Teleological Orientation Research Articles

Ultimate Rationality. Husserl on Critical Position-Taking (Stellungnahme) in the Theoretical and Axiological Spheres

AbstractAs a fervent rationalist, Husserl placed considerable emphasis on the delineation of the different levels of reason. Its highest form, he contends, is position-taking (Stellungnahme) understood as a critical stance towards a positional act P. Specifically, such a Stellungnahme is a three-step procedure: the subject, possibly motivated by a passive discordance, starts by questioning P (active doubt); she then seeks to validate P by returning to its originary fulfillment (active search for evidence); finally, she ratifies such a fulfillment in an act of acknowledgment (active decision), thereby making P a permanent personal conviction. In the literature, the role of position-taking in the formation of persons has been aptly emphasized, but insufficient attention has been paid to its intrinsic structure and concrete functioning; furthermore, the few existing studies on this topic are limited to the theoretical domain. The aim of this paper is to fill this twofold gap by providing a comprehensive account of critical Stellungnahme in both the intellectual and the axiological spheres, drawing especially on the manuscripts from the Studien zur Struktur des Bewusstseins. The first part examines Stellungnahme in the theoretical realm, underscoring its teleological orientation towards justification and the active role played by the subject in it. The second part shows how this procedure can be extended to rationalize value-experiences, by elucidating the nature of affective evidence and approval (Billigung). Finally, the third part demonstrates how a particular value, that of knowledge, can concretely pass the axiological position-taking and thus be recognized as an actual value.

Споры с участием арбитражного управляющего в контексте применения п. 2 ч. 1 ст. 143 АПК РФ

The article examines the law enforcement practice related to the interpretation by the courts of paragraph 2 of part 1 of article 143 of the Arbitrazh (Commercial) Procedure Code of the Russian Federation, devoted to the duty of the court to suspend proceedings in a number of cases, in particular, in the case of a citizen serving in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation as part of a special military operation. The author gives an assessment of the amendments made to this article in December 2022, their teleological orientation. Within the framework of the study, the author concludes that the current law enforcement, according to which the fact of concluding a contract on military service is sufficient for suspending the proceedings, is inconsistent with the text and objectives of the article in question. The main attention is paid to the possible consequences of such law enforcement in disputes involving an arbitration administrator in insolvency (bankruptcy) cases, in particular, on the recovery of documents and on the recovery of losses. As a conclusion, the author considers it necessary to provide explanations of the operation of the norm in question from the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation in the framework of a specific case or in the form of an abstract explanation.

Paedagogia Homiletica Viatorum.

The four movements of the “Lukan liturgy” on the road to Emmaus, specifically the gathering, word, table and sending, are used to develop route markers for a homiletical pedagogy of the road for Africa. An argument is advanced for a special kind of contact between lecturer and students that takes seriously a variety of epistemologies and ontologies; for prioritising listening to speaking; for a pedagogy that serves a postcolonial imagination; and lastly, for a teleological orientation that works with an anthropology of desire and preaching as a Christopraxis event.

Some Thoughts on Artistic Re-Imaginings of Yugofuturism’s Utopological Elements

Within the context of societies marked by the postsocialist transition of the 1990s and their cultural – and to a certain extent, their political – practices, we need to highlight the insistence on a meaningful connection between this future and certain past socialist socio-political aspirations as one the more recognizable aspects of thinking about the future. Depending on position or perspective, these aspirations towards equality, interpersonal and intergenerational solidarity, a fairer distribution of resources, and creativity as the basic direction of human life experience may today seem utopian, naïve, or even unnecessary. In this paper, however, I consider whether it is not precisely this legacy of the above-characterised utopianism – not as a teleological orientation towards a predetermined future but rather as a form of action and an attempt to act for the future in the now – that is one of the more meaningful and not at all naïve aspects of the approaches adopted by artistic and cultural practices which we may refer to as yugofuturistic. I will do so by focusing specifically on attitudes towards remembering, and former utopias and related practical issues examined in the works of Marta Popivoda and Ana Vujanović.

The Work of Community in Raposa's Theosemiotic

The Work of Community in Raposa's Theosemiotic

PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION AND RESTORATION OF EDUCATIONAL PRINCIPLES IN THE CONCEPT OF JURGEN HABERMAS

The goal is to investigate the modern philosophy of education and the principles of European enlightenment on the example of the concept of Jürgen Habermas, to prove that the European educational project is the heart of modern civilization. Research methods — historical and philosophical, hermeneutics, discourse pragmatics, analytical method. Scientific novelty. In the concept of rationality of Y. Habermas, the following are organically included and synthesized: - the relation of the acting person to the world (Aktor- Welt-Beziehung); - his relation to other people, precisely such an important factor as the processes of "speech", speech, expression of certain language sentences and hearing the counterparties of the action. The teleological orientation of history for Habermas, as well as for one of the founders of the Enlightenment project, Herder, is in the principle of the "formation" of humanity (Bildung), where the progress of civilization is connected with the moral development of the individual, and therefore the improvement of education and upbringing. For Habermas, this is possible primarily through a continuous collective "learning process" (Lernprozess) through overcoming social challenges and cultivating the best moral qualities. Conclusions. The modern philosophy of education and the principles of European enlightenment are based on the need for rationality and critical thinking. This is the basis of Jürgen Habermas' concept of the justification of reason and rational action. The European educational project as the heart of modern civilization is based on the Kantian understanding of the independence of the mind and the understanding of its boundaries, as well as a revived rationality. In his concept, Habermas critically overcomes the subjectivist tendencies of transcendentalist philosophy, which, in the epistemic struggle against substantialist metaphysics, brought the doctrine of mind to the level of the philosophy of consciousness. Reason and rationality are nurtured and corrected in the public sphere, in everyday and political dialogue, acting as a guarantee not only of the education of society, but of its development as a whole.

The consequences of Gregory Conti’s parliament the mirror of the nation

ABSTRACT In this review of Gregory Conti's Parliament the Mirror of the Nation, I offer an outline of what I take to the thesis of that work: that during the mid-Victorian period, mirroring was a key goal of representation, which dominated and framed discussions of post-1832 debates on parliamentary reform. I focus, in particular, on the teleological orientation of the arguments that Conti uncovers in his systematic reconstruction of debates that Conti offers.

Foreword. Finalism and Judgement

What does it mean to “judge” something? What are the preconditions and the necessary prerequisites for the formulation of a judgement (be it a cognitive judgement, a moral judgement, or an aesthetic judgement)? Is there a special relationship between finalism and judgement and, if yes, in what sense? The relationship between finalism and judgment has been typically understood along two main lines of interpretation: on the one hand, as the finalism attributed by judging to certain objects or phenomena; on the other hand, from the point of view of the finality of judging itself, i.e., the teleological orientation of judging in the global dimension of life.
 This issue of Aisthesis includes a selection of highly relevant contributions to the topic “Judgement and finalism”, with the aim of bringing to the fore the circular movement that seems to characterize every judgement in itself – from nature, and from the nature of our mind, to the objects, structures, natural kinds etc. that populate the world, and reversely from the world to the mind. Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judgement plays, in this respect, a very fundamental role, as the papers by Stefano Velotti, Luigi Filieri, Lorenzo Sala, and Antonio Branca show brilliantly. Andrea Lanza and Barbara Santini discuss the interconnections between teleology and judgement in the frame, respectively, of Husserl’s phenomenology and Friedrich Hölderlin’s poetic philosophy. The idea that finalism and the dynamics of judgement have much to do with each other opens new links to disciplines other than philosophy and to an interdisciplinary approach to the activity of judging in research fields such as psychology, cognitive sciences, biology. This is the perspective adopted by Francesco Vitale, in his paper on Ernst Mayr’s teleonomy, and by Onerva Kiianlinna, in her a paper on epigenesis and modularity in Evolutionary Aesthetics.
 This present issue is further enriched by a substantial focus on images and the aesthetic experience in the digital age (Fabrizio Desideri, Francesca Perotto, Caterina Zaira) and by a multifaceted and intriguing “Varia” section, with contributions by Ricardo Ibarlucia, Mariya Veleva, David Alvaro Gonzàlez, Carmelo Colangelo.

Information Systems Development Methodologies: A Review Through a Teleology Approach

The information systems analysis and design methodologies devised at the outbreak of the third industrial revolution shaped the systems analysis disciple and have trickled down to all systems influencing most aspects of human development. To cope with the explosion of digital technology, these methodologies had to be developed rapidly, drawing from a wide range of theoretical backgrounds, based mainly on the “hard” scientific method and the “softer” systems approach. In the run-up to industry 4.0, with multiple information systems emerging, reflection on systems’ design fundamentals is important. Intended to serve human activity and well-being, information systems are anthropocentric. Their success lies in their ability to serve human goals. Information systems analysis and design methodologies play a role in this by ensuring the best match between what is sought from systems and what they deliver in terms of the systems’ underlying final cause, or “telos”. The paper investigates the teleological orientation of four founding systems analysis and design methodologies. Using the Wood-Harper and Fitzgerald taxonomy in order to identify the conceptual origins of the four methodologies under review, it categorizes and subsequently incorporates them in an extended taxonomy, assesses whether and how they are devised to cater to the incorporation of goals and explains the inferred results based on the taxonomy. The paper posits that the founding information systems analysis and design methodologies do not have a marked teleological orientation and do not dispose of techniques for adequately incorporating systems’ goals. Doi: 10.28991/HIJ-2021-02-04-09 Full Text: PDF

Truth, Discussion, and Free Speech in On Liberty II

AbstractIn this article, I offer a reading of On Liberty II which focuses on the structural features of the argument that Mill presents. Mill's argument, I suggest, is grounded on an appeal to the value of truth, and is divided into three sub-arguments, treating true, false and partially true opinion respectively. In section 1, I consider what constraints the teleological orientation of Mill's argument places on the case he makes, before examining in section 2 what the division of Mill's argument into three exhaustive sub-arguments tells us about the nature of ‘discussion’ as Mill uses the term. I go on, in section 3, to suggest that although On Liberty II does not offer a defence of free speech in the broad sense in which the term is often now used, we should be optimistic about the chances of finding such a defence in On Liberty III.

Husserls Begriff der Trieb- und Instinktintentionalität als transzendentale Monadologie

Considering that Husserl identifies passivity as the general principle of genetic dynamics and as given prior to any intentional activity, the original condition of possibility of such passivity must be clarified. Phenomenological analysis can successfully attest the presence of a drive-habituality operating prior to the level of the I, an instinct-character, thus, that raises the question about life as auto-affective capability. In the framework of a universal monadology the latter’s teleological orientation must be questioned in order to avoid that both the limes constituted by the unconscious as well as affective being remain indeterminate and anonymous, which would not do justice to the transcendental rootedness of drive and instinct through the form of ipseity.

Bound for Beatitude: A Thomistic Study in Eschatology and Ethics by Reinhard Hütter

Reviewed by: Bound for Beatitude: A Thomistic Study in Eschatology and Ethics by Reinhard Hütter Gideon Barr Bound for Beatitude: A Thomistic Study in Eschatology and Ethics by Reinhard Hütter (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2019), 492 pp. In Bound for Beatitude: A Thomistic Study in Eschatology and Ethics, Reinhard Hütter undertakes to "recapitulate, from a Thomist perspective and in critical dialogue with the late-modern philosophical and theological context, the primordial human vocation to the beatific vision" (387). In this recapitulation, Hütter seeks to recover for contemporary theology both a "sound teleological orientation" and the "privileged instrumentality of metaphysics" by means of an explication and defense of Saint Thomas's theology of beatitude and the virtues (2). With insight and sensitivity into the sources and expressions of the contemporary intellectual and spiritual malaise that incapacitates the lasting achievement of both natural and supernatural happiness, Bound of Beatitude hits the mark as a contemporary ressourcement in Thomistic moral theology. The nine chapters of the book are collected together from articles and lectures previously presented and published but are bookended by a prologue and epilogue that are new and substantial and give the book its unity. For this reason, however, the organization makes for an unusual experience for the reader (the prologue and epilogue make up, save the first chapter, the lengthiest sections of the book). In some ways, the book is organized as a study in Thomistic ethics set between a study in Thomistic eschatology. The prologue and first chapter, which substantially treat the first five questions of Summa theologiae [ST] I-II and a metaphysical study of the finality of the created intellect, respectively, begin considerations that are not taken up again until the final chapter, on Marian exemplarity, and the epilogue, on the beatific vision. The extremities of the book thus take up the principle eschatological concerns, while the central chapters largely treat particular virtues under the formality of the distinction between the journey of the viator and the attainment of the comprehensor. Following Saint Thomas, who notes at the outset of the prima secundae that "the end is the rule of whatever is ordained to the end," Hütter uses the prologue to introduce elements of the formality of the end. It is Hütter's contention that a careful reading of Saint Thomas's Treatise on Happiness [End Page 979] (ST I-II, qq. 1–5) will do much to affect a ressourcement of the Thomistic theology of beatitude amidst contemporary anthropocentric views of human happiness. Hütter's treatment of these questions, which contain Saint Thomas's synthesis of Christian eschatology and Aristotelian ethics, is tremendously valuable and worth the reader's serious attention. This Thomistic synthesis resituates the viator's pursuit of happiness beyond an intra-mundane state of existential appreciation for the goods of this world, and rather upon a participation in divine happiness, in which resides the superabundant and surpassing plenitude of perfection sought in any object of earthly beatitude, accessible to our understanding only analogically. Crucially, by refocusing the attention in the pursuit of happiness upon a vision of the divine essence, the viator does not leave behind the promise of integral human happiness, insofar as "every genuine created good … is entailed in divine happiness, the possession of the perfect good" (13). This is a foundational judgment which allows Saint Thomas to likewise affirm the priority of the intellective vision for perfect happiness. In presenting this and other insights and attentively reading Saint Thomas, Hütter forcefully rearticulates the participatory, intellective, and theocentric character of human beatitude in response to modern objections. In the first chapter, the longest of the interior chapters, on the finality of the created intellect or the question of the right articulation of the natural desire for the vision of God, Hütter undertakes to re-explicate the instrumental and indispensable role of metaphysics in sacra doctrina in relation to final human beatitude. Along these lines, Hütter presents a lengthy defense of the principle of finality in order to properly undergird his discussion of the finality of the rational agent in nature and grace, safeguarding the real...

Hotdog as Metaphor: (Co)Developing Stories of Learning through Photo-Cued Interviewing

Background/Context Photos are a powerful tool for eliciting stories that may otherwise go untold in traditional interview formats. Photo-elicitation type methods vary widely in their ontological, epistemological, and teleological orientations, providing different tools for understanding participants’ experiences and interpretations of those experiences. Photo-cued interviewing (PCI) is an emerging approach that adds to the photo-elicitation method milieu, with a specific strength for understanding varied facets of learning. In this paper, I explore how PCI diverges from existing photo-elicitation type methods and how it can be a useful tool for educational researchers interested in understanding more about student learning, particularly in spaces like study abroad. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study Using a case study approach, this manuscript illuminates how PCI can help elicit and (co)develop stories of learning— specifically, narratives that illustrate the learning that resulted from students’ experiences in study abroad programs. Research Design This study draws from interviews and focus groups with 62 secondary and postsecondary students who participated in a variety of study abroad programs. I perform an inductive qualitative analysis to understand how the PCI method helped to (co)develop stories that illustrated what and how students learned during their study abroad programs. Findings/Results PCI helped to (co)develop stories of learning in a number of ways, including: 1) facilitating students’ initial reflections, 2) revealing impact beyond the experience, 3) merging stories of learning to create new narratives and understandings, 4) adding nuance to preliminary stories, and 5) allowing for more focused storytelling. Conclusions/Recommendations I offer PCI as a photo-elicitation method useful for prompting student reflection and learning, understanding how meaning is made from experiences, and reflexively participating in the interview process as a researcher. I also call for greater use of the PCI method in educational research in order to explicate its uses and boundaries.

Agentic Misfit: An Empirical Demonstration of Non-Matching Human Agency amid Complexity

Alignment of organizations with external imperatives is seen as a sine qua non of proper organizing and strategizing by many fit and complexity scholars. Any deviation from this management mantra engenders organizational decline and, ultimately, mortality. We put this axiomatic principle under empirical scrutiny and use the law of requisite variety as our organizing principle to do so. The law is an iconic cornerstone of this matching contingency logic and it has served to legitimize a wide range of fit decisions in, e.g., leadership, organizational learning and corporate governance. Inspired by organizational vignettes inhabiting antithetical complexity regimes, we introduce a novel concept, which we label ‘agentic misfit’. In this way, we deconstruct deterministic assumptions related to environmental fittingness, we challenge teleological orientations in the fit literature, and we flesh out the viability of non-matching human agency amid complexity.

Forging multilingualism: teleological tension in French and Corsican middle school curricula

This article compares French and Corsican middle school language policy. Above the micro-level of the classroom, and below the macro-level of the EU (or beyond), I analyze two policies sandwiched at the meso-level, national (France) and regional (Corsica) middle school curricula. Based on a content analysis of two curricular policy texts, the Reforme du college 2016 and the Projet academique 2012–2016, I contrast the distinct notions of multilingualism constructed therein and the disparate teleological orientations to language teaching/learning that emerge, namely economic versus cultural. The Corsican middle school, subsumed within the French State curriculum, is characterized by the tension between competing language ideologies that coexist. The analysis reflects that, in the wider discourses on language and globalization, the shift in language teaching/learning from cultural to economic foci (Duchene and Heller, in: Duchene and Heller (eds) Language in late capitalism: pride and profit, Routledge, London, 2012; Romaine in Lang Policy 12:115–137, 2013) is not linear, finite, or complete. Telelogical orientations compete, overlap, and are co-present.

Psychoanalytic Receptions in Baudelaire, by Jean-Paul Sartre

The subject of the research is the biography “Baudelaire” by J.-P. Sartre. The text is considered within the Sartre's project of existential psychoanalysis. The study identifies key features of Sartre's existential psychoanalysis, in contrast to classical psychoanalysis of S. Freud, such as its explicit teleological orientation, deep ethical background, principal antinaturalism, as well as close relationship with the classical concepts of the subjectivity. The research reveals several key aspects of Sartre's interpretations of special psychoanalytic concepts, such as “unconscious”, “Oedipus complex”, “libido”, “narcissism”, “death drive”, etc. The research emphasizes Sartre’s critical arguments to the naturalistic attitude of classical psychoanalytic method and humanistic spirit of existential psychoanalysis. The paper discoveres the role of the latter in the genesis of Sartre's biographical method. When referring to the biographical material, special attention is paid to Sartre's consideration of Baudelaire’s family situation, particularly, relationships with his mother. The research considers Sartre’s critic of the classical interpretation of Oedipus complex, as well as his own shift from the Father’s origins to the figure of Mother. Comparative analysis of both methods includes Sartre’s interpretation of Baudelaire’s narcissism in coherence with his tendency to reflection, as well as Baudelaire’s specific feeling of sexuality. The research reveals hidden intersections of the Sartre's interpretations of Baudelaire's “fundamental project” with the Freudian concept of Eros and Thanatos, as well as the E. Fromm’s theory of the “necrophilous personality”. In conclusion, the author outlines the trends of the further development of the biographical method of Sartre in the biographies of Jean Genet, Stefan Mallarme and Gustave Flaubert.

Consumer Propensity to Adopt Illicit Goods: Theory, Methods, and Results

The purpose of this study is to examine consumer propensity to adopt illicit goods. The adoption of illicit goods is a worldwide problem that undermines legitimate markets, funds criminal organizations, and harms the most vulnerable in society. International organizations, such as World Economic Forum, have called for the study of the demand of illicit products. Research is crucial to understanding the demand for these products and can contribute to public policy addressing this issue. This research uses two theoretical frameworks: The Theory of Planned Behavior and the Theory of Marketing Ethics. Using the Theory of Planned Behavior, research results suggest that subjective norms influence consumers’ propensity to adopt illicit goods. Using the Theory of Marketing Ethics, research on consumers’ ethical orientation found that both teleological and deontological orientations influence consumers’ ethical judgement and intention. Theoretical and methodological conclusions are derived, and managerial and policy implications are offered.

NATIONAL IDEA AND EDUCATIONAL POLICY

The national idea is a form of reflection of a nation over the essence and meaning of the existence of its community. It reflects a set of axiological and teleological orientations of national existence. The national idea is formed on the basis of socio-historical traditions, culture, and mentality of the nation and, respectively, thereby influences these factors, acting as a peculiar life-giving consciousness, cultural and historical dynamics of national existence. The modern interpretation of the essence of the national idea is marked by pluralism and the mosaic of perception, which is generally characteristic of the plastic and rapid present. The idea of the scientists of the essence of the national idea is represented by a spectrum of concepts from theoretical nihilism, agnostic pessimism to the perception of the national idea as a certain "philosopher’s stone", "sacred landmark," "magic formula", capable of solving all the existing national problems.

Introduction: writing the contemporary history of European solidarity

This introduction outlines the possibilities and perspectives of a history of ‘European solidarity’. While – given the high frequency with which the term is used in contemporary political debate – this is most certainly a hot-button issue, the topic has long been neglected by researchers on the history of European integration and European ideas. The reasons for this lack of empirical studies lie in the vagueness and the normativity of the term. This introduction thus conceptualizes ‘European solidarity’ as an analytical tool for research and discusses three major approaches to its historicization: first, deconstructing ideas and discursive notions of ‘European solidarity’, a term that has been omnipresent in primary sources in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; second, investigating concrete practices of ‘European solidarity’, for example in welfare-state policies or in the work of civil-society actors; third, looking at historical limits of ‘European solidarity’ which help to bring contesting perceptions and motives into view. Finally, the introduction addresses the question of the analytical benefits of a history of ‘European solidarity’: it points among other things to new periodizations that help to avoid a teleological orientation in European historiography, as well as to the detachment of the European integration process from the institutionalization of the European Communities.

Consumption and teleoaffective formations: Consumer culture and commercial communications

This article considers the potential of a novel practice theoretical concept – teleoaffective formation – for the study of consumption. The concept builds on Schatzki’s social ontology of practice. Teleoaffective formations are configurations across multiple practices that enjoin those practices to common ends, ordering their affective engagements and offering general understandings through which participants make sense of the projects they pursue. This article argues that the approach affords consideration of large-scale configurations of practice and discourse and, therefore, enables re-engagement, from a practice theory perspective, with an earlier generation of concerns with consumer culture – including issues of cultural intermediation, consumption norms and the motivational structures of consumption. The distinctive features of the approach are illustrated through three successive teleoaffective formations that link the field of commercial communications (advertising, marketing, public relations, etc.) with consumer culture. The first – ‘consumer sovereignty’ – originates in the 1920s and 1930s and finds its fullest expression in the mid-20th century. The second – ‘emancipatory consumerism’ – emerged in the late 1960s and came to characterise late 20th-century consumer culture. These are briefly sketched. The third, which I propose to call ‘promotional sustainable consumption’, is a nascent formation of discourse and practice relating brands, sustainability and consumption. This formation is explored in more depth. The periodisation should not be understood in terms of epochal shifts but as an ongoing, recombinatory process. The three formations represent reconfigurations between heterogeneous elements, inter alia: general understandings, teleological orientations and affective engagements. Each successive formation informs novel understandings of the consumer and provides cultural resources for transformations in consumption norms. Each also provides resources for capitalist legitimation. The article concludes with a brief discussion of some theoretical and methodological implications of the approach.