Fundamental Contradiction Research Articles

Divine Contradiction: some snippets

Abstract Two doctrines (or axioms) of christian theology sharply distinguish christian monotheism from its traditional monotheistic siblings (viz. jewish and islamic monotheism): the incarnation of God and the triunity of God. Both doctrines, as many have long observed, face a conspicuous so-called logical problem – namely, apparent contradiction. How should the strong appearance of such fundamental contradiction be explained? Beall's answer: the incarnation and trinity appear to be contradictory because God is a contradictory being – a being of whom some contradictions are true. The full truth of God is expressed only via contradiction, which is why the fundamental axioms of christian theology have long appeared to be contradictory. Divine Contradiction presents the target contradictory account of the trinity; its predecessor The Contradictory Christ presents the contradictory account of the incarnation.

"Talking About Funerals Won't Make You Dead": Dialogic Tensions in Death Café Design and Facilitation.

Death Cafes (DCs) explicitly encourage conversation and constitute space to explore the dialogue around death and dying. This study draws on scholarship from communication and dialogue theory to explore the design features and facilitation practices used within DC meetings. Through qualitative analysis of the DC webpage and interviews with facilitators, the study uncovers how DC facilitators structure and manage conversations to help attendees normalize death conversations and manage the death anxiety of others in their lives. The analysis highlights three main tensions within the DC structure and facilitation guidelines: structure versus openness, authority versus equality, and conversation versus information. These fundamental contradictions are inherent in DCs, and facilitators need to manage them in order to promote meaningful dialogue among DC participants. This study deepens the theorizing around DC facilitation practices and has implications for death and dying practitioners hoping to foster dialogue about end-of-life topics.

The pathogenic role of retinoid nuclear receptor signaling in cancer and metabolic syndromes.

The retinoid nuclear receptor pathway, activated by the vitamin A metabolite retinoic acid, has been extensively investigated for over a century. This study has resulted in conflicting hypotheses about how the pathway regulates health and how it should be pharmaceutically manipulated. These disagreements arise from a fundamental contradiction: retinoid agonists offer clear benefits to select patients with rare bone growth disorders, acute promyelocytic leukemia, and some dermatologic diseases, yet therapeutic retinoid pathway activation frequently causes more harm than good, both through acute metabolic dysregulation and a delayed cancer-promoting effect. In this review, we discuss controlled clinical, mechanistic, and genetic data to suggest several disease settings where inhibition of the retinoid pathway may be a compelling therapeutic strategy, such as solid cancers or metabolic syndromes, and also caution against continued testing of retinoid agonists in cancer patients. Considerable evidence suggests a central role for retinoid regulation of immunity and metabolism, with therapeutic opportunities to antagonize retinoid signaling proposed in cancer, diabetes, and obesity.

Funding (In)security and Challenges: Non-Profit Literacy Programming and Neoliberal Contradictions in Canada

Increasingly, the non-profit sector is expected to provide services for which the state previously took responsibility, and plays a vital role in providing key supports, such as those related to literacy and building social capital. In a jurisdiction of Ontario, Canada, local funding for literacy programs ceased without warning. In this qualitative study, stakeholders consisting of program users ( n = 72), staff ( n = 11), and program leads ( n = 8) shared their experiences regarding the goals, activities, impacts, and needs of the programs through interviews and focus groups. Findings illuminate both challenges and recommendations for future implementation in three themes: (1) Identifying and reconciling funding gaps and restrictions; (2) requiring supports for human resources; and (3) communicating, cooperating, and collaborating to survive. The challenges faced by financially strapped, non-profit entities highlight a fundamental contradiction within neoliberal ideology: Neoliberal-induced funding scarcity within the non-profit sector can undermine the capacity of community organizations to promote neoliberal ideals related to self-reliance and resilience.

On fundamental inconsistencies in a commonly used modification of a fluid model for glow discharge

This work considers the fundamental contradictions in the concept of one of the most well-known and widely used modifications of the fluid model for simulation of a glow discharge (GD), the ‘local mean energy approximation’ (LMEA). In this model, it is proposed to determine the kinetic coefficients in the electron particle and energy balance equations as functions of the electron mean energy (temperature) rather than local electric field, using a one-to-one correspondence between these parameters through the electron Boltzmann equation. It is shown that the scope of applicability of this model, like any other modification of the fluid model, is limited by the local mode of formation of the electron energy distribution function (EEDF). Therefore, as demonstrated by the examples of typical 1D and 2D problems for a GD in argon, its extension to the region of nonlocal EEDF is in no way justified and leads not only to serious errors in the results, but also to a logically intractable situation in attempts to apply the main postulate of the LMEA model to the region of a weak (or even reverse) electric field in a negative glow plasma. At the same time, the apparent reliability of calculations within the framework of the LMEA model for a number of parameters, in our opinion, only slows down progress in modeling of gas discharge plasma.

Philosophical Underpinnings of Counselling Psychology

Because I have so little time in which to tackle such a basic and important issue I shall limit myself to sketching the fundamental contradictions and pitfalls that are to be found underneath the smooth presentations of this new discipline of counselling psychology. It seems to me all the more important to take this opportunity to ask some pertinent questions and challenge some of the preconceptions around the aims and objectives of counselling psychology as it will be tempting for most of us to launch headlong into the professionalization of the field in order to achieve credibility. In making these few remarks I shall therefore speak from the perspective of the philosopher as defined by Wittgenstein in his Philosophical Investigations, where he declares that “the work of a philosopher consists in assembling reminders for a particular purpose” (Wittgenstein, 1953). My purpose will be clear in a minute.

National Democracy and Nazism. The Asymmetry of Relations

The relationship between Polish nationalism and fascism and National Socialism has been the subject of numerous publications, especially those that are part of the Polish scientific literature. There is a peculiar asymmetry embedded in this relationship. During the interwar period and nowadays, this subject has been reflected on rather on the Polish side rather than the German side. The author attempts to answer a question about reasons for this asymmetry. In the 1930s, German interest in Polish nationalism was limited. Publications dealing specifically with Eastern European issues were the only to designate more space and attention to the topic. The publications, however, almost completely ignored official NSDAP sources. The shape and evolution of the national camp in Poland focused on a few issues only and it was a domain of a few authors whose names appear in various periodicals. In Germany, a hypothetical explanation for this phenomenon is based on fundamental contradictions that divided the Polish and German forms of nationalism at the time, namely the absence of the biological-racial dimension in the Polish national ideology and its strong connection with Catholicism. The practical absence of the Polish national movement in German articles of the 1930s might be attributed to the doctrine and racist objectives of National Socialism.

Which Materialism and What Matter? Rethinking Marxism from a Materialist-Feminist Perspective

The rethinking of Marxist feminism requires the development of a materialist theory of patriarchy and colonialism. In the absence of this theory, biologism and idealism take the lead, as happens in unitary theory, which argues that the subordination of women is due to cultural values or ideas and not to material relations of production. This essay shows that the inclusion of intersectionality does not necessarily neutralize the dominant modern idealist ontology, which refutes the idea that identity is the semiotic dimension of politically relevant materialities. To rethink Marxist feminism also requires an epistemological shift that breaks with that monotheistic thinking that has room for just one evildoer, one universal subject, and one fundamental contradiction.

Absolute phase retrieval based on spatial ternary phase coding with circular fringe projection

Fringe projection profilometry (FPP) based on temporal phase unwrapping (TPU) plays a vital role due to its high precision and fast speed in three-dimensional (3D) measurements. However, a fundamental contradiction arises between the necessity for numerous auxiliary patterns and the goal of enhancing measurement efficiency, particularly when ensuring a big codeword space for fringe order. Thus, a spatial ternary phase coding (STPC) method is proposed, which achieves a big codeword space by projecting just one auxiliary coding pattern while ensuring a robust decoding. By equally dividing each fringe period into several segments, ternary coding of fringe order is accomplished using an arccosine operation to code three distinct phase values within each segment. Meanwhile, circular grating is adopted due to its excellent performance in phase sensitivity, which offers a higher measuring accuracy in 3D reconstruction. Accordingly, a robust TPU is achieved by combining the introduced phase unwrapping scheme and the circle center-cosine theorem (CCCT) strategy. Furthermore, high-efficiency measurements are attained through projecting three phase-shifting circular gratings and one STPC grating, rendering it suitable for real-time measurements. Experimental results with various static objects and real-time scene demonstrate the feasibility and validity of the proposed method.

Dislodging the hegemony of the white epistemological frame

In South African public discourse, the concept of gender appears to be cognate with the category of woman. Given the presence of masculinity studies in South Africa, the normative view of gender does include both men and women, but in the South African public discourse, gender is still largely cognate with woman. Accordingly, I am interested in this conceptual disconnect between gender and men, specifically within the Black community. Although this disconnect is attributed to the distribution of opportunities and the prevalence of gender-based violence, both said to largely disadvantage women, I contend that this disconnect is possible because of liberalism’s concealment of anti-Black racism, producing epistemic blindness. In other words, the juridical incorporation of Black people into liberalism not only masked the reality of their ontological domination, it imposed a narrow epistemic trajectory over the concept of ‘gender’. As such, while anti-Black racism is considered non-hegemonic, the gender struggle assumed the fundamental contradiction of the liberal democratic order. However, the gendering of Black people in the 1994 dispensation has a differential impact between Black men and Black women, enabling the latter to capitalise on the concealment of anti-Black racism while the former are crippled by the colonial legacy of Blackness.

Infodynamics, a Review

A review of studies on the interaction of information with the physical world found no fundamental contradiction between the eighth authors promoting Infodynamics. Each one emphasizes different aspects. The fact that energy requires information in order to produce work and that the acquisition of new information requires energy, triggers synergistic chain reactions producing increases of negentropy (increases in Useful Information or decreases in Information Entropy) in living systems. Infodynamics aims to study feasible balances between energy and information using empirical methods. Getting information requires energy and so does separating useful information from noise. Producing energy requires information, but there is no direct proportionality between the energy required to produce the information and the energy unleashed by this information. Energy and information are parts of two separate realms of reality that are intimately entangled but follow different laws of nature. Infodynamics recognizes multiple forms and dimensions of information. Information can be the opposite of thermodynamic entropy (Negentropy), a trigger of Free Energy (Useful or Potentially Useful), a reserve (Redundant Information), Structural, Enformation, Intropy, Entangled, Encrypted Information, Synergic or Noise. These are overlapping functional properties focusing on different aspects of Information. Studies on information entropy normally quantify only one of these dimensions. The challenge of Infodynamics is to design empirical studies to overcome these limitations. The working of sexual reproduction and its evolution through natural selection and its role in powering the continuous increase in information and energy in living systems might teach us how.

Imperialist terrorism in Northern Africa

This article posits that US-led imperialism remains the most fundamental contradiction to be assessed when analysing the material, social and political development of countries in Northern Africa. After grounding its conceptual discussion around the Marxian analytical character of imperialism, the article focuses on the military–financial nexus and then assesses the ideological implications of this. It argues that imperialism operates according to rational and interlinked strategies that deploy the systematic use of violence and intimidation that are central to undermining the political and developmental potential of Northern Africa. The discussion shows how imperialist policies curb the space of national autonomy required to advance a developmental path in the interests of popular classes and regional solidarity, at both the material and ideological levels.

The first post-war electoral campaign in the modern statehood of Bosnia and Herzegovina

The article examines the preparation, course and practical results of the first post-war election campaign of 1996 in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The 1995 Dayton Accords, which became the foundation of modern Bosnian-Herzegovinan statehood, represented a compromise imposed from without and it could not resolve the fundamental contradictions of the country's national communities. Consequently, the situation in Bosnia retained a significant conflict potential. Сoncerned international actors, primarily the United States and the EU countries, that directed the process of resolving the crisis in Bosnia, used institutional peace-building as the main method of post-conflict settlement. Therefore, the first post-war election campaign played a key role in building a new political system of BiH, since the process of formation of new authorities depended on its results. The lack of real harmonization of community relations, their mutual bitterness on national and religious grounds predetermined the inability of ethnic parties to reach the necessary compromises independently. This fact, fully represented by the first post-war election campaign, predetermined high involvement of Western countries in the state's domestic political life, the formation of a supranational structure of governance and the transformation of Bosnia into an international protectorate. The research is developed on unintroduced for scientific use materials of the Foreign Policy Archive of the Russian Federation (AVP RF) and based on historical method.

Statistical Analysis on the process of China's Industrialization and path model Optimization under the Goal of "Double Carbon"

Ecological construction is a vital problem that China has always consciously faced in the process of industrialization. But in general, my country has not completely jumped out of the vicious circle of "pollution first, governance later". The domestic and international isomorphic dilemma of China's ecological problems shows us the fundamental contradictions of ecological problems. In this sense, the practical and effective achievements of China's ecological civilization construction in recent years are of special significance: the solution of ecological problems can be truly formed within the framework of socialism only through the reflection of capitalist modern society. Therefore, this paper systematically combs the construction path of ecological documents in the process of China's industrialization, explores the structural problems and international mirror images in the process of China's ecological civilization construction, and concludes that the achievements of China's ecological civilization construction are an important representation of the advantages of the socialist system. Combined with China's "double carbon" development goal and the overall policy of reducing pollution and carbon synergy, this paper constructs an industrial development path model, analyzes and explores the industrial green development path and its important enlightenment to global green and low-carbon development, which is also an organic part of promoting the construction of a community with a shared future for mankind.

Lay Person–Legal actor communication dyads and neurodisability: Structural dynamics, risks, and contradictions

It is increasingly clear that the law operates in a way that burdens the very cognitive resources needed to navigate it. One aspect of this systemic cognitive burden is the legal actor–lay person communication dyad; these dyads are the behavioral orientation through which the vast majority of lay persons experience the law, and they are marked by cognitive-communication features that create disparity between the legal actor and the lay person, increasing the lay person's risk of poorer-quality communication behavior. This risk is likely greater for persons with neurodisability, which increases the likelihood of impaired cognitive functioning and impaired communication behaviors; however, interactions among neurodisability, cognitive communication, and legal dyads are not well understood. To characterize these interactions, this article models social-legal cognitive communication within the context of neurodisability, describes the cognitive causes and consequences of uneven communication dyads, and explores structural conceptual frameworks within the law that enable and compound systemic communication risk. Finally, the article considers fundamental cognitive-behavioral contradictions revealed by the analysis and discusses what implication such an analysis might have on attempts to reform, or more ideally recreate, the law and its interconnected social-political systems. Such interdisciplinary scientific analysis is a key step in reducing structural communication burdens, resolving systemic contradictions, and improving legal outcomes for persons with neurodisabilities.

Forecasts of K. Marx and F. Engels on the Post-Capitalist Future: The Test of Time

The modern world has entered a complex controversial era of changing economic systems, clearly visible in a variety of new phenomena. These include the completion of industrialization in developed countries with the development of the third industrial revolution and the entry into the era of technology development of the Fourth industrial revolution. Such a change resolves the fundamental contradiction of capitalism that has reached a critical level, in the author's interpretation, on the side of the productive forces acting as an environmental crisis, on the side of industrial relations – inequality in income and property. In the era of changing economic systems, it is appropriate to ask a question about the relevance of classical forecasts regarding the future of capitalism, and there are two such in their scientific heritage. The first of them is the well–known socialist one, set out in the Manifesto of the Communist Party, published in 1848, and, on the contrary, the forecast about the «transformation of the capitalist mode of production into an associated one,» which Marx outlined very succinctly, but clearly and unambiguously in the third volume of Capital. The followers of the classics picked up the first forecast, contrary to their expectations, which never took place in the history of capitalism in developed countries, addressed directly to them by the classics, but implemented in semi-feudal Russia. However, the age of socialism turned out to be short-lived in it, but the reasons for its fleeting death are not fully realized to this day. And on the contrary, the second forecast took place: capitalism underwent such a transformation at the stage of mastering the second industrial revolution and even more – the third. Let's try to figure out how popular a socialist forecast can be in modern conditions. This is also relevant in view of the steady increase in state ownership, which abolishes the monopoly of private ownership forms inherent in capitalism and contributes to the increasing role of the state as a macroeconomic entity.

Tourism and neoliberalism

While tourism has been a core feature of the global economy for more than a century, over the past several decades, it has been a central component of a worldwide process of neoliberalization in particular. Neoliberalization describes a political-economic programme of ‘free trade’ embodying interrelated principles of deregulation, decentralization, marketization, privatization and commodification. Grounded in a critique of the post-war welfare state, it was first introduced into public administration in the US and Western Europe in the 1980s, then spread worldwide in the next decade via structural adjustment programmes (SAPs) incorporated into international development planning. As one of the world’s largest industries, tourism development has been a key component of this process. In this way, tourism policy in many places has been progressively neoliberalized, while in turn tourism development has thus served as a key component of neoliberalization more generally, helping to progressively bind the world within a single integrated economy. Hence, tourism can be understood not only as a key site of neoliberalization, but a central means by which neoliberalization spreads as well. In the process, tourism development has played a key role in helping to stabilize a neoliberal capitalist economy riddled with fundamental contradictions that subject it to periodic crises. This article explores how this dynamic developed, where it stands at present, and how it is likely to evolve in the future as the contradictions underlying neoliberal capitalism continue to unfold.

The conception and framework of universal competencies in Russian higher education: understanding their significance and features

The purpose of the article is to raise the issue of the significance, advantages and disadvantages of universal competencies and the conceptual validity of their set / framework for competence-based education (including Russian higher education). The factors that actualize universal competencies in the conditions of the modern digital world and the knowledge economy are identified. The significance of this actualization for education is comprehended: expanding the boundaries of the competence-based approach; increasing the availability of competencies that have been the province of the few; transferring of the process of mastering these competencies from familiar environments (family, work) to schools and universities; avoiding the opposition of training and upbringing, education and socialization. The main problematic points of this conception are considered: the vagueness and incompleteness of their conceptualization; the complexity of their measurement and assessment; the risk of mixing personality qualities and competencies, which is fraught with an overestimation of their upbringing potential; the ambiguity of changing their status in education: from means to ends; the possibility of their inclusion in the context of indoctrination. The authors reveal the ambivalent nature of the Russian framework, reflected in its disproportionate structure: its ability to respond promptly to the challenges of a dynamic world turns into in its dependence on the economic and political agenda. The scientific novelty consists in the fact that the issue is investigated through the prism of the fundamental contradiction of competence-based education — between the focus on a predictable guaranteed successful result and the effort to take into account the unpredictability of the modern world. It is determined the conceptual validity of the Russian framework of universal competencies embodying an attempt to overcome such contradiction. As a result, it is demonstrated that the dialectically interrelated advantages and problematic aspects of the conception and framework of universal competencies give them an ambiguous but progressive significance for Russian higher education.

Analysis of modern approaches to assessing reliability in construction

Introduction. The study considers modern strategies for ensuring the reliability of building structures in Russian and foreign regulations, including probabilistic, risk-informed and semi-probabilistic criteria of reliability assessment, at all stages of the life cycle of the structure. The advantages and disadvantages of prescriptive and parametric approaches are analyzed and ways of their further improvement are suggested.Aim. To clarify the terminology of parametric regulation in construction, to analyze the existing differences in its interpretation, and to develop an innovative strategy for further development of Russian regulation based on a comparative analysis of domestic and foreign approaches to reliability assessment.Materials and methods. The methodology involved studying the structure of Russian and foreign regulatory documents in the field of reliability and performing their comparative analysis. The study considered the main approaches to technical regulation in the construction industry.Results. The analysis outlined the criteria underlying the fastest introduction of innovations and ensuring the safety of technical solutions. The study demonstrated the difference between the meaning of the term “parametric regulation” in Russian strategy and its foreign interpretation. The regulation standards of the Russian Federation are based mainly on a semi-probabilistic approach and specification of partial reliability factors, i.e. individual parameters of strength and loads, while in the foreign standards, notably in ISO 2394:2016 and Eurocodes, the emphasis is shifted to qualitative and probabilistic criteria for assessing reliability. However, all social, economic and performance criteria should be observed only after all requirements for the reliability and safety of people have been met. Thus, both Russian and foreign approaches to regulation demonstrate no fundamental contradictions. The approaches are gradually moving towards convergence while maintaining continuity in the development of the regulatory framework.Conclusions. The principles of ensuring the reliability of the designed buildings and structures in Russian, international and foreign regulation standards are quite close and are based on the limit state method with a reasonable combination of mandatory and recommended parameters. The main criterion consists in ensuring the safety of human life. Under contemporary conditions, traditional semi-probabilistic approaches to regulation should be accompanied by mechanisms for rapid introduction of innovations and new technologies in construction. In terms of reliability, these mechanisms involve additional probabilistic reliability criteria and risk assessment methods. The reliability criteria will contribute in choosing the optimal design and technological solutions for the construction of unique buildings and structures, higher criticality structures, as well as in assessing existing structures during their life cycle.

Problems of development of employment legislation

The article is devoted to the analysis of the provisions of Draft Law no. 275599-8 of the new federal law on employment. The focus of the research is on the effectiveness and procedural provisions of the activities of Russian employment services, some foreign models of effective activities of state employment services. Using the author’s approach to solving employment problems, which remains relevant, justified in his doctoral dissertation in 2006, the author assesses the conceptual approach of draft law no. 275599-8 as excessively conservative, requiring adjustments in terms of strengthening state integrated regulation, wider use of new non-traditional approaches in regulation, in particular — the inclusion in the draft law of the main procedural provisions of the modernized standards of the activity of the employment service bodies, which are already used in the practice of a number of employment centers. The fundamental contradictions of the analyzed draft law are revealed, and based on the results of the analysis, ways to improve employment legislation are proposed.