Contradiction In Terms Research Articles

Solar Thrill: Using the Sun to Cool Vaccines

Using the sun to keep vaccines cool? It sounds like a contradiction in terms, but this is exactly the technology being developed by a partnership between UNEP OzonAction, UNICEF, the WHO, the Danish Technological Institute, Greenpeace, the German governmental group GTZ Proklima, the international nonprofit organization PATH, and the private sector companies Vestfrost and Danfoss. The SolarChill fridge requires no batteries or any other energy inputs to stay cool, so it emits no carbon dioxide. In addition, it requires little maintenance, is cheap to run, and uses no ozone-damaging refrigerants. It may sound too good to be true, but successful field tests have now set this technology on the road to WHO approval.

The Social Etiquette of Sleep: Some Sociological Reflections and Observations

This ar ticle provides a critical examination of the seemingly counter-intuitive sociological notion of the `social etiquette of sleep': the socially appropriate and inappropriate, prescriptive and proscriptive, ways of'doing'sleeping, that is to say, in ever yday/night life. The first par t of the ar ticle provides a brief discussion of the rationale for a sociological engagement with sleep. The remaining sections then proceed to a detailed sociological account of the `civilizing' of sleep, the social uses and abuses of sleep, the socially attentive sleeper, the inconsiderate or selfish sleeper, and the anarchic, anomic, deviant or stigmatized sleeper. The ar ticle closes with some fur ther sociological reflections on these dormative/normative matters.A sociological engagement with sleep, it concludes, is far from a contradiction in terms.

Integrity in management consulting: a contradiction in terms?

More and more management consultants are digging deep to unearth profound answers to ethical issues in the consulting business. Searching questions are being asked about how they perceive themselves. A number of failed consulting projects with dramatic consequences such as Swissair Group or Enron have recently hit the headlines and often brought questionable ‘principles of consulting’ to light (e.g. Byrne 2000, 2002). A tarnished image and eroding confidence have affected this industry especially hard: the whole business stands or falls by the consultant’s reputation, because consulting performance can only be ‘measured’ by approximation and estimation (cf. O’Shea & Madigan 1997, Ernst 2002). Increasingly, therefore, consultants are looking to a new, ethically more robust understanding of what they do.

The New Need for the Catholic University

The New Need for the Catholic University Gerhart Neimeyer Bernard Shaw's still lingering statement, "a Catholic university is a contradiction in terms," is a tautology or a prejudice. A tautology if we read it literally to mean: "A universal university is a contradiction in terms." A prejudice if we supply the historical depth and turn it into a more precise statement, to wit: "A university under such authoritarian strictures by the Church as was the university of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries contradicts the notion of free inquiry which our century identifies with the university." We shall see whether the statement is true in this version. Even if true, however, it must be called a prejudice because it judges today's Catholic university in terms of a past situation which no longer applies. If we go further with Shaw and ask what was the objectionable [End Page 143] element in the past situation we find that it is not so much the Christian quality of the university as the tendency to identify Christianity with an elaborate set of theological and philosophical propositions which were considered to be comparable to propositions about natural objects, so that there could be competition and collision between the two sets, and one set could be authoritatively superimposed on the other. Furthermore, there had been two centuries of dogmatization not only in theology but also in philosophy, so that formulae and syllogisms came to be taken for reality itself, which explains the tendency to identify Christianity chiefly with propositions. None of these conditions prevails anymore today, so that condemning a Catholic university on the grounds of what a Catholic university was, several hundred years ago, is sheer prejudice. The first thing to bear in mind, then, when speaking for the need for a Catholic university today, is that we are not indulging ourselves in nostalgia. As compared with the Middle Ages, or the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, we are in a new ball game, as it were. Today the Catholic university responds to new needs, which must be carefully identified. If we now take a quick look at the medieval universities, all the same, it is not so much to obtain a model but rather to remind ourselves what has been the continuous character of the Western university from the very first. Of the five universities extant in the twelfth century (Salerno, Bologna, Paris, Montpellier, and Oxford), Salerno was essentially a medical school. The other four, presenting a wider range of instruction, offered knowledge through which a young man could hope to move into a respectable position in the cities, the episcopal chanceries, or the princely courts. With a grain of salt one may say that they were schools for administrators and counselors in various institutions of authority. But this utilitarian function—and here we come to the distinctive character of the Western university—was from the beginning embedded in a universal pursuit of truth, in knowledge as a universal whole. Of course, a medieval university was a guild, an association of scholars and magisters for purposes of self-protection [End Page 144] and self-government. In that way they obtained a certain autonomy from the interference of the surrounding society, represented by Prince, Church, and City. That autonomy might be seen as nothing more than self-preservation. But Alexander of Roes speaks of three principatus, three eminences: sacerdotium, regnum, and studium, according the university equal rank with the Church and the Crown. Thus, while the autonomous organization might have been merely self-preservative, the dignity could have come only from the purpose of universal truth to which the autonomous bodies of scholars and magisters had dedicated themselves. In that sense, the Western university must be distinguished from, let us say, the Japanese university which arose roughly about the same time. In Kyoto, the university also trained administrators, teaching both skills and knowledge, but skills and knowledge wholly immersed in the myth and rituals that constituted the mold of society and the imperial dynasty. In that this university was entirely geared to social and political tradition, the truth it taught had no standing of its own. Why, then, could it have that standing in the...

Deconstructing identities on the scaffold: the execution of Hugh Despenser the Younger, 1326

In this article, I will argue that the public execution of aristocratic traitors should be read in a wider socio-cultural context in conjunction with the more common interpretation of treason executions as state-controlled legalised violence. The latter approach tends to obscure the issues of honour and status which define identities created in a decidedly public sphere. This is in particular relevant for the limited number of elaborate executions of male aristocratic traitors in late thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century England. Concerning only a handful of men, these executions stand out in their emphasis on public humiliation and degradation, as well as in their insistence on destroying the integrity of the traitor's body. This implies a shared cultural understanding of aristocratic masculinities, founded in notions of nobility of lineage, loyalty, military prowess and physical health. Treason, as breach of loyalty, undermined this image of nobility, and indeed created a contradiction in terms: conceptually, corrupted nobility could not exist. By examining these executions in the light of aristocratic masculine self-representations, it becomes clear that these events are as much about punishing crimes and the breach of loyalty as about re-aligning cultural notions of nobility and ignobility by means of the traitor's body.

Equality in Asia-Pacific: Reality or a Contradiction in Terms? – An Introduction

The Holocaust brought to the fore consequences of oppressing individuals and groups by virtue of their respective particular personal characteristics, and of ignoring such oppression. Thus, in 1948...

Rasjonell solidaritet

Rational Solidarity The notion of rational solidarity may ap¬pear as a contradiction of terms at first glance to a sociologist, in that actors are either rational or solidary. This dichoto¬my, however, leads to problems, for in¬stance in explaining public allocations in the welfare state. This is because much sociological theory is based on the di¬stinction between homo economicus and homo sociologicus and therefore cannot have a concept of collective rationality. This is a self-imposed limitation created at the level of general theory in the so-called problem of order or collective action. This limitation is illustrated in an analysis of the works of Talcott Parsons, Jon Elster and Jürgen Habermas. In order to develop a concept of collec¬tive rationa¬lity, sociology must change some of its basic assumptions. Following the thoughts of Niklas Luhmann it must re¬place action and individuals with com¬munication as the basic unit of society. By doing so, it will be possible to appreci¬ate the fact that solidarity is not some¬thing typical of archaic societies or small groups, but rather a medium for the allocation of collective goods by the welfare state. The idea of rational solidarity sym¬bolizes the difference between individual and collective rationality as a unity: one should sacrifice individual opportuni¬ties to achieve collective goods and solve social problems. Taken as a medium for the allocation of collective goods, there is more to solidarity than Luhmann will admit: solidarity is the nexus of functio¬nal differentiation.

Reply to Caplan on Austrian economic methodology

A Methodenstreit is a debate in economics concerning the philosophy of social science. It involves the issue of which is the property method to pursue in the dismal science. Although this type of debate had its origins two centuries ago, the present paper is a contribution to a more modern Methodenstreit begun by Caplan (1999). It addresses some of the fundamental issues in economics: is this discipline best to be thought of along the lines of an empirical science, such as physics or chemistry (the view of the logical positivist school), or is it more properly described as a branch of logic or mathematics (the perspective of Austrian economics)? Is the argument synthetic a priori a coherent concept (the praxeological perspective), or a mere trivial tautology? Can empirical work (e.g., econometric regression equations) test economic axioms (are there any such things?), or merely illustrate them? These issues underlay the present debate over such issues as indifference (can there be any such thing in economics?), cardinality (is there room in economics for cardinal numbers, or is only ordinality to be tolerated?), continuity (are neoclassical findings the result of an artificial smooth curve assumption, or do they stem from real elements of the economy?), income and substitution effects (can there be backward bending supply curves and upward sloping demand curves?) and demonstrated preference and welfare economics (can government involvement in the economy possibly improve matters, or is this a logical contradiction in terms?)

Perspicuous Opacity: Marianne Moore and Truth in a Fallen World

M arianne M oore commented on the initial difficulty she found in making sense out of some of Gertrude Stein's prose in a review for The Dial , and confessed: ‘Looking harder, one is abashed not to have understood instantly; as water may not seem transparent to the observer but has a perspicuous opacity in which the fish swims with ease.’ 1 As with much of Moore's criticism, the suspicion that she is at least in part discussing similar aspects of her own work cannot be avoided; in early versions of ‘When I Buy Pictures’, 2 Moore described her response to art she admired with the expression ‘I take it in hand as a savage would take a looking glass’ (l. 18). 3 Though the frame may be new, and the image unfamiliar, what she sees within the glass turns out to be a reflection of her own face. And, like Stein's, Moore's work can frustrate readers with its difficulty – the sense can feel inaccessible, lying behind abstract language and relations. ‘Perspicuous opacity’ could well be taken to characterise Moore's style; both words have the same etymological heritage (from classical Latin via Middle French), and their definitions are directly opposed to one another. 4 Literally, then, perspicuous opacity is a logical impossibility, a contradiction in terms. Yet it does convey sense, and in managing to do so that sense is illustrated: words can convey more than merely the sum total of their literal definitions. ‘When I Buy Pictures’ makes the demand that art be ‘lit with “piercing glances into the life of things”’(l. 17), that it provide a way for the observer to glimpse not only through the potential opacity of language, but also through the external form of ‘things’ in the world, to reveal their hidden ‘life’.

William Osler's historical scholarship: a contradiction in terms?

For many it is difficult to grasp, let alone understand in any depth, the abundant nature of William Osler's (1849-1919) influence. Although knowing his name as a distinguished physician, few have more than a scant appreciation of his manifold contributions to medicine, and his example as the physician/historian and medical humanist par excellence. This essay considers Osler's scholarship as evidenced in his historical and biographical writings, and some lessons that we might learn from his endeavours.

Readable City

“Reading the city” is so commonplace a metaphor that we tend not to see or hear it as such: It is an indifferent building in the lexicographical landscape, something we see and pass by every day without giving it a second look. Geographers, sociologists, and architects, as well as literary critics, all speak of—and write about, and design courses on—the “legibility” of the city, usually taking the phrase for granted, taking “reading” as read. But why should it seem so obvious to speak of reading in relation to urban experience? (Or, putting this from another direction, why does “reading the village” sound like a contradiction in terms?) And what kind of reading is being evoked when we go about “reading” the city?

Reply to Caplan on Austrian Economic Methodology

A Methodenstreit is a debate in economics concerning the philosophy of social science. It involves the issue of which is the property method to pursue in the dismal science. Although this type of debate had its origins two centuries ago, the present paper is a contribution to a more modern Methodenstreit begun by Caplan (1999). It addresses some of the fundamental issues in economics: is this discipline best to be thought of along the lines of an empirical science, such as physics or chemistry (the view of the logical positivist school), or is it more properly described as a branch of logic or mathematics (the perspective of Austrian economics)? Is the argument synthetic a priori a coherent concept (the praxeological perspective), or a mere trivial tautology? Can empirical work (e.g., econometric regression equations) test economic axioms (are there any such things?), or merely illustrate them? These issues underlay the present debate over such issues as indifference (can there be any such thing in economics?), cardinality (is there room in economics for cardinal numbers, or is only ordinality to be tolerated?), continuity (are neoclassical findings the result of an artificial smooth curve assumption, or do they stem from real elements of the economy?), income and substitution effects (can there be backward bending supply curves and upward sloping demand curves?) and demonstrated preference and welfare economics (can government involvement in the economy possibly improve matters, or is this a logical contradiction in terms?).

An English Plato: J. S. Mill's Gorgias

Because of its familiarity, Plato's Gorgias frequently is treated as if it is stable in its material composition and meaning. However, closer attention to historical reception reveals that the text is not as stable as it might first appear. For example, today, we take for granted that Plato's text is available to English-only readers in clear and engaging prose, but until the nineteenth century, most intellectuals would have considered a “popular Plato” to be a contradiction of terms. This article examines the complex ideology that prompted John Stuart Mill to publish a “popular” translation of Plato's Gorgias (1834). By exploring the motivation behind Mill's English text, we illuminate key assumptions that have shaped the modern reception of ancient Greek rhetoric.

“The Whole Bad Taste of Our Period:” Josef Frank, Adolf Loos, and “Gschnas“

ABSTRACTThis article addresses the confrontation between notions of kitsch and modernist ideas about “good design” that marked twentieth century debates. It examines the notion of “Gschnas” (frippery, fancy dress), an Austrian dialect term employed by Josef Frank and Adolf Loos. The complexities and sometimes contradictions of the positions of these two architect/designers are addressed in the context of more recent debates on kitsch. Frank's stance is examined as both a critique of orthodox interwar modernism and as defining an alternative and more complex version of modernism that embraced (rather than rejected) the decorative and the popular. Frank's interpretation of “Gschnas” is considered as an essential element of this wider and more generous vision of modernism, and the notion of a “modernist kitsch”—ostensibly a contradiction in terms—is assessed. Recent cultural analyses of kitsch typically examine this as a phenomenon of self-representation by members of social groups who do not belong to the professional art and design community, and do not live in houses or designed interiors commissioned from architects and designers. In contrast, by drawing on the writings and work of Frank and Loos who produced designs for both the middle classes and for the working-class clients of social housing, the relation between notions of kitsch and ideas of “good design” is examined with the aim of questioning accepted views about the opposition between modernist theory and practice and popular taste in the early twentieth century.

Human resource management in smaller firms: A contradiction in terms?

Human resource management came into popular parlance in the late 1970s. as a managerial approach aimed at re-ordering the employment relationship to ensure employee efforts were strategically focused on achieving organisational performance and competitiveness in increasingly volatile markets. Since then there has been much consideration of whether HRM is a robust academic concept supporting a particular managerialist ideology, a status enhancing label for people managers, or a practitioner tool kit. There has also been a consideration of how HRM is articulated in small and entrepreneurial firms. This paper suggests that the concept of HRM is, in most instances, uncertainly theorised and, therefore, how it, whatever ‘it’ is, might be identified in such firms is challenging. Unless HRM is theorised in context with more care, there is a danger of it remaining a ‘fuzzy concept’ encouraging abstract empiricism which, rather than clarifying our understanding, only further muddies already muddy waters. In pursuit of this argument, in this paper current debates about the notion of HRM are considered as is how these fit with what is known about the management of labour in small firms. Consequently, the purpose of this paper is to question how appropriate it is to talk about HRM as an approach to managing labour in small firms.

Immigration, Multiculturalism, and the Welfare State

Popular opposition to immigration is rooted in many factors. In this essay, we focus on one specific issue that has become prominent in recent debates—namely, the fear that the welfare state is being undermined by the impact of increasing ethnic and racial diversity. There are actually two concerns here: first, that ethnic and racial diversity as such makes it more difficult to sustain redistributive social policies because it is difficult to generate feelings of national solidarity and trust across ethnic and racial lines, and second, that the “multiculturalism” policies adopted to recognize or accommodate immigrant groups tend to further undermine national solidarity and trust. If either of these hypotheses were true, the very idea of a “multicultural welfare state,” a welfare state that respects and accommodates diversity, would be almost a contradiction in terms. We review the existing evidence and suggest that both hypotheses are overstated. The evidence to date suggests that there is no inherent tendency for either immigrant ethnic diversity or multiculturalism policies to erode the welfare state. We conclude with some speculation about the implications of this evidence for debates about the rights of noncitizens.

Conservation of the sacred at Angkor Wat: further reflections on living heritage

This article reflects on and complements the paper 'Conservation of a “living heritage site”: a contradiction in terms? A case study of Angkor World Heritage Site', published by Keiko Miura Conservation and Management of Archaeological Sites, 7(1), (2005) 3–18. It develops further the notion of conserving sacred heritage in the light of a case study of Angkor Wat within the World Heritage site. Heritage management is always a balance between preserving different values – historic, aesthetic, use, spiritual, etc. Each of these categories of value has its own set of needs which are often not fully compatible with one another. Heritage management originally stemmed from the desire to protect the aesthetic and historic values of tangible heritage. Yet an over-emphasis on preserving these values alone is not tenable in a 'living heritage site'. At Angkor Wat it causes spiritual degradation and secularization. Highlighting instances in which this phenomenon has been apparent, this article suggests a way forward.

Family-friendly policies and equal opportunities: a contradiction in terms?

ABSTRACT This paper presents the findings from a research study of one large public sector organisation's strategy to promote gender equality and family friendliness. An examination was made of the organisation's policy documentation in this area and a questionnaire survey containing both closed and open-ended questions was undertaken across all staff in the organisation: women and men, professional, technical, administrative, secretarial, cleaning, catering and security staff. This paper reports the findings from this investigation. It analyses the informants’ knowledge of, and views on, the impact of the equal opportunities strategy, and any suggestions they had for its development. Also, their views on gender equality more generally within society were interrogated to explore any interconnection between these views and resistance to change within their organisation. By exposing the complex nature of this equal opportunities/family-friendly (EO/FF) project in one organisation, the findings have potentially interesting implications for gender equality, which could benefit from further investigation.

Female Sex Tourism: A Contradiction in Terms?

This paper argues that the ‘double-standard’ applied to male and female tourists’ sexual behaviour reflects and reproduces weaknesses in existing theoretical and commonsense understandings of gendered power, sexual exploitation, prostitution and sex tourism. It looks at how essentialist constructions of gender and heterosexuality blur understandings of sexual exploitation and victimhood and argues that racialized power should also be considered to explore the boundaries between commercial and non-commercial sex. This paper is based on ethnographic research on sexual–economic exchanges between tourist women and local men and boys in the informal tourist economy in Jamaica and the Dominican Republic.

Sustainable Mineral Operations in the Developing World.: B. R. MARKER, M. G. PETTERSON, F. MCEVOY, AND M. H. STEPHENSON, EDITORS. Pp. 249. The Geological Society Special Publication 250. 2005. ISBN No. 1-86239-188-2. Price 75.00.

Have you tried to explain what sustainable mineral development is to a friend, colleague, or student? Perhaps you’ve been wondering yourself how sustainability concepts apply to the mineral industry? After all, mining depletes natural resources. Is there a contradiction in terms here? Definitely not. As some of the papers in this book will help you better understand, sustainable mining, sustainable minerals, or sustainable mineral development, whatever you hear it called, is a viable and important concept. The book is a collection of 20 papers presented at a 2003 conference organized by the Joint Association of Geoscientists for International Development in collaboration with the Environmental Group of the Geological Society and the British Geological Survey. Although the subject is sustainable mineral operations, the range of topics covered is very broad. Perhaps this is a reflection of the range of perceptions about sustainability and mineral development. Papers by Hobbs, Richards, and Shields and Solar present the basic concepts that make sustainability and mineral development compatible objectives. Hobbs puts thoughts about sustainability and mineral development into their historical context and explains how perceptions have evolved from an environmental emphasis to one that integrates economic, environmental, and social changes accompanying mining. The key concept that connects sustainability and mineral development is the conversion of natural resource (mineral) capital to lasting and beneficial environmental and social capital. Interestingly, there is not one paper that provides examples of how these conversions can or have been realized. A few countries, including Sweden, Finland, and the United States, are used as examples of where natural resource capital has been successfully converted to other forms for society’s benefit. I find these examples …