Contemporary Thinking Research Articles

Aid vs. “Aid”: Foreign Aid in Mao‐Era China's Public Diplomacy

Historicising Chinese foreign‐aid thinking has become indispensable given China's increasing global role. This article examines a key aspect of this context: the Great Leap Forward and the emerging Sino‐Soviet split period (1958‐1961). The Peking Review is utilised as a window into official aid‐related discourses of the time. The article is organized around an aid vs. “aid” rhetorical and conceptual symmetry within the magazine. Aid is ultimately what Mao Zedong and other leaders intend audiences to code as pro‐development and prestigious. The greater the unreciprocated cost to the donor and the higher the embodied technology, the more helpful and prestigious the donor. At the same time, the more ideologically correct the recipient or donor, the greater its relative prestige in the equation. An ideologically correct recipient such as China deserves more help but needs it less, and accrues more prestige even as it gives comparatively less aid. “Aid” is the reverse image of aid in that it is harmful rather than helpful. But instead of being the opposite of prestigious, “aid” is powerful in a predatory, paper tiger‐like way. While this discourse reflects parochial concerns of the period, the underlying concepts are likely to continue to influence contemporary Chinese aid thinking and practices.

Diversity in and among Rhetorical Traditions

Diversity in and among Rhetorical Traditions

Revisiting Indian Mode of Philosophizing

Indian philosophy has ancient origin, but contemporary in significance. It is wide and varied, but holistic and integral in its approach. In terms of contemporary needs and aspirations, it has to be revisited and reinterpreted. It is imperative on the part of contemporary thinkers and scholars to properly understand from the original sources and put forth its true spirit without any bias and prejudices. Then only its real message can be disseminated to the world, and an attempt is made here to provide a blueprint to undertake this exercise.

ÇAĞDAŞ SANATTA GERÇEKLİK TEMSİLİ SORUNSALI VE METADRAM

The history of theatre, which has aimed to represent the external reality directly for centuries, witnessed the alternative thought and possibilities of representation about reality beginning from the historical avant-garde. In addition to the idea of reflecting the reality as it is, the tendencies to transform, distort or completely ignore it arose. The new writing practices, which are shaped by the ideas of contemporary thinkers to analyze the perception of reality that has changed in the technology age, especially the simulation theory of Baudrillard, enable the plays to distance themselves from the conventional in terms of both content related and formal tendencies. In the changes observed since the mid-20th century along with capitalist transformation, the reduction of the artwork to its commodity value just as an ordinary product also affects theatrical practices. The process of theatricalization, which is associated with the phenomenon of objectification, is effective not only on the staging and acting but also on the art of drama. In this process, metadramatic plays revealing the theatrical codes of drama gains importance in play writing – both to move away from concrete reality and to reverse the postmodernism's discourse about death of drama.

The Consubstantial Otherness of God: Divine Simplicity and the Trinity in Hans Urs von Balthasar

AbstractMartin explores divine simplicity according to the twentieth‐century Catholic theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar. She grants that Balthasar does not provide a traditional presentation of the attribute of divine simplicity. In his doctrine of the Trinity, Balthasar emphasizes such themes as distance, “hiatus,” and infinite difference, none of which seems to promise a robust doctrine of divine simplicity. Indeed, some have suggested that Balthasar's Trinitarian theology does not allow for traditional claims about divine simplicity. Martin argues, however, that one finds in Balthasar's Trinitarian theology the doctrine of divine simplicity, assumed as an internalized starting point and rooted in his understanding of the analogia entis. This can be seen, for example, in his various engagements with Aquinas as well as with contemporary thinkers such as Gustav Siewerth and Erich Przywara. Likewise, when addressing the issue of whether the Trinitarian Persons can be “counted” according to our normal understanding of number, he insists with Evagrius that God is simple. In the same context, he similarly draws upon Plotinus, Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory Nazianzen, Tertullian, Ambrose, and Aquinas. Martin therefore gives particular attention to the Theo‐Logic and to Balthasar's affirmation in his Trinitarian theology of the points that the divine Persons are fully God, the divine attributes are identical with each other in God, and the distinction of Persons has to do not with three parts of God but with opposed subsistent relations.

‘How Can Anyone Live Like That?’ Exploring the Conscious and Unconscious Implications for Disabled People of any Change in Assisted Suicide Law

This paper explores the issue of assisted suicide in relation to disabled people from a psychosocial perspective. The implications, particularly the unconscious implications, for disabled people and for the psychosocial dynamics around disability if assisted suicide was made lawful in the UK are explored. Assisted suicide is the subject of persistent attempts at legal change and while not, in theory, specific to disabled people, the issue brings some of the psychosocial dynamics around impairment and disability into focus, illuminating the attitudes and emotions with which disabled people must try to live. Psychoanalytic ideas in relation to trauma, loss, mourning and containment are drawn upon with particular reference to the work of Freud, Klein, Bion and more contemporary thinkers such as Garland, Sinason and Rustin. The paper draws on three texts by disabled people in order to explore emotional responses to profound impairment. Attachment theory helps in considering varying narrative styles. Disability studies literature and legal, social and political contextual issues inform the psychosocial perspective applied in the paper.

Rüsen’s Legacy of Synthetic Historicism

Abstract The English translation of Jörn Rüsen’s Historik is a major event in the global community of the theory of history. Few contemporary thinkers in this field have been so systematic and comprehensive as Rüsen. This book, rendered as Evidence and Meaning, is the outcome of a whole life devoted to the renewal of German historicism. Rüsen’s contribution mirrors the great debates held in West Germany since the 1960s about the theory of history (Historik), discussions that prompted a conjoint reassessment of the old dispute between historicist academia and Marxist or Weberian sociologism, including the consequences of the linguistic turn. Rüsen has opened the German historicist tradition toward spaces of compromise with the Western “scientific” or more generalizing history. Furthermore, Rüsen’s synthetic historicism, with its insistence on praxis, might be taken as a case of convergent evolution between German and American syntheses of historical life and historical knowledge.

Live Body: An interview with Anne Emmanuelle Berger

Lenka Vrablikova: Focusing on the problem of corps, this special issue of parallax and the previous one – its other part – seek to explore how contemporary critical thinking can challenge preconcep...

SELF-ORGANIZATION VS CREATIVITY: PRINCIPLES OF COMPREHENSION

Synergetics is a science of self-organization of complex systems - biogeocoenosis, social systems, consciousness, human thinking, information and technology complexes. Synergetics seeks to create a "single field" of interdisciplinary communication, to form the principles of a scientific picture of the world. The unevenness of complex systems under certain conditions gives rise to the self-organization of both natural and social processes. As a doctrine of self-development, synergetics rebuilds contemporary worldview and thinking, through which one can understand the instability, nonlinearity, and openness of the modern world in its uniqueness and integrity.

The Association between Urban Public Transport Infrastructure and Social Equity and Spatial Accessibility within the Urban Environment: An Investigation of Tramlink in London

The pursuit of sustainability has been at the forefront of contemporary planning initiatives. However, most recent research has focused on the environmental and economic aspects of developing sustainable urban environment, whilst largely neglecting the social aspects. Contemporary political thinking in the UK often disregards the potential of the urban infrastructure to improve social equity. The aim of this study was to analyse the impact of transport infrastructure on a variety of social measures, in an empirical and ideologically unbiased fashion, using both quantitative and qualitative methods. We selected “Tramlink” as a case study: a light-rail system in the London Borough of Croydon which began operation in 2000. We used quantitative methods, including advanced spatial statistics, to produce a more detailed analysis of social equity than has been previously published. This acknowledges that determining localised issues can produce more informed and effective policy interventions. Our results demonstrate that the physical properties of transport infrastructure and the non-physical attributes of society, in combination, help to create opportunities for individuals to succeed. We also find that in order to reduce the negative effects of austerity, public money could be more effectively spent if diverted to areas that are most in need which can be highlighted through localised investigations.

HISTORICAL MEMORY AND SOCIAL MYTH AS A FORM OF INTERPRETING OF THE PAST HISTORY

HISTORICAL MEMORY AND SOCIAL MYTH AS A FORM OF INTERPRETING OF THE PAST HISTORY

Medical teamwork and the evolution of safety science: a critical review

There is widespread consensus that teamwork constitutes one of the key requirements in today’s multidisciplinary and highly complex system of delivering care. In recent years, increasing attention has been given to questions of how to define, teach, measure, and improve teamwork in healthcare. However, one cannot help but feel a certain disconnect between this ongoing trend in healthcare with an associated bias towards judgemental and normative language, and contemporary thinking in safety science that explores concepts from complexity thinking, such as emergence and resilience. The aim of this critical review is to contrast prevailing approaches to teamwork in healthcare with current concepts in safety science. After identifying relevant articles through multiple formal search methods, we found that, although current teamwork literature acknowledges a lack of comprehensive investigations linking team training in healthcare and patient outcomes, the predominant strategy to achieve safety remains a traditional, reactive approach that regulates behaviour and constrains performance variability. As this strategy is focussed on competencies, much of the responsibility for unwanted results is pushed towards the ‘sharp end’ by the quality agenda, emphasizing personal and professional competence while obscuring systemic issues. Teamwork, while indispensable in the highly subspecialized reality of healthcare, is oftentimes reduced to an aggregated set of individual behaviours. It appears that in the current state of entangled quality and safety agendas, medicine has settled for a reductionist and moral approach towards teamwork to manage the associated complexities, thereby accepting a simplistic but intellectually impoverished and ethically questionable understanding of the concept.

Anglican Theology in the Midst of a Migration Crisis

AbstractThis article explores what Anglicanism may have to say to a world struggling with a ‘migration crisis’. It begins with the story of the nineteenth-century African martyr, Bernard Mizeki, who was both a migrant and, as a missionary, a place-maker. Using three pairs of words – place and displacement, guest and host, and journey and destination – the article connects Anglicanism’s historic emphasis on parishes and the Incarnation to contemporary thinking on migration. It argues that eschatological thinking is necessary so Christians can consider what sort of destination they offer in their communal life. It concludes by urging more study of the relationship between migration, Anglican identity, and Christian being in the world.

Responsibility and Sustainability in Brain Science, Technology, and Neuroethics in China—a Culture-Oriented Perspective

The China Brain Project is in development. Integrating an ethical framework to identify and assess ethical challenges and plan for solutions is a priority. Here Wang etal. discuss ethical questions emerging from brain research in the context of traditional Chinese culture and juxtapose the legacy of Confucianism with contemporary thinking.

Science and language integration with English learners: A conceptual framework guiding instructional materials development

AbstractThe purpose of this study is to present a conceptual framework that integrates science and language learning for all students, including English learners (ELs). This framework is grounded in the mutually supportive nature of science instructional shifts, spurred by A Framework for K‐12 Science Education (National Research Council, 2012. A framework for K‐12 science education: Practices, crosscutting concepts, and core ideas) and the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), and language instructional shifts, informed by contemporary thinking in second language acquisition. First, we describe the conceptual framework that consists of our perspective and design principles. Then, we describe one approach for using the conceptual framework to develop NGSS‐aligned instructional materials that promote science and language learning with elementary students, including ELs. Finally, we offer implications for future research for our own design research specifically and for the field more broadly. The conceptual framework highlights how substantive collaboration between content areas, such as science, and the field of EL education can help ensure that all students, and ELs in particular, are supported in meeting rigorous content standards while developing proficiency in English.

Hermeneutika Manhaj Tafsir Fazlur Rahman

As a method of Tafsir - in the context of classical science -, hermeneutics is used to solve, interpret and interpret the meanings contained in scriptures, jurisprudence, ancient documents and texts. Hermeneutics as a theory of interpretation will surely give birth to hetereutic products as operational-applications tafsirnya. Fazlur Rahman is one of contemporary Muslim thinkers using the hermeneutic approach in nash interpretation. He grew up in a strong family environment in holding religious teachings by adopting a system of schools against Imam Hanafi (Sunni) as a figure of mujtahid madhhab ulama with traditional-conventional Islamic thinking and developing his scholarship to Western world which influenced many modern-contemporary thinking patterns. Rahman's education with traditional and contemporary background is apparent in his ijtihad results by carrying on the Qur'an, systematic-interpretation and logical-synthesis approaches. Rahman's traditional-liberal form of thought can be understood from his superior theory of double movement theory which was launched in 1982 AD with his basic ideas and ideas about the fundamental differences between the legal aspects of the Qur'an and the ideal aspects of the moral al -Qur'an. The integration of an education system of the traditional system in the state of origin (Pakistan) with the modern system of philosophy while continuing its studies in the West (France) made Rahman consistent with the position of al-Qur'an and sunna as the source of the first and main Islamic teachings as a means to uncover the meaning of the text and messages of both mashdar al-hukm. Fazlur Rahman classified as a unique and prominent thinker of his time is very interesting to be studied. He grew up in Pakistan and expanded his science to France and then to Chicago Canada who was later invited by his local government to return to help in Pakistan. But his struggle in his birthplace did not last long which made Rahman have to move back to Chicago, Canada. It seems like this hijrah experience as a reference to make it easier to remind us of the popular hermeneutic theory which is also pacing or reciprocity between inductive and deductive ie double movement theory around text, context and contextualization
 Keywords: method , Tafsir and hermeneutics

La visión socio-política sobre el mundo primitivo en el pensamiento de Giambattista Vico

This essay emphasizes how Vico was one of the modern philosophers to set himself the goal to reconstruct the history of the primitive world. Differently from several authors who preceded him and also other contemporary thinkers, the Neapolitan philosopher showed that the world of the origin wasn’t idyllic, but it was affected by fear, anguish and basic needs. What mainly characterizes Vico, however, is the fact that he represented the primitive world not as a unitary and fixed block, but as a world made of different historical phases and of class and social conflicts. As there were no written documents, Vico elaborated a reconstruction of history, basing it on a new and revolutionary theory of myths which, being based on creativity induced by fantasy, are called “universali fantastici” (fantastic universals).

The Monstrous Flesh: collective bodies and the State-Form in Modern Mesopotamia

Abstract: The Middle East is in chaos. Having been described as monstrous, the Islamic State (ISIL) has been defeated only to come back as a chronic guerrilla style insurgency and the shadow of further conflicts that are still looming in the region. The following article takes up this situation through the concept of the biopolitical monster as the common body of resistance and struggle, exploring the liberatory aspects of this concept in terms of organization and political autonomy, and argues that ISIL has more in common with the State-form than with the monstrous. Discussing the colonial and neo-colonial aspects of the situation, the case of Kurdish Northern Syria will be presented in contrast to the ISIL. It continues to argue for a social monstrous flesh as the performative body of contemporary protest movements, tracing back the rhizomatic etymologies of monster to Aristotle and early Islamic philosophers, drawing inspirations mainly from the tradition of immanent thought and its contemporary thinkers such as Foucault, Deleuze, Guattari, and Negri.

Managing the Urban Environment of Santo Domingo, the Dominican Republic

This article brings the contemporary thinking and practice of Urban Environmental Management (UEM) to the solution of real problems in a major city of a developing country in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). Such cities face more immediate problems than the developed world and have fewer resources to deal with them. The study first considers the context of the Dominican Republic and then reviews issues of poverty alleviation, industry, sewage and sanitation, water, energy, transportation and finance in Santo Domingo, the Dominican Republic. Finally, it proposes a 5-year plan to help solve the urban environmental problems of Metropolitan Santo Domingo, the largest city in the Caribbean, utilizing a real-world database and a limited budget.

Visionary Modernism: A Witnessing

Joan Richardson makes a large, alluring claim for an experiment in the form of critical writing. The 13 sections of Wallace Stevens’s “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird” are to the whole of Richardson’s argument about the positive ethical and political effects of secular “modernist visionary thinking” as the blackbird of the famous cubist poem is to the varying landscape where it can always eventually be observed. Richardson’s critical and theoretical landscape features many high, low, quotidian, and surreal ways in which humans can realize that “it matters what you pay attention to.” The contemporary mind “entrained to ‘the exquisite environment of fact’ will tune its instrument to the temperament of the cosmos, thereby increasing the shadings of meaning exponentially.” Richardson’s decision to impose a rigorous (and specifically derivative) constraint, with its enforcement of philosophical good health and attention, thus “turns out to be the ideal corrective to life in our moment.”