Constructions of Intersubjectivity shows that the meaning of grammatical constructions often has more to do with the human cognitive capacity for taking other peoples' points of view than with describing the world. Treating pragmatics, semantics, and syntax in parallel and integrating insights from linguistics, psychology, and animal communication, Arie Verhagen develops a new understanding of linguistic communication. In doing so he shows the continuity between language and animal communication and reveals the nature of human linguistic specialization. Professor Verhagen uses (...) Dutch and English data from a wide variety of sources and considers the contributions of grammar to the coherence of discourse. He argues that important problems in semantics and syntax may be resolved if language is understood as an instrument for exerting influence and coordinating different perspectives. The grammatical phenomena he discusses include negative expressions, the let alone construction, complementation constructions, and discourse connectives.This powerfully argued and original explanation of the nature and operation of communication will interest a wide range of scholars and advanced students in linguistics, cognitive science, and human evolution. (shrink)

Colin Hay’s and Vivien Schmidt’s responses to my previous critical engagement with their respective versions of neo-institutionalism raise the issue of how scholars may account for the ideational power of political processes and how ideas may generate both stability and change. Even though Hay, Schmidt, and I share a common philosophical ground in many respects, we nevertheless diverge in our views about how to account for ideational power and for actors’ ability to navigate a social reality that is saturated with (...) structures and meaning. There continues to be a need for an analytical framework that incorporates discourse and a constitutive logic based upon the power in ideas. Post-structural institutionalism (PSI) analyzes discourse as knowledge claims by means of the concept of a constitutive causality, analytically identified in respect to institutions, such that the substantive content of ideas/discourse provides ideational power and generates immanent change. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Behaviourism and instrumentalism continue to exert an important influence in education. Its discourse is infected with scientism, especially in the language of curriculum design and methodology. Theory and practice are peculiarly impervious to criticism from philosophy of education: however pertinent and accurate this may be, it seems to fail to reach the heart of the problem. This paper looks for a different approach. An apparent digression (into another form of educational discourse) is used to provide an alternative (...) focus for criticism. This exposes problems in conventional analyses and presents a new basis for questioning the health of educational discourse. (shrink)

This article begins by revisiting the current model of values education (moral education) which has recently been set up in Australian schools. This article problematizes the pedagogical model of teaching values in the direct transmission mode from the perspective of the continuity of experience as central to the philosophies of John Dewey and Charles S. Peirce. In this context experience is to be understood as a collective (going beyond the realm of private) and continuous (importantly, non-atomistic) space. As such, (...) human behavior and decision-making are embedded in a broad range of possibilities that may become actualities in the process of responding intelligently to what is perceived in the environment. This article also brings into the conversation some contemporary discourse in bioethics and neuroscience that appears to have an uncanny affinity to Peirce's and Dewey's much earlier conceptualizations. Human intelligence proper arises in the interactions between mind, body, and the environing world: we learn from experience that necessarily has a value-element embedded in this triadic matrix. (shrink)

This essay analyzes the doctrine of “humanitarian intervention” in the frame of international law in the second half of nineteenth century and identifies the ground of legitimation of this intervention in the violation of presumed universal laws of humanity. The analysis emphasizes the transformation of the paradigm of “humanitarian intervention” into the current doctrine of the “responsibility to protect,” which under the rubric of “responsibility” legitimizes limitations on a state's sovereignty in cases where the state fails to guarantee the protection (...) of its own population. This reconstruction of the genealogy of “humanitarian intervention” illustrates the continual exceptions to the principle of nonintervention, which means that the Westphalian principle of sovereignty has always been violated. Both doctrines—humanitarian intervention and the responsibility to protect—can be considered “hegemonic techniques” that use so-called universal concepts in order to legitimize unilateral power interests. (shrink)

Why is it that the modern conception of literature begins with one of the worst writers of the philosophical tradition? Such is the paradoxical question that lies at the heart of Jean-Luc Nancy’s highly original and now-classic study of the role of language in the critical philosophy of Kant. While Kant did not turn his attention very often to the philosophy of language, Nancy demonstrates to what extent he was anything but oblivious to it. He shows, in fact, that the (...) question of philosophical style, of how to write critical philosophy, goes to the core of Kant’s attempt to articulate the limits, once and for all, that would establish human reason in its autonomy and freedom. He also shows how this properly philosophical program, the very pinnacle of the Enlightenment, leads Kant to posit literature as its other by way of what is here called the syncope, and how this other of philosophy, entirely its product, cannot be said to exist outside of metaphysics in its accomplishment. This subtle, unprecedented reading of Kant demonstrates the continued importance of reflection on the relation between philosophy and literature, indeed, why any commitment to Enlightenment must consider and confront this partition anew. (shrink)

Two opposing accounts of early language evolution, the compositional and the holistic, have become the subject of lively debate. It has been argued that an evolving compositional protolanguage would not be useful for communication until it reached a certain level of grammatical complexity. This paper offers a new, discourse-oriented perspective on the debate. It argues that discourse should be viewed, not as a level of language structure ‘beyond the sentence’, but as sequenced communicative behaviour, typically but not uniquely (...) involving language. This provides for continuity from exchanges making use of simple communicative resources such as single words and gestures to those making use of complex grammatical conventions. Supporting evidence comes from child language and from original experiments with adults using constrained language systems. The paper shows that the utility of emerging compositional language is not dependent on some critical level of complexity, and so defends the compositional account. (shrink)