Ontological Understanding Research Articles

Unboxing knowledge in collaboration between academia and society: A story about conceptions and epistemic uncertainty

AbstractPolicymakers increasingly emphasize knowledge collaboration between academia and society as important means to generate innovations and solve complex issues. However, while recent literature on such collaboration suggests that knowledge needs to be integrated and generated across disciplines and sectors, there are surprisingly few studies that define what is meant by ‘knowledge’ or focus on the process of generating knowledge. Subsequently, the aim of this paper is to unbox ‘knowledge’ in knowledge collaboration by focusing specifically on how knowledge is understood by heterogenous actors during the process of generating knowledge. We build on insights from an in-depth case study and contribute to the literature on knowledge collaboration by bringing in theory on boundary work that specifically addresses the knowledge generation process. We argue that to better meet the expectations of collaboration, there is a need for more discussions and focus on the participating stakeholders’ heterogenous epistemological as well as ontological understanding.

Decision entity-ness: taking agency seriously in organizational decision-making studies

Objective of the study: In this essay, we problematize the onto-epistemological assumptions of organizational decision-making theories, focusing on the concepts of action and decision.Approach: Based on the epistemological perspective of transaction, we propose an understanding of decision as a relational element of action and in action, constructing an explanation supported on the relational ontological understanding of reality.Originality/relevance: We introduce the concept of decision entity-ness, based on relational sociology from the perspective of transaction and the idea of relational agency.Main results: The concept of decision entity-ness allowed us to theoretically combine the processual and performative dimensions of organizational decision-making.Theoretical contribution: As a contribution, we developed an original theoretical-explanatory framework that emphasizes decision, understanding it as an element that distinguishes organizations from other social systems.

What is in a name? Does the difference between onto-theology and theo-ontology direct the way from eco-theology to theo-ecology? Specific Russian theological perspectives

I approach this venture of figuring out the correct terminology to understand reality through the prism of two distinctive Russian Orthodox theologians, Pavel Florensky (1882–1937) and Sergius Bulgakov (1871–1944). The lens I apply mainly to their works is their respective understanding of cosmology, that is, ontology and epistemology. Therefore, I concur with Grenz to abandon the term ‘onto-theology’ and qualify the inverse as a Trinitarian theo-ontology. This honours the intimate connection between knowing and being, and prevents the bifurcation between fidelity and rationality. Mutatis mutandis, the same applies to ‘eco-theology’. This inversion reminds one of Hans-Urs von Balthasar, who bartered the concept of an aesthetic theology for theological aesthetics. Turning this question around would advance our dialogue with the sciences as the common denominator of the discourse is rather nature (creation) discerned from an acknowledged a priori (as all cognition do). In other words, the term theo-ecology is proposed.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: The purpose study is not ecological but rather an asyndetic use of the terminology about the science and religion dialogue, with reference to the nomenclature of ecology and theology. All observation terms and sentences are theory-laden. Religion can be viewed as a linguistic framework that shapes the entirety of life and thought. Truth claims should focus on the grammar (or rules of the game) and not the lexicon when expressive symbolism is employed.

Rewriting Mythology: Tautegory, Ontology, and the Novel

In Schelling’s Lectures on the Philosophy of Art, he outlines an aesthetic theory of the novel and how it communicates truth, based around his Identitätssystem. In doing so, he understands truth as symbolic, where the symbolic is tautegorical. In his later lectures on mythology he instantiates a new understanding of ontology and mythology as tautegorical, and makes gestures towards how to understand aesthetic forms based on these new accounts. This paper explores how that new aesthetic understanding of truth, ontology, and aesthetics can be used to create a new Schellingian theory of the novel. To explore this, the paper looks at the worldview presented in Thomas Mann’s Doktor Faustus, arguing that it could be seen as the late Schellingian novel and as such, present a new paradigm for understanding truth as communicated through literature.

Heidegger’s Relational Ontology

The understanding of Being in terms of substance has given rise to many philosophical problems, the most obvious and persistent of which is subject/object dualism. Heidegger recognises the problems substance ontology has created and rejects the ontological primacy of the subject. In doing so, he discovers an alternate ontological understanding, one that ultimately constitutes a return to a Neoplatonic ontology in which Being is understood in terms of relation. Heidegger’s ontology is, therefore, a recovery of this Neoplatonic relational ontology.

Content validation in concepts of management and managerial practices in Nursing.

to define and validate 37 concepts emanating from the epistemology of knowledge about Nursing Administration. theoretical-methodological study using the Delphi technique in 37 concepts and definitions built on the knowledge of more than half a century of research on Nursing Administration. The concepts were submitted to the judgment of a panel of 21 judges and the validation was measured by the content validity index (> 0.78) and Kappa coefficient (> 0.61). enunciation of 37 concepts and definitions capable of reflecting the knowledge about Nursing Administration. The 37 concepts were validated by the judges, resulting in content validity indices that ranged from 0.81 to 1.00, with reliability higher than 0.79. the epistemological solution presented was validated by the judges with indices above 0.80 and high reliability of universal agreement, constituting a new object of ontological understanding for the scientific nursing community.

Ontological accounting and aboutness: on Asay’s A Theory of Truthmaking

In this paper, I first present an overview of Asay’s A Theory of Truthmaking, highlighting what I take to be some of its most attractive features, especially his re-invigoration of the ontological understanding of truthmaking and his defence of ontology-first truthmaking over explanation-first truthmaking. Then, I articulate what I take to be a puzzling potential inconsistency: (a) he appeals to considerations to do with aboutness in criticising how well ontological views account for truth while (b) ruling out aboutness from the right account of truthmaking. He argues, instead, that necessitation is both necessary and sufficient for truthmaking (§3.3). I suggest that adding aboutness to one’s account in the right way is not just compatible with but important for ontology-first truthmaking. I do all this to invite Asay to clarify his position on these matters. Overall, Asay’s worldview displays the fruitfulness of an ontologically serious approach to metaphysics that puts truthmaking centre-stage.

Aristotle and the Ọmọlúwàbí Ethos: Ethical Implications for Public Morality in Nigeria

This essay explores the philosophical affinity between Aristotle’s concept of virtue as character habituation and the Yorùbá ethical and ontological understanding of ọmọlúwàbí as the foundation for re-examining the philosophical foundation of democratic governance in Nigeria. Based on the Aristotelian insistence that the good life is the end of politics, the essay argues for a rethinking of the concept of public morality as character-based political dynamics that enables politicians to think more about the social contract between the government and the governed, rather than an amoral understanding of politics that eschew morality and undermines the well-being of the citizens. The absence of public morality, the essay argues, has resulted in a neopatrimonial framework within which the political elite willfully circumvent constitutional rules and regulation in order to vitiate the public interest. The essay concludes by arguing for a rigorous public enlightenment as well as a reform of the educational curriculum through an injection of virtue ethics.

The importance of cultural psychological perspectives in pain research: Towards the palliation of Cartesian anxiety

Despite widespread awareness of the psychological dimensions of pain, researchers often and easily slip into essentializing understandings that treat pain as a purely physiological experience that can be isolated within experimental research. This drive towards scientific objectivity, while at times of tremendous utility, can also limit our understanding of pain to reductionistic conceptualizations that in effect deny the subjective and even the psychological dimensions of pain. In other words, researchers often attempt to understand pain by means of empirical, scientific explanations, while being simultaneously aware that such an approach cannot grasp the phenomenon in its entirety. This yearning for deeper, ontological understanding in a world that admits of only empirical, scientific explanations has been called Cartesian anxiety. In the current study, it is argued that cultural psychology can help to alleviate this Cartesian anxiety by helping us to appreciate the psychological aspects of pain as dynamic processes of meaning making.

The intertwining of health and education: capturing learning and change while developing a tertiary health education research proposal

ABSTRACT This paper outlines the personal transformation that occurred when three university educators from very different fields (education, midwifery, and oral health) and world views, established a common understanding of their research topic and subsequent development of a research question to improve health educators’ capability when teaching interprofessional practice. Most health educators entering higher education are specialists in their clinical practice foremost, and therefore, the health researchers engaged with an education specialist to develop a project scope. Through an eight-month process of challenging, learning, reflecting, and actively testing the meaning of ideas and statements, a consensus was achieved on a research aim and proposal that would guide the research process. This paper presents the collaborative journey to achieve this consensus. The individual stories of two of the researchers’ journeys were analysed, identifying that a shift in the understanding of ontology and pedagogy takes time and effort, and change is reliant on a collective working together towards a positive outcome where consensus is arrived at through challenge and dialogue. There was an action learning phase that pre-empted the researchers’ capacity to collectively envision the research aim when working across professions, providing a practical knowing that is explored in this paper.

Modernist ekphrasis in Marina Tsvetaeva’s essay Natalia Goncharova. Life and Work

This article examines Marina Tsvetaeva’s modernist perception of the personality and paintings of the greatest representative of the Russian avant-garde of the 20th century in the essay “Natalia Goncharova. Life and Work” (“Наталья Гончарова. Жизнь и творчество”, 1929). Goncharova’s paintings that Tsvetaeva describes in her essay are indicated. The principles of modernist poetics and ekphrasis are revealed (lyrical subjectivism, ontology, consonance, anagrammatic disclosure of the inner form of a word, mythologization, reader co-creation, dialogism). The similarity between Tsvetaeva’s understanding of painting and poetry is compared to the ontological understanding of art by Martin Heidegger. This can be explained by the tradition of ontological poetry (Friedrich Hölderlin and Rainer Maria Rilke), which is important for both. The ontology of Goncharova’s painting is also considered in the context of the ontology of animals in Russian philosophy at the beginning of the 20th century (Vasily Rozanov) and in the Tahitian Painting of Paul Gauguin. Special attention is paid to ekphrastic poetics (style, tropes, consonance), with the help of which Tsvetaeva authentically transfers the ontologism of Goncharov’s painting in its stylistic diversity (cubism, neo-primitivism, rayonism) to the verbal level. Tsvetaeva and Goncharova in the respective Russian and European context (Gauguin, Rozanov, Heidegger, Rilke) appear as exponents of the ontological turn in the culture of the first half of the 20th century.

Entgrenzte Figuren – bewegte Erinnerungen.Migration im Spannungsfeld von Literatur und Begriff

AbstractMy paper discusses the controversial relationship between literature and literary studies by using the example of the term ›migration literature‹. It demonstrates in the first part that ›migration literature‹ as a term in literary studies does not expose explications of rational reconstructions of a conceptual content in Harald Fricke’s and Klaus Weimar’s understanding. In its history (Adelson 1991; 2004), ›migration literature‹ goes back to a chain of different terms and definitions asGastarbeiter-orAusländerliteraturand reflects strategies of homogenization and exclusion. From the 1980s forward, those terms produce in cultural contexts a semantic field that propagates culture based on a definition ofex negativo(Tafazoli 2019). The first part of my paper describes an outline of influences of homogenization and reductionism on the discourses of migration in literary studies and explains in the second part an asymmetrical relationship between motive on the one hand and terminology on the other. The term ›migration literature‹ seems to dominate this relationship by determination of a source of ›accepted truths‹ related to the life and background – specifically to the place of birth and the origin – of the author (Bay 2017). By prioritization of criteria beyond narrative reality, literary studies led in the 1980s and 1990s discourses on migration on the sidelines of canon of German speaking literature (Weigel 1991; Wilpert 2001). With regard to terminological determination in order to produce interpretative sovereignty (Foucault 1994), my paper exemplifies in the second part that the term ›migration literature‹ collects selected and limited fields of social, historical and political knowledge in perspective adjustment and in order to classify literature beyond aesthetic criteria. By this means, inductive standards (Müller 2010a; 2010b) classify the literary object ›migration‹ ontologically and regardless of factuality of the author’s life on the one hand and fictionality of narrative text on the other. The ontological classification has been used, for example, in contexts that replace the figure of stranger (Fremder) by the figure of migrant and determines the latter as figuration of external space of culture. The replacement suggests a perspective rigidity in the cultural production of knowledge that flows into a terminological classification and claims with the term ›migration literature‹ sovereignty over culture. From this point of view, the author and his work should be located in the external space of canonized literature. The second part of my paper comes to the conclusion that the term ›migration literature‹ has been developed in politicized frames of external-textual ›accepted truths‹ and bases its stability on cultural essentialism and exclusion regardless of heterogenetic appearance (Bhatti 2015).With regard to theories of »literature on the move« (Ette 2001), my paper understands that migration has always formed a considerable part of literary production. Therefore, migration could be understood as a literary motive. This meaning would undermine an ontological understanding of culture. Narrative texts develop poetics of migration and create by figurations of migration a poly-perspectivity in which migration advances to a polysemantic motive. My paper discusses these thoughts in the context of cultural memory in the third part and understands varied and multifaceted constructions of cultural memory on all sides of cultural borders. This part confronts the asymmetrical relationship between motive and terminology with discussions on migration as narrative of cultural memory that belongs to cultural majority and minority equally, at the same time and in the same space. Based on this understanding, my paper argues that migration as a motive construct shapes and leads discourses of culture under the conditions of global re-formation. The shift of the perspective from conceptual classification to close-readings of literary constructions should lead us to considerations about the openness of the narrative in distinction to terminological unity and should also initiate a paradigm shift in locating migration in discourses of literary studies. The theoretical considerations will be exemplified in the fourth section by Mohammad Hossein AllafisFrankfurter Trilogiethat is a collection of the novelsDie Nächte am Main(1998),Die letzte Nacht mit Gabriela(2000) andGabriela findet einen Stapel Papier(2012). The fourth part of my paper examines inFrankfurter Trilogiea reading that integrates migration as a motive into the discourse of cultural memory of global challenges. Using the example of theTrilogie, this part of my paper demonstrates that discussions on migration in the context of cultural memory could initiate a shift in the perspective of reception from conceptual homogenization to narrative openness. The shift of perspective shows that literature translates the questions of community into the aesthetic perception of the form of culture and civilization in which the community actually articulates and appears itself and shows also that reading of migration as a statement aboutonenation has lost its explanatory power. The last part of my paper resumes my thoughts and takes position in the current fields of research in literary studies.

INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGIES OF SERVICE QUALITY MANAGEMENT

Вackground. Quality management has a prominent place in the overall structure of the business process and there are a lot of significant papers in this area. Therefore, it is necessary to review existing methodological approaches, provide some conceptual and categorical clarification and generalization, formalization and description of the subject area and many links, in particular, determine the prospects for development of this area in the context of the Industry 4.0 concept. Analysis of recent research and publications has shown that despite the presence of a significant theoretical and methodological basis in the organization of the quality management process there is a need for a certain structuring of accumulated knowledge and problem field demarcation of the analyzed area. The aim of this article is an ontological understanding of the evolutionary way of for­mation and provision of requirements for processes and products in the context of trans­formational changes and socio-economic conditions of the economic activity environment. Materials and methods. The research methodology includes a retrospective analysis of the quality management area, synthesis method and forecast evaluation. The works of do­mestic and foreign scientists were the theoretical basis of the study. Results. A retrospective analysis of the evolutionary way of the concept of "quality management" development is highlighted. The historical chronology of the main stages and links on the formation way of a modern idea of the enterprise quality management is demonstrated. The main definition differences and contradictions in the existing method­logical platforms in the quality management area are identified in relationto the terms "quality" and"process". Ways of harmonization and mutual interpretation of termino­logical basis in order to create a unified definitions system and avoid contradictions in interdisciplinary research are proposed. The toolkit of the international standards of the ISO series is defined as one of the most successful and characterized by the system attributes presence and the implementation ways complexity. The role and place of orga­nizational culture and modern technologies in the process of the quality management system formation of the enterprise are determined. Conclusion. The main vectors of further development of quality management as a complex methodological system in the conditions of change of production opportunities and business environment are formed. Keywords: quality, management system, process, business process, management, principle, concept.

Building Trust through Social Media in Times of Crisis: Cultural Persuasion, Citizen News, and the Cultural Affordances of Blogs

Research on trust and news tends to focus on professional news (agents, organizations, institutions), ignores the content of news, and takes place during relatively settled times. This article seeks to remedy these gaps by examining how citizens used blogs to make and share news during a natural disaster and its aftermath. It draws on a case study of blogging in the wake of hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and examines the perspective of blog users to understand how they built trust in each other and in their shared realities of the recovery and rebuilding periods. It draws on cultural sociology to illustrate how civil and anticivil cultural codes, embodied in culturally specific referents, were drawn upon to construct news messages and messengers, and by extension, trust in each other and a grounded ontological understanding of reality. It argues that the cultural affordances of the blog platform were helpful in users’ ability to build both forms of trust. It concludes with implications for emerging crises of climate change, global pandemics and the mass migration these produce.

The whale watched and whaled: exploring the orderings of a complex environmental issue through the lens of rubbish theory

The political ecological study of environmental issues is often concerned with the interactions of diverse actors, leading to accounts of different, conflicting worldviews. While different epistemological and ontological standpoints are covered, there is consensus that environmental issues are simultaneously social and material, and that worldviews differ. In this article, I argue Michael Thompson's rubbish theory can be usefully employed to compare and contrast environmental perspectives ultimately rooted in conflicting epistemological and ontological understandings of a situation. Rubbish theory describes the categorization of objects into durables, transients and rubbish, and movements between these categories.Rubbish theory focuses on how objects are restricted in their movement and how this reflects the distribution of power and status in society. Two aspects of a society may then be assessed: 1) its value system, and 2) the extent to which different groups may alter that value system. Dynamic changes in these two aspects are then traceable. As an example of extant environmental conflicts rooted in different worldviews, this article focuses on historic and contemporary issues around the consumption of whale meat. Focusing upon whaling and whale-watching, I argue that historic and contemporary conflicts manifest different orderings and that these comprise different epistemological standpoints, which as value systems are comparable within rubbish theory.

IL MOVIMENTO DELL’APPARIRE TRA ESSERE E NULLA: LE RADICI FENOMENOLOGICHE DELLA CONCEZIONE DELLA VITA DI EUGEN FINK

This paper investigates some essential steps in Eugen Fink’s conception of life, in order to show its phenomenological roots. First of all, it is explained how the conception of individual life interpreted as self-understanding builds the foundations of the ontological project movement, which consists precisely in the vitality - i.e. the problematization towards cosmological difference - of those thoughts of Being that constitute our pre-comprehension. Secondly, the structure of the movement of the world is described in its main characteristics; moreover, the relationship between the life of the individual as ontological understanding and the life of the world as a continuous process of appearing is deepened. Finally, an attempt is made to find the mediation between the two instances, individual and cosmic, through the reference to the experience of the phenomenon of death as an index of the totality of Nothingness.

How Do Poor Families in Australia Avoid Homelessness? An fsQCA Analysis

ABSTRACT Families experiencing homelessness are an increasing phenomenon in Australia. However, the question of why some families living in poverty and disadvantage become homeless and others do not is not well explained in the literature. Using fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA), this paper investigates how recent “shock” or crisis events, poor health and financial stress interact with social capital and emotional well-being to affect housing security for Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australian families living in poverty. The analysis draws on 307 cases (individuals with dependent and resident children) from Journeys Home, a longitudinal survey of extremely disadvantaged Australian welfare recipients. The results are explained within a critical realist understanding of depth ontology, stratification, emergence and the interaction between structure and agency. Hobfoll’s conservation of resources theory provides a framework for thinking about homelessness as a severe form of poverty and resource depletion.

Becoming killable: white-tailed deer management and the production of overabundance in the Blue Hills

ABSTRACT This paper examines the implementation of a white-tailed deer management program in the Blue Hills Reservation outside of Boston, Massachusetts. Drawing on the concepts of biopolitics, we explore how white-tailed deer became an object of concern and ultimately targets of lethal management in this suburban park. Through interviews, document analysis, and observation of public meetings, we examine the changes in and controversy over the presence, perception, and management of deer in the park. We argue that the implementation of the deer management program is only partially explained by the growing numbers of white-tailed deer, and must also be understood in the context of concerns about human health and shifting imaginaries of urban green spaces and global biodiversity. The case illustrates the entanglements of harm and care in the management sub/urban ecosystems and highlights how differences in the ethical and ontological understandings of deer create tensions in efforts to advance multispecies urban planning.

Technologizing the Transcendental, not Discarding it

In this reply I further defend my claim that the transcendental should always remain a primary concern for philosophy of technology as a philosophical enterprise, contra the empirical turn’s rejection of it. Yet, instead of emphasizing the non-technological conditions of technology, as ‘classic’ thinkers of technology such as Heidegger did, it should recognize technology itself as the transcendental operator par excellence. Starting from Heidegger’s ontological understanding of transcendence I show that while technical artifacts may indeed always conform to a certain horizon of understanding, they also constitute this horizon in specific ways. Following Stiegler I show that concrete technologies (technology with a small ‘t’) are not just empirical effects of an overarching movement of transcendence (Technology with a capital ‘T’) but are originally constitutive of it. In response to Romele’s critique that the social, language, images, imaginaries, symbols, etc. are also transcendentals, I argue that all these phenomena are always already conditioned by technical milieus. As for Besmer’s contention that I offer a reductive interpretation of postphenomenology’s notion of multistability, I argue that there are decisive systemic and organological limits to multistability offered by technical artefacts and that all variation in use and implementation is always constrained by inherent technical tendencies and processes of concretization. Agreeing with Besmer that the transcendental and the empirical should be understood not oppositional but compositional I argue that technology may be that which constantly ‘mediates’ between the two.

Caliphate as Transnational Metaphor: A Decolonial Analysis of Caliphate Struggles

Framed in a Critical Muslim Studies approach, this essay will present a decolonial reconceptualisation of the concept of the Caliphate by analysing the narratives on the Khilafat movement and the Mappila rebellion (1921-1922) in India and presenting them as decolonial disruptive movements. Traditional formulations of the Caliphate privilege a view from the centre (Arab world) and contemporary discussions focus on the ontic manifestations such as structure and the requirements for the office of the Caliph rather than the what the Caliphate means. By looking at contemporary framings of the caliphate mobilisations and its methodological shortcomings, this essay will theorise how the leaders of the Khilafat movement, Mappilaulemaand leaders conceptualised the Caliphate based on an ontological understanding and their mobilisation of its range of possible meanings. The essay will also look at the appropriation of such meanings by Marxist ideologues and historians to lend legitimacy to the Marxist trajectory of violence and martyrdom, and the subsequent erasure of Muslim political subjectivity from these narratives by framing it using a class analytic. This essay will present a reading of the Caliphate mobilisations as way of decolonising the Islamicate past for ‘clearing the ground’ for dreaming a future.