Conceptual Idealism Research Articles

Towards the development and enhancement of Open and Distance Learning policies in Africa: A step by step guide to the game

Purpose: This study sought to explain and understand possible steps for developing and enhancing open and distance learning (ODL) policies in Malawi. Methodology: It thus deployed descriptive and interpretive phenomenological research as advanced by Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger to deeply understand policies, practices and perceptions within higher education institutions (HEIs) in Malawi. It was assumed that human experiences can best be understood through ones immersion into documents, conversations and lived-experiences of the research subjects. Accordingly, we used document analyses, observations and systematic conversations followed by practical activities to enhance the available draft-ODL policies at the selected HEIs. Findings: The study established that many academics had inadequate knowledge on policy formulation using paradigmatic and marginalized philosophical theories. It was also established when policy-makers combine different theories to inform their policies, they gain more advantages than they would have otherwise done. Since education is usually confronted by complex issues, such theoretical amalgamation has paid dividends. While this study inherently took an eccentric approach to research by reconciling Husserl and Heidegger’s contradictions, it also infused some elements of empiricism and conceptual ideals ushering in a mixed methodology that culminated into a transformative paradigm. Unique Contribution to Theory, Practice and Policy: Since research is about discovering new knowledge, this study garnered its uniqueness and credibility through such methodical surprises; the approaches that transcended mere theoretical analyses to yielding a tangible ODL policy product. We acknowledge our methodological limitations although such limitations cannot lender our findings invalid. We therefore recommend researchers to try this approach, and share with us their findings.

Institutionalization of Social Economy Public Policies as a Strategy against Global Challenges: Evidence from the Spanish Experience

This paper explores the process of increasing institutionalization of the social economy, focusing on its critical role in addressing global challenges, especially during crises. By examining mainstream international documents, the study identifies challenges confronting the social economy and spotlights Spain as a model for effective institutionalization practices in terms of recognition, regulation, institutional support, policies and programs and external institutional leadership. Two distinct forms of institutionalization are distinguished: socio-cognitive and political. Spain's leadership is noteworthy for integrating these forms, translating conceptual ideals into tangible policies.

Civilization Costs Mother Nature: Tracing the Conceptual Ideals and Legal Landscape of Environmental Accounting in Bangladesh

Civilization Costs Mother Nature: Tracing the Conceptual Ideals and Legal Landscape of Environmental Accounting in Bangladesh

Conceptual Idealism and Emotional Reasoning

Starting from an unorthodox account of conceptual idealism as represented (going backwards historically) by Thomas Hofweber, Nicholas Rescher and Robin George Collingwood (mainly with regard to its potential use in historical understanding), this short study attempts to couple it with the important cognitive finding that emotions inform judgment and regulate thought.1 In my search for a bridge between the cognitive and emotional contents of conceptual understanding, LBT appears to offer the long sought after interfacing, through its take on emotional and behavioral reasoning. Although this study is in its early stages, the idea can gain pace and produce evidence that LBT is not only a beneficiary of academic achievements but also an important provider of solutions to crucial philosophical puzzles such as the nature of understanding in epistemology of history.

Visualizing Superman: Artistic Strategizing in Early Representations of the Archetypal Man in Comic Books

In 1933, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, two Jewish teenagers from Ohio, fashioned an ideal personality called Superman and a narrative of his marvelous deeds. Little did they suspect that several years after conceptualizing the figure and their many vain attempts to sell the story to various comic book publishers, their creation would give rise to the iconic genre of comic book superheroes. There is no doubt that the Superman character and the accompanying narrative led to Siegel and Shuster, the writer and artist, respectively, becoming famous. However, was it only the appealing character and compelling narrative that accounted for the story’s enormous popularity, which turned its creators into such a celebrated pair, or did the visual design play a major part in that phenomenal success? Recent years have seen a burgeoning interest in the comic book medium in several disciplines, including history, philosophy, and literature. However, little has been written about its visual aspect, and comic book art has not yet been accorded much recognition among art historians. Since the integration of storyline and art is what allow the comic book medium to be unique and interesting, I contend that there should be a focus on the art as well as on the narrative of works in comic books. In the present study, I explore the significance of the visual image in the prototype of the Superman figure that Siegel and Schuster sold to DC Comics and its first appearance in the series American Comic Books. I argue that although the popularity of Superman’s first appearance was due to the conceptual ideals that the character embodied, the visual design of the ideal man was also an essential factor in its success. Accordingly, through a discussion of the first published Superman storyline, I emphasize the artistic-visual value of the figure of this protagonist in particular and the comic book medium in general.

Staff personhood in dementia care settings: "Do they care about me?"

This article aims to examine RCAs' own experiences of personhood in dementia care settings. Conceptually, person-centred care entails fostering the personhood of residents and the residential care aides (RCAs) who provide much of their hands-on care. To date, however, staff personhood has been overlooked in the empirical literature. The study was part of a larger focused ethnographic project exploring how the organisational care environment impedes or facilitates the provision of quality dementia care. Semi-structured interviews with 23 RCAs and more than 230hours of participant observation were conducted in two nursing homes with specialised dementia units in British Columbia, Canada. Two overarching themes, "personhood undermined-management-staff relations" and "personhood undermined-workplace policies and practices" emerged, illustrating how, despite exposure to features believed beneficial to their working environment (e.g., favourable staffing ratios, relatively good remuneration), RCAs encountered repeated affronts to their personhood. The first theme encompasses the importance of being known (i.e., as persons and of their job demands) and valued (i.e., appreciated for their work in non-monetary terms). The second highlights the salience of work-life balance, full-staffing coverage and supportive human resource practices. RCAs' experiences reveal how the ongoing search for cost-efficiencies, cost-containment and cost-accountability overshadows their individuality, indicating a key disconnect between conceptual ideals and workplace realities. Organisations are encouraged to consider creating person-centred management and workplace practices that provide tangible evidence that RCAs, and their work, matter.

Evaluating Patient Empowerment in Association With eHealth Technology: Scoping Review.

BackgroundThe prioritization of sustainable patient-centered care in contemporary health care has resulted in an increased focus on patient empowerment, which in turn is considered to facilitate patient independence, self-management, and self-efficacy. However, a definitional consensus of empowerment remains elusive, impeding efforts to translate the conceptual ideals of empowerment into a measurable entity associated with changes in health care behavior or outcomes. The rapid integration of technology in health care serves to add another layer of complexity in the measurability and operationalization of empowerment and helps to create a specific context in which this conceptual entity should be further examined.ObjectiveThe primary objective of this scoping review was to explore the concept of patient empowerment within the electronic health (eHealth) context. A further focus on the association or measurement of this concept in conjunction with tethered patient portal use was also employed.MethodsIn this scoping review, a six-step framework was used to guide the search and paper selection process. The review was initiated with two broad research questions, which are as follows: (1) What is the relationship between empowerment and the use of eHealth technologies from a patient perspective? (2) How is patient empowerment (and/or engagement or activation) influenced by accessing personal health information through a tethered patient portal? Multiple databases were employed in a comprehensive search strategy, and papers were primarily evaluated and selected for inclusion by 2 review authors, and a third author was consulted to resolve any issues in reaching consensus.ResultsFrom an initial count of 1387 publications, this review returned nine systematic or literature review papers and 19 empirical studies that pertained to patient empowerment (and/or engagement and activation) in relation to the use of tethered patient portals providing access to electronic health records (EHRs). Of the 19 empirical publications, only four were found to have used specific patient empowerment measures with significant variety in their identified conceptual elements.ConclusionsThere is a persistent lack of conceptual clarity in patient empowerment research, and this has extended to study within the eHealth context. The interchangeable use or conflation of terms such as patient empowerment, engagement, and activation, has further complicated the advancement of distinct conceptual measures. To more strongly align changes in patient empowerment with supportive eHealth solutions, the challenges of achieving a consensus on how best to operationalize and measure patient empowerment must be met.

How researchers frame scientific contributions to sustainable development: a typology based on grounded theory.

Given that research on sustainable development usually relates to real-world challenges, it requires researchers to align scientific knowledge production with concrete societal problem situations. To empirically explore how researchers frame scientific contributions when designing and planning projects, we conducted a qualitative study on land use–related projects based on the methodology of grounded theory. We identified major influence factors and various types of research design. Among the factors that influence project framing, scientific considerations were found to be more important than expected. Core characteristics of project framings concerned (a) type of scientific contributions envisaged; (b) real-world sustainability challenges addressed, and (c) researchers’ conceptions of how knowledge would reach its addressees. Three different types of project framing were found, suggesting that framing strongly depends on (the researchers’ perception of) how well a real-world problem situation is understood scientifically and how strongly are societal actors aware of the problem and act upon it. The spectrum of how researchers planned that knowledge would reach its addressees comprised communicating results to interactive conceptions allowing for mutual learning throughout the research process. The typology reveals a variety of useful and promising project framings for sustainable development research. The typology may serve to reconcile conceptual ideals and expectations with researchers’ realities.

Islam, democracy, and cosmopolitanism: at home and in the world

This book presents a critical study of citizenship, state and globalization in societies that have been historically influenced by Islamic traditions and institutions. Interrogating the work of contemporary theorists of Islamic modernity such as Mohammed Arkoun, Abdul an-Na'im, Fatima Mernissi, Talal Asad, Saba Mahmood and Aziz Al-Azmeh, this book explores the debate on Islam, democracy and modernity, contextualized within contemporary Muslim lifeworlds. These include contemporary Turkey (following the 9/11 attacks and the onset of war in Afghanistan), multicultural France (2009–10 French burqa debate), Egypt (the 2011 Tahrir Square mass mobilizations), and India. Ali Mirsepassi and Tadd Graham Fernee critique particular counterproductive ideological conceptualizations, voicing an emerging global ethic of reconciliation. Rejecting the polarized conceptual ideals of the universal or the authentic, the authors critically reassess notions of the secular, the cosmopolitan and democracy. Raising questions that cut across the disciplines of history, anthropology, sociology and law, this study articulates a democratic politics of everyday life in modern Islamic societies.

Conceptual Idealism and Reformed Metaphysical Method

In an article published in 1991, Nicholas Rescher wrote:Idealism, broadly speaking, is doctrine that reality is somehow mind-correlative or mind-coordinated. However, specifically conceptual idealism. stands in contrast to an ontological doctrine to effect that somehow constitutes or produces world's matter. Instead, it maintains that an adequate descriptive characterization of physical (material) reality must make implicit reference to mental operations-that some commerce with mental characteristics and operations is involved in explanatory exposition of what is at issue the real world.'Rescher conceives human reason as already shaped by inherited stances, assumptions, values, and received knowledge, at varying levels of attributed significance. In this context, notes theologian Paul D. Murray, for Rescher the rational thing to do is to take one's situatedness seriously whilst continually opening it out to testing against what else there is and what else comes to light. Consequently, Murray concludes,Truth is something that we can legitimately assume ourselves to be articulating in part but which inevitably eludes us in toto and towards which, therefore, we need to understand ourselves as being orientated in mode of aspiration rather than possession, or arrival.. Reseller's thinking. evinces a commitment to acknowledging pluralist reality of world of difference in which we exist and need to negotiate this appropriately.3The fact that Rescher formulates and defends a form of idealism, in tradition of Green, Bradley, Bosanquet, Royce, McTaggart3 brings him closer to a rich British idealist tradition, which is arguably most quintessentially represented by R. G. Collingwood. This framework of conceptual idealism outlined by Rescher some thirty years after Collingwood accommodates very well latter's previous dismissal of commonsense realism and his placing of Kantian transcendentalism and Hegelian immanentism under auspices of Christian concept of God.The definition Collingwood gave to (nai ve, or crude) realism-in his unpublished text Realism and Idealism-reads: [For realist,] object makes no difference to knowing, so that knowing. is a single absolutely. undifferentiated activity and is based on realist's assumption that reality consists in two radically self-contained worlds: objective world of things known and subjective world of cognitive activity,4 whereas for Collingwood itself is a compositum of cognitive activities and their object. Commonsense realism's assumption that things exist of our or mind is criticized by conceptual idealist thinkers-whose voices find an unifying echo in Collingwood's analyses-for its failure to realize that real condition for such a claim is thought itself, so that things considered as existing outside our or are in fact included in it once we think of them as being external to our thought. Similarly, things which are claimed to exist independently of thought cannot otherwise be asserted as existent but by an act of thought.5 As a reputed commentator of Collingwood noted, Oxford don saw every act of consciousness as a creative act of mind, in which exercises some degree of choice and has some goal in view. fiAs an inheritor of a powerful British idealist tradition, Collingwood was accompanied in twentieth century by important fellow thinkers such as Henry Jones, Clement Charles Julian Webb, Alfred Ernest Taylor, and Michael Foster. At present, writes Stephen Toulmin,Collingwood's philosophical arguments speak to us more directly and forcefully than they did to his Oxford contemporaries. The realist positions put forward by John Cook Wilson at Oxford, Ernst Mach in Vienna, and G. E. Moore and Bertrand Russell at Cambridge. turned philosophical clock back before Kant, and revived earlier traditions of British empiricism. …

The Rationality of Values

In the paper by Adlan and ten Have (2012), an ethical obligation to not tell the truth is argued. The case is wrenching and urgent, for the consequences are dire for the patient, the mother, the father, and a constellation of other people. It is also challenging for the reader belonging to modern scientific culture in which we have come to take truth as a value in itself, transcultural and imperative. Scientific research claimed to be value-free, that is, ignoring utilitarian, social, and religious values, but affirming the value of truth unconditionally. Humans do pursue knowledge for itself, and they also work to build and grow plants and other animals, maintain harmonious societies where people can flourish, and produce images, songs, dramas that enchant and ennoble. The pursuit of truth is an instrumental value in the practical and social projects of a society. But every society recognizes that telling the truth to anyone and everyone can be dangerous. Knowledge of some sacred truths about the ways of the gods or about powers to influence them was understood to be dangerous to many kinds of people. Knowledge of kinds and stocks of weapons is understood to be dangerous in undisciplined or antisocial people; scientific discoveries of how to produce new viruses and plagues have to be kept secret. The assembling of facts, the evaluations, and the decisions of every community are rational. The tribal society is rational as is the medical community, although not extending across the same data and not employing the same methods of identifying relevant data. The values in the different endeavours and institutions of a society were thoughtfully and rationally set up and can be rationally justified. In all areas of thought, something once understood and accepted is not and need not be each time subjected to questioning. The major values are taken as evident by a society, and reasoning about individual issues incorporates them as givens. The economic and social institutions of a society both posit them and build on them. In the situation described by this paper, there are three communities. In the tribal society, the cohesion and honour of the family are paramount, and truth about paternity is subsequently essential. The cohesion and honour of the family are not just conceptual ideals; the economic and social organization is built on it. In the Saudi state governed by Sharee’a law, the welfare of children in a responsible family is paramount; consequently, truth about adultery requires Bioethical Inquiry (2012) 9:411–412 DOI 10.1007/s11673-012-9406-7

Moving Toward Utopia

Even the most distant utopian dreams are fundamentally anchored in present reality, since it is only by assessing where we are today that it is possible to determine how far we have to go to achieve tomorrow’s goals. For America’s jails, that begins with the analysis of an organizational identity that has traditionally been mired in custodial and security considerations, in contrast to the more reformative human service orientation of a utopian perspective. Moving toward such a renewed identity means operationalizing far-reaching conceptual ideals—from diverting the mentally ill to treating substance abusers. Because accomplishing these advancements depends on a foundation of capable staff, it also means creating an organizational culture where theory, policy, and utopian goals can be translated into operational practices–since it is ultimately the workforce who breathes life into the system, determining whether jails are destined to remain anchored in tradition or are designed to ascend toward a more utopian future.

Achieving Querencia: Integrating a Sense of Place With Disciplined Thinking

The Spanish word querencia, evocative of how feelings and deepest beliefs attach the self to place (Lopez, 1992), invites the rediscovery of the meaning of equity as a reciprocal relationship between peoples and the landscapes they inhabit. This article begins with an exploration of a concept of “reciprocal equity,” cultivated by achieving such a sense of place, in contrast with the tradition of “competitive equity,” pursued in ending disparities of achievement in traditional disciplines. Acceptance of the importance of reciprocal equity brings to focus the divergent purposes of education when studying places and disciplines. Places and disciplines hold in common the value of coherence, yet each coheres in its own fashion, places emphasizing personal experience and commitment to community, and disciplines stressing conceptual progress and explanatory ideals. Nevertheless, the shared concern for coherence suggests the potential to reconcile their divergent purposes and integrate a sense of place with disciplined thinking under superordinate aims. Criteria of artistic work—vivid depiction, finding the universal in the particular, constructive neglect, and coherence itself (Eisner, 1998), fulfill this function. Disciplines that focus attention on place as landscape and commons prompt integration as well. Querencia, as both a meaningful attachment to a geographic place and as a place in the mind where understanding satisfies, completes the integration.

Ideals and Architects: Khmer Temple Pyramids (Eighth to Eleventh Century)

The Khmer temple pyramid— a worldly manifestation of Mount Meru, abode of the gods— is unique to medieval Khmer architecture and among its most intriguing architectural forms. A comparative analysis of the proportions of nine temple pyramids built between the eighth and eleventh century has revealed a remarkable and thus far unrecognised similarity. The operation of a proportional schema, applied across four hundred years to the design and construction of such temples, indicates a distinct Khmer spatial patterning that is unlikely to be consistently bound to declared Indian texts or to fixed conceptual ideals. Rather, Khmer temples and their idiosyncratic pyramids can be assessed in terms of the political, economic, social and environmental context of the Khmer architects and builders who created them.

Scoping in environmental impact assessment: Balancing precaution and efficiency?

Scoping is a crucial yet under-researched stage of environmental impact assessment, in which practice falls well behind conceptual ideals. We argue that such ‘implementation deficits’ reflect dilemmas between two key rationales for scoping — environmental precaution and decision-making efficiency — and between technical and participatory conceptions of the decision-making process. We use qualitative research to understand how scoping practice in the UK reconciles these competing imperatives. Our findings suggest that practitioners mainly rationalise their approach in terms of decision-making efficiency, while justifying excluding the public from scoping on grounds of prematurity, delay and risks of causing confusion. The tendency to scope issues in rather than exclude them reflects a pervasive concern for legal challenge, rather than environmental precaution, but this reinforces standard lists of environmental considerations rather than the investigation of novel, cumulative or indirect risks.

Prawda, schemat pojęciowy i świat

In the article I criticize the conception according to which the conceptual character of human cognition falsifies the theory of truth understood as a kind of correspondence between the truth-bearer and the truth-maker. Arguing against the conceptions of Josef Mitterer, Donald Davidson, Richard Rorty and Andrzej Szahaj, I defend the claim that the conceptual character of human cognition is irrelevant to the critique of correspondence theories of truth. I justify this claim by using the example of Nicolas Rescher’s conception of conceptual idealism, which is similar to Hilary Putnam's internal realism but does not rule out truth as a kind of correspondence.

Values influencing nursing practice: responses from neonatal nurses.

An analysis of narrative comments from neonatal nurses to illustrate the values that motivate behavior in the practice setting. A descriptive study using content analysis of written, narrative text data. A self-selected subsample (N = 97) of a larger random sample of the membership of the National Association of Neonatal Nurses (NANN). The application of philosophical concepts of human relationships, patient need, keeping promises, human dignity, and unrestricting circumstances in the neonatal care setting. Individual participants made cognitive choices related to the application of conceptual ideals of the profession to the practice setting. However, there was a lack of congruence between what the individual nurse believes is important or good and the behavior enacted in the practice setting. As a discipline, nursing needs to identify and implement strategies that support proactive accountable nursing practice consistent with the philosophical foundation of the profession.

What constitutes our understanding of a patient?

A number of approaches to the search for methodology in the human sciences are reviewed. Heidegger's use of Husserl's phenomenology led to his exploration of the background practices on which he believed all our understanding is based. This use of phenomenology was adopted by Sartre and R. D. Laing, and existential psychiatrists and psychoanalysts in their emphasis on the here-and-now encounter between the patient and the therapist, along with various embellishments and emendations on Heidegger's notion of what it meant to live authentically or inauthentically. Foucault maintained that there is a politics embedded in all the human sciences such as psychiatry and psychoanalysis, and this politics revolves around the use of power and its operations, including the actual use of the human sciences in the culture and what the different theories imply in the way of an ideology. Lacan emphasized this when he challenged the prevailing ideology of United States psychoanalysis, in which adaptation was seen as the crucial task of the ego. The existence of background practices and outer horizons required for any understanding in the human sciences leads to a situation that questions the use of empirical methods to establish what is accepted as "truth" in the human sciences. A predominant alternative, that of hermeneutics, has gained acceptance by eminent analysts such as Gill and certain interpersonal theorists. But the term hermeneutics is used in many ways by many authors and runs the danger of a relativism and a nihilism. This leads to a discussion of the value of various philosophical positions in throwing light on our search for a methodology in the human sciences. A review of arguments invoking the "end of philosophy" such as those of Rorty reveals that they are paradoxical and based on premises which in turn represent a philosophy. This debate remains unresolved. In general the postmodern view sees "truth" as more relative and emphasizes the role of social and cultural aspects of prevailing ideologies in constituting and determining what we call truth and understanding, including the "understanding" of a patient in psychotherapy. An example of the postmodern blend of philosophy and psychoanalysis is presented by Arlow's emphasis on unconscious fantasies and his insightful comments on how these unconscious fantasies organize and determine what we experience from the very beginning of life. This I believe is most consistent with Rescher's philosophical notion of "conceptual idealism," also briefly reviewed in this paper.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)

Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: democratic ideals and educational effects

Abstract abstract The resurgent optimism concerning the future of democracy, and the long established tradition of pairing democracy and education, both with regard to ends and means, suggests the need to review the educational effects of that relationship in the past. For that purpose it is necessary to identify representative constituent principles of the democratic mode, principles which can be seen to have had significance for educational prescriptions, so that predictions of probable future effects can be informed by past experience. In this study the conceptual ideals expressed in the revolutionary slogan, ‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity’, have been used to assess some significant educational effects of their adoption by educational authorities. In several cases that adoption has resulted in a lesser level of achievement than might have been attained by some suggested alternative educational means.

Conceptual Idealism.

Conceptual Idealism.