Ontological Premises Research Articles

How Do Theist (Muslim) Pre-Service Science Teachers Reconcile Their Individual Ontologies with Premises of Modern Science

The purpose of this study was to investigate how theist (Muslim) pre-service science teachers’ reconcile their individual ontologies, which stem from their worldviews, with premises of modern science. 23 pre-service science teachers (10 males and 13 females, ages ranged from 19 to 23) were selected by purposeful sampling. Data sources included open-ended questions and semi-structured follow-up interviews. The qualitative analysis of data revealed that theist participants believing in a created Nature which is being lawful and understandable but also open to supernatural intervention diverged in their perspectives about the ontological premises that scientists must have and presupposed theism, theism/naturalism or just naturalism for doing science. They all asserted the physical universe as the boundary for science and evaluated the possibility of the scientific investigation of miracles and jinn within that boundary with the criterion of being able to obtain empirical data. They did not perceive any incompatibility between science and Islam and proposed methodological naturalism for scientific practice in order to overcome potential conflicts.

Rethinking reproductive selection: traveling transnationally for sperm

Denmark has become a destination for fertility travelers in need of sperm. Through a careful ethnographic reading of how fertility travelers account for their journey to Denmark and their selection of sperm donors, I explore what comprises donor selection and ask: How can we understand accountability for inclusion and exclusion in the phenomena of donor selection that emerges when women and couples travel to Denmark for sperm? While the recently coined term ‘selective reproductive technology’ (Gammeltoft and Wahlberg in Annu Rev Anthropol 43:201–216, 2014) creates a framework for productive discussions on reproductive selection, this paper points out that the ontological premises of the notion of selection have political consequences and thus demand careful methodological examination. Based on ethnographic work on sperm selection in fertility travels to Denmark, this paper contributes a reconceptualization of the notion of the phenomena of selection. This reconceptualization reflects on and disrupts the ways in which inclusion and exclusion take place as selection emerges through both material and discursive elements, particularly national regulations, perceptions of race, the freezing ability of sperm, and the financial situations of those seeking treatment. To encompass such varying elements, the concept is analyzed by drawing on a relational ontology informed by the notion of the phenomenon, the basic analytical unit in agential realism (Barad in Meeting the universe halfway. Quantum physics and the entanglement of matter and meaning, Duke University Press, Durham, NC, 2007). This chosen reconceptualization may grant us the imaginative space to consider how the process of selection might be otherwise conducted.

The Thomas Souls Ministry – Onto‐praxis, Dividualism, and Charismatic Catholicism at Lake Chambri, Papua New Guinea

AbstractThe Thomas Souls Ministry is a prayer group founded by Catholics from the middle Sepik. It is led by a spirit of the dead called Thomas who takes possession of a Nyaura (West Iatmul) woman to preach, prophesy, counsel, and heal. While a prominent debate within the Anthropology of Christianity argues for radical change and rupture with the pre‐Christian self and society, I suggest that continuity within change is found in the way my interlocutors have made Christianity their own. I argue that the local concept of the person defined by aspects of dividualism and reflecting ontological premises of people's lifeworld has strongly influenced the way Christianity was appropriated. In current religious practices people put these premises into action and reinforce them in intersubjective encounters with the divine other. Analysing people's ‘onto‐praxis’, I argue that the Thomas Souls Ministry can be understood as part of a re‐empowerment process that re‐appropriates local meanings, spirits, and practices despite, and in fact against, the influence of the Catholic mission proselytizing in the region.

Toward social-transformative education: an ontological critique of self-directed learning

ABSTRACT The aim of this paper is to critique the individualistic ontological premises of ‘self-directed learning’, as it has been developed in humanist education literature in the tradition of Carl Rogers. The authors suggest instead that social-transformative education and its critical social ontology serve the emancipatory promise of education better while offering the possibility to tackle the collective challenges of our time. Beginning with an analysis of Rogers’ concepts of Self, Knowledge and Society, the authors aim to show that self-directed learning fails to live up to its emancipatory promise. Instead, the paper picks up and develops on a debate in the early SDL literature between Rogers and Paulo Freire, suggesting that Freire’s ontological premises are incompatible with those of Rogers, yet better prepare students to identify and face social problems. The authors further develop this point through the cultural-historical analysis of speech of Lev Vygotsky, cementing a social understanding of the Self as the foundation of social-transformative education. The paper concludes on the implications of this analysis for educational practice.

A multi-sited ethnography on cultural scenes and international migration

In the last two decades, there has been considerable debate around the emergence of multi-sited ethnography. Most critics of multi-sited ethnography have focused on its ontological premise, risks of holism and, most importantly, methodological applications (Hage, 2005). These topics have been further developed by adherents to a multi-sited approach, mostly through empirical examples (Falzon, 2009; Colermand and Hellerman, 2011). In this paper, I engage in this debate by problematizing my research on Brazilian culture in Los Angeles, paying special attention to the limitations I recognize in a more traditional definition of ethnography. The aspect of multi-sited ethnography that seems especially questionable is the assumption that a shared experience between researcher and informants would produce comprehension of social life. This postulation gives a superior status to the dwelling and privileges observation as the primary means of analyzing and comprehending. I reflect on the challenges I faced in doing research and how I was able to overcome previous assumptions by incorporating strategies from a multi-sited approach. Specifically, I discuss the debate around ideas around conceptualizing space, defining sites and categorizing the roles of para-ethnographers. I conclude with a short reflection on the importance of acknowledging the problems we face while conducting research and how these problems can be a guide to overcoming methodological and practical limitations.

The Researcher As Unreliable Narrator: Writing Sociological Crime Fiction as a Research Method

This article discusses the potentials and pitfalls of creating fiction as a social research method, through reflecting on the sociological crime fiction I wrote between 2015 and 2017. Following the ontological premise that our research methods produce rather than represent our objects of investigation, I draw on poststructuralist and feminist thought to demonstrate the process, ethics, and rationale for writing fiction as a method of social research. Drawing on actor-network theory (ANT) approaches, I argue that ‘translating’ research data into artistic forms is particularly productive for poststructuralist approaches to the research of complex and emotive social phenomena like crime. Taking up the concept of ‘enforced narratives’ from the work of Carolyn Steedman, I discuss the ethics of undertaking creative and collaborative research with people who have experienced criminalisation. I argue that sociological crime fiction can reimagine the complexity of crime in ways that does not further punish the criminalised.

Формально-онтологические предпосылки теории модернизации

Формально-онтологические предпосылки теории модернизации

Science, footnotes and the margins of poetry in Percy B. Shelley’s Queen Mab and Charlotte Smith’s Beachy Head

ABSTRACTThis essay is concerned with the functions of the scientific and philosophical prose notes in Percy B. Shelley’s Queen Mab and Charlotte Smith’s Beachy Head. It argues that, in both cases, the use of notes is a way of connecting the verse text to what seems to be outside of, but might well be woven into, it. Thus, by means of these annotations, the work of poetry involves itself in a field under construction, the boundaries of which, rather than being predefined, are subject to continual extension and reconsideration. The annotated poem, on this reading, gives form to a world in which poetic and scientific practices are not confined to mutually exclusive spheres, such as text and context, but take place alongside each other and evolve together, from within the same web of works. Explicating some of the ontological premises that inform, and are formed by, Shelley’s and Smith’s texts, this essay seeks to elucidate the composition of that web. The writings of Queen Mab and Beachy Head, it shows, participate in a gathering of generative activities − poetic, scientific and otherwise − that tend to prolong themselves towards, and inscribe themselves into, each other.

Church and State in the Horizon of the Unity of Everything. Vladimir Solovyov and the Construction of the Theological-Political

Abstract This paper aims at reconstructing the political theology of Vladimir Solovyov. Taking as a starting point the argumentative pattern of Carl Schmitt, my research focuses on the analysis of the two central elements of the political theology of the Russian philosopher: first, on the ontological premise which is justifying the possibility of the union of religion and politics in a coherent and functional whole (i.e. the condition of the possibility of this mixed reality); second and as a direct result of this premise, on the description of the reasoning process through which Solovyov is pleading for establishing a close relation between religion and politics, Church and State (i.e. the stages of the theological-political discourse). The relation between religion and politics has cosmic significance as it is supposed to lead to the unification of the whole material and spiritual world in God.

The Imposter Syndrome, or the Mis‐Representation of Self in Academic Life

The Imposter Syndrome, or the Mis‐Representation of Self in Academic Life

Enabling the marketing systems orientation: re-establishing the ontic necessity of relations

PurposeThis paper aims to critically reflect on the growing systems orientation in marketing research and the approaches used to understand marketing systems. In response, the paper offers an integrative metatheory built on the ontic necessity and subsequently constitutive and causal efficacy of relations.Design/methodology/approachThis conceptual paper is built on a logic of critique, identifying the generative absences that produce problems in the frameworks in use and attempting to rectify these problems by offering an alternative meta-theoretical structure. This paper draws from critical realism, systems thinking and relational sociology.FindingsThis paper advocates for an emergentist ontology for marketing systems built on the value of both substance and relation as co-principles of existence and the subsequent irreducible stratification derived from this. This position suggests the following propositions: the ontological premise of being is reliant on relations; the social world is constructed of stratified levels of organisation in which entities, their properties and powers emerge by virtue of these relations; these entities operate in complex and mutually modifying interrelations; stability and change is the result of this complex interplay of temporally/spatially stratified relations; and time and space are properties and potential powers of organisation.Originality/valueThis paper considers a number of inconsistencies in current approaches to the study of marketing systems arguing these arise based on the absence of a view of relations that supports an effective theory of emergence. In response, the paper develops a set of ontological presuppositions regarding the nature of marketing systems and a subsequent set of epistemic conditions as an integrative metatheoretical position, through which these systems are better understood and analysed. The paper argues that these improve our ability to theorise about the multi-dimensionality of these systems.

Divergens térfelfogások a tértudományokban – hogyan tovább?

A magyar tértudományi diskurzusban az utóbbi másfél évtizedben élénk vita bontakozott ki azok között, akik szerint a tér a valóság eleve, az emberi értelemadástól függetlenül jelen levő része, illetve azok között, akik szerint a tér alapvetően társadalmi konstrukció, tehát mindig az ember általi jelentésképzés, az emberi praxis által befolyásolt. Jelen tanulmány célja, hogy az e két nézőpont képviselői között kialakult, látszólag megfeneklett eszmecserét továbblendítse. E célból először áttekinti, hogy a magyar írásokban gyakran előkerülő pozitivizmus, illetve posztmodern címkék hogyan vesztettek jelentőségükből a nyugati térelméleti vitákban mint az elhatárolódás eszközei, s hogyan vált ezzel párhuzamosan egyre elfogadottabbá a térelméleti pluralizmus. Másodszor, a tanulmány a divergens (különösen a realista és a nem realista) térfelfogások közötti dialógus nehézségeire fókuszál, s a diskurzus fogalma körüli félreértések példáján keresztül szemlélteti, hogy ezek hogyan küszöbölhetők ki (részben) nagyobb filozófiai tudatossággal. Számolva a térelméleti címkék tudománypolitikai jelentőségével és a filozófiai alapfeltevések közötti különbségek áthidalhatatlanságával végül úgy érvel, hogy az eddiginél gyümölcsözőbb eszmecseréhez a „sajátunktól” eltérő megközelítésekkel szembeni nagyobb nyitottságra van szükség. Ez elősegíti a mélyebb (ön)reflexiót, valamint annak felismerését, hogy az egyes megközelítések meglátásai hogyan egészíthetik ki egymást.

Work Organization and Technology: Introduction to the Theme of the Special Issue

The relationship between work organization and technology has been conceptualized in economic and sociological studies in a variety of ways, depending on the authors’ ontological premises and use of terminology (e.g., Leonardi & Barley, 2010; Mackenzie & Wajcman, 1985). For one thing, many economic analyses have not even regarded work organization as an analytical entity in itself but rather as a subcategory under an umbrella category of ‘technology’. In cases like this, the concept of technology has been used in the broad sense, also referring to human activities and know-how to do things. In many classical and modern sociological studies of work, the analytical distinction between work organization and technology has been of crucial importance, often based on a narrower concept of technology as a set of physical objects (...)

The (Re‐)Appropriation of Spirit Beings – Spirits of the Dead and Spirits of God in a Sepik Community

This article explores Nyaura (West Iatmul) ontology and cosmology in the context of religious change. I argue that persisting ontological premises of the Nyaura lifeworld were crucial for the way people appropriated Catholicism and made it their own. I compare my findings to an approach to religious change that has prominently been employed by Joel Robbins before – the notion of humiliation as described in a seminal article by Marshall Sahlins. However, while Robbins argues that a notion of humiliation has led the Urapmin to abandon their culture and take on an entirely new one, I have found a different outcome in my fieldsite. Initially the Nyaura sought to abandon their own spirits in light of changes in the regional political–economic system brought about by the encounter with white people and due to the devaluation of their spirits by the influence of the Catholic mission. However, when conversion did not bring about a betterment of their living situation as initially hoped, a notion of humiliation returned that led the Nyaura to re‐appropriate their old spirits. Under the influence of a charismatic movement, they discovered that God and His spirits were not new and foreign but old and familiar spirits clothed with new names. Today spirits of the dead are called ‘souls’, ‘saints’ and ‘angels’; spirits of the bush and water are termed ‘nature’ that was created by God; and He, the source of everything, is currently re‐interpreted as being the most powerful ancestral spirit there is.

Towards Exemplarity: When the Particular Matters

I start from the definition of the exemplary case offered by Angela Condello and Maurizio Ferraris – an exemplary case is a “concrete abstraction” – and argue that exemplarity is a process, an attribute of the phenomena depending on the action, and a realistic practice. I refer to the analysis of Walter Benjamin and György Lukács on realistic and modernist literature to consider that, in order to be exemplary, a case has to be particular and that we discover exemplarity when we focus on the details of the case. I call the particularity of an exemplary case its “thick features” and claim that these features cannot be absorbed by an abstract model. Exemplary cases cannot be described and understood by their thin features – as if they were facts belonging to a species – but they need to be appreciated through their thick features. Furthermore, I claim that exemplarity exists only within a community and because of an appreciation and that the gesture of appreciation is not an “innocent” practice. I analyze the gesture of appreciation and claim that exemplarity does not belong to the Platonic kind of knowledge, but it entails the same ontological premises of mimesis. We appreciate a case because we are in a mimetic relation with it. We do not learn the general model the case refers to by a concept, but we learn it by reference to a concrete situation. We see the general model in a concrete situation. I argue that there is a strong link between the appreciation of a case and the special normativity of exemplarity. The special link between the concrete and the abstract characterizes the normativity of exemplarity so radically that exemplarity appears always, in a certain way, as “counter-normative.” It expresses a principle not yet expressed, without a formal recognition, a voice without language.

Онтологические и методологические принципы феноменологического подхода Эдмунда Гуссерля

Recognizing the validity of the many interpretations of Husserl’s phenomenology, author proposes and substantiates her own approach to Husserl’s philosophy, based on the works of K. Held, V. I. Molchanov, and L. Tengely. For this purpose, she formulates the ontological premises of Husserl’s philosophy, which determined his research, although they were not always clearly expressed by him. These premises include the recognition of the existence of the world as a collection of objects, their properties, and relationships. Furthermore, the author dwells on the principles and methods of phenomenological research. She takes into account not only and not so much Husserl’s own declaration of his principles, but also their specific application and implementation in the real phenomenological work. As a result, the “new” (not designated as such by Husserl himself) principles of the phenomenological approach are formulated and the “old” and well-known ones are rethought. The article focuses on the method of the epoché and the principle of operation in natural and phenomenological attitudes. The author considers identification of the premises of a natural attitude, some of which are transferred to a phenomenological one, to be one of the most important functions of epoché. In the article it is also demonstrated how Husserl’s ontological and methodological premises are applied in his works, devoted to study of consciousness, resolution of problems of the theory of knowledge and exploring the world around. In the course of these considerations, the author refers to the point in which Husserl departs from his principles and starts to follow another strategy, a constructivist one. This refers first of all to an understanding of intentionality, concepts of meaning and noema, and application of the method of the reduction. Finally, while evaluating her own strategy for studying Husserl’s philosophy, the author denotes her historical-philosophical approach as а presentist one.

In memoriam of Raymond Pahl Whose modern megalopolises?

The ‘whose city?’ question is acute today. The article is a brief inquiry in the meaning of this question posed by the UK sociologist R. Pahl in the early 1970s and to point out the changes in urban studies during the last decade. His appeal for a cumulative, systematic approach as well as for resistance against futuristically-oriented market research and a dictate of the developers are still valid. A growing social inequality issue is today as important as half-a-century ago. Describing the ontological premises of the concept of modern megalopolises, the following structures and processes should be taken into account: modern megalopolises are the sociobiotechnical systems (the SBT-systems) dependent on the global SBT-system which in turn tightly integrated by the information-communication technologies (IC-technologies); all kinds of them are interconnected by socio-ecological metabolic processes; modern megacities are involved into global geopolitical processes aimed at gaining new resources and political domination, and post-socialist megacities are involved in it; and the struggle between two adversarial trends – globalization/unification and localization/particularization—will continue. Therefore, there is no single ‘owner’ of such megacities.

Getting more real with wonder: an afterword

This Afterword is part apologia for an ontology-centred approach to the anthropology of wonder, part diplomatic mission to bring the articles in this special issue into dialogue to yield new insights about wonder. The latter endeavor identifies five key areas in which the articles enhance understanding about wonder. First, they help to clarify the relationship between wonder and socio-political change. Second, they present ethnographic examples of what makes wonder practices work. Elsewhere, I have suggested that wonder can be a practice through which people resist existing ontological premises and advance lived alternatives. Going beyond this observation, these articles disclose how wonder practices persist and become routinized. Third, these articles not only show how wonder confers authority, they also show that the authority wonder confers is ontological authority—authority to lay down or revise ontological premises and their ethical and political implications. Fourth, the articles attest that wonder engages our received imagery and discourses about origins and stimulates us to generate new versions that revise, replace, or compete with the old. A fifth issue raised is whether nonhumans can wonder. Pushing against anthropocentric tendencies in some of the contributions, I suggest how we might imagine a nonhuman affective cognate to wonder

The Hierarchy of Resource Use in a Sustainable Circular Economy

We are on an unsustainable path of consumption and production, including resources turned into waste in a high pace. As one answer to this challenge the European Commission has launched the concept of circular economy as described in “Closing the loop – An EU action plan for the Circular Economy”. EU member states are following up this action plan with national strategies, as Norway do too - also through its EEA agreement. However, circular economy is not an unambiguous concept. This paper will discuss the significance of the hierarchy of resource use in a circular economy. The hierarchy, also known as the waste hierarchy, recommends the following order in treatment of resources in the economy: 1) Reduce the use of raw materials, 2) Reuse, 3) Recycle materials, 4) Incinerate with heat recovery, 5) Landfill. EU introduced the waste hierarchy concept already in 1975 and it was further strengthened in 2010 as the European Waste Framework Directive came into force with aim of turning EU member states into “recycling societies”. On top of the hierarchy, reducing the use of raw materials is the most effective environmental approach of solving a waste problem. However, this necessitates a reduction in extraction and consumption of materials, challenging existing patterns of production and consumption. There is a huge difference to the third level of the hierarchy, recycling into new products, which generate transportation and manufacturing and hence creation of new jobs and possibly a boost for GDPs. The paper discuss the ontological and methodological premises of the hierarchy of resource use. By and large, closing the loop of a linear economy can and should be done by focusing on both input of raw materials into the economy, and the output – or waste – from the economy. The tendency is to focus only on the output side, thereby creating additional problems with regard to the use of raw materials, as resource depletion.

Apithology Systems Inquiry: Evaluation from a Generativist Ontology

The ontological premise of a systems research philosophy raises some unique questions about research efficacy. The study of the relations between abstract objects in bounded contexts places systems inquiry into a specific research category. Different systems research paradigms deal with the question of research evaluation distinctively. This article examines the defining criteria for the evaluation of systems research within a generativist systems ontology. Three criteria to inform the design of generativist systems research are proposed. Their use is illustrated for the generativist systems research discipline of apithology. The proposed criteria of research validity, credibility and reliability generate a fourth criterion: systems research veracity. A heuristic for discerning the results of a generativist research design prior to its commencement is provided by an apithology triptych. The benefit of this approach is to enable the design of research of relevance, significance and importance that leads naturally to apithology systems research of consequence.