Autonomous Subject Research Articles

Mori Arimasa’s Concept of <i>Experience</i>

The article introduces and reconstructs the main ideas of the book Experience and Thought by Mori Arimasa. Released in the form of journal publications in 1970–1972, it has never been translated into European languages. The Japanese philosopher who spent a large part of his life in France undertakes a comparative analysis of the socio-cultural and linguistic foundations of the experience of the Japanese and Europeans. The article examines the main aspects of Mori’s concept of experience: understanding experience as a reality and as a subject, separation of two forms of experience — universal and personal, the relationship between experience and language and between experience and thought, the theory of binary connections and second person world, designed to identify and explain the underlying prerequisites that determine the specific character of the experience of the Japanese. The author of the article shows that Mori confirms his own thesis that the primary experience of a person is conditioned by original cultural deep predisposition and linguistic affiliation. Notwithstanding his life abroad and passion for Western philosophy, Mori thinks in about the same way as his fellow philosophers who lived in Japan, sharing their empiricism, understanding the subject as a relatum, perceiving an individual subjective experience as a segment of the universal experience, interpreting a subject as a sum total of relations. In conclusion, Mori’s ideas are assessed in terms of ethno-epistemological approaches. Undoubtedly, Mori’s analysis of the experience provides arguments for epistemological pluralism. It allows us to talk about the variability of the perception of reality in different cultural and historical contexts and about the possibility of different ways and perspectives of its comprehension, the spatial and temporal dynamics of epistemological terminology, despite the apparent commonality. Mori Arimasa taking experience as the starting point and the main task of his analysis, by his own example, demonstrated the importance of the empirical form of acquiring knowledge for Japanese epistemic culture, along with its inherent specificity of understanding experience. His linguistic studies of the structures of the native language resulted in the creation of a memorable image of the second person world and outlined the field of joint collective experience without a clearly expressed single autonomous subject of cognitive activity. Mori demonstrated an approach to cognition, in which the knower feels oneself a part of the cognized reality, and is not alienated from it, as a result the cognition turns into self-cognition of reality.

Luxury and Modernism: Architecture and the Object in Germany 1900–1933

Luxury and Modernism: Architecture and the Object in Germany 1900–1933

A socio-political study of gendered proper names in Palestine

ABSTRACT This article examines the gendered aspects of naming practices in Palestine. We study the personal names of the new generation in relation to name derivations and motivations in order to identify the emerging sociological aspects of naming practices in the West Bank of Palestine. We collected the names of the registered births over the last 10 years from local hospitals as well as the names of the parents, classified the names into separate categories and conducted structured online interviews with a random sample of parents from different areas in the West Bank of Palestine so as to elicit their motivation for giving their children the names chosen here. We classify the names into semantic categories and use these categories to disclose the motivations of the names using the premises of the socio-onomastic theory. The study concludes that the males in the study group are still given traditional names while females are given fashionable and foreign names that show the influence of the Western culture on the Palestinian people and the concern of Palestinians with females’ beauty which promotes their future marriageability rather than with their being as autonomous subjects.

The fate of autonomy in Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals

ABSTRACT The idea of autonomy, presented as Kant’s main achievement in the Groundwork and the second Critique, is hardly present in the ethics of the “Doctrine of Virtue”. Against Pauline Kleingeld’s recent interpretation, I argue that this does not amount to a disappearance of the Principle of Autonomy, but to an important development of the notion of autonomy. I first show that Kant still advocated the Principle of Autonomy in the 1790s along with the thought of lawgiving through one’s maxims. I then argue that the role of autonomy in Kant’s later ethics has a different focus than in the previous works, which requires to connect autonomy with autocracy. Conversely, in the “Doctrine of Virtue”, autocracy, which Kant had employed before as an independent notion, is construed as a new layer of autonomy. What Kant there calls subjective autonomy is thereby considered as reason’s self-government in the maxims of each rational agent.

A partire da un recente saggio: la genealogia quale scienza storico-documentaria

Taking inspiration from a recent book by Marcello Verga, the present paper reaffirms the scientific status of genealogy and focuses on the importance of this autonomous subject, fundamental in carrying out correct research in many fields. The paper also underlines the crucial role played by all historical documentary sciences (once equivocally called ‘Auxiliary sciences of History’) and the reasons why their enhancement and development remains essential, especially in the academic world.

#presidentspartingwords at a Critical Juncture: Reclaiming the Autonomous Subject in Social Media Discourse on Coronavirus in Belarus

This study explores #presidentspartingwords, a viral hashtag that accompanied the eulogy-like posts that social media users created about themselves in spring 2020 by satirically emulating president Alexander Lukashenko’s patronizing remarks about the first coronavirus victims in Belarus, an authoritarian post-Soviet country. The study examines how the online public used these discursive sites to challenge the governmentally sanctioned subject positions, which construct Belarusians as inapt dependents of the state, by articulating themselves as efficacious,autonomous agents. The study argues the coronavirus pandemic served as a “permissive condition” for critical juncture by disrupting thelogic of the official discourse in which Lukashenko is assigned the role of the major, if not the only, rhetor imbued with the legitimacy to speak on behalf of the Belarusian people. I argue that approaching the coronavirus as a potential critical juncture offers critical mediascholars a useful analytical category for theorizing the discursive conditionality of political change.

“The Time of That Other Interpretation”: Gesture, Symptom, and Rilke’sThe Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge

“The Time of That Other Interpretation”: Gesture, Symptom, and Rilke’s<i>The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge</i>

The open subject and translations from nature: Answers to the Anthropocene in contemporary poetry (Gennadij Ajgi, Les Murray, Christian Lehnert)

With the help of the concepts ‘aura’ and ‘autopoiesis’, the relationship between poetry and natural phenomena can be defined as a ‘translation from nature’. Gennadij Ajgi translates his auratic manner of perceiving into poetry. For him, the poem becomes an epistemic medium transcending the sensory perception of nature for a hidden, spiritual level. Les Murray, conversely, demonstrates an autopoietic understanding of nature: The poet himself becomes the medium of the living being. Christian Lehnert takes up impulses from both orientations. He combines the opposing concepts so that they correspond to the hierarchical levels of his religious and metaphysical vision of the world. The three authors all aim to alter the attitude of humans towards nature through their ‘translation from nature into poetry’ so that humankind will open itself towards nature and raise it from an object which can be instrumentalised to an autonomous subject on equal footing with humanity itself.

Between risk and autonomy: producing subjects in group homes and supervised workshops for people with intellectual disabilities

This study focusses on the question of how the values of autonomy, self-determination, and independence influence people with intellectual disabilities who live in a social world of institutionalized care. It analyses policies and practices – everyday activities. Data collection took place during 240 h of participant observation in three group homes and one workshop for adults with intellectual disabilities in Austria. The analysis demonstrates that these organizations attempt to enhance the status of people cared for to that of an autonomous subject. But this project is failing, as these people do not have the practical knowledge required to fulfil the social demands of reason, responsibility for their actions and their physical integrity, and also to manage household tasks efficiently. Consequently, they assimilate to being dependent subjects. Two risk management strategies support this: everybody should be treated equally, plus the loss of responsibility outside the social world and in medical practices. Points of interest This article compares written guidelines and everyday activities in group homes and supervised workshops for people with intellectual disabilities in Austria. It wants to clarify the connections between everyday activities, disability, society, and personal aims. The written guidelines of institutions for people with intellectual disabilities support the idea that people should become more self-determined and independent. However, everyday activities reveal that in real life, it is more important to keep people safe and well-cared for. This mismatch also becomes visible in a conflict between the ideal that people in group homes should be autonomous and the demand that the caregivers minimize possible health risks. This study recommends accepting that all people are somehow dependent. Further, the aim of belonging to others should receive more attention in group homes and supervised workshops.

Grounded theory qualitative approach from Foucault's ethical perspective: Deconstruction of patient self-determination in the clinical setting.

This paper aims to explain the construction of the autonomous subject from Foucault's ethical perspective for the qualitative analysis of interprofessional relationships, patient-professional relationships, and moral ethics critique. Foucault tried to break loose from the self, which is merely the result of a biopolitical subjectivation and constituted an interpersonal level. From this, different elements involved in the decision-making capacity of patients in a clinical setting were analysed. Firstly, the context in which decision-making occurs has been explained, distinguishing between traditional practices involved in self-care and the more modern conceptions that make certain possible transformations. Secondly, an attempt is made to explain the formation of the medicalisation of society using the transformations of what Foucault called "techniques of the self". Finally, the ethical framework for a subject's "self-creation", insisting more on the exercises of self-subjectivation, reinforcing the ethics of the self by itself, the "care of the self", has been explained. The role of the patient is understood as an autonomous subject to the extent that the clinical institution and the professionals involved comprehend how the patient’s autonomy in the clinical environment is constituted. All these elements could generate grounded theory on the qualitative methodology of this phenomenon. The current ethical model based on universal principles is not useful to provide a capacity for patients decision-making, relegating to the background their opinions and beliefs. Consequently, a new ethical perspective emerges that aims to return the patient to the fundamental axis of attention.

Game Design as an Autonomous Research Subject

This paper examines the methods and systems of game design from the standpoint of existing method proposals failing to establish a common basis for systematizing design knowledge, which this paper aims to help resolve. Game design has often been subsumed by game development and associated disciplines, and game design methodology has often been subsumed by game analysis. This paper reviews related work in defining game design as an autonomous research subject and then divides the methods and systems of game design into complementary methods and core methods, with only the latter, consisting chiefly of design patterns, attempting to systematize how game design knowledge is generated. Seminal game patterns have been descriptive rather than -prescriptive and so have failed to find the requisite practitioner adoption to fulfill their role as a living method. One recent pattern approach has sought to resolve this issue by promoting pattern usage generally over the adoption of a particular language. This paper outlines an alternate and possibly complementary approach of a novel, practical basis for game design literacy for helping core methods work as a basis for systematizing game design knowledge. The proposed basis sacrifices descriptiveness to prescriptiveness to shape methods in that direction.

Constitution du champ psychanalytique

ObjectivesThe purpose of this paper is to situate the emergence of psychoanalysis; its differentiation from clinical psychiatry; and its constitution as a specific field of practice and knowledge in the context of the modern, Cartesian conception of the autonomous subject. MethodThe methods used include textual critic, the genealogy of concepts and their contextualization in the history of the foundational doctrines and ideas of modernity. ResultsBy its constitutive postulates, in particular organicism, psychiatry is deeply rooted in the foundational paradigm of modernity, which opposes a consciousness-centered subject, defined by her/his liberty, to a geometrized material universe, submitted to a strict mechanical determinism. With the concept of the Unconscious, psychoanalysis has always positioned itself in opposition to an objectifying approach of psychopathology, which translatesdirectly into an interrogation of the organicist postulate. DiscussionFreudian theory, however, borrows its main models from rationalist psychology, whose constitutive principles are a direct tributary of the now partly obsolete paradigm of classical science. Jung will vigorously object to that, but without success, largely because of the regressive and mystical character of his conceptualization. ConclusionsIt is not until the arrival of the post-Freudians, most importantly Lacan, that the heteronomous causation of the subject can be laid; thus, psychoanalysis can find the doctrinal framework that will allow it, with the formulation of structural theory, to address causality in psychopathology.

Subject autonomy marking in Macro-Tani and the typology of middle voice

Abstract Middle voice constructions are generally understood as syntactically detransitivizing and as semantically characterized by a “low degree of event elaboration” (in Kemmer’s terms) involving a relatively affected subject. Middle voice constructions thus characterized have been identified in several Trans-Himalayan (Sino-Tibetan) languages, in particular by LaPolla. In Macro-Tani languages, we find a seemingly cognate construction with a similar distribution; however, Macro-Tani middle-like constructions are not detransitivizing, and do not mark subject affectedness. Instead, their primary meaning appears to be one of highlighting subject autonomy: a heightened degree of autonomy, volition and/or responsibility over an action on the part of the clause subject. In this article, following an analysis of Macro-Tani subject autonomy marking, we will argue that its similarities to and differences from middle voice marking in other Trans-Himalayan languages is consistent with Zúñiga and Kittilä’s view of middle voice as a “network of meanings,” whose properties derive not from their reflection of a unified underlying cognitive category, but rather from a heterogeneous set of developments from similar diachronic source forms.

Subject Matter of Sociology of Education

The sociology of education is a relatively autonomous subject, because it conducts teaching and research. It is also relatively autonomous in relation to theories and about other fields of investigation. Contemplating present state of thinking, one of the persistent problems of sociology of education is on what grounds sociologists of education can claim that they have a field of their own, distinct from that of general sociologists, anthropologists, psychologists, historians, economists and other groups of specialists. In the discussion of the sociology of education, we observe the discourse of subject matter remains elusive. No thinker states anything properly in this context. But it is not that insignificant. The subject matter of the sociology of education may be explored in three paths where through the historical contribution of the thinkers, published books, journals, and articles as documents of empirical research works, and analytical discussion takes place.

A Procedural Idea of Environmental Democracy: the 'Débat Public' Paradigm within the EU Framework

The aim of this paper is to analyse the 'débat public' procedure, which finds its roots in the Canadian legal system and its most defined formulation in France, and which more recently has been circulating to Italy – first at the regional level and, since 2016, at the national level. The first part of the paper will thus be devoted to a historical overview of the débat public and to how it is implemented in each of the two legal systems. The second part will subsequently distil the 'paradigm', i. e. those distinctive traits that make the débat public an autonomous research subject, within the multi-layered legislative framework of environmental governance in Europe. Three main features of the paradigm will be pointed out (Participation, Effectiveness, Authority), thus highlighting how it can respond to the needs in light of which it has been designed, namely dealing with proximity conflicts and providing a forum for the construction of shared rational decisions in environmental decision-making. The paper eventually leads to the conclusion that the débat public, with its codified rules and procedures, represents the first and probably the most noticeable attempt towards the institutionalisation and generalisation of deliberative practices in environmental decision-making, thus towards developing a procedural stance in environmental democracy.

Syntactic structure of absolute construction and the connection between its main components in the Udmurt language

Introduction. In the Udmurt language, bisubjective sentences with absolute polypredicative constructions are very productive. The main components of such constructions are expressed by the noun in the nominative case and the gerundium adverbial or gerundium noun, which are connected by a specific connection. The purpose of this article is to establish the syntactic features of polypredicative constructions. Research objectives are to describe the syntactic structure of such constructions, to establish the type of syntactic connection between the main components within the absolute constructions and to show its difference from the types of syntactic connection traditionally distinguished in the sentence. Materials and Methods. The main source of the research was the materials from the Udmurt literature and colloquial speech. The author used a set of such research methods as: descriptive method, continuous sampling, contextual analysis, linguistic modeling and transformation. The use of these methods allowed considering the specifics of the units under consideration on a specific language material. Results and Discussion. In the system of the Udmurt language, absolute polypredicative constructions are widely represented. Namely, gerundium adverbial constructions and gerundium noun constructions that have their own subject of action, which are different from the subject of action of the main part of the sentence – the subject, which is associated with the predicate. The syntactic connection between the subject and the gerundium adverbial part (gerundium noun) is specific, not predicative and not subordinate; it has not yet been designated with the help of a linguistic term in Udmurt linguistics. Such constructions have a fixed word order. In verbs with the gerundium adverbial part on the suffix -sa, there can be no autonomous subject of action, the subject is always the same for the verb-predicate and the gerundium adverbial part. Conclusion. In the Udmurt language, there are bisubjective constructions with the second subject of action in the nominative case, which claims to be the subject in a polypredicative construction with the main word being a gerundium adverbial or gerundium noun. The syntactic connection between the main components within an absolute constructions differs from the types of syntactic relationship traditionally distinguished in a sentence. This connection can be described as “semi-predictive coordination” or “subpredicative coordination”.

POLITICS AS “INTEREST MANAGEMENT” AND CULTURE AS “CULTURAL POLITICS”

The purpose of the article is to demonstrate the essential unity of the presentation of politics as the management of interests and culture as a “cultural policy” (M. Heidegger) - in the liberal version of the political economic paradigm (J. Agamben). Demonstration as a reduction to the obviousness of meaning presupposes philosophical interpretation as a research method. As a result of the analysis, it is established: in the economic paradigm of the political, what is called modernity is represented in the meaning defined by M. Heidegger. Modernity is given as reality in the mind of a new European subject, anxious to guarantee his safe existence. Replacing the sovereign with an “empty space” as a constitutive of the political order and excluding the sovereign decision as destructive to its reality - and the exclusion of the “saint” as the essence of the transformation of the “creation of culture” into a “cultural artifact”, there are two aspects of the process of “self-assertion” of an autonomous subject, presented as reasonable. “Available individuals” are identical in relation to reason as a “differentiation” of “humanity” and differ “accidentally” as freely self-determining with respect to their “features” - interests; politics and culture are fundamentally presented in the liberal version of the economic paradigm - as the management of interests. Subjectivity, which has become, considers itself to be “unquestionable” and is aimed at “providing life” as cash; politics as management and culture as the “organization of experience” guarantee the safety of the subject as a “historiographic animal”, that is, the implementation of the named goal. As a result of the study, the conclusion is drawn: the presentation of politics as management excludes the “place of decision”, that is, it means the impossibility of an event; culture as a phenomenon of modernity is, according to Heidegger, “the organization of experience”, that is, cultural policy, through “historiographic recalculation”, “filling” the void as a constitutive of modernity, ensuring its endless duration in continuous innovations; reality is verified in the representation of the subject, whose efforts are aimed at obtaining a guarantee of this: in planning and calculation as a security policy. Philosophical interpretation is devoid of practical interest, but measuring opportunity and drawing a boundary provides a view as presently given for scientific research and policy.

Can the use of deception be justified in medical education research? A point/counterpoint and case study

Deception is a common feature of behavioral research design, although not commonly employed in the medical literature. It can promote scientific validity but is ethically controversial because it compromises subject autonomy and incurs additional costs. In this Point/Counterpoint monograph, we review the nature of deception in research and present arguments for and against its ethical use as a research methodology in behavioral studies. We describe the necessary guidelines, safeguards, and oversight, when deceptive methodology is considered, and report our experiences and lessons learned from conducting a multi-institutional audit study that relied upon deception of academic radiology faculty.

Increasing the Research Capacity of Universities in Ukraine: Problems, Value Dimensions and the Way of Democratization

There are certain obstacles to the development of the research capacity of Ukrainian universities, which can be classified as belonging to one of the two groups: «external» and «internal». If the former include more obvious things like insufficient funding for national science and higher education, as well as the imbalance of teaching and research activities of the academic staff, the latter relate to the values, interests and motivations of the researchers. It is argued that a possible way to overcome the first type of obstacles is to rethink the role of the university teacher, who from a translator of knowledge becomes a mediator helping students to acquire the ability for life-long self-education and the constant creation of own knowledge. The competition to traditional universities presented by non-formal education emphasizes the benefits of the individual approach and personal communication between teachers and students and the special value of the personal knowledge as a result of own research. The article argues that in the absence of internal motivation for scientific research and a tendency to recognize the principles of scientific ethos, the attempt to «force» creativity leads only to the profanation of scientific activity, in particular to mass violations of academic integrity by students. Really effective research can be based only on the moral imperative of each human person as an autonomous subject of values and responsibility, and the most important factor in the development of university science is the democratization of higher education, which returns to the humanistic ideal of the Enlightenment that considers each person as capable of creative and independent thinking. Such democratization contributes to the implementation of lifelong learning and effective activities of university graduates in a volatile and complex world, and also corresponds to the ideas of the open science concept as one of the most important ways for increasing the research capacity of Ukrainian universities.

New Forms of Ageism as a Challenge for a UN Convention on the Rights of Older Persons

This article contributes to the ongoing debate around the need for a new United Nations convention on the human rights of older persons. It explores new forms of ageism that have so far been overlooked in the discussion and explores the value of a new treaty from a symbolic point of view. Analyzing the instrumentalization of older persons by ageing policies, and the devaluation of older age as part of age imperialism, we argue that a new treaty can valorize older people’s social status and address them as autonomous subjects. This can be achieved by emphasizing the individual dignity of older persons and by expressing their equal legal recognition. This exploration of the conceptual challenges posed by new forms of ageism provides arguments that may prove useful for reframing the debate around a new convention.