Dialectical Dimensions Research Articles

Exploring Parents’ Everyday Experiences With Digital Media: Barriers and Opportunities for Digital Inclusion

This article presents qualitative research findings on parents’ digital media practices. Through 32 in-depth interviews with parents of 0–6-year-olds in French-speaking Belgium, the study addresses digital inclusion by exploring the diverse ways parents experience and benefit (or not) from digital media. Our research uncovers the dual nature of digital media use in parenting, presenting both advantageous and problematic outcomes across four dialectical dimensions. Our work sheds light on how digital media can (a) offer informational support or constitute an informational challenge, (b) provide emotional assistance or cause emotional struggles, (c) grant access to social support or contribute to social pressures, and (d) serve as a tool for the daily organisation or complicate daily life. Our article also investigates the factors associated with either positive or negative outcomes. We show the role of personal, situational, social, and normative factors. To conclude, we identify strategies for childcare and parenting support professionals to promote digital inclusion among parents by addressing barriers to positive experiences and outcomes related to the use of digital media. By integrating the outcomes of parents’ experiences with digital media into discussions of digital inclusion, this article contributes to a comprehensive approach to promoting digital equity beyond questions of access and skills. It calls for user-centric strategies that consider the diverse experiences and concrete outcomes associated with digital media use and emphasises the importance of supporting parents and families regarding these tools.

Knowable

Raymond Williams influentially claimed that the history of the English novel could be organized through the problem of the “knowable community.” This keyword entry rehearses, clarifies, and extends the idea of the “knowable” in Williams's theory of the novel. I argue that the dialectical (neither entirely subjective nor entirely objective) dimension of the concept has been overlooked, with attendant consequences for the important transition between George Eliot and Thomas Hardy in Williams's account.

Argumentação jurídica: o modelo de Douglas Walton

The aim of this article is to present a very comprehensive and useful argument analysis model for the study of law, built from the 1980s onwards by Canadian professor Douglas nº Walton, which includes, in an integrated and systematic way, logic, dialectic, and rhetoric. The logic that interests the model is the informal one, based on the study of arguments as they appear in everyday language. The dialectical dimension resides in considering arguments as components of a dialogue. The rhetorical element inhabits the argumentation schemes, which are also logical and dialectical tools. The completeness and versatility of the model make it a very interesting option for understanding various legal phenomena. It can also be of practical interest for the parties to a legal dispute.

Reducing embodied carbon in concrete materials: A state-of-the-art review

The construction sector is responsible for about 40% of energy-related emissions worldwide. Utilizing low-carbon concrete materials (LCCMs) has been recognized as an efficient way to reduce embodied carbon (EC). However, there is a lack of systematic understanding and a unified comparison of the LCCMs’ EC reduction potentials. This paper identifies publications related to LCCMs and conducts a content analysis in three dialectical dimensions. Identified LCCMs were categorized into four divisions. The results show that the most prospective LCCMs are low-carbon cementitious binders, achieving 52.6% EC reductions. The results also demonstrate the significance of comparing the EC reduction potentials of different LCCMs at a unified level, as up to 11% inconsistency was identified when switching between cement & concrete level and components & building level. It provides a theoretical foundation for researchers and practitioners to examine possible LCCMs. The findings reveal new directions for achieving a more reliable cross-case comparison among the EC reduction potentials of different LCCMs.

Specters of the Past: An Installation in the Times of Disquiet

This essay explores both the topological and historiographic dimensions of installation. Fully cognizant of installation’s transience, temporality, experiential character, or its political dimensions, the author wishes to add one more element to the current discourse: that is, spatial dialectics foregrounding contradictions in and of space, as elucidated by Henri Lefebvre in The Production of Space. The essay takes the reader and the spectator through a recent exhibition/installation of Tadeusz Kantor’s objects and machines, Tadeusz Kantor: Widma/Specters, which the author co-curated at the Cricoteka, the Centre for the Documentation of the Art of Tadeusz Kantor in Kraków in April 2020; and by briefly referencing Kantor’s artistic journey in order to show how this exhibition/installation acquires a new dialectical dimension in the times of disquiet. The essay argues that spatial dialectics brings a new dimension to the current discussions about the nature and function of installation. Installation’s transience, temporality, and its political dimensions encounter in Tadeusz Kantor: Widma/Specters a different materiality—an object in the state of unrest perturbing the contemplative attitude toward history and demanding that it be seen within the critical constellation that explodes its reified museal presence.

Questions, Presuppositions and Fallacies

In this paper I focus on the fallacy known as Complex Question or Many Questions. After a brief introduction, in Sect. 2 I highlight its pragmatic dimension, and in Sect. 3 its dialectical dimension. In Sect. 4 I present two accounts of this fallacy developed in argumentation theory, Douglas Walton’s and the Pragma-Dialectics’, which have resources to capture both its pragmatic and its dialectical nature. However, these accounts are unsatisfactory for various reasons. In Sect. 5 I focus on the pragmatic dimension of the fallacy and I suggest amendments to the accounts mentioned drawing on the study of the phenomenon of presupposition in theoretical pragmatics. I argue that the central notion in the definition of the fallacy is that of an informative presupposition. In Sect. 6 I focus on the dialectical dimension of the fallacy. This dimension needs to be explicitly acknowledged in the definition of the fallacy in order to distinguish it from a different, non-dialectical, fallacious argumentative move involving presuppositions.

Między ratio a emotum. Polsko-rosyjskie postrzeganie wzajemne w perspektywie binarnej

A characteristic feature of Polish-Russian mutual perception is binarity, manifesting itself in various discursive spaces, from colloquial stereotypes, through popular literature, to sophisticated forms of meta-historical discourse. Asian-Europeanness, Latin-Byzantism/Orthodoxy, collectivism-individualism, and authenticity-falsehood, are just some of the oppositions that organise the social imagination of Poles and Russians in the sphere of their mutual assessments and opinions. The article draws attention to the partial manifestations of such oppositions (literary discourse, postcolonial studies, etc.) in order to show their hidden, dialectical dimension. To achieve this goal, the author refers to the category of ratio and emotum, which refers to a specific current of the European philosophical tradition. Both of these binary categories are the foundation for creating an image of the Other. They also fit into self-defining strategies important for understanding Polish and Russian identity.

Written argumentation practices in two Argentinian undergraduate courses: multidimensionality and epistemic potentials

This paper states that the epistemic potentialities of writing and arguing are largely derived from the interweaving of four dimensions. Three of them are constitutive (the logical, rhetorical, and dialectical dimensions), and one is integrative (the epistemic dimension). Thus, we characterize how these four distinct dimensions operate in texts produced by first-year university students in two disciplines (Linguistics and Biology) and how those students reflect on their processes of writing and arguing. The results belong to qualitative research designed as a multiple case study, which focused on teaching practices that intertwine disciplinary contents, writing, and argumentation in Argentinian university classrooms. These results deepen the academic literacies’ lines of research regarding the role that argumentation plays in academic writing. We analyze texts produced by students and interviews with them to characterize the dimensions that such students deploy when writing and arguing to learn in their disciplines.

The Datafication of Law: How Technology Encodes Carceral Power and Affects Judicial Practice in the United States

This inquiry explores how data analyses about US Federal sentences have transformed sentencing practice beginning in the mid-1980s. I consider this inquiry an early case of the datafication of law, a pervasive process that translates legal practice into data and embeds it in digital networks so it can be tracked and analyzed in real time. To explore datafication historically and in relation to legal practice and power, I consider it not as an objective and passive undertaking but, rather, as an ideological and performative process that encodes and enacts normative presumptions and desirable futures. The empirical inquiry traverses “levels of analysis” and thus bridges prominent perspectives in sociolegal research. In so doing, I identify four mechanisms that mediate “large-scale” processes and “local” practices: field assembly, symbolic projection, material inscription, and boundaries spanning. Substantively, I show how datafication has not simply described, but also transformed, sentencing practice according to a colorblind-carceral imaginary that strives to fix the present in place. By relentlessly translating decisions into data forms that derive from this carceral imaginary, datafication affects judicial action and partakes in sustaining legacies of oppression. Yet, like other technologies, datafication also reveals dialectic dimensions in opening up to new actors and subjecting its ideological underpinnings to contestation and change.

In the Name of the British People: Words and Democracy in Three Post-Brexit Films

At a time when the British political scene and media environment have been saturated with references to “the people” and “the people’s voice”, films may seem the ideal means to question what it means to “represent” something or someone, and reveal how the term of “people”, while being overused and misused, offers a floating signifier that conjures up all types of projections. This article focuses on three films whose reception has been skewed by the context of Brexit, and more particularly by the issues related to the referendum and the concomitant political instrumentalisation of the notion of “the people’s voice”. My contention is that the three films interrogate the very notion of representation, namely what representing a nation and its “people” means. Instead of claiming they convey the “true” voice of the people, each film dramatises the staging of a battle of words, which is thus construed as the essence of the democratic debate. Even more specifically, each film offers a reflection on the political power of words through its cinematographic tools. In each case, albeit with obvious stylistic differences, both mise en scène and montage give a proper dialectical dimension to the film discourse insofar as the narratives are built on a series of ruptures or contrasts that are orchestrated into an organic whole.

Kulturkritik und Reflexionen zum deutschen Kolonialismus in Christian Krachts Roman Imperium

In spite of its ironic posture, Christian Kracht’s novel Imperium (2012) contains a serious criticism of civilization, which is illustrated along the protagonist August Engelhardt. Through the fictionalization of this historical character, the novel critically reflects German colonialism, but also the “German madness” (Setz 2015: 155). This way, Imperium highlights the dialectical dimensions of culture as well as of colonialism and thus calls for a postcolonial reading. The aim of this study is to work out that Kracht’s novel Imperium by means of the fictionalization of the historical figure August Engelhardt offers a postcolonial perspective on the colonial as well as totalitarian ambitions of the Wilhelminian Era. This perspective is intensified through a critical view in sense of the cultural criticism that was developed by Horkheimer and Adorno in the Dialectic of Enlightenment (2006). Doing so, the novel presents the inhuman dimensions of unilateral concepts in a remarkable way. After mapping out the theoretical foundation of the study in the context of Postcolonial German Studies and outlining of the interrelations of cultural criticism and postcolonial approaches, I will investigate the critical dimension of the novel with regard to the progress optimism as well to the German colonial expansion politics at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. Thereby, I will concentrate on the ambivalent protagonist August Engelhardt and his strange philosophical ideas, which celebrate the coconut as a sacred fruit. Based on the regression of the protagonist, the subversions of the colonial discourse will be explored with respect to the arguments of Horkheimer and Adorno.

John Woods y Brent Hudak: Por paridad de razonamiento

Traducción al español del artículo publicado por John Woods y Brent Hudak en Informal Logic, Vol. 11, Nº 3, en 1989. Frente a las propuestas que interpretan el argumento por analogía en términos de semejanza de propiedades, los autores proponen aquí una concepción metaargumentativa, es decir, una en la que los objetos de comparación son argumentos. Esto les permite interpretar la noción de semejanza en términos de identidad de razones, dar cuenta de algunas características del argumento por analogía en oposición, por ejemplo, a la predicación analógica y explorar su dimensión dialéctica en la solución de lo que denominan un stand-off o punto muerto discursivo. La traducción se acompaña de una presentación del texto realizada por el traductor.

Open-mindedness in Three Dimensions

In this programmatic essay, I approach the question "What is open-mindedness?" through three more specific questions, each designed to foreground a distinct dimension along which the analysis of open-mindedness might proceed: When is open-mindedness? What is not open-mindedness? and, Where is open-mindedness? The first question refers to the temporal dimension of open-mindedness, which I analyze in terms of Dewey’s distinction between recognition and perception and the psychoanalytic concept of disavowal. The second question refers to the dialectical dimension of open-mindedness, to what the many aspects of closed-mindedness reveal about open-mindedness. Here I recall Aristotle’s doctrine of the mean. The third question refers to the dimension of scale, asking what open- and closed-mindedness look like on the interpersonal and social levels. To bring out this third dimension, I draw on Jonathan Lear's reading of the Republic and psychoanalytic group dynamics theory. Through these three related inquiries I show the range of this central intellectual virtue and bring out its connections to two central, related features of the moral life: the need for integration and the need for openness to newness and complexity.

Relational dialectics: researching change in intercultural families

PurposeThis paper aims to adopt a relational dialectics analysis approach to provide qualitative depth and insight into the ways intercultural families manage intercultural tensions around consumption. The authors pay particular attention to how a relational dialectics analysis reveals a relational change in the family providing evidence to demonstrate how a family’s unique relational culture evolves and transitions.Design/methodology/approachQualitative insights from a relational-dialectic analysis on 15 intercultural families are used to illustrate the interplay of stability with instability in the management of intercultural dialectic tensions within these families.FindingsIntercultural dialectical interplay around food consumption tensions are implicit tensions in the household’s relational culture. Examples of dialectical movement indicating relational change are illustrated; this change has developmental consequences for the couples’ relational cultures.Research limitations/implicationsThis study provides qualitative insights on relational dialectics in one intercultural family context and reveals and analyses the dialectical dimensions around consumption in the context of intercultural family relationships. The research approach could be considered in other intercultural and relational contexts.Practical implicationsFamily narratives can be analysed within the context of two meta-dialectics that directly address how personal relationships evolve; indigenous dialectic tensions within a family can also be identified.Originality/valueThis paper demonstrates the qualitative value of a relational dialectics analysis in revealing how food consumption changes within families are the result of reciprocal or interdependent learning, which has consequences for relational change.

Multi-modal argumentation and rhetoric in judicial proceedings

Multi-modal argumentation is a relatively new approach in argumentation theory. In Gilbert’s approach to multi-modality, it focusses not only on the logical mode of argumentation but also on the emotional, the kisceral, and the visceral: the so-called “alternate” modes. Due to the formal institutional constraints in law, the logical mode (in its dialectical variant) is a normative imperative due to the demands of the rule of law. However, especially in the so-called unclear cases, we can find traces of the alternate modes, either in their dialectical or rhetorical dimensions. If it already has been claimed that logic is only one part of legal “business,” a multi-modal argumentation analysis of law, in a Gilbertarian style, is presented here for the first time.

Sobre Los días terrenales [Zhdánov, Pascal, la filosofía y una “Literatura de extravío”

Este artículo rescata la ingente discusión sobre la novela Los días terrenales de José Revueltas, en el plano de la interpretación filosófica. Proponemos una lectura de Los días terrenales a través del instrumental propio de la filosofía en su dimensión dialéctica, que atienda el significativo elenco de problemas filosóficos que Revueltas convoca a través del trazo de un gran mural existencial y humano. Se invoca, para este propósito, a los fantasmas de Andrei Zhdánov y Blaise Pascal, cuyas ideas respecto del arte, la vida, el absoluto, el compromiso político o moral y, finalmente, la condición humana, guían la complejidad de un autor en su doble condición de escritor comunista y de comunista que escribe.

Commentary on Nikolay Mintchev’s “Object-Relations and Cultural Narratives in the Analysis of Racism”

Nikolay Mintchev’s (this issue) consideration of the use of psychoanalytic thought as a critical framework for the analysis of racism focuses on the differences between the Kleinian and Lacanian schools. While his depiction of their differences and the relevance of those differences for social theory is fundamentally fair and accurate, he overlooks the fact that as clinical theories, they may indeed have more in common than their apparent differences suggest. Their shared attention to the importance of unconscious fantasy and to the mechanisms of transference or the encounter with the Other in clinical work undermines the rigid distinction between them that is necessary for Mintchev’s thesis. By accepting the common view of their differences, Mintchev assumes a weaker version of each and sacrifices the dialectical dimension of psychoanalytic thought that indeed enhances its utility as social analysis.

William Peter Blatty's The Exorcist and Rhetoric–Dialectic Interplay

This article closely analyzes a partnership between the literary, rhetorical, and dialectical dimensions of William Blatty's The Exorcist (1971), a popular horror novel about a twelve-year-old girl possessed by an ancient demon, Pazuzu. The Exorcist navigates the theological understanding of transcendental unity—Beauty, Goodness, and Truth (found in the theories of Plato, Thomas Aquinas, and contemporary Thomists). The “evil” dimensions of The Exorcist (ugliness, sin, and lies, respectively) counterpoint the beauty–goodness–truth relationship; consequently, Blatty's horrific/repulsive elements highlight the role of Catholic truth, heighten the dialectical function of Catholic theology, and enhance the power of argumentation within a literary work. By closely unpacking several dialogues within Blatty's The Exorcist, this article establishes the novel as an accessible piece of “Catholic horror” that persuasively guides popular audiences through modes of theological argumentation toward sites of Catholic understanding.

O TEMPO E O MODO: TEMAS DE DIALÉTICA MARXISTA

Tempo e modo são referências que impregnam toda a obra de Marx, em especial quando nela se manifesta de maneira mais explícita a dimensão dialética do seu pensamento. Trazer à tona esse núcleo analítico é tarefa urgente e importante para renovar e bem utilizar esse "poder do pensamento negativo" (Marcuse). Isso se aplica especialmente à preocupação central do presente artigo, que consiste em reunir elementos que possam contribuir na construção de uma teoria da experiência social adequada às novas formas que vai assumindo o mundo ao qual Marx dedicou seu trabalho, o mundo do capital. Para tanto apresenta-se uma concepção não linear da dimensão temporal, com o objetivo de lhe conferir a devida centralidade nos processos sociais.

Moving and Learning

This article introduces ways in which movement can enhance one’s understanding of how to learn using Experiential Learning Theory (ELT) concepts of the Learning Cycle, Learning Styles, and Learning Flexibility. The theoretical correspondence between the dialectic dimensions of the Learning Cycle and the dimensions of the Laban Movement Analysis (LMA) framework create a hypothesized integrated typology of learning and movement styles that expand the description of Learning Style to include the movement affinities. These suggested relationships are facilitated by the existing theories and grounded by movement observations and interviews of more than 200 adult learners. From the theoretical relationships and observations, the authors propose descriptions of the movement affinities for each of the nine styles in the Kolb Learning Styles Inventory 4.0 (KLSI 4.0) and suggest that increasing one’s movement flexibility, or the ability to move using a full range Effort and motion through space, provides a catalyst for learning and promotes Learning Flexibility. These hypothesized relationships will form the basis for future empirical research.