Dualistic Paradigm Research Articles

Main Paradigms of the Concept of Evil in Western Anthropological and Psychological Studies

Purpose. The authors aim to investigate the evolution of the paradigm shift of the concept of evil in Western philosophical and psychological thought. Theoretical basis is determined by the latest methodological approaches in studying the relationship between philosophical, psychological, and theological approaches to understanding the essence of evil and its manifestations. Originality. For the first time in Ukrainian philosophical literature, a systematization of the evolution of the concept of evil in the philosophical and psychological sciences has been carried out. Conclusions. Analyzing the main mythological, theological, philosophical, and psychological concepts of evil provides an opportunity to systematize them through the main five paradigms. The primordial paradigm can be considered dualistic, which retains its influence until our time. Evil is understood in it as the personification of natural disasters, diseases, human crimes, and a force opposing Good. Ancient philosophy and Christianity try to deprive evil of its ontological status: evil does not exist as such but is only a lack of Good. Based on this understanding, a privative paradigm was formed, which dominated the European philosophical and theological consciousness for more than a millennium. It became the basis for philosophical theodicy: the justification of the all-good God in the face of clearly existing evil. But at the end of the 18th century, it gave way to the dialectical-romantic paradigm, the most vivid representatives of which are Schelling, Hegel, and Nietzsche. The concept of evil is reinterpreted and considered as a necessary component of the world, which, along with good, belongs to a higher reality. The concept of evil receives a new understanding in the psychoanalysis of Freud, Jung, and Fromm: its source is determined by the human subconscious, and its external manifestation is aggression. A similar understanding of evil is inherent in many other psychological schools, some of which also conducted psychological experiments on the originally evil nature of man. However, such "experiments" are characteristic of the social practices of totalitarian regimes, based on which the concept of the "banality" of evil arises. The appearance of the latest postmodern paradigm of understanding evil is connected with the attempt of some thinkers to reject all previous concepts of evil and a kind of return to the oldest dualistic paradigm. It would seem that the fall of most totalitarian regimes and the expectation of the "end of history" did not give grounds for popularizing this paradigm. Still, the events of the early 20s of our century indicate the need for its actualization.

Paradigmatic features of the development of institutional strategies for studying modern economy

The article shows the limitations of the strategies for studying institutional economics, which have developed as a result of both the marginalist revolution and the emergence of the generally accepted dualistic paradigm. Within the framework of this paradigm, competing strategies actually use the utilitarian interpretation of economic motives for the economic actors' behavior as a “hard core”, and social phenomena as exogenous variables, by which different explanatory patterns of economic behavior are created. In the article the peculiarities of the development of a research paradigm are considered, that makes it possible to study the endogenous mechanisms of the development of a modern economy on the basis of an institutional approach.

Rhetoric in Islamic Tradition: Paradigm and Its Development

Rhetoric has an essential role in developing Islamic civilization and da’wah. Rhetoric in the Islamic tradition has a dualistic paradigm that appears with two faces, specifically balaghah and khithobah. The character of balaghah is inherent in the rhetorical tradition, where the qualification of the message language is essential, including eloquence, meaning, and metaphor. In comparison, the khithobah character is attached to the quality aspects of the message content and the technique of delivering the message. This literature research found that the two faces of this rhetoric have further developments, one is progressive, and the other is still stagnant. The progress of balaghah is not only based on the role of Arabic as the Quran language but also the miracle of the Quran language itself. While khithobah is an essential part of delivering Islamic symbols, it is still considered a mere praxis and religious routine, and it has not developed as scientifically theoretic. Amid the limitations of the study of khitobah as part of Islamic rhetoric, this paper will elaborate on the dynamics and span developments periods.

Terpene synthases in disguise: enzymology, structure, and opportunities of non-canonical terpene synthases.

Covering: up to July 2019 Terpene synthases (TSs) are responsible for generating much of the structural diversity found in the superfamily of terpenoid natural products. These elegant enzymes mediate complex carbocation-based cyclization and rearrangement cascades with a variety of electron-rich linear and cyclic substrates. For decades, two main classes of TSs, divided by how they generate the reaction-triggering initial carbocation, have dominated the field of terpene enzymology. Recently, several novel and unconventional TSs that perform TS-like reactions but do not resemble canonical TSs in sequence or structure have been discovered. In this review, we identify 12 families of non-canonical TSs and examine their sequences, structures, functions, and proposed mechanisms. Nature provides a wide diversity of enzymes, including prenyltransferases, methyltransferases, P450s, and NAD+-dependent dehydrogenases, as well as completely new enzymes, that utilize distinctive reaction mechanisms for TS chemistry. These unique non-canonical TSs provide immense opportunities to understand how nature evolved different tools for terpene biosynthesis by structural and mechanistic characterization while affording new probes for the discovery of novel terpenoid natural products and gene clusters via genome mining. With every new discovery, the dualistic paradigm of TSs is contradicted and the field of terpene chemistry and enzymology continues to expand.

Bridget Grogan. Reading Corporeality in Patrick White’s Fiction: An Abject Dictatorship of the Flesh.

Bridget Grogan’s monograph Reading Corporeality in Patrick White’s Fiction articulates a welcome challenge to a number of the assumptions of White studies. Her compelling primary thesis is that White doesn’t endorse a dualistic paradigm between spiritual transcendence and corporeal abjection, but rather stages it as an immanent critique of rationalist modernity. This argument draws on the concept of what Grogan calls the “somatic spirituality” which critically diverges from the Platonic and P...

Taking spiritual experiences seriously in the religious education classroom: a transrational approach

ABSTRACTSpiritual experiences are common across religious and non-religious faiths, but schoolchildren are often afraid to share these because they fear ridicule from peers who are convinced religion is irrational. The need to speak about spirituality in religious education is increasingly recognised. Signposts suggests that intercultural understanding implies recognising religious students’ perception of reality and helping others understand it. Religious education in Norway now includes exploration of existential questions as a core element, and in England, making sense of religious, spiritual and mystical experiences has been suggested as a big idea. In this paper, we discuss how the dualistic paradigm of modern science makes it difficult to take spirituality seriously as lived experience and empirical phenomenon. Instead we suggest a transrational approach to explore our multidimensional reality in an intercultural dialogue where insiders and outsiders learn from each other. We also explore examples of transrational research on spiritual phenomena.

Review: Cercel, C.S. (2018). Towards a Jurisprudence of State Communism. Law and the Failure of Revolution. London: Routledge. 240 рp.

The present essay is a review of the 2018 book by Professor Cosmin Cercel TowardsaJurisprudenceofStateCommunism.LawandtheFailureofRevolution. In reviewer’s opinion, this book is a good contrast to the books and articles written in the first post-Soviet years in the Central European countries, when the intellectuals glorified the Western ideals and condemned the socialist past of their countries and the ideological legacy of the communist regimes. The focal point of the book under review is to rethink the history of authoritarianism in Romania through analyzing the formalist legal ideology that was utilized by communist regimes for their purposes. In author’s opinion, the ideas of Soviet jurisprudence do not significantly differ from the bourgeois discourse about law that characterizes the modernity. In the perspective of this discourse, the formal and procedural autonomy of legal rules (the regime of legality) is opposed to the substantial exceptions from these rules which are justified with references to higher values. These latter underpin the legitimacy of the laws. There were different versions of postulation of such values in the Western and in the communist legal theories, but all these versions are equally based on the same dualist paradigm of legal thinking.The author contextualizes this analysis of the legal philosophy of the interwar period within theoretical attempts to understand law through its connection with the state represented a kind of psychological defense of the classical jurisprudence against the revolutionary changes of the first decades of the XX century. These attempts are considered by the author as a function of psychoanalytical replacement and ousting of the historical facts from legal mentality, as far as these facts undermined the legal rationality and demonstrated the triumph of political violence over legal order. This semantic background was important for legal and political changes in the postwar Romania after 1945 — the wide discretional powers of the regime were justified with reference to the principle of exception which allows avoidance of rules in the name of people, country or state. This theoretical construction was largely utilized by the authoritarian regime which did not invent anything new but just followed the theoretical paths protracted in the interwar legal philosophy and theory.

Capturing the complexity of mental disorders in the medically ill: the network approach on behavioral medicine.

Since Descartes introduced dualism, body and mind have been seen as separate entities. The latent disease model, the view that symptoms are caused by an underlying disease, was possible within the dualistic paradigm. This paradigm, although successful in some aspects of medicine, is also assumed to underlie psychiatric disorders. As an alternative to the latent disease model, the network approach conceptualizes disorders as complex networks of causally connected symptoms. It offers a new way of understanding psychiatric disorders by directing attention away from the underlying cause and towards the symptoms and their functional interconnectedness, making the distinction between mental and physical symptoms obsolete. This article discusses how the network perspective helps us to overcome some of the problems we have faced when diagnosing and treating psychopathology in the medically ill. Furthermore, we describe how the network perspective can stimulate new research to better understand psychopathology in medically ill patients and how it can help deliver the most suitable treatment to the individual patient.

Chinese Thing-Metaphor: Translating Material Qualities to Spiritual Ideals

This article compares the use of Romantic metaphor with the Chinese literary device xiang 象 (which I translate as “thing-metaphor”) in regard to how they embody different metaphysical relations between humans and things. Whereas Romantic metaphor transports a physical thing to the immaterial realm of imagination, xiang is a literary device in which the material qualities of the thing, while creatively interpreted to generate human meaning, retain ontologically a strong physical presence. Xiang therefore epitomizes a theory of creation that challenges the Western dualistic paradigm: that the poet creates not virtual copies of the thing, but meanings of the thing, and therefore our relationships with things. The article concludes with Heidegger’s discourses on metaphor to suggest that my discussion of thing-metaphor has universal applicability.

Decoding Morris Janowitz: Limited War and Pragmatic Doctrine

The American sociologist Morris Janowitz presented two world views of security named “absolutist” and “pragmatist.” This dualistic paradigm endures into the 21st century and explains how complex and contentious security options are debated within the U.S. security establishment. His paradigm also reveals a condition called the “hegemon trap,” which means that the more powerful militarily that a state becomes relative to other states, the less likely it will fight a large-scale conventional war, resulting in frequent and perpetual limited, low-intensity, and unconventional wars. Based on experiences learned since the Vietnam War, the United States can improve global security by balancing resources between absolutist and pragmatist outlooks. This requires devoting a greater share of resources toward peacetime engagement, stability operations, and unconventional warfare.

Varela and Contemporary Psychoanalysis, an Epistemological Gesture: From Representations to Co-emergence

ABSTRACTThis paper intends to articulate common epistemological elements between Francisco Varela’s and Contemporary psychoanalytic relational-intersubjective theories. These shared elements could be described as a common epistemological gesture, the overcome of a reductionist and dualist paradigm, instead giving away to a paradigm of complexity. In both perspectives, a phenomenological and close to experience philosophical reflection is incorporated, which can account the human experience as an irreducible and valid source of knowledge. In Varela’s theory, the notion of embodiment permit to conceive the mind as natural endowment of the body. In Contemporary psychoanalytic theories, nature of human experience is conceive as intrisically social, proposing a “two person” psychology and the intersubjective model. Finally, in line with both currents and in a preliminary way, I propose the notion of co-emergency, seeking to overcome different forms of dualisms like internal/external, subject/world, I/Other, etc. From a clinical perspective, co-emergency can be conceived a s the coupling of two subjectivities, as a particular experiential mode of being with others, intending to overcome dualism regarding transference and represented mental states.

Patristični zahtevni realizem v odnosu do imetja: ho tropos diplous (psevdo-)Bazilija Velikega

The present article deals with the Christian perception of wealth, as seen in two works of the Church fathers, through the original perspective of the so-called »demanding realism«. The renowned work Quis dives salvetur? of Clement of Alexandria broadens the radicality of the Gospel also to rich people with opening the path of responsible and unattached attitude towards possession. The homily De beneficientia of (pseudo-)Basil the Great represents an even more demanding position regarding wealth, through the transformation of the traditional dualistic paradigm of complete (non-)renunciation of wealth. It puts forward a two-fold positive expression of tropos diplous which concerns the way of »perfection« and the way of »those who tightly follow the perfected«. The author of this article offers an original contribution to the complex patristic perception of wealth – which is not only unilaterally unfavourable or totally indifferent, but, on the base of demands of the Gospel, considers the reality of different levels regarding the renunciation of wealth. The findings of this article seem to be relevant for the contemporary quest of concrete ethical relationship towards the material goods.

Oltre l’antropocentrismo: il sublime ecologico nel contesto anglo-americano

By opposing the dualistic paradigm implicated in the Kantian sublime and eventually resulting in man’s mastering of the material world, this essay upholds Christopher Hitt’s notion of “ecological sublime” as a more respectful mode to relate with the natural environment. Hitt’s revision of the sublime is significant to overcome the false separation of nature and culture (the concept of “internaturality” is here offered in substitution), while fostering the abrogation of the anthropocentric stance that deeply marked the first phases of American history. Despite the multiple contradictions emerging from both their writing experiments, John Muir’s essays and Emily Dickinson’s poetry are here proposed to articulate a more biocentric view of the interlacings of the human and non human.

Culture, Paradigm, and Communication Theory: A Matter of Boundary or Commensurability?

The discussion on geocultural theory has underscored the urgency for us to re-examine the way cultural differences are handled in academic discourse. Boundaries need to be drawn, because European universality neglects cultural and also paradigm differences. This article argues that as locking universality and particularity in a dualist paradigm is part of the problem, drawing boundaries to concepts and theories will lead to further problems. Borrowing from the Chinese yin/yang dynamic worldview and the Kuhnian notion of incommensurability, the author proposes a methodological framework in which commensurability, rather than universality, is the major concern. The commensurability model and the universality model are compared with examples to illustrate how the former may help advance theory development from a local perspective.

Subjectivity, ecology and meditation – Performing interconnectedness

This article explores the set of practices promoted by the Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh and reflects on the articulations of meditation and environmentalism. Informed by current debates in Science and Technology Studies, I reflect on the role of meditation in the construction of an ecology of the self. Through the analysis of practices of mindfulness, this article investigates a variety of devices recruited to transform subjectivities, enacting relational and interconnected versions of selfhood, opposed to the modern and dualistic paradigm of subjectivity. I reflect on the performative, experiential and social dimensions of these relational ontologies, exploring the potential of meditation practices to tackle the current ‘ecological crisis’.

Legal Order and Business Development Under Law and Economics Perspective

The framework of this paper are the issues and the goal of the components of the current socio-economic processes, highlighting that globalization, crisis, recovery, development, equity are the terms which shows this complex reality. The research points out that any attempt face the problems of an advanced capitalism - which compresses the system of values (freedom, equality, dignity, social utility) on the bases of which the democracy is grounded - stands, inter alia, in a renewal of the relationship between law and economics. In this logical order, we understand the specific emphasis set on studies for control, coordination and organization of the economic phenomena. Their incidence has been analyzed especially in the field of studies on public action, on the reconstruction of a dualistic paradigm and, more in general, on the purposes animating the governments (and identifies the responsibilities) in the systematic choices. In this context, EU law, which - in the implementation of the European integration process and, therefore, on the basis of the directions given by directives adopted by the Community over the time - has made a significant contribution the regulatory system of economic relations. The innovations introduced by this way started change, their implementation has committed all the Member States be in line with the need for unified forms of regulation. This, of course, effects the sources of law by incorporating the instances from the economic and social reality. In revisiting the relationship between law and economics, it needs pay attention the contribution made, in the last years, by the law of contracts the market development and its competitive aspects. The freedom of contracting, nowadays, it is functional link the logic of economic efficiency and, therefore, it results helpful markets' opening competition. More specifically, the paradigm of self-determination in the choices override of the “principle of freedom of contract (originated in the nineteenth-century), characterized by values associated in the past to a democratic and emancipatory trend, a carry-over effect of the idea of political participation”.

How Ancient Religions Can Help Us Transcend the Civilization of Greedy Money

How Ancient Religions Can Help Us Transcend the Civilization of Greedy Money

A new synthesis: Resituating approaches to the evolution of human behaviour

Most anthropologists would agree that humans are simultaneously historical, biological, behavioral, and social. However, many researchers retain a relatively dualistic paradigm dividing anthropological questions into biological and/or social aspects. Many practitioners of Neo‐Darwinian perspectives prioritize natural selection in all explanations of human evolution. Many other anthropologists refuse to acknowledge a significant role for biological features and biological histories in human action, sensation, and engagement. Both perspectives are misplaced. Incorporating emerging perspectives in evolutionary theory into the broader anthropological discourse may help discard simplistic dualisms and resituate our assessments of the evolution of human behavior. In this essay I review three major emergent themes in evolutionary theory; Multi‐Inheritance Systems Theory, Developmental Systems Theory, and Niche Construction. I suggest, with one brief example, that placing these elements in transaction with other perspectives in anthropology might enhance the possibilities of assessing human evolution and behavior.

Renewing the Church for Mission: A Holistic Understanding of Renewal for Korean Protestant Churches

As Protestant churches in Korea navigate their own problems in the midst of stagnation and even decline, they are increasingly inquisitive about their own identity, understanding of renewal, and ways of evangelism. The purpose of this paper is mainly focused on how to renew Korean Protestant churches through a holistic paradigm of renewal that moves beyond the reigning false dualistic paradigm. First, I will discuss a holistic understanding of renewal for the Korean church, tracing two foundations: an ecological understanding of church, and a holistic understanding of conversion. Then, I will explore one successful model (Wesley) and one failing model (the Western church's cultural captivity) in the history of Christianity, asking why the reigning, falsely dualistic paradigm is so problematic and why a holistic paradigm for renewal is so essential to the churches in Korea. These will lead to my thesis: vitalizing energy for renewal comes from holding a holistic understanding of renewal. As a conclusive remark, I shall propose three renewal tasks for the future of Korean Protestant churches and insert a case study to exemplify these models in the context of Korea.

Reflection about the students’ demotivation to learn and the affective, reflective and technical dimensions in teaching work

The discussion about the importance of affectivity to the learning process is imperative. The article aims to discuss the relation between emotion and cognition emphasizing the importance of a positive link between teachers and students to initiate the concernment for learning. It highlights the complexity of the motivational process in view of the contribution given by affective-emotional, cognitive, social and unconscious aspects in human motivation. The present research was based on a qualitative approach of exploratory type, characterizing it as a bibliographic survey. The work was based in Jesus (2004) and Huertas (2001) references in what relates to the study of school motivation, because our work proposal in the field of education shows epistemological compatibility with the beliefs of the above referred authors. The purpose was to search for bibliographic support to understand how the affective aspects contribute with the motivation to learn. We emphasize that analyzing how the concern or the indifference in learning takes place requires from the researcher a study about the interpersonal between students and teachers and, ultimately between knowledge and teaching didactics. We highlight: the relevance of the “reflection on and for the pedagogical action”; the influence of the historic and social moment in which we are living – full of instabilities and uncertainties – the necessity the educator should demonstrate in continuously study in search to update and analyze the daily practice and, join to a theoretical positioning about the educational approaches. We can conclude that the positive relations between students and teachers provide better global development of the individual, both for students and for teachers, because the possibility of a well-being influences learning activities and leads us to understand the invalidity of the dualist paradigm that separated affection and cognition.