Reflective Judgment Research Articles

Begriff (Concept)

The lexeme Begriff marks Goethe’s ongoing reconstruction of the traditional philosophical concept across a variety of disciplinary practices. In its most developed articulations, it also works transcendentally to establish the conditions of possibility for thought and intelligibility on a dynamic plane of verbal experimentation and reinvention that cuts immanently through the world. Unlike the clear and distinct concepts of rationalist metaphysics, which function as fixed universals beyond the reach of the senses, Goethe’s extensive usages and ongoing conceptualizations of Begriff draw on an expressive power within language to generate sequences of cognitive moves and moments of transitional understanding that stand in close relation to each other and can be gathered in graded series to be saved for further observation, description, reflection, and reconfiguration. Through its successive linguistic manifestations, moreover, and in line with Goethe’s heterodox approach to systematic philosophy, Begriff lays out force fields of verbal and philosophical activity and discovery with fluid and permeable borders. In ways comparable to the power of reflective judgment in Kant’s third critique, which dispenses with the categories of the understanding and their determining judgments to work intuitively within the world of living forms (Gestalten), Goethe’s lebendiger Begriff (living concept) proves to be a more encompassing structure of thought and its processes than the conceptual machinery of orthodox metaphysical systems with their regulatory regimes of limit-setting terms. Redeployed as an experimental object of experience, Begriff is, therefore, also anschaulich (visual, accessible to intuition). By offering a dynamic perspective onto the fugitive things of the world—including its thought things—it continually reveals the hidden secrets of its own perpetual becomings.

Спонтанности и сингулярности: гипотетический подход Канта к сверхчувственному и к пересмотру оснований метафизики

The hypothetical approach to the supersensible developed by Kant in his three Critiques, exemplified by his analysis of the aesthetic and reflective judgment in his third Critique, with their principle fortuitous purposiveness, can be considered as the basis for a new foundation of metaphysics. According to Kant’s limitation of cognition to the realm of sense intuition, theoretical knowledge of God, the subject, things-in-themselves, transcendental ideas is impossible. This leads to a kind of “negative theology” of the highest principle and the supersensible as a whole. The reasons are rooted in the character of propositional thought, which can only circumscribe a singular, supersensible reality by means of predicative sentences and discursive thought. Taking Kant’s lead, but in contrast to his terminology, I call really existent singularities, including the thinking, knowing, desiring, feeling unique individuals we know as human beings, spontaneities, in order to distinguish them from descriptive characteristics attributed to them by predicative thought. Kant’s “practico-dogmatic” account of the postulates of God and immortality of the soul, based on the “fact of freedom” and its connection to the moral imperative, ensure the possibility of the “highest good” as final aim of moral behaviour — but cannot satisfy our need for knowledge of the supersensible. To “lay the groundwork” for experience of our own self-conscious reality, the reality of others like ourselves, of things which transcend the boundaries of sense intuition, and of true reciprocity, a different method is needed, one which leads us “beyond being and thought” to the unconditional beginning of conditional reality.

Kant’s Nonideal Theory of Politics by Dilek Huseyinzadegan

Reviewed by: Kant’s Nonideal Theory of Politics by Dilek Huseyinzadegan Elaine P. Miller (bio) Dilek Huseyinzadegan, Kant’s Nonideal Theory of Politics Northwestern University Press, 2019, 204 pp. ISBN 978-0-8101-3987-9 The opening pages of Kant’s Nonideal Theory of Politics present the controversial central claim of the book head on: Kant’s teleological arguments in political philosophy, which have a contentious reputation in Kant circles, not only should not be omitted from scholarly inquiry but form an essential part of what Dilek Huseyinzadegan calls “Kant’s nonideal theory,” or the second prong of his dual-focused political philosophy. Nonideal theory, a term Huseyinzadegan borrows from Charles Mills, is anchored, on her argument, in the regulative principle of Zweckmässigkeit, or purposiveness, and has as its purview the contingent variables of politics such as history, culture, and geography. Accordingly, she names “nonideal” the part of his political philosophy that takes up not a priori ideals and political goals but the messiness of actual, empirical history. In The Racial Contract, Mills describes the aim of examining a nonideal contract, such as Rousseau’s in “Discourse on the Origin of Inequality,” in order to “explain and expose the inequities of the actual nonideal polity” (Mills 1997, 9). The racial contract, in relation to social contract theory, starts with “uncomfortable reality” in order not to have to continually “retreat into illusory idealizing abstraction,” and so that it can readily shift between the hypothetical and the actual (Mills 1997, 130). Part of the historical support for Mills’s argument that the racial contract constructs not only racial exploitation but also race [End Page 238] itself can be directly traced to Kant. Huseyinzadegan’s work is not an apologia for Kant, but a demonstration of the ways in which Kant countenanced the nonideal features of his own description of geography and peoples as a part of political philosophy that concerned itself with empirical, historical reality alongside the principles of political right. Huseyinzadegan locates Kant’s political philosophy not only in the obvious “political writings” but in a range of critical and noncritical texts, focusing notably on the Critique of Judgment, a work that some may feel has nothing to do with politics. Of course, Hannah Arendt’s Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy argued convincingly for the relevance of the “Critique of Aesthetic Judgment” to a Kantian political philosophy, and spurred a whole line of interpretations in this vein, but this is not Huseyinzadegan’s focus. She draws attention rather to the relatively neglected “Critique of Teleological Judgment,” fully aware of the controversy to which this focus might give rise. In emphasizing purposiveness as a regulative principle that informs Kant’s political philosophy, she argues that Kant’s use of teleology does not render up an unsavory narrative of world history moving inexorably toward a European end, but rather foregrounds the gap between the ideals put forward by his theory of Recht and the realities of current culture that fail to live up to them. It is in her identification of Zweckmässigkeit, which operates as a link, in the manner of reflective judgment, between the ideals of Recht and the nonideality of actual history, that Huseyinzadegan makes a decisive contribution to the interpretation of Kantian political philosophy. Chapters 1–3 of Kant’s Nonideal Theory of Politics cover Kant’s essay “What is Orientation in Thinking?”; “Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim”; “What is Enlightenment?”; and the Doctrine of Right. Huseyinzadegan starts by identifying in the Critique of Pure Reason a precursor to the concept of reflective judgment. Here Kant talks about ideas of reason as providing an “imaginary focus” that allows for a greater unity and extension between the concepts of the understanding and the sensible experience they constitute. This hypothetical unity gives rise to a hope that, despite all the diversity and seeming infinitude of empirical experiences, it still might be possible for us to draw them all together as if they belonged to this imaginary focal point. The regulative use of this imaginary point serves to orient us in an otherwise bewildering or overwhelming amount of sensible experience. We cannot dogmatically assert the...

“Thinking Politically, Seeing Historically”. Hannah Arendt on the Method of Political Thinking

"In my paper, I try to summarize Hannah Arendt’s reflections on the method of political thinking, following them through their genesis. My fundamental assumption is that although she had been preoccupied with the issue before (at least from 1957), she became more seriously interested in it after the controversy following the publication of the Eichmann volume. It is generally known that Arendt believed to have found the pattern for the method of political thinking in Kant’s third critique, the one about judgment; more precisely in the Kantian description of the reflective judgment. This served as a pattern for Arendt for what she sometimes called representative thinking or opinion. If, on the other hand, we examine Arendt’s referring thoughts in their genesis we also come to realize why that was the case. In my opinion, Arendt looked in Kant’s work for a form of political thinking that remained impartial, in other words, it was not committed to one political cause or another, yet did not break its relations to politics, remaining entirely political. Keywords: Hannah Arendt, Immanuel Kant, impartiality, political thinking, ideology, reflective judgment, representative thinking."

Holding on in Moments of Not Knowing: Disequilibrium, Reflective Judgment, and Practicing Adaptive Leadership.

In this chapter, the author discusses the role of disequilibrium in leadership development and provides tangible examples of ways to employ theories in designing intentional moments of disequilibrium.

Promoting Students' Sense of Coherence in Medical Education Using Transformative Learning Activities.

ObjectiveTransformative learning theory offers medical educators a particularly relevant insight into student learning. Transformative learning involves critically reflecting on assumptions and actions using empirical research methods and participating in a continuing discourse to validate the best reflective judgement and act according to new insights. The purpose of this paper is to investigate medical students’ experiences with transformative learning activities and empirically and theoretically explain how these activities contribute to their understanding of the interplay between theoretical knowledge and professional practice, thereby creating a sense of coherence in medical education.MethodsThis paper analyzes the data from interviews with 40 medical students derived from a qualitative longitudinal research project in Norway from 2012 through 2018.ResultsStudents characterize linking theoretical knowledge with professional practice, experiencing authentic placement situations with real patients, and discussing and critically reflecting on cases and professional practice with experienced doctors as learning activities that transformed their understanding of professional practice. These transformative learning activities influenced students’ perceptions of educational content and demands as being comprehensible, manageable, and meaningful, which are the core components of “sensing coherence” in professional education. Moreover, experiencing a lack of knowledge in either case-based learning on campus or when meeting patients in clinical placements motivates students to pursue further theoretical studies.ConclusionMedical education includes rich opportunities to use transformative learning activities both on campus and at clinical placement sites, but it is not given that these types of learning activities are present in the teaching offered at all the various learning sites; thus, enhanced awareness of why and how to promote transformative learning is required among medical educators.

Creating the conditions for reflective team practices: examining sociocracy as a self-organizing governance model that promotes transformative learning

ABSTRACT This article describes a self-organizing governance model, sociocracy (also called dynamic governance), that enhances organizational learning by providing conditions for transformative team learning. When using sociocracy to make policy decisions, a group converts into a nonhierarchical structure that supports critical reflection and critical dialogue. Sociocracy achieves self-organizing governance through four defining elements: 1.) The principle of consent governs decision-making. 2.) Egalitarian selection of persons for leadership and functional tasks. 3.) Circles as the fundamental underlying structure. 4.) Double Linking of circles to facilitate vertical and horizontal networking. As a framework for describing how the features of sociocracy enhance conditions that support transformative learning, a research-based model of transformative team learning is used. A model by Kasl, Marsick, and Dechant identifies three conditions that support ‘synergistic team learning:’ 1.) An appreciation of teamwork. 2.) Free and open individual expression. 3.) Operating principles with an underlying structure that builds relationships and values growth. To bring to life how sociocracy changes behavior to enhance organizational development, we examine one particular case, Rainbow Community School. Also reported are accompanying successful outcomes for Rainbow Community School, including increased equity and advanced cognitive development of students, as evidenced by the Lectica Reflective Judgment test.

Garroni, the late Peirce, and the issue of creativity

Abstract The iconic and diagrammatic features of abduction, as expressed in Peirce’s works after 1890, allow one to re-read the Kantian concept of schema. By means of this new reading, it is possible to consider the dynamics between legality and creative acts, which, according to Emilio Garroni, keep cultures alive. This process can be analysed by a semiotic theory that could combine the features of Kant’s Aesthetic Judgment (as an answer to schema’s problems) and Peirce’s last theory of abduction. In this way, it becomes possible to go beyond the simple subsumption, through Reflective Judgment, of sensible intuitions under a concept. Thus, creativity becomes the process, both mental and cultural, whereby a new regularity come from the background of the previous one as a result of the free play of our faculties (Musement), which sets links between universes of experience apparently very distant one from another.

Kant and the Need for Orientational and Contextual Thinking: Applying Reflective Judgement to Aesthetics and to the Comprehension of Human Life

AbstractThis essay explores the relation between worldly orientation and rational comprehension in Kant. Both require subjective grounds of differentiation that were eventually developed into a contextualizing principle for reflective judgement. This kind of judgement can proceed either inductively to find new universals or by analogy to symbolically link different objective spheres. I will argue that the basic orientational function of reflective judgement is to modally differentiate the formal horizonal contexts of field, territory, domain and habitat laid out in the Introduction to theCritique of the Power of Judgement. Assessing which context takes priority will be important in making aesthetic judgements and for applying practical reason to comprehend human affairs.

Counter-narratives for the prevention of violent radicalisation: A systematic review of targeted interventions.

In the field of terrorism research, the violent radicalisation of individuals towards perpetrating acts of terror has been the subject of academic enquiry for some time. One core focus by social scientists has been the role of narratives in this process. Narratives have the ability to present a socially constructed version of reality which serves the interest of the narrator(s). In the context of terrorism, by depicting violence as a viable antidote to individual vulnerabilities, the narratives purported for propagandistic purposes have the potential to thwart perceptions of instrumentality (a key characteristic of violent radicalisation). In order to prevent this from happening, researchers and counter-terrorism practitioners have increasingly sought to explore the potential for counter-narratives; targeted interventions that challenge the rationalisation(s) of violence purported in dominant narratives which, in turn, reconstructs the story. However, there is overwhelming consensus in both government and academic spheres that the concept of the counter-narrative is underdeveloped and, to date, there has been no synthesis of its effectiveness at targeting violent radicalisation-related outcomes. The objective of this review was to provide a synthesis of the effectiveness of counter-narratives in reducing the risk of violent radicalisation. After a scoping exercise, the literature was identified through four search stages, including key-word searches of 12 databases, hand searches of reference lists of conceptual papers or books on the topic of counter-narratives, as well as direct contact with experts and professional agencies in the field. Studies adopting an experimental or quasiexperimental design where at least one of the independent variables involved comparing a counter-narrative to a control (or comparison exposure) were included in the review. Accounting for duplicates, a total of 2,063 records were identified across two searches. Nineteen studies across 15 publications met the inclusion criteria. These studies were largely of moderate quality and 12 used randomised control trial designs with varying types of controls. The publication years ranged from 2000 to 2018, with the majority of studies published after 2015. The studies represented a range of geographical locations, but the region most heavily represented was North America. In most cases, the dominant narrative(s) "to-be-countered" comprised of hostile social constructions of an adversary or "out-group". The majority of studies challenged these dominant narratives through the use of stereotype-challenging, prosocial, or moral "exemplars". Other techniques included the use of alternative accounts, inoculation and persuasion. In terms of risk factors for violent radicalisation, there was some disparity on intervention effectiveness. Overall, when pooling all outcomes, the intervention showed a small effect. However, the observed effects varied across different risk factors. Certain approaches (such as counter-stereotypical exemplars) were effective at targeting realistic threat perceptions, in-group favouritism and out-group hostility. However, there was no clear reduction in symbolic threat perceptions or implicit bias. Finally, there was a sparse yet discouraging evidence on the effectiveness of counter-narrative interventions at targeting primary outcomes related to violent radicalisation, such as intent to act violently. The review contributes to existing literature on violent radicalisation-prevention, highlighting the care and complexity needed to design and evaluate narrative-based interventions which directly counter existing, dominant narratives. The authors note the challenges of conducting high-quality research in the area, but nonetheless encourage researchers to strive for experimental rigour within these confines.

Intentions of Reflective Moral Judgment and Confucian Ethics –A Study on the Novels of Seo, Jung-In–

Intentions of Reflective Moral Judgment and Confucian Ethics –A Study on the Novels of Seo, Jung-In–

The Matter of Aesthetic Experience

The Matter of Aesthetic Experience

Effects of live and video simulation on clinical reasoning performance and reflection

IntroductionIn recent years, researchers have recognized the need to examine the relative effectiveness of different simulation approaches and the experiences of physicians operating within such environments. The current study experimentally examined the reflective judgments, cognitive processing, and clinical reasoning performance of physicians across live and video simulation environments.MethodsThirty-eight physicians were randomly assigned to a live scenario or video case condition. Both conditions encompassed two components: (a) patient encounter and (b) video reflection activity. Following the condition-specific patient encounter (i.e., live scenario or video), the participants completed a Post Encounter Form (PEF), microanalytic questions, and a mental effort question. Participants were then instructed to re-watch the video (i.e., video condition) or a video recording of their live patient encounter (i.e., live scenario) while thinking aloud about how they came to the diagnosis and management plan.ResultsAlthough significant differences did not emerge across all measures, physicians in the live scenario condition exhibited superior performance in clinical reasoning (i.e., PEF) and a distinct profile of reflective judgments and cognitive processing. Generally, the live condition participants focused more attention on aspects of the clinical reasoning process and demonstrated higher level cognitive processing than the video group.ConclusionsThe current study sheds light on the differential effects of live scenario and video simulation approaches. Physicians who engaged in live scenario simulations outperformed and showed a distinct pattern of cognitive reactions and judgments compared to physicians who practiced their clinical reasoning via video simulation. Additionally, the current study points to the potential advantages of video self-reflection following live scenarios while also shedding some light on the debate regarding whether video-guided reflection, specifically, is advantageous. The utility of context-specific, micro-level assessments that incorporate multiple methods as physicians complete different parts of clinical tasks is also discussed.

Reflexivity in multilingual and intercultural education: Chinese international secondary school students’ critical thinking

ABSTRACT In recent years, a large amount of Chinese international students, from middle or upper-middle class families, began their international education in Canadian secondary schools, where critical thinking is the main educational goal and often determines students’ achievements. Guided by reflexivity in multilingual and intercultural education, this ethnographic study explores potential ways to foster Chinese international secondary school students’ critical thinking in a second language, and the host country’s socio-cultural contexts. Following 11 students’ academic learning experiences in two English language and literacy courses in a Canadian international secondary school, this paper examines how language, social, and cultural factors affect learning and thinking processes. The findings challenged the stereotypical view that Chinese international students lack critical thinking skills. Insufficient English language competence and a lack of Western socio-cultural knowledge determined students’ responses to learning content, the challenges they met in engaging with learning materials, and their critical and reflective judgements. This study underscores educators’ and Chinese international students’ reflexivity in their linguistic repertoires, and the socio-cultural effects on multilingual and intercultural education. Based on these results, teachers and students should employ a dialogic pedagogy to constructively negotiate learning and thinking.

Interpretative Pros Hen Pluralism: from Computer-Mediated Colonization to a Pluralistic Intercultural Digital Ethics

Intercultural Digital Ethics (IDE) faces the central challenge of how to develop a global IDE that can endorse and defend some set of (quasi-) universal ethical norms, principles, frameworks, etc. alongside sustaining local, culturally variable identities, traditions, practices, norms, and so on. I explicate interpretive pros hen (focal or “towards one”) ethical pluralism (EP(ph)) emerging in the late 1990s and into the twenty-first century in response to this general problem and its correlates, including conflicts generated by “computer-mediated colonization” that imposed homogenous values, communication styles, and so on upon “target” peoples and cultures via ICTs as embedding these values in their very design. I contrast different kinds of ethical pluralisms as structural apparatus for understanding what differences may mean and allow for, as these emerged in the 1990s forwards with EP(ph). As interwoven with phronēsis, a form of reflective judgment and virtue, EP(ph) more radically preserves irreducible differences and so fosters positive engagements across deep cultural differences. I show how EP(ph) emerged in the context of empirical research on “Cultural Attitudes towards Technology and Communication” (CATaC) beginning in 1998, and then in specific applications within Internet Research Ethics (IRE) beginning in 2000. I summarize its main characteristics and trace how it has further been taken up in ICE, IRE, Intercultural Information Ethics, and virtue ethics more broadly. I respond to important criticisms and objections, arguing that EP(ph) thus stands as an important component for a contemporary IDE that seeks an ethical cosmopolitanism in place of computer-mediated colonization.

The Openness of Life-world and the Intercultural Polylogue

Abstract The phenomenological conception of “life-world” lays the theoretical foundation for the openness of the world. The founding relationship between the individual and the world, the interactive relationship among different cultural worlds on the intersubjective level, the free nature of truth and its presence in the open world, the “ek-sistent” characteristics of the human-being, the structural constitution of the life-world – all these topics demonstrate the open nature of the world in a phenomenological way. Based on these ideas, “reflective judgment” as “phronesis” and “fear” as ethic sentiment based on family experience become the practical stance, which is consistent with the “life-world” conception of phenomenology; the characteristics of publicness and intersubjectivity of the open world are thus maintained. In the face of the multicultural world, this attitude presents as a brand-new practice of intercultural philosophy, which is different from the centralism found under the framework of monism and the comparative philosophy under the framework of dualism. Such a practice of intercultural philosophy is “polylog”, i.e. based on the principles of difference and equality and searching for the “overlapping consensus” in full multi-participatory discussion. Through polylog, a harmonious life of human community is constructed. This paper attempts to derive a set of practical principles for maintaining the openness of the world and intercultural polylog in the era of globalization from the theoretical view of the phenomenological life-world.

Seeing the Other Side? Perspective-Taking and Reflective Political Judgements in Interpersonal Deliberation

A healthy democracy needs citizens to make reflective political judgements. Sceptics argue that reflective opinions are either nonexistent or rare. Proponents of deliberative democracy suggest that democratic deliberation is capable of prompting reflective political reasoning among people. Yet, little is known about the mechanisms underlying this relationship. This article offers a bridge between psychology and political theory and proposes a theory of perspective-taking in deliberation. It argues that under the right conditions, deliberation induces more reflective judgements by eliciting the process of perspective-taking – actively imagining others’ experiences, perspectives and feelings – in citizen deliberators. Two institutional features of deliberative forums are emphasized: the presence of a diversity of viewpoints and the interplay of fact-based rational argumentation and storytelling. I test the plausibility of this theory using a case study – the Irish Citizens’ Assembly – thereby, relying on qualitative in-depth interview data and quantitative survey data. I further substantiate my findings with a laboratory experiment.

How Much Difference Can We Make? Assessing the Change in Students’ Critical Thinking in a Private Political Science Program in Egypt

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study is to determine the change in students’ levels of critical thinking (CT) through comparing the results of second- and fourth-year students. The study also investigates the factors that are statistically significant in explaining the change, if any, in students’ CT. In doing that, the study determines whether or not the use of assessment criteria that encourage CT influences or triggers any change in students’ CT. The study employs mixed methods, combining quantitative methods with qualitative ones. Quantitative data were collected using the California CT Skills Test in order to investigate the change in students’ levels of CT. Quantitative data were complemented with reflective judgment interviews, which were used to obtain more in-depth responses from the students. The study finds that the levels of students’ CT increased from 0 percent in year two to 18 percent in year four. The qualitative research revealed very good performance for fourth-year students in interpretation, evaluation, inference, self-regulation and recognition of their own biases. It also showed minimal reliance on religious texts in discussing gender equality. Variables such as school GPA, non-Egyptian high school degree, and independent learning were found statistically significant to higher levels of CT. Despite its pilot nature, this study provides some insight into the levels of CT in private political science programs in Egypt while investigating the most or least statistically significant variables. Identifying the most statistically significant variables informs researchers, practitioners, and education policy makers about what to prioritize for better CT among students.

Kant on Laws, by Eric Watkins

The term ‘law’ occurs with some regularity in Kant’s writings. In his theoretical philosophy, he tries to account for the laws of nature, which he distinguishes into a priori and empirical. The class of a priori laws includes the transcendental laws of nature, such as the law that everything that happens has a cause; these receive their most sustained treatment in the first Critique’s System of Principles. It also includes the Laws of Mechanics, such as the law of the equality of action and reaction, which are handled most extensively in the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science. Kant further distinguishes between constitutive laws, laws which can be shown to govern the behaviour of objects, and regulative laws, like the law of homogeneity, which merely govern our investigation of the world. Regulative laws of reflective judgment, which are treated in the third Critique, include teleological laws, which are to be deployed in lieu of mechanical laws in some explanatory situations. Kant’s practical philosophy is focused on practical laws, such as the moral law. In short, law is a central concept of Kant’s Critical philosophy, and he distinguishes laws across various dimensions: theoretical/practical, a priori/empirical, constitutive/regulative, and mechanical/teleological, to name just a few.

Collective reflection strategy for moderating conformity tendency and promoting reflective judgment performance

AbstractReflective judgement is crucial for medical‐related practitioners in dealing with controversial issues. However, the conformity phenomenon is likely to occur and interfere with reflective judgement learning during interactive activities. Effective strategies are required to moderate the conformity behaviour tendency (CBT) and improve reflective judgement performance (RJP). This study demonstrates two significant results: (a) Compared with the guided self‐reflection learning strategy, the online collective reflection (OCR) learning strategy effectively weakened the learners' general CBT while dealing with professional controversial issues; and (b) a significantly negative correlation between the RJP achieved and the change of CBT in online environment was detected in the OCR group. The implications and potential applications in higher education were discussed. Further studies are needed to confirm the long‐term effects and the extending application to other professional studies.