Ontological Reflection Research Articles

Advancing a cultural–historical activity perspective in a psychodynamic-oriented psychotherapy training programme

South Africa cannot ignore the far-reaching influence of its colonial and apartheid history on the psychological functioning of its people. Psychotherapy as a fundamental psychological intervention approach cannot ignore its evolving history as the architect of the social psyche and of an individual’s psychological functioning. With regards to psychodynamic psychotherapy, the literature has lamented this therapeutic approach’s lack of consideration of the impact of the colonial and apartheid historical trauma on the prevailing sociocultural and mental health challenges. The crux of this article is to address this epistemological lacuna, by arguing for the integration of psychodynamic theory with cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) for application in therapeutic processes. The article further posits that this integration needs to be introduced in training programmes for student psychotherapists who, as in the case of South Africa, are themselves the descendants of the generation that was exposed to historical trauma of colonialism and apartheid and are living with latent transgenerational trauma. To create a suitable foundation for the integration of psychodynamic theory and CHAT in psychotherapeutic practice, there is a need to apply critical pedagogical strategies in the training programmes of psychotherapists. Thus, this article further highlights the possibilities of employing critical pedagogical principles that incorporate ontological reflection, pedagogic discomfort, troubled knowledges, mutual vulnerability, strategic empathy, and compassion.

Hybrid control systems: from ontological reflection to conceptualization of the phenomenon

As the practices of using digital means in various spheres of life and at the levels of ensuring its regulation, it becomes more and more urgent to consider the nature and consequences of hybridization of social and digital relations, the results of which are now manifested at all levels of social management: social (interaction of the state and society), organizational (managerial, sectoral), local (territorial and interpersonal interaction). In this context, a dual perspective of hybridization emerges: technocratic (unification, modernization, and control from above). In this context, a dual perspective of hybridization arises: technocratic (unification, modernization and control from above) and socio-contextual (taking into account needs and interests from below, development taking into account life strategies). From a technocratic perspective, hybridization can be viewed as an idealized product (object) of the evolution of artificial regulatory systems, as the embodiment of the ideal form, structure of algorithmization of human activity, and follow the unfolding path of technocratization of public life. However, already today we are witnessing failures in the processes of digital transformation of territories and in the operation of hybrid management systems, the purpose and functionality of which are more likely to be configured to build and reproduce technocratic principles of management organization, which gives rise to the imperatives and determination of hybrid objects over hybridizing management entities, reduces sensitivities to spontaneous processes of socio-network grouping. The latter phenomenon is proposed to be considered and studied as a mechanism for launching the formation (localization) of hybrid control systems within the framework of the theoretical construct of the sociology of control called the "sociocultural body of problem solving".

Post-Digital Angst – The Direct Experience

In his contribution "Post-Digital Angst – The Direct Experience", Mong-Sum Joseph Leung (Center Research Focus, PhD candidate PhD in Art) explores anxiety in the post-digital age, examining it as a basic anthropological condition in relation to concepts such as hollowness, nullity, and the unknown. Leung intertwines personal experiences from daily life with his artistic practice and ontological reflections on the human condition, working with Heidegger’s notions of Sorge and Angst, to reflect on affective experiences in a digitalized world.

Eksplorasi Problematika dan solusi Pendidikan Islam di Era Milenial dalam Tinjauan Ontologi

Education This research aims to examine the problems of islamic educationin the millenial era through ontoligical observations. Ontology is the study of the nature of reality and existence. In the context of islamic education, ontological reflection is used to understand the nature and existence of the problems faced. The problems of islamic education in the millenial era are an important concern considering the continuing development of social, technological and cultural changes. This research uses a qualitative descriptive method, and uses primary data and secondary data. The technique used is using library research by reading related literature. The existing problems make it important to integrate islamic values into the curriculum as a response to changes in islamic values in the current context. This research has an important role for educational has a important role for educational practitioners, policy makers and the general public. By understanding the problems of islamic education in the millenial era, relevant and sustainable improvement efforts can be made to improve the quality of islamic education

Orthodox or dissident? The evolution of Bohm’s ontological reflections in the 1950s

Orthodox or dissident? The evolution of Bohm’s ontological reflections in the 1950s

“Being Rooted in Love”: The Trinitarian Ontological Perspective of Simone Weil’s Notion of Rootedness

This paper aims to explore the concept of rootedness in the final political reflections of Simone Weil. According to the French philosopher, rootedness represents “the most important and least recognized need of the human soul”. Weil goes beyond territorial aspects and considers the deep and authentic rootedness in one’s cultural heritage as an indispensable condition for the full development of human beings, both on individual and communal levels. Each culture originates from a unique and irreplaceable source of truth, shaping human environments in distinct ways. True rootedness fosters a genuine love for one’s place of origin and extends that sentiment to others, promoting a fraternal and solidarity-based relationship among diverse human communities worldwide. This political vision is grounded in an ontological reflection of being as a relation, which, from a Trinitarian perspective, can provide genuine meaning to human relationships.

‘China’ as a ‘Black Box?’ Rethinking methods through a sociotechnical perspective

ABSTRACT Amid the ongoing pandemic and the so-called ‘New Cold War,’ physical mobility dwindles and political paranoia surges. China has been increasingly portrayed as a ‘black box’ in anglophone discourse, scholarly and popular alike. More than ever, digital platforms serve as the sites and means to know ‘the Chinese reality.’ In this paper, we mobilize insights from Science and Technology Studies (STS), especially its epistemological and ontological reflections on the ‘black box’ metaphor, to confront the ongoing ‘blackboxing’ of China and, in tandem, the embrace of digital platform data as ‘open source’ to penetrate China from afar. Foregrounding the role of technological infrastructures, research positionality, and power relations in knowledge production, we situate this phenomenon in broader shifts in geopolitics and academic ecology. We then suggest alternative routes for empirical investigation: (1) to reembed Chinese platform data in their sociotechnical contexts, (2) to approach a ‘networked China’ at and across different scales, and relatedly, (3) to attune to obscured positionalities in fieldwork and analysis. Ultimately, we urge communities of China researchers to attend to the politics and materiality of knowledge production and resist the pervading ‘New Cold War’ framing.

Some Epistemological and Ontological Reflections on Concept of Causality: From Scientific Causality to Contextual Causality

This research tries to present a critical analysis of the concept of scientific causality and the problems it entails within the scientific domain. This study claims that scientific causality is not enough to understand the nature of relationships existing among the members of a chain and it is concerned with the possible action of correspondence apart from the context of action. It is argued here that all types of scientific causality fail to reflect the flexible nature of members of any possible correlation. This paper offers the concept "contextual causality" as a possible alternative perspective that reflects both the variable and elastic nature of the elements of correlation and discusses the relationship between the context and the process of correlation. The introduction of the concept of contextual causality raises new metaphysical and epistemological issues that can be solved from the perspective of structural idealism. 
 Keyword: Causality, Contextualism, Structuralism, Structural Idealism, Linear Causality, Epistemology.

When Knowledge Is Not Enough

When Knowledge Is Not Enough

Trust, trustworthiness, and relationships: ontological reflections on public trust in science

ABSTRACT There is much social scientific research dedicated to measuring and studying public trust. I examine the ways in which the notion of trust is implicitly conceptualised in such studies. I argue that there is a common ontological foundation in most research on the topic: trust is viewed as a phenomenon that is an attribute of individuals, intrapsychic, directed toward specific targets, and that is quantitative and measurable. I criticise this conceptualisation of trust and argue that it: (1) fails to consider the trustworthiness of individuals and institutions, (2) fails to recognise trust as a relational phenomenon and overlooks historical and material conditions that characterise relationships between people and institutions, and (3) lends itself to bureaucratic manipulation of publics rather than fostering authentic relationships of trust. I conclude that studies on trust need to be situated in larger frameworks that attend to the trustworthiness of actors and to relationships between them.

Purifying Through Failure, Uniting Through Defeat

In this article, we suggest that Schnittke creates imaginative paraphrases of sonata form which are concealed in the whole movements of his works and are supported by a network of reversals. By codifying common threads of thematic, functional, gestural, and developmental logics, in combination with theories which concern the sonata-tonality duet as well as the ideological reflections of pivotal patterns of modern western culture, we argue that the composer, driven by a fierce desire towards wholeness, creates a structural edifice which negates itself through an ambiguous language “where nothing is as it seems”. We use four case studies to suggest that, beyond Schnittke’s inherently representative aspects, imprints of ambiguity, stress, and failure are totally absorbed by the material, the processes, and structure themselves. Extreme heterogeneities provoke the sustainability of the sonata’s limits, setting crucial questions about preservation, renewal, continuity, and belonging. By discerning a thorough exploitation of the sonata’s two-and-three dimensional aspects as well as its narrative and dramatic potential, we support that the composer outlines a “reversed success-story” moving from Enlightenment’s drama to cultural trauma. The internalized ideological discontinuities and the violent externalizing of his predecessors’ techniques, filtered by Adorno’s musical aesthetics and the composer’s inner imperatives, reveal gaps that nurture cultural and ontological anxiety, alluding both to late capitalism’s and the Soviet regime’s antinomies. Following a path of agony, where “consonance is tested through increasing dissonance,” the ideological disillusionment gets inscribed on the sonata’s narrative and constitutional framework, where failure is sovereign in different levels, offering hermeneutic, ontological reflections as well as prophetic problematizations about the futural sounding world.

Some Epistemological and Ontological Reflections on Concept of Causality: From Scientific Causality to Contextual Causality

Some Epistemological and Ontological Reflections on Concept of Causality: From Scientific Causality to Contextual Causality

L’événementialité de l’anthropocène comme dynamique instituante. Thème et variations

The aim of this essay is to connect the notion of the Anthropocene with Merleau-Pontyan thought by drawing on two aspects of the author’s ontological reflection. First, I consider “the event of the Anthropocene” as an event that is part of an instituting dynamic, in reference to the ontological dimension of “Institution” that Merleau-Ponty borrows from Husserl and develops in an original way in his 1954-1955 lectures at the Collège de France. I then underline the difficulties that arise when multiple names are employed to designate our “current geological era” in debates on the Anthropocene, a complex global event with political, ethical, and social dimensions. To conclude, I show that this multiplication of names is constitutive of the event of the Anthropocene. The Merleau-Pontyan idea of “a theme that constitutes itself through its variations,” introduced by Mauro Carbone in his work on sensible ideas and the “arche-screen” and closely linked to the element of “Institution,” can help us find philosophical advancements at the heart of this contemporary naming debate.

Why Privilege a Single Form of Communication if there are Many?

In a time full of discourses of diversity and inclusion, our daily lives are shaped by social demands linked to standards of bodily integrity, competence, and independence. In this article, we analyze the emergent categories related to speech, language, and communication from critical perspectives to question the oppression of children with difference/disability. Analysis of parents’ narratives show how oppression is carried out by an ableist system that imposes regulatory standards for verbal language (VL) that must be met with the application of rehabilitation technologies, although they are not accessible to the children. Challenging this reality involves presenting families and professionals with narratives about different ways of being-in-the-world and communicating using the diverse semiotic repertoires that are part of life. This requires a practice based on ontological reflections to rethink our ideas about the meaning of being human, the relationships we build, and the worlds we can weave when we experience difference/disability.

Beginnings of Jaina Ontology and Its Models

The paper analyses the beginnings of systematic ontology in Jainism, which appears to have began after first century CE, albeit certain ontology-relevant terminology in a nascent form was present earlier. A clear expression of systematic ontological reflection is the existence of models that organize ideas and categories in a more consistent conceptual scheme. Jainism follows similar developments that had earlier taken shape in in the early Buddhist Abhidharma, proto-Sāṁkhya-Yoga and proto-Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika. In addition, the paper argues that the models, five in total, can be used as a methodological tool to distinguish various historical layers in early Jaina writings.

Pandemia e política: de volta à ontologia pela linguagem e pelo diálogo. Aproximações entre Giorgio Agamben e Martin Buber

O presente artigo tem como objetivo analisar as implicações críticas da imunização biopolítica da vida humana a partir das reflexões de Roberto Esposito, problematizando a seguinte questão: em tempos de pandemia viral e, consequentemente, de Estados emergenciais, de que maneira o paradigma imunitário atua sobre a vida humana? A hipótese que gostaríamos de desenvolver parte do relevo de que, em crises agudas, o paradigma imunitário é tensionado ao seu limite, convergindo para a produção de Estados de emergência segundo os quais são responsáveis por introduzir políticas nefastas de produção tanto da vida quanto da morte. Para validar nossa hipótese e desenvolver o objetivo e a problemática da pesquisa, o presente texto se organiza em dois momentos: (1) primeiramente, nosso intuito consiste em apresentar brevemente a reflexão de Esposito acerca do paradigma imunitário; (2) em seguida, temos como fito analisar criticamente o estado de pandemia viral à luz do paradigma imunitário, buscando encontrar vestígios de como tal ferramenta conceitual nos permite desenvolver uma interpretação para o tempo presente.

Syncretistic Scientism and Dissonant Plausibility Structure: An Analysis of Worldview Orientation Among Generation Zers in South Korea

Generation Z (‘Gen Z’) is the generation of people born approximately between 1995 and 2010 as the children of Generation X (‘Gen X’) who were born between 1965 and 1980. Gen Z is the youngest generation with the older members of its group working in society after finishing formal education. This paper addresses the religious aspects of the Gen Z culture, focusing on the issues of worldview, plausibility structure, and worldview education. It is based on an empirical research project conducted in South Korea in 2020. The research methodology used was a constructivist grounded theory approach involving interviews of 30 people who were either Gen Zers or their religious educators. The study suggests three points concerning the ontological reflection of worldview, epistemological identification through contact points, and educational bridge-making in the mission of worldview education that is devoted to teaching the core and fundamental Christian doctrines about the world and life. First, Christian educators can understand the phenomena of syncretistic scientism among this new generation well when they approach them with faith and respect. It is important to make an ontological differentiation between the two generations that are different and heterogeneous at the worldview level. In contrast to the Gen X worldview that seems to be a mixture of modern scientism and a pre-modern tradition, the Gen Z worldview is a mixture of modern scientism and postmodern deconstructionism. Second, dissonant plausibility structures need epistemological contact points, which can be identified among cross-generational norms and values. Moving beyond identifying epistemological contact points, it is crucial to pursue an incarnational identification and find relevant ways to deliver a meaningful message to Gen Z in their preferred language of plausibility structure. Third, the relevant worldview education needs an educational bridging with a spirit and message of love. Christian educators need to teach the message of love in the spirit of love in order to be heard and help transform Gen Z’s worldview. The above three points are essential Christian teachings and cross cultural and generational barriers because they are shared as common virtues between the two generations. The bridge-making for worldview education is possible when Christian religious educators properly understand and recognize the issues of syncretistic worldview orientations, dissonant plausibility structures, and creative educational approaches based on love. This needs a spirit and message of faith, hope, and love to be relevant in ministry.

Feminismo especulativo nas veredas pós-correlacionistas

RESUMO:Este trabalho discute novas possibilidades do feminismo no movimento filosófico denominado realismo especulativo, na vertente de Quentin Meillassoux, de forma a oxigenar a epistemologia feminista contemporânea, que se encontra em clausura metafísica. Se, pré-Kant, o feminismo se encontrava enclausurado na postura objetivista, com a essencialização da mulher como imperfeita, por outro lado, pós-Kant, a mulher se encontra reduzida à verdade subjetivista da ordem epistêmica, gerando outras essencializações. O artigo propõe nova visão para se pensar o feminismo póscorrelacionista, com a ascensão de outra forma de reflexão ontológica: através da cosmontologia, uma compreensão do sexo, do gênero e da sexualidade nem melhor e nem pior, mas apenas diferente, que provoca a reontologização das ciências humanas pelo reconhecimento de outras grafias e modos de existência.

“Who is an entrepreneur?” is (still) the wrong question

The idea that there exist undiscovered entrepreneurial endowments fell into disfavor after Gartner's (1988) “‘Who is an entrepreneur?’ is the wrong question”. However, a resurgence of the “question of the entrepreneur” suggests that advances in genetics research may be the key to discovering what makes entrepreneurs distinctive. This paper draws from Wittgensteinian philosophy to offer a novel critique regarding the search for differences between entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs. We explain that the idea that entrepreneurs are different gains credence through misleading forms of language that 1) encourage the illusion of some causal interplay between opportunities and potential entrepreneurs, and 2) overshadow the contingent nature of entrepreneurial action. We sidestep misleading forms of thought to suggest that ontological reflection on the nature of entrepreneurial agency shows why we will never discover some “entrepreneurial gene”. Equally important, this Wittgensteinian critique demonstrates the limits of empirical research for problems that fundamentally require conceptual attention – not more determined effort or advanced research methods.

O INDIVÍDUO E A SOCIEDADE PARA ALÉM DAS PARTES E DO TODO

O presente artigo objetiva realizar uma reflexão ontológica transdisciplinar, partindo de princípios epistemológicos da filosofia, da sociologia e da psicanálise, sobre a relação entre sujeito e fenômeno social. Partimos do pressuposto de que não há entre eles quebra de continuidade, nada havendo a se falar em transcendência do político sobre o social ou do todo sobre as partes. Em outras palavras, o Estado não se impõe sobre o social, “domando” a natureza caótica do ser humano, assim como a sociedade não se impõe ao indivíduo. Acreditamos que, em ambos os casos, não há relação de transcendência ou cisão, mas de imanência, imbricação. A sociedade produz subjetividades, na mesma medida em que produz a si mesma. Neste sentido, nosso objetivo é fazer, a partir das matrizes teóricas apresentadas, uma inflexão de que a vida experimentada coletivamente (não em abstrato), é justamente o que permite a realização das potências humanas de forma plena, algo que jamais se alcança em isolamento, sem que rompamos com nosso isolamento “habitual”. Por fim, indagaremos sobre a possibilidade da emergência de uma sociedade alternativa na qual os indivíduos possam reconstruir o sentido de comunidade a partir de uma vivência coletiva que se dê no “viver com”, um “viver junto” sem, contudo, ceder à tentação de fundir-se ao conformismo “rebanho” que anula as singularidades. Uma comunidade de-subjetivada, que prescinda do sujeito egóico, mas não da comunhão com o outro. A metodologia de nossa investigação centrar-se-á na análise bibliográfica de autores de referência como Castoriadis, Freud, Marx, dentre outros.