Deliberative Transformative Moments (DTM) is a new concept that serves as an amendment to the DQI. With this new concept it is easier to get at the quick give-and-take of discussions of small groups of ordinary citizens. As an illustration, we apply the concept to discussions about the peace process among Colombian ex-combatants, ex-guerrillas and ex-paramilitaries. Specifically, we show how personal stories can transform a discussion from a low to a high level of deliberation and how they can (...) have the opposite effect. To increase the level of deliberation in the general population, we recommend that good illustrations of DTM’s should be part of the school programs from an early age on, so that children learn how to discuss with others who have different opinions and values. (shrink)

From the local level to international politics, deliberation helps to increase mutual understanding and trust, in order to arrive at political decisions of high epistemic value and legitimacy. This book gives deliberation a dynamic dimension, analysing how levels of deliberation rise and fall in group discussions, and introducing the concept of 'deliberative transformative moments' and how they can be applied to deeply divided societies, where deliberation is most needed but also most difficult to work. Discussions between ex-guerrillas and (...) ex-paramilitaries in Colombia, Serbs and Bosnjaks in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and police officers and locals in Brazilian favelas are used as case studies, with participants addressing how peace can be attained in their countries. Allowing access to the records and transcripts of the discussions opens an opportunity for practitioners of conflict resolution to apply this research to their work in trouble spots of the world, creating a link between the theory and practice of deliberation. (shrink)

In group discussions of any kind there tends to be an up and down in the level of deliberation. To capture this dynamic we coined the concept of Deliberative Transformative Moments (DTM). In deeply divided societies deliberation is particularly important in order to arrive at peace and stability, but deliberation is also very difficult to be attained. Therefore, we wanted to learn about the conditions that in group discussions across the deep divisions of such societies help deliberation. We (...) organized such group discussions between ex-guerrillas and ex-paramilitaries in Colombia, Serbs and Bosnjaks in Srebrenica, and poor residents and local police officers in the favelas (slums) of Brazil. We could identify factors that help to transform discussions from low to high deliberation and risk transformations in the opposite direction. We could also identify factors that help to keep a discussion at a high level of deliberation, and, in a next step, we could determine to what extent long sequences of deliberation had a positive impact on the outcomes of the discussions. Finally, we show how our research results can have a long term effect if it is used in schools of such deeply divided societies. (shrink)

Performativity is a theory of how reality comes into being. It is also a deconstructive practice. This article addresses the question of performativity as an emergent mode of working in social and cultural research. It does so by way of exploring a research project focusing on prostitution in a multiethnic context in north Norway, carried out by two researchers doing collaborative work on men, sexuality and knowledge. The author’s interest is in exploring performativity as a mode of engaging, aimed at (...) achieving transformations in the terms through which the real is constituted. The author argues that practising performativity requires an openness within the research process to the possibility that researchers and their practices themselves must alter. Such transformative modes of relating seem to be called for in order to develop effective ways of engaging with the present. (shrink)

From the local level to international politics, deliberation helps to increase mutual understanding and trust, in order to arrive at political decisions of high epistemic value and legitimacy. This book gives deliberation a dynamic dimension, analysing how levels of deliberation rise and fall in group discussions, and introducing the concept of 'deliberative transformative moments' and how they can be applied to deeply divided societies, where deliberation is most needed but also most difficult to work. Discussions between ex-guerrillas and (...) ex-paramilitaries in Colombia, Serbs and Bosnjaks in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and police officers and locals in Brazilian favelas are used as case studies, with participants addressing how peace can be attained in their countries. Allowing access to the records and transcripts of the discussions opens an opportunity for practitioners of conflict resolution to apply this research to their work in trouble spots of the world, creating a link between the theory and practice of deliberation. (shrink)

Insight is an important and repeated component of most qualitative research studies. Yet insight is often a vague concept that is not well articulated in textbooks and research reports. The late James Loder of Princeton University posited a theologically-based process he termed ‘the transforming moment’ that identifies predictable phases in a wide variety of transformations, including those of a psychological, scientific, and spiritual nature. This process corresponds at many levels with the role of insight in qualitative research. As a result, (...) careful examination of Loder's outline of the transformative process can help clarify what is meant by insight and how it informs research activities. (shrink)

Higher education as a personal, intellectual and moral cultivation is a longstanding ideal that is constantly challenged by the view that education is merely the development of specific skills for vocational and personal success. Much research argues that the latter understanding makes education a technical affair that creates an egocentric emphasis on the individual students’ ambitions and desires. This article joins in the defence of the former ideal by enquiring into the moral dimensions of education. This is done by turning (...) to Iris Murdoch's idea of moral transformation, with a specific focus on the idea of unselfing. The main argument is that unselfing is a transformative process characterised by a growing attunement to the surrounding world, and the interconnectedness of goal and process is emphasised. Also, to gain a deeper understanding of what unselfing entails I turn to the idea of attention. It is understood as having a specific direction, outward from the egocentric, and as enabling unselfing. The article concludes by suggesting that unselfing can offer a challenge to education as it entails a moment of letting go of plans and narratives, and of surrendering to the influence of an existence that exceeds the individual. This moment is of relevance to education as it is crucial to the possibility of growing as a moral being as it cultivates a moral manner of relating to others. (shrink)

In his self-published periodical The Moment, Søren Kierkegaard warns his reader against the possibility of “useless suffering”. Not only that, he urges the reader to make use of her suffering. Taking this caution as a point of departure, I investigate the pseudonymous Johannes Climacus’ deliberations on ethico-religious suffering in the Postscript. I demonstrate that Climacus construes suffering as useful, and with that outlines an economy of suffering that Kierkegaard delineates across his pseudonymous and non-pseudonymous work. The paradigmatic expression of this (...) is the use the subject makes of her suffering in “the moment”, in which suffering is defined according to its relation with the eternal. Suffering is thus a key element of the individual subject’s self-development: The subject is transformed, and transforms herself, in suffering. Finally, I argue that this economy of suffering produces a notion of the subject as actively involved in securing the contribution her suffering can make to her self-transformation. I criticize this notion, showing it renders problematic any ethical or ethico-religious account of the response of the subject to the suffering of the other: The subject is not first and foremost attuned to the other’s suffering, rather she is attuned to the possibility of her own transformation. Suffering becomes in this way both a key exegetical tool for understanding Kierkegaard’s view of the subject and, more significantly, a way to problematize Kierkegaard’s ethical account of the subject’s response to others’ suffering. (shrink)

In his text, the author develops the notion of trust as a condition for the possibility of any relational anthropology. Referring to the root associated with trust as the foundation of the relationship, he takes a position in the dispute about the primal nature of trust or perfidy; believes that in the abusive practices of credit and debt there is a reversal of the meaning of what is a necessary element of human life, relationships based on trust. Perfidy is possible (...) precisely because there is trust. On the basis of such concepts, he develops an analysis of events in the global economy at the turn of the 20th and 21th century, especially the financialization, based on the ideas of such authors as Arrighi, Bourdieu, Eichegreen, Pobłocki and Stiegler but also Lacan. (shrink)

Die Frage, welche Bedeutung Herkunft und Zukunft in und für Europa haben, ist sowohl auf eine historische Rückschau als auch eine prospektive Sichtweise angewiesen. Insbesondere die Diskussionen über die Entwicklung Europas offenbaren immer wieder die Relevanz einer historischen Betrachtung der unterschiedlichsten Vorstellungen, Ideale und Konzepte, die im Laufe der Jahrhunderte mit Europa verbunden wurden. Die Beiträge des Sammelbandes analysieren aus interdisziplinärer Perspektive Schlüsselmomente kultureller Transformation in der europäischen Geistesgeschichte und befragen diese mitunter auf ihre Bedeutung für die Zukunft. Dabei werden (...) Fragen nach einer möglichen europäischen Identität, nach politischen Einigungsplänen oder Visionen einer (über-)europäischen Kulturgemeinschaft in der Literatur, Geschichtsschreibung, Philosophie und Kunst diskutiert. Klassiker europäischer Kultur- und Ideengeschichte kommen dabei ebenso zur Sprache wie weniger bekannte Gelehrte, Gemeinschaften und Denkfiguren. Der zeitliche Rahmen der Betrachtung reicht vom Mittelalter bis in die Gegenwart. (shrink)

Recent research has emphasized the continuities in European republican political thought from the late Middle Ages until well into the Renaissance and even beyond. Two of the central figures in the story of the persistence of republicanism are Ptolemy of Lucca, who is commonly viewed as the quintessential late medieval republican, and Niccolò Machiavelli, whose work is generally regarded as the classic statement of early modern republicanism. We argue that these two remain conceptually at considerable remove from one another, a (...) claim we illustrate by analyzing the impact of the reception, Latin translation and transmission of the Histories of Polybius, and especially the theory of constitutional change proposed in Book 6. The unavailability of the Histories to Ptolemy and its rather ample use by Machiavelli at the beginning of the Discourses signal an important divergence in the theoretical principles underlying the defense of republican institutions. In turn, this variation captures one facet of the distinct qualities of republican thought that separated the intellectual terrain of the early fourteenth century from that of the sixteenth century. (shrink)

"_The Moment of Complexity_ is a profoundly original work. In remarkable and insightful ways, Mark Taylor traces an entirely new way to view the evolution of our culture, detailing how information theory and the scientific concept of complexity can be used to understand recent developments in the arts and humanities. This book will ultimately be seen as a classic."-John L. Casti, Santa Fe Institute, author of _Gödel: A Life of Logic, the Mind, and Mathematics_ The science of complexity accounts for (...) that inscrutable mix of chaos and order that governs our natural world. Complexity explains how networks emerge and function, how species organize into ecosystems, how stars form into galaxies, and how just a few sequences of DNA can account for so many different life forms. Recently, the idea of complexity has taken the worlds of business and politics by storm. The concept is used to account for phenomena as varied as the behavior of the stock market, the response of voting populations, and the effects of risk management. Even Disney has used complexity theory to manage crowd control at its theme parks. Given the startling development of new information technologies, we now live in a moment of unprecedented complexity, an era in which change occurs faster than our ability to comprehend it. With _The Moment of Complexity_, Mark C. Taylor offers a timely map for this unfamiliar terrain opening in our midst, unfolding an original philosophy through a remarkable synthesis of science and culture. According to Taylor, complexity is not just a breakthrough scientific concept, but the defining quality of the post-Cold War era. The flux of digital currents swirling around us, he argues, has created a new network culture with its own distinctive logic and dynamic. Drawing on resources from information theory and evolutionary biology, Taylor explains the operation of complex adaptive systems in social and cultural processes and captures a whole new zeitgeist in the making. To appreciate the significance of our emerging network culture, he claims, we need not only to understand contemporary scientific and technological transformations, but also to explore the subtle influences of art, architecture, philosophy, religion, and higher education. _The Moment of Complexity_, then, is a remarkable work of cultural analysis on a scale rarely seen today. To follow its trajectory is to learn how we arrived at this critical moment in our culture, and to know where we might head in the twenty-first century. (shrink)

In seeking for an understanding of ethical practices in health care situations, our challenge is always both to recognize and respond to the call of individuals in need. In attuning ourselves to the call of the vulnerable other an ethical moment arises. Asking ‘how are you?’ in health care practice is our very first possibility to learn how a particular person finds herself or himself in this particular situation. Here, ‘how are you?’ shows itself as an ethical question that opens (...) up a relational space that calls forth a response. It is a way to understand the situated moments in which we are already that enables us to act respectfully. Our ethical frameworks assist us in trying to decide what is the right thing to do given a set of circumstances. Yet there is a prior step that already calls us to ethical attention; this is when we ask ‘how are you?’, which transforms a seemingly small interaction into an ethical moment. ‘How are you?’ is a question that turns us back to who we are as health care professionals and calls us to be more deeply attentive to the moment. When we sincerely ask ‘how are you?’ we enact our ethical commitments to one another. (shrink)

Three years after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, this article reviews the question of the lasting socio-political significance of the appearance of the virus, much and controversially debated at the beginning. We can see now – maybe rather unsurprisingly – that the expectations of rapid pandemic-related social change, whether positive or negative, were widely exaggerated. Rather, the pandemic has now entered into an interpretation of the global socio-political constellation as marked by a sequence of crises, including the financial crisis (...) of 2008 and after, climate change, COVID-19 and now the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Thus, the task can be rephrased as asking whether these crises push into a similar direction, namely a re-appreciation of authoritative collective action against the laissez-faire view of extending global commerce and communication and, if so, what the consequences of such a re-appreciation may be. (shrink)

Nurse clinician‐scientists are increasingly expected to show leadership aimed at transforming healthcare. However, research on nurse clinician‐scientists' leadership (integrating researcher and practitioner roles) is scarce and hardly embedded in sociohistorical contexts. This study introduces leadership moments, that is, concrete events in practices that are perceived as acts of empowerment, in order to understand leadership in the daily work of newly appointed nurse clinician‐scientists. Following the learning history method we gathered data using multiple (qualitative) methods to get close to their (...) daily practices. A document analysis provided us with insight into the history of nursing science to illustrate how leadership moments in the everyday work of nurse clinician‐scientists in the “here and now” can be related to the particular histories from which they emerged. A qualitative analysis led to three acts of empowerment: (1) becoming visible, (2) building networks, and (3) getting wired in. These acts are illustrated with three series of events in which nurse clinician‐scientists' leadership becomes visible. This study contributes to a more socially embedded understanding of nursing leadership, enables us to get a grip on crucial leadership moments, and provides academic and practical starting points for strengthening nurse clinician‐scientists' leadership practices. Transformations in healthcare call for transformed notions of leadership. (shrink)

Le terme de moment est omniprésent dans l’œuvre de Hegel et les commentateurs n’ont pas suffisamment insisté sur le sens dynamique du « Moment » hégélien qui n’a rien de temporel, mais dénote plutôt le momentum ou moment cinétique de la mécanique newtonienne. Hegel a donné vie à ce concept de moment et en a fait le moteur de sa dialectique qu’on interprète ici comme une syllogistique dynamique de la sursomption des moments du procès de la conscience et du (...) devenir de l’esprit. Une logique dynamique pourrait récupérer avantageusement cette dialectique des concepts. Mais la lecture critique de Hegel veut montrer comment un concept physique est transformé en notion métaphysique et comment une science de la logique « Wissenschaft der Logik » est dévoyée dans une ontologie où c’est une philosophie de la nature qui devient mécanique en assujettissant la physique à un idéalisme objectif supraphysique. Un épilogue sur le vocabulaire hégélien termine l’article. (shrink)

Le modèle républicain en France appartient-il au passé? La réponse à cette question ne semble plus faire de doute aujourd'hui. Pour les libéraux, le modèle jacobin fantasme l'égalité abstraite de tous les citoyens mais il ne réussit, au nom de cet idéal, qu'à étouffer la société civile sous le poids de la bureaucratie et à paralyser les initiatives et la liberté des individus. Les partisans déclarés de la république tiennent, pour leur part, que le projet d'autogouvernement est une arme de (...) résistance à la marchandisation et à la transformation de la société politique en servante de la production et des échanges. Si les libéraux ne veulent voir que l'économie, ils ne veulent voir que le politique, et demeurent convaincus qu'une société d'individus sans projet politique commun est vouée à la dévitalisation. Or le républicanisme français a toujours été autre. Etudié dans son moment le plus aigu, lors de l'affaire Dreyfus, quand ses grands philosophes le définirent face à ses adversaires, il révèle une philosophie politique originale. Profondément individualiste, elle pose que l'aspiration centrale de l'homme moderne - le bien être - est un objectif créateur de lien social pour autant qu'il est poursuivi dans des conditions d'égalité des chances. Cette égalité, qui légitime aux yeux de tous la quête individuelle du bien être, seule la présence de la puissance publique dans le jeu social la rend possible. Les sociétés modernes sont cimentées par la représentation de l'égalité de leurs membres. Or cette égalité trouve sa réalité non pas dans l'activité abstraite des citoyens débattant les uns avec les autres de ce qu'ils veulent faire ensemble, mais dans la construction d'un mode de répartition qui assure à chacun la même chance de vouloir et de faire par lui-même. Le fondement de l'être ensemble n'est pas l'action commune mais la justice de son objet. Inactuel, le républicanisme? (shrink)

How have the world's great thinkers, politicians, mathematicians, and religious figures reached their transformative moments of insight? Are there lessons to be learned from their experiences? William B. Irvine takes up these questions and others that relate to what he calls "aha moments," guiding us through the most striking examples of instantaneous intellectual breakthroughs that have shaped human civilization.

The eminent political scientist Manfred Halpern viewed politics as belonging to each of us, as part of the nature of being human. In _A Comprehensive Philosophy of Transformation_, his magnum opus, Halpern elucidates the interconnected “four faces of our being”: the political, personal, historical, and sacred. This momentous volume identifies several modes of political activity, warns against the dangers of leaving politics to professional politicians, and urges us to build networks of compassion that include everyone in a just society. Overall, (...) Halpern calls for a transformative politics achieved through enhanced participation and understanding. (shrink)

This article is an account of reflections drawn from a total of four explicitation interviews , with two people. The article has both methodological and substantive purposes. Methodologically, we explain the contribution of Neuro-Linguistic Programming in the elicitation of first person accounts through guided introspection. Aspects of NLP have been used by both Vermersch and Petitmengin-Peugeot as means for exploring people's inner worlds. We further elucidate NLP as a set of tools for researchers, emphasising the distinctions these enable researchers to (...) make within the structure of consciousness. As the nature of NLP's methodological contribution to the field of Psychophenomenology has been little articulated, this represents an original feature of this article. Substantively, we show how the application of these tools has generated insights into the fine experiential detail of what we term `moments of knowing'. First, our data suggest that suspension and Epoche, which manifested themselves as unrecognised, or pre-reflective moments of understanding for the participants, may be part of everyday 'knowing'. Second, consciousness appears to be multi-dimensional. In particular it appears that it may be helpful to distinguish between different dimensions of awareness that may be involved when exploring an inner landscape. Third, we consider the apparently transformative effect of the explicitation interview for one of these participants, which emphasises that the interview is an active exploration. Our findings question established views of transformative learning, which hitherto have regarded `critical reflection' as the central process involved in transformative learning. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Three Moments in the Crisis of Exemplarity: Boccaccio-Petrarch, Montaigne, and CervantesKarlheinz StierleIn his recent book History as Topic Peter von Moos denies that there was any crisis for the exemplum in the Renaissance. 1 He strongly argues against my essay on “History as exemplum,” where I pointed out that in Montaigne, as earlier in Boccaccio, the pragmatic form of exemplum is put into question. 2 My main interest (...) in this essay, however, was not to mark a break between Middle Ages and Renaissance but to understand the way in which the correlation between sententia and exemplum was transformed into a more complex relation between moral reflection and particular case. Undoubtedly, since Valerius Maximus and his Factorum et dictorum memorabilium libri, there has always been, as in John of Salisbury’s Policratius, the possibility of questioning the exemplary truth of the exemplum by opposing it to a never-ending wealth of counter-examples. This, however, never puts into question the idea of exemplarity itself. The validity of the exemplum as a rhetorical form of narration that tends towards its own conceptual or ideological structure has an anthropological basis. It presupposes that over time, there is more analogy in human experience than diversity, or that in all situations of civil and political life the pole of equality is stronger than that of difference.Boccaccio’s novella is precisely the narrative form that puts this anthropological basis into question. Each novella in the Decameron is essentially a [End Page 581] particular variant of a more general conceptual scheme. The stress of narration, however, is not on the scheme itself but on the autonomy of the variant. Basically the novella is a form of rewriting in the mode of retelling, thus bringing an elementary narration to higher complexity. 3 Each of the “vari casi,” mostly of love-affairs, is a confrontation of exemplarity and contingency. It is the power of contingency or fortuna that brings forth the specific particularity of each novella. The art of the writer Boccaccio, whose primary fiction is oral story-telling, consists in giving aesthetic evidence to this particularity. Reading, not listening, is the form of reception that corresponds to this structure. That Boccaccio adds the other title “Il Prencipe Galeotto” to the Decameron is an allusion to Dante’s Divine Commedy where in the famous episode of Paolo and Francesca (Inf. V), Galeotto becomes the personification of the allegory of reading and its seduction.Contingency, or, in Boccaccio’s own medieval terms, fortuna, is the real poet of the novella. That is why the most important scenes of the novellas are those where the power of contingency comes to light: at the sea and in the city. The particular shape of novella, which results from a balance between contingency and significant configuration, emerges from contingency itself. Its configuration is a particular case of contingency, one that by its immanent structural elegance is aesthetically gratifying. It nevertheless leaves open the question whether there might not be a power of a superior kind behind contingency. Because there is an ambiguity between contingency and sense, the exemplary status of each story is, ironically, placed in question. Contingency overcomes exemplarity; however, it never triumphs definitely. The impact on the exemplum by contingency not only gives to each narrative case its difference or even autonomy, it also opens up a new temporal dimension. The exemplum seems to move in an essential time where all time-aspects are controlled and functionalized by a dominating conceptual structure. In the novella time becomes a primary structure. “Or avviene che” is the narrative formula for this new quality of narrative time, becoming a time of disruption and instability where things and situations may change in a moment for the better or for the worse.I would like to illustrate the structure of the Boccaccian novella by at least one exemplary case. Almost in the middle of the book—which means in the middle of its temporal space of ten days—we find the novella of Federigo degli Alberighi, considered to be one of Boccaccio’s finest (V, 9). Federigo, in a world of merchants and trade, is the perfect nobleman who ruins himself by his... (shrink)

[opening paragraph]: A colleague of mine at Southern Methodist University recently shared a story with me. Several years ago my colleague was hired as the chairman of a new department of religious studies at a major research university. It was his job to interview candidates to fill several positions in the department. The Dean was adamant that, in order to ensure scholarly objectivity, anyone hired to teach religious studies should not have deeply held religious beliefs; however my colleague went to (...) the Dean in hopes of convincing him otherwise. `You can certainly say whatever you want to', the Dean responded, `but you should know in advance that my mind is already made up.' My colleague did not share with me his whole argument, but he did mention what must have given even that hard-nosed Dean a moment's pause: `It seems that, in this department', my colleague pointedly remarked, `it would be fine to hire an historian who is an expert on Thomas Aquinas; but, according to your rules, we couldn't hire Thomas Aquinas himself.'. (shrink)

Of recent time, there has been a concern about ethical leadership and ethics in business. Research on leadership did not pay a lot of attention to fairness and many authors have studied the relationship between leader fairness and factors such as outcome satisfaction and trust in leader for instance. For the moment, there is no study that focused on the direct relationship between transformational leadership and fairness. That’s why; in this paper our aim is to study the relationship between transformational (...) leadership and the employees’ perceptions of fairness, mainly the three types of fairness which are distributive, procedural, and interactional in French firms. A questionnaire survey was sent to employees working in the industry and service sectors. A sample of 100 respondents was collected. We found a partial relationship between employees’ perceptions of fairness and transformational leadership. More specifically, we found that procedural and interactional fairness are strongly associated with transformational leadership. (shrink)

. In our opinion, the processes of changing of sovereignty nowadays are among those of much significance. Presumably, if such processes (of course with much fluctuation) gain strength it will surely affect all spheres of life, including change of ideology and social psychology (the moment which is still underestimated by many analysts). Generally speaking, notwithstanding an avalanche of works devoted to the transformation of sovereignty, some topical aspects of the problem mentioned appear to have been disregarded. The present article is (...) devoted to the analysis of one of such insufficiently investigated aspects – the deliberate voluntary reduction of sovereign prerogatives. In the present paper we have tried to prove that on the whole globalization contributes to the change and reduction of nomenclature and scope of state sovereign powers, and besides it is a bilateral process: on the one hand, the factors are strengthening that fairly undermine the countries' sovereignty, on the other – most states voluntarily and deliberately limit the scope of their sovereignty. (shrink)

This essay arises out of a concern to understand how categories of racial, ethnic, and cultural difference--particularly between women--have been constructed in the past, in order to explore how these categories continue to be reproduced in more recent political and ideological conflicts. Until very recently, feminist theory relating to the writing of history has tended to emphasize questions of gender and their articulation with class, with the result that issues of "race" have been overlooked.Focusing on ideas about whiteness and the (...) various constructions of white racial identity can offer new avenues of thought and action to those working to understand and dismantle systems of racial domination. The recognition that the lives of women of color are inescapably prescribed by definitions of race as well as gender can also be applied to women who fall into the category "white."This essay argues for a feminist theory of history that inquires into the construction and reproduction of racialized femininities. Focusing on images and ideas about white womanhood produced at particular points in the past, examples from the author's book Beyond the Pale illustrate a range of questions that flow from having a perspective of race, class, and gender. The essay looks briefly at the idea of historical memory, using a discussion of oral history to consider ways in which social memory of Empire is continually affected and transformed by cultural forms in the present.Finally, by taking apart various constructions of white femininity in two narratives of cultural conflict, the essay demonstrates how a historically informed and "antiracist" feminism might intervene differently in debates about contemporary politics. (shrink)

You live your entire waking life immersed in your inner experiences – private phenomena created by you, just for you, your own way. Despite their intimacy and ubiquity, you probably do not know the characteristics of your own inner phenomena; neither does psychology or consciousness science. Investigating Pristine Inner Experience explores how to apprehend inner experience in high fidelity. This book will transform your view of your own inner experience, awaken you to experiential differences between people and thereby reframe your (...) thinking about psychology and consciousness science, which banned the study of inner experience for most of a century and yet continued to recognize its fundamental importance. The author, a pioneer in using beepers to explore inner experience, draws on his 35 years of studies to provide fascinating and provocative views of everyday inner experience and experience in bulimia, adolescence, the elderly, schizophrenia, Tourette's syndrome, virtuosity and more. (shrink)

Recalling past transformations, this book examines what makes the current challenge different, and especially urgent. It analyses how green transformations must take place in the context of the particular moments of capitalist development, and in relation to particular alliances. The book emphasises the role of the state and the role of citizens, as innovators, entrepreneurs, green consumers and members of social movements. Green transformations must be both 'top-down', involving elite alliances between states and business, but also 'bottom up', pushed (...) by grassroots innovators and entrepreneurs, and part of wider mobilisations among civil society. (shrink)

A methodology is proposed as a tool for explanation of form in zoomorphology, in particular its design, diversity, and transformation. An alternate use of descriptive, inductive/comparative, and deductive methods is suggested. The basic concepts required are summarized. Following an extensive anatomical analysis a specific deductive methodology is developed, comprising three major parts: 1) Formal analysis of systems, using optimal design. 2) Transformation of an initial system's model by simulating modifications via maximizing the model for specific functional requirements. 3) Testing by (...) comparison of deduced modifications with real systems having the maximized functional capacity, trends in specific morphoclines, and empirical analogues from technology.The methodology produces a morpho-space of modifications that has the form of branching pathways. That pattern results from innovation, bifurcation, and radiation moments in the deduction. The morpho-space is converted in a mechano-space by including next to constructional characters those of operation and rolefulfilment. If the initial system is verified as the ancestor and the transformation-function is verified as the evolutionary theme of change, the explanation turns -in addition to a function anatomical one- also into an evolutionary one. The method is illustrated by reviewing some recent analyses about avian feeding: maximization of avian pecking for probing and filter feeding capacities. (shrink)

The idea of a canonical transformation emerged in 1837 in the course of Carl Jacobi's researches in analytical dynamics. To understand Jacobi's moment of discovery it is necessary to examine some background, especially the work of Joseph Lagrange and Siméon Poisson on the variation of arbitrary constants as well as some of the dynamical discoveries of William Rowan Hamilton. Significant figures following Jacobi in the middle of the century were Adolphe Desboves and William Donkin, while the delayed posthumous publication in (...) 1866 of Jacobi's full dynamical corpus was a critical event. François Tisserand's doctoral dissertation of 1868 was devoted primarily to lunar and planetary theory but placed Hamilton–Jacobi mathematical methods at the forefront of the investigation. Henri Poincaré's writings on celestial mechanics in the period 1890–1910 succeeded in making canonical transformations a fundamental part of the dynamical theory. Poincaré offered a mathematical vision of the subject that differed from Jacobi's and would become influential in subsequent research. Two prominent researchers around 1900 were Carl Charlier and Edmund Whittaker, and their books included chapters devoted explicitly to transformation theory. In the first three decades of the twentieth century Hamilton–Jacobi theory in general and canonical transformations in particular would be embraced by a range of researchers in astronomy, physics and mathematics. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Transformation to Eternity:Augustine's Conversion to MindfulnessJim HighlandIn The Sutra on Knowing the Better Way to Live Alone, the Buddha advised his listeners not to dwell on the past and the future, but to live mindfully in the present. He argued that this was a better way to live—not necessarily living alone per se, but living alone with the present moment. The sutra and Thich Nhat Hanh's commentary emphasize the (...) different effects of attending to past, present, and future time. This is important because in the contemporary world, especially in the West, our focus is often away from present time. We discuss how to save time for the future. We lament lost time, even if it happened long ago. Indeed, we often deal with time as if amounts of it could be carved from our lives and moved around, and we just need to take charge of the sculptor. But despite our concern with time, there have been thinkers in the Western tradition who have come to insights similar to those of the Buddha. Augustine, the Catholic saint from North Africa, is one of the better-known Westerners who thought about the nature of time. But unlike many who live as if the past and future were metaphysical entities, Augustine questioned the status of past and future. He took the discussion into great detail, following the Western penchant for metaphysical discussions yielding absolutes, but his conclusions, I will argue, are less metaphysical than practical. In fact, they mirror the views expressed by the Buddha in the sutra we are considering: "The past no longer is. / The future has not yet come."1 They also match his advice to live mindfully in the present, though Augustine and the Buddha do not use the same terminology.I will begin with a detailed account of Augustine's discussion of time from Book 11 of Confessions, adding references to similar remarks in Hanh's commentary on The Sutra on Knowing the Better Way to Live Alone.2 After that I will briefly discuss Hanh's explanations of the practical consequences of living in the past, the future, and the present. These discussions will link living mindfully in the present to living a life of divine compassion. I will add support by then discussing and comparing Augustine's account of his conversion as it deals with the transformation of fear and shame (also from Confessions) with a similar discussion of transforming fear and shame in Hanh's commentary. The overall aim, of course, is not to convert anyone to Christianity or Buddhism, but to encourage readers to live mindfully, compassionately, and in the present regardless of their religious and cultural background.3 [End Page 91]By examining Augustine's discussion of time and comparing it with Hanh's commentary, we can cultivate a mindful way of living from seeds within the Western tradition itself, seeds that have been overlooked but that can still grow in our lives. While this comparison is guided in part by Buddhist insights, expressed here with reference to Hanh's commentary, it is based in large part on an interpretation of Augustine's views that Westerners can understand without knowledge of Buddhism. This interpretation asserts that Augustine's views on time were far from being an aspect of his thought separate from other views on God and the transformation of the soul. Indeed, the practical import of his analysis outweighs the smaller metaphysical conclusions he reaches. In some ways, it is unfortunate that Augustine did not do more with this discussion. It is found in the Book 11 of his Confessions, well after the discussion of his conversion, and is often read as an academic discussion tacked onto the end of an autobiography. But when read properly, especially in light of Buddhist discussions, Augustine's treatment of time may be interpreted as a vital element in his understanding of how to transform our lives in the best way possible.Book Eleven of Confessions is filled with Augustine's attempts to make sense of a concept that perplexed him: time. The often quoted passage runs: "What is this time? If no one asks me, I know; if... (shrink)

The Covid-19 pandemic has affected not only health systems worldwide, but also global civil society, it has posed a global threat to humanity with significant implications and indicated weak points of postmodern civil society such as the lack of global solidarity and global cooperation, the lack of global health equity, the increase in poverty, social insecurity and deep inequality, the lack of support for the liberal international order, the lack of coordination mechanism for responding to the pandemic. Three main crises (...) of postmodern society are identified and analysed: relations of cooperation between nations and states, protests in different countries, the inadequacy of scientific and technological achievements of civilization. The analysis of these crises led to the conclusion that, along with the negative impact of the Covid-19 pandemic for humanity, it should be seen as a crucial moment for human civilization that identified gaps and directions for the development of global civil society. The transformation of society today must take place in terms of rethinking the consequences and results of globalization, and taking into account the processes of socio-political and socio-cultural transformation. Today, humanity needs to transform global society by reconsidering the role of WHO as a leading intergovernmental organization in the global health system, strengthening the role of global governance, creating a new paradigm of global health, developing global cooperation, solidarity and coordination towards global health equity. (shrink)

The eminent political scientist Manfred Halpern viewed politics as belonging to each of us, as part of the nature of being human. In A Comprehensive Philosophy of Transformation, his magnum opus, Halpern elucidates the interconnected “four faces of our being”: the political, personal, historical, and sacred. This momentous volume identifies several modes of political activity, warns against the dangers of leaving politics to professional politicians, and urges us to build networks of compassion that include everyone in a just society. Overall, (...) Halpern calls for a transformative politics achieved through enhanced participation and understanding. (shrink)

Springer Nature signed its first transformative read and publish agreement in 2015. This Springer compact agreement with VSNU was the first agreement of its kind to combine reading and publishing fees with the aim of transitioning traditional library subscription payments into central funding to support open access publishing. It has proved to be a pivotal moment in the transition to OA. Since then, Springer Nature has agreed many such national agreements all around the world, including the world’s largest with (...) Projekt DEAL in Germany. Through a series of case studies, this article will examine the role these agreements have played in facilitating the transition to OA – to bring centralized funding for OA – and analyse how their nature and characteristics have evolved and adapted to reflect the differing needs of individual customers, as well as changing views. The paper will also consider the challenges faced by publishers, institutions, and funders in agreeing transformative agreements, consider how these ‘blockers’ can be overcome, and evaluate the future role of transformative agreements as a critical precursor to achieving open science. (shrink)

The problem of developing research and innovation in accordance with society’s general needs and values has received increasing attention in research policy. In the last 7 years, the concept of “Responsible Research and Innovation” has gained prominence in this regard, along with the resulting question of how best to integrate awareness about science–society relations into daily practices in research and higher education. In this context, post-graduate training has been seen as a promising entrance point, but tool-kit approaches more frequently have (...) been used. In this paper, we present and analyze an experiment—in the format of a Ph.D. course for early-career researchers—deploying an alternative approach. Drawing on Argyris and Schön’s framing of reflective practice, and their distinctions between espoused theories and theories-in-use, the analyzed course endeavored to stimulate double-loop learning. Focusing on dislocatory moments, this paper analyses how the course tried to teach participants to reflect upon their own practices, values, and ontologies, and whether this provided them with the resources necessary to reflect on their theories-in-use in their daily practices. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Transformative Journey of TransplantationValen KeeferThe moisture from the ocean floated effortlessly through the air as it glided over the rocky cliff. The steady stream of mist covered my face and frizzy hair with beaded water droplets. I had been sitting on a bench alone for hours admiring the Northern California coast at a magnificent overlook featuring a bird’s-eye view of the endless sea and campground I called (...) home for the past month. The stunning mountain landscape behind me, the soothing colors of the coastal shrubbery, and the smell of eucalyptus made for a trifecta of surreal beauty. The ocean disappeared from my view and I became engulfed in the precipitation and felt like I was suspended in a cloud. I was soaking in every moment as it was the last day of my solo RV trip.The fog slowly separated and exposed bits and pieces of the ocean again and then a breathtaking rainbow came into sight. Each end appeared to be touching either side of the campground like it was giving it a hug. I was eye-level with the center and highest point of the rainbow, arching above our home on wheels. I stood on the bench with my arms wide open, embracing nature and the gift of life in all its glory. This moment would not have possessed such deep meaning if it wasn’t for the journey that came before it—the transformative journey of transplantation.Some may think of transplantation as a singular event when in reality, it’s a lifelong journey that can start with a diagnosis many years prior. My transplant journey began when I was diagnosed with polycystic kidney disease (PKD) at 10-years-old. Being diagnosed with a hereditary disease that has deeply impacted multiple generations of our family and with no known treatment or cure was a lot to carry as a child.My youth was full of love from my parents and filled with illness and the limitations and long-term impacts of growing up with multiple chronic illnesses. My education on PKD was the brutal real-life experiences of enduring it firsthand—with no support groups, resources, or internet to seek answers. I always felt different during a time when you’d do anything to fit in. I couldn’t play sports and had to sit on the sidelines in gym class. I was often in the nurse’s office, hospital, or recovering from a surgery. I hid my scars and unattractive body while changing in gym class. Friendships were really hard. Relationships were even harder.Growing up with chronic illnesses takes away from the fun of dreaming. It’s like that bright future full of endless possibilities is blocked by a huge mountain you know you have to summit first with no supplies, no friends, and no paved path to follow.Complications from PKD followed me from high school right into college, when I spent almost a year in the hospital. Both of my kidneys were removed, I was on dialysis, had pancreatitis, received over 70 blood transfusions, survived an internal bleed, and was in dire need of a lifesaving kidney transplant.At 19-years-old, I was too sick to be placed on the transplant waiting list, but needed a kidney to survive. My parents were living at the Ronald McDonald House, wondering if they would be the next ones to lose their teenage daughter. A close family friend forever changed our lives when she restored my health by selflessly donating her kidney to me. While it was an arduous path to transplantation, in some ways, the journey was just beginning.Fifteen years following my kidney transplant and summiting what I thought was going to be the most challenging mountain of my health journey, I found myself back on death’s doorstep with another battle ahead. I was in need of a second miracle, this time a lifesaving liver transplant. It was PKD again. The bile ducts in my liver were so gnarly that they looked like limbs of an oak tree rather than the desired smooth straw-like appearance. Their malformations led to chronic liver infections and multiple sepsis... (shrink)

In this article, Aislinn O'Donnell offers a set of reflections on the relation between therapy and education. In the first section, she examines criticisms of therapeutic education, mobilizing the example of prison education to highlight the difficulties that arise from imposing prescriptive modes of subjectification and socialization in pedagogy. In the second section, she addresses the relation between therapy and education by focusing on just one element of the experience of education: those moments at which a subject has the (...) potential of becoming significant in the life of a student. An important dimension of the educator's authority involves noticing such moments, fostering the conditions that make them more likely, and engaging in the creative process and practice of deciding how best pedagogically to respond to these moments. In the third section, O'Donnell develops this idea by detailing a philosophical approach and practice that understands “effectiveness” in education as bound to practice, creative responsiveness, and the judgment of the educator in concrete, singular pedagogical situations, rather than construed in terms of generic models of “best practice.”. (shrink)

The structure of Psalm 2 is based on direct speeches in the text. These direct speeches characterise the communication that takes place in the text. The text-immanent author addresses the text-immanent reader with a question in the first line and with a makarismos in the last line. The direct speeches of the characters enable the text-immanent reader to undergo a development in his striving towards the beatitude. In this development, the ‘now’ of the birth of the Anointed One / Son (...) is re-enacted in the reading moment of the text-immanent reader. The reception of Psalm 2 makes clear that Hebrews and the Christmas liturgy re-use the text, while retaining this re-enactment character. (shrink)

This chapter would have liked to invite its readers on an exciting but breath-taking journey through the historical landscapes of international law, since ‘time immemorial’ a male-centred and, until the 1990s, almost exclusively male intellectual tradition and professional practice – at least in the eyes of the currently dominating historiography. Helas, the ambition had to be downscaled into a few rapid zooms, touristic snapshots in an impressionistic mode, on seven contexts in time and space in a hasty timeline from the (...) eighteenth century to 2021. They reflect, merely as examples, women’s status in international law in diverse political, social and legal transformations or crisis. Some are representing moments of codification or the break-through of certain interpretations of women’s rights. Others are selected for their role in enabling women’s participation in decision-making or entry to international legal positions, or because they provide an example of women’s international activism for women’s rights. All of them might have preceded, followed, or in fact themselves constituted ‘Grotian Moments’ for ‘women’s rights’ – did they, and if not, why? Should they have? If yes, which ones and how, to what effect for ‘women’? (shrink)

The year 1066, touted in the British humor classic 1066 and All That as one of only two truly “historical” dates , has assumed for us the character of a watershed in English history, a crucial moment of change and transformation. Indeed, the date is so memorable that the number 1066 itself can stand on its own, metonymically implying the Battle of Hastings, the accession of William to the English throne, the Norman Conquest, the end of Anglo-Saxon culture, the realignment (...) of England in the geopolitical and cultural map of Europe from “Scandinavian” to “French,” and the linguistic transition from “Old” to “Middle” English. (shrink)

Throughout Jewish history, revolutionary events and subversive ideas have burst onto the scene, transforming everything in their path. Re-forming Judaism seeks to explore these ideas-and the individuals behind them-by delving into historical disruptions that led to lasting change in Jewish thought.

On the basis of analysis of Russian and foreign scholars, the work is aimed at studying the specificity of the transformation of antique stories and images, which is the desired model in the art of the 20th century thanks to its fluidity and unlimited variability. Actualization of antique stories and images in the works of German-language writers account for life-changing moments of social life, the periods of losing of constant moral landmarks and the periods of looking for new moral (...) and aesthetic ideals. The analysis of the reception and transformation of mythological stories and images in the contemporary literature proves the conception of its polysemy. The built-in contradiction of myths is realized through the transformation of mythological stories and images in the literary works of contemporary writers and is explained by the individuality of writers and theirs aesthetic aims. On the one side, the absence de facto in German drama of the 20th century of interpretations of the story about Achilles and of the image of Achilles, and numerous variations on the topic of moral strivings of fearless and peccant Ulysses, on the other side, are proving the statements of classic aesthetic that the tragedy is based on the conflict, which is close to lofty and linked with the idea of dignity of the man, which is ready and capable of promoting the views of his own by the real acts that are often lead to suffer and death. According to Aristotle, the sympathy for the character leads to catharsis - the basis of education of real civic-mindedness and humanness. (shrink)

If we are to think about diagrams closely, we must register their cognitive significance as they direct work and establish networks of relationships among multiple symbolic fields. Diagrams do not engage a simple horizon of understanding but are part of an integrative process through which structures literally appear in the world. Rather than being hermeneutic in a strict sense, diagrams are heuristic because they are accompanied by an expectation that they participate in a process that turns words and experience into (...) structure. Because diagrams may shift in status, they may be thought of as relays that both create meaning and enable symbolic translation from one mode of representation to another. While a diagram may visually present or reinforce an idea one moment, the next it may provide a means for seeing something never seen before. After commenting on how recent architectural theory has approached diagram, I consider the relationship between diagram and metaphor before turning my attention to the ways that diagrams function within a process that includes design as well as building. Finally, I ask how the use of diagram within architecture points not only to a phenomenology of invention and practice but also to the networks which constitute architecture. (shrink)

The course of human life, punctuated by unexpected and transformative moments, is never uniform. What are the characteristics of such life-defining moments, what responses do they evoke, and how do they transform the lives of those who experience them? In Vivo explores foundational questions and pivotal moments of the human experience – engagement with a foreign culture, the decision to break free from unfortunate experiences, a generous action undertaken in the context of an otherwise regular day (...) – in terms of their life-altering potential. Through illustrative examples, both real and fictional, Csepregi reveals the primacy of personal feelings in shaping human life and demonstrates the formative power of spontaneity outside the traditional context of formal education. These moments, and particularly the way they disrupt ordinary temporal order, Csepregi argues, are the lived experiences of our vitality. In an age marked by increasing anxiety about the homogenizing tendencies of contemporary life, In Vivo is timely and revelatory. Informed by a range of philosophical thinking and examples from art, music, and literature, it illustrates opportunities for meaningful reflection that are available to everyone, and urges the reader to engage with them. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Inheriting Identity and Practicing TransformationThe Time of Feminist PoliticsShannon HoffA human life unfolds over time. No moment of it can be considered apart from the others, independently of the fact that the human being was and will be, and so no moment is sufficient on its own to tell us of the nature of that identity. Each moment is insufficient as an expression of who we are, as an (...) answer to the question of what we want to be, or as a point at which a full account of our identity could be given. And we live each moment as if afflicted by a dual blindness with regard to the past and future that lend it significance; while exercising pervasive influence in the present, this past and future are relatively inaccessible to our reflective insight. We are always “growing up,” so to speak, from out of a childhood that can never be the purely transparent object of reflection, to an adulthood or “accomplishment” of identity that is always in the mysterious future, unimaginable in the terms of the adolescence in which we find ourselves.My purpose here is to show how this issue resonates in the context of feminist philosophy, feminist critique, and feminist practice—that is, how a consideration of time and its impact on human experience allows us to highlight the accomplishments of various avenues of feminist thought, to elaborate their shortcomings in relation to each other, to perceive the reasons behind the tensions among them, and to understand the way in which they are (and should [End Page 167] be understood as) connected. I will work through the issue of what it means to live in the temporal dimensions of past, present, and future—what it means to inherit an already meaningful world, to be an individual in the present, and to be propelled into an uncertain future—so as to provide a general framework by which to interpret the history of feminist thought. I will explain these different temporal dimensions in terms of the (respective) ideas of cultivation, universality, and transformation, identifying the positive and negative significance of each and also the demand that the tensions among them be negotiated. Finally, I will show that feminist justice is in fact found here, as answerability to all three—to communities of cultivation, to the demands of universality, and to the inconclusiveness and transformability of human identity. While much feminist thinking has been committed to exploring these elements singly, in abstraction from the others, and while such work is important, it is also valuable to explicitly explore the relationships and tensions among these different aspects, to articulate how to act and think in light of this underlying conceptual context, and to do so in a more explicit and self-conscious way.There is, of course, a disadvantage to not exploring these elements on their own terms: namely, that one handles their subtleties roughly. A further and related danger is that involved in trying to draw a broad picture of a tradition with complex and conflicting elements, one that does not count itself as a tradition at times—as a “we,” a feminism, or a feminist thought.1 While I will talk about “feminism” or “feminist thought,” I do not presume that these differences do not exist; my goal is simply to explore what is involved in an elaboration of a critical interpretation of society, when the society one critically interprets is an agent in one’s formation. The description of the dynamics of human becoming, agency, and critique I develop below has the purpose of showing that it is possible to understand differences between feminist positions as complementary, a process that will lead me to underemphasize stringent divisions and charged oppositions and to focus on drawing connections. Let us turn now to a preliminary description of the conceptual framework I seek to construct.Feminism and TimeTo advance feminist purposes is, one might presume, to hope for and work toward a new and transformed reality in the future. It would seem, however, that this reality cannot be clearly envisioned in the present, since that would require the transformation of the very people envisioning it. In... (shrink)

This is an essay based on a story with observations, about present and sparkling moments from everyday life coexisting with a mother living with dementia. The story is used to begin philosophical underpinnings reflecting on ‘how it could be otherwise’. Dementia deploys brutal existential experiences such as cognitive deterioration, decline in mental functioning and often hurtful social judgements. The person living with dementia goes through transformation and changes of self. Cognitive decline progressively disrupts the foundations upon which social connectedness (...) is built, often creating a profound sense of insecurity. The challenge for carers and healthcare professionals is therefore to find ways of clarifying a concept of agency. It will be worthwhile developing the ability of attuning into ‘what is there’ arising from every corner of the care situation. Understanding and practicing this can strengthen existence and the experience of connectedness and meaning, empowering the person with dementia. It is important to find ways, relational moves, in which carers and healthcare professionals can embed the creativity appearing in mundane everyday situations filled with surplus of meaning, sharing mental landscapes (and embodied relational understanding) with the person living with dementia – seizing and sharing aesthetic moments (verbal and nonverbal) being present together. We argue that carers and healthcare professionals may find this understanding of care useful. This implies looking into a phenomenological‐hermeneutic perspective developing competences as well as practical wisdom understanding and being aware of the creative and innovative possibilities (often preverbal and unnoticed small things) in everyday life of what we, inspired by psychoanalyst Daniel Stern, call sparkling moments of meeting, creating experience with the other that is personally undergone and lived through in the present. (shrink)

In this work, a neo-classical relativistic mechanics theory is presented where the spin of an electron is an inherent part of its world space-time path as a point particle. The fourth-order equation of motion corresponds to the same covariant Lagrangian function in proper time as in special relativity except for an additional spin energy term. The theory provides a hidden-variable model of the electron where the dynamic variables give a complete description of its motion, giving a classical mechanics explanation of (...) the electron’s spin, its dipole moments, and Schrödinger’s zitterbewegung, These features are also described mathematically by quantum mechanics theory, of course, but without any physical picture of an underlying reality. The total motion of the electron can be decomposed into a sum of a local spin motion about a point and a global motion of this point, called here the spin center. The global motion is sub-luminal and described by Newton’s Second Law in proper time, the time for a clock fixed at the spin center, while the total motion occurs at the speed of light c, consistent with the eigenvalues of Dirac’s velocity operators having magnitude c. The local spin motion is an inherent perpetual motion, which for a free electron is periodic at the ultra-high zitterbewegung frequency and its path is circular in a spin-center reference frame. In an electro-magnetic field, this spin motion generates magnetic and electric dipole energies through the Lorentz force on the electron’s point charge. The electric dipole energy corresponds to the spin-orbit coupling term involving the electric field that appears in the corrected Pauli non-relativistic Hamiltonian, which has long been used to explain the doublet structure of the spectral lines of the excited hydrogen atom. Pauli’s spin-orbit term is usually derived, however, from his magnetic dipole energy term, including also the effect of Thomas precession, which halves this energy. The magnetic dipole energy from Pauli’s and Dirac’s theory is twice that in the neo-classical theory, a discrepancy that has not been resolved. By defining a spin tensor as the angular momentum of the electron’s total motion about its spin center, the fundamental equations of motion can be re-written in an identical form to those of the Barut–Zanghi electron theory. This allows the equations of motion to be expressed in an equivalent form involving operators applied to a state function of proper time satisfying a neo-classical Dirac–Schrödinger spinor equation. This state function produces the dynamic variables from the same operators as in Dirac’s theory for the electron but without any probability implications. It leads to a neo-classical wave function that satisfies Dirac’s relativistic wave equation for the free electron by applying the Lorentz transformation to express proper time in the state function in terms of an observer’s space-time coordinates, showing that there is a close connection between the neo-classical theory and quantum mechanics theory for the electron’s dynamics. (shrink)

This paper explores a paradox constitutive of transformation discourse in South Africa: the transformation of a fragmented society presupposes the existence of a collective Will ; but the creation of a collective will can only result from a process of transformation. While politicians and higher education administrators debate how best to conceive and implement transformation, committed lecturers have to find ways of teaching the reality of that ideal full knowing that it is in part through teaching that this ideal is (...) achieved. The 2010 HE Summit (HES) called on all universities to ‘purposefully address the issue of social cohesion as part of their transformation agenda’ (2010:20). In this paper the learning encounter is posited as the paradoxical site es reproductive of that subjectivity. This suggests a degree of ‘bootstrapping’ in the sense that the learning encounter necessarily posits a historical Subject that is paradoxically both cause and effect of transformation. This is an interpretative paper that reflects on what it means to practise philosophy in such a context. Taking Readings’s The University in Ruins (1996) as point of departure it starts with a general, historical reflection on the telos of higher education which is then contextualised with reference to the post-colonial university. Towards the end I briefly consider aspects of my own philosophy teaching praxis in light of that theoretical frame. I engage the ‘bootstrapping’ paradox by suggesting that teaching (as) transformation comprises four moments: making students aware of 1) the fact that they belong to specific socio-epistemic communities; 2) that this sense of community is an historical construct which 3) implies limitations on the possibility of knowing and being that can 4) only be questioned through an encounter with what is other to that socio-epistemic community. In short, it is argued that in a university context the possibility of ‘social cohesion’ is first and foremost a confrontation with the conditions for the possibility of inter-subjective learning. (shrink)

Restructured health care reimbursement systems and new requirements for nonprofit hospitals are transforming the U.S. health system, creating opportunities for enhanced integration of public health and health care goals. This article explores the role of public health practitioners and lawyers in this moment of transformation. We argue that the population perspective and structural strategies that characterize public health can add value to the health care system but could get lost in translation as changes to tax requirements and payment systems are (...) rapidly implemented. We urge public health leaders to take a more active role in hospital assessments of community health needs and evaluation of the patient outcomes for which providers are accountable. (shrink)

Karl Polanyi's 1944 book, The Great Transformation, has been recognized as central for the field of economic sociology, but it has not been subject to the same theoretical scrutiny as other classic works in the field. This is a particular problem in that there are central tensions and complexities in Polanyi's argument. This article suggests that these tensions can be understood as a consequence of Polanyi's changing theoretical orientation. The basic outline of the book was developed in England in the (...) late 1930s when Polanyi was working within a specific type of Marxist framework. However, as he was writing the book, he developed several new concepts, including fictitious commodities and the embedded economy, that led in new directions. Because circumstances did not give him the time to revise his manuscript, the book is marked by a tension between these different moments in his own theoretical development. The result is that Polanyi glimpses the concept of the always embedded market economy, but he does not name it or elaborate it. (shrink)