Existential Communication Research Articles

Existential Communication as a Care Construction beyond the Patient-centered Approach

Existential Communication as a Care Construction beyond the Patient-centered Approach

Responding to terrorism: political, philosophical and legal perspectives

Contents: Introduction, T. Brian Mooney Part 1 Terrorism: Causes and Cures: The socio-politics of terror: poverty, evil, statecraft and modernity, Rob Imre An international law approach, Ben Clarke. Part 2 Is Torture an Effective Response to Terrorism?: Torture works: but not on terrorists, Rob Imre Torture, tragedy and natural law, T. Brian Mooney Terrorism, torture, and the rule of law, Ben Clarke. Part 3 Is International Terrorism an Inevitable Consequence of Globalization?: Legal aspects of globalization, Ben Clarke Terrorism, story-telling and existential communication, T. Brian Mooney The politics of religious violence, Rob Imre. Part 4 Counter-Terrorism: Public/Social Policy, Social Engineering and Just War: Bungle in, bungle out, muddle through, Rob Imre Effective counter-terrorism: sound foreign policy, intelligence gathering, policing, social engineering and necessary use of force, Ben Clarke Just war and terrorism, T. Brian Mooney Indexes.

Existential Communication and Leadership

The aim of this article is to introduce and explain a number of important existentialist philosophers and concepts that we believe can contribute to a critical approach to leadership theory. Emphasis is placed on understanding the nature of communication from an existentialist perspective and so Jaspers' conceptualization of existential communication is introduced along with important related concepts that may be regarded as important facets of leader communication including Being-in-the-world, the Other, intersubjectivity, dialogue and indirect communication. Particular attention is paid to Buber's ideas on communication as relationship and dialogue. Throughout, reference is made to contemporary, and what is often regarded as orthodox, thinking regarding the centrality of communication to leadership practice as a means by which to highlight the salience of an existentialist analysis.

The Internet communication in the perspective of personalism of E. Mounier

In the paper, it is discussed the communicative role of the Internet in the view of Mounier’s conception of personal communication. E. Mounier distinguishes two aspects of human communication: objective and subjective. The first one is reduced to the function of giving information, the second one . is specific for a man as a person. It is presented the most essential features of subjective, existential communication, that after all requires an understanding of other people. This attitude, according to Mounier, is not possible without opening to transcendence. In the view, the Internet is regarded as an objective tool of communication. It is briefly discussed the main ways of using the Internet in keeping up human relationships, the specific features of the tool, its advantages and disadvantages for personal contact. Finally, the development of the Internet is understood as a symptom of the need of passing on thoughts, considerations, and love to others as a human special privilege.

Eflexive Modernity and Reflexive Informatization: A Critique on the Informatization of South Korea

In the wake of unbridled competition, institutionalized through indiscriminate capitalism and glovalization, modern civilization, although it has brought us much to celebrate, has tightened up the in-trancic freedom of human beings. In this essay, we have reviewed problems and implications of the "reflexive modernity and information," shedding light on "human alienation" and "binding human consciousness." Were a visionary society dreamed in the upcoming century to be the one that opens the possibility to achieve individual freedom and creativity, it would boil down to the issue of "self-actualization" for the actors of society, the new principle should offer a hope to solve the probalem of "human alicnation" textured in an industrial society. This was a key theme examined in this essay. In this essay, we termed "reflexive" informatization for the informatization pointing to such direction. We then elaborated on its vision and ideas as well as its concepts and dimension and tired to organically connect its "theoretical paradigm" to the logic of an information policy. The major findings and implications, analyzed in this essay, can be summarized as follows. First, whatever advanced information superhighway, if there were no truly matured individuals armored with subjective personalities, will be useless to accomplish a "human community." A matured society, above all, we need to make efforts to implement a project boosting 'individual' consciousness, so that a truly autonomous personality can first accomplished. Second, the opportunities for social communication, that is not distorted, should be promoted on the basis of information sovereignty and independance. For this kind of existential communication, mutural trust is prerequisite among the various actors in society, whether it is between individuals and individuals, or organizations and organizations. Third, reflexivity on human and nature should be heightened through deepening existential communication. And this kind of informatization efforts should be fortified by a social reform that is aiming at autonomy and originality, trust and empowerment, and coexistence and coprosperity. Finally, to achieve reflexive informatization, endowed with the above-mentioned attributes, a new approach and perspective is required. Above all, the government, free from bureaucratic eliticism, should focus more on social values that emphasizes individual freedoms, independence, and subjectivity. On a policy matter, the perspectives on individual information should be drastically changed, and in this vein, information sovereignty and privacy issues need to be reemphasized. In addition, the government should promote NGO activities by empowering them, particularly in the sphere of information and civic culture. The essence of an information network is in the spirit of "doing something together." The quintessence to the "net" should be in the "spirit of collaboration." Reflexive informatization will be fulfilled when social reform progresses on the basis of this spirit, that is, the credos of "sharing together, growing up together, and reaping together."

Existential Marital Psychotherapy and the Experience of Managed Care

ABSTRACT In this article the experience of managed care is over-viewed from the perspective of existential marital therapy. It is concluded that managed care disrupts the experiential nature of participation between couple and therapist, dilutes the authentic nature of the treatment relationship, decreases the importance of subjectivity, disturbs the discovery of meaning and purpose in marital life and deters existential communication.

Roman decorum as a new praxis for existential communication

This article begins with a review of what existentialists recommend regarding responsible uses of communication. It then examines the notion of decorum as defined in the Roman rhetorical system. These systems are then integrated to overcome practical deficiencies in existential communication. The study concludes with two illustrations. The first demonstrates the importance of decorum to existential dialogues. The second demonstrates that decorum can help convey existential messages to mass audiences.

Identification in interpersonal relationships: One foundation of creativity

This article attempts to meld theories of identification with interrelational existentialism to allow for better explanations of collaborative creativity. It argues that the Burkean theory of identification is Freudian based and therefore de‐emphasizes interpersonal and subjective conceptions of communication. On the other hand, Burkean theory once corrected provides a praxis useful to existential criticism. The study argues that existential interpersonal communication stimulates an ontological understanding that sometimes results in creative dialogue and/or individual creativity. It sets out a series of probes useful in the analysis of authentic dialogic communication.

The ethos of humanity in Karl Jaspers' political philosophy

The crucial thesis of all the existential thinking of Jaspers is the idea that self-realisation as Existenz is possible only under two conditions: the experience of boundary situations and (or) of existential communication. In his principal works on Existentialism (the books: Psychology of WorMViews and Philosophy, especially the 2nd volume: Existential Elucidation), Jaspers gives some excellent descriptions of common inadequate reactions to boundary situations and interpersonal relations. In these descriptions the valuable experience of his former professions as a psychiatrist and a psychologist becomes evident. In the context of his psychological and phenomenological analyses of specific reactions to boundary situations and interpersonal relations, Jaspers also mentions a number of moral attitudes, which in his opinion are basic for all adequate reactions to boundary situations and intimate personal relationships. These moral attitudes can be interpreted as necessary (but not sufficient) conditions of existential self-realisation. They are highly significant for Jaspers' own concept of man and his ideal of humanity. He does not postulate these attitudes as explicit moral norms or general ethical rules, but he only wants to encourage them by his existential philosophy. His intention is to appeal to every individual in an indirect way to accept them in his (or her) own life and own personal relations.

The physician in the technological age

Translator's summary and notes: Karl Jaspers (1883-1969) argues that modern advances in the natural sciences and in technology have exerted transforming influence on the art of clinical medicine and on its ancient Hippocratic ideal, even though Plato's classical argument about slave physicians and free physicians retains essential relevance for the physician of today. Medicine should be rooted not only in science and technology, but in the humanity of the physician as well. Jaspers thus shows how, within the mind of every medical person, the researcher contests with the physician and the technician with the humanist. Jaspers therefore opposes all modern tendencies that regard men as abstractions. As a creative existentialist influenced by Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Husserl, he reasons that clinical medicine should always treat patients as irreducable individuals, and his thinking on psychotherapy argues for a realm of interiority, freedom, intelligibility, and existential communication that transcends the reach of the causal thinking of natural science. This essay, written in 1959, reflects Jaspers' lifelong preoccupation with the philosophical meaning of medicine (he received his MD degree in 1909) and the totality of the human person. It should significantly enhance our own comprehension of medical power, dangers, reasoning, and accomplishments.

German Philosophy

The old guard still dominates the German scene. Jaspers leads with three publications, the monumental new volume of P. A. Schilpp's Library of Living Philosophers which appears first in German as Karl Jaspers (W. Kohl-hammer, Stuttgart); the third edition of his Philosophie in three volumes with an important “Postscript 1956” (Springer, Berlin); and the second edition of his Existenzphilosophie also with a new postscript explaining the situation in which these lectures arose (De Gruyter, Berlin). These volumes offer an opportunity for re-examining his philosophy, and are indeed used by himself for this purpose and therefore indispensable to any serious student of his thought. The Schilpp volume naturally offers the greatest amount of new material with its twenty-four contributors who have more or less succeeded in discussing a philosophy of pure reflexion without specific doctrines. They allow Jaspers to clarify his thought, especially concerning the problems of existential communication (in reply to Fritz Kaufmann's elaborate and penetrating defence of a more general theory), of psychology, history and politics.