Dialectical View Research Articles

Braiding Liberation Discourses: Dialectical, Civic and Disjunctive Views about Resistance and Violence

AbstractThis article puts three discourses about resistance and violence, coming from two distinct settler colonial contexts, in conversation, to highlight a distinctive theory of change associated with contemporary Indigenous movements. The first, from South Africa, can be seen in the writings of Nelson Mandela. It offers a dialectical view of resistance, where the oppressor sets the terms of the confrontation and where violence is allowable in the pursuit of change. The second discourse can be seen in the writings of James Tully and offers a theoretical bridge between the first and the third. It focuses on civic citizenship as a nonviolent engagement with terms of governance. The third can be seen in the writings of Indigenous theorists whose work focuses on resurgence. It offers a disjunctive theory of change that centres transgression and prefigurative practices. The conclusion of the article braids these discourses to discuss how they both converge and diverge.

Re-socialising Saussure : Aleksandr Romm’s Unpublished Review of Marxism and the Philosophy of Language

As one of the most original and intellectually daring linguistic works of its epoch, Valentin Vološinov's Marxism and the Philosophy of Language provoked controversial reactions, reflected in the published reviews of the book. However, it is perhaps the unpublished review by Aleksandr Romm that presents a particular interest, as an autonomous attempt to re-conseptualise both Vološinov's and Saussure's linguistic thought. A member of the Moscow Linguistic Circle and the first translator of Saussure's Cours de linguistique générale into Russian, Romm had been an enthusiastic follower of Saussure's work and opposed the general anti-Saussurean movement in Soviet linguistic and literary studies of the late 1920s.
 In his review of MPL, Romm offers an original resolution of Vološinov's antinomy between the so-called ‘abstract objectivism’ and ‘individualist subjectivism’ or, in other words, between the two opposite approaches to language as a specific object of scientific inquiry. In contrast to Vološinov, he does not refute langue, but seeks to combine the Saussurean and Humboldtian frameworks to produce a dialectical view of both langue and parole as simultaneously social product and linguistic activity. This is achieved by introducing a third concept, the word (slovo), which Romm interprets in a phenomenological sense, demonstrating a strong influence of Gustav Špet's ideas and the ‘Špetian’ progress of the scholar's views on Saussure. Although unfinished and unpublished, Romm's review remains an extremely interesting document, which does not only serve as an example of the evolution of Saussureanism, but also as a testimony to the shift of paradigms in Soviet linguistics of the late 1920s.

The Dialectics of Utopia and Utopian Impulse

This paper aims to offer a dialectical view of Utopia and utopian impulse in utopian theory. Politically, Utopia is associated with a reductionist leftist politics which overlooks essential human diversity and psycho-social conflicts by imposing harmony and progress through implicit violence. In aesthetic representation, Utopia is seen as an ideal society which offers a glorious transformation of mankind living in a society free of wants and conflicts. However, Utopian theory is essentially different from such meta narratives about Utopia and its pr-axis. Instead of focusing on the political or aesthetic concept of Utopia, it brings forth a dialectical analysis of Utopia and Utopian impulse to understand its aesthetic, political and theoretical dimensions. This paper claims that the utopian impulse is the central subtext of diverse utopian manifestations, which offers a narrative of critique and a continual process of theoretical sublimation and pursuit of an ideal society free of systemic ills.

Study on the Prognosis Effect of Traditional Chinese Medicine Treatment in DR Patients Based on the Perspective of Network Pharmacology.

Diabetes damages the eye in many ways, but the most common eye complication is retinopathy. Of the 246 million people with diabetes worldwide, about 30% will be at risk of developing diabetic retinopathy. In addition to impairing vision, the presence of diabetic retinopathy also means an increased risk of life-threatening systemic vascular complications. To prevent the occurrence and development of diabetic retinopathy, the research and development of new drugs for diabetic retinopathy is the primary task. Because of its characteristics of holistic view and dialectical view, traditional Chinese medicine has a good effect in the treatment of complex diseases. However, due to the characteristics of complex components, numerous targets, and synergistic effects that are important, and its compound prescriptions, the modernization of traditional Chinese medicine has been hindered. The rise of network pharmacology in recent years provides a good opportunity for the development of traditional Chinese medicine. Network pharmacology aims to explore the relationship between drugs and diseases from a holistic perspective, discover drug targets, and guide the development of new drugs. In terms of methodology, network pharmacology has the characteristics of integrity and systematicness, which just coincides with the principle of consultation in traditional Chinese medicine. In this paper, from the perspective of the application of traditional Chinese medicine, TCMSP software was used to retrieve the active ingredients in traditional Chinese medicine, and the corresponding targets of the active ingredients were obtained. We then performed GO annotation analysis and KEGG pathway analysis on the targets using DAVID software. We further used Cytoscape software to build an active ingredient-target-pathway network model. Through network pharmacology research, it has been shown that Fufang Xueshuantong may treat diabetic retinopathy through multiple pathways such as intravascular growth factor signaling pathway, mitogen-activated protein kinase signaling pathway, and Toll sample receptor signaling pathway, reflecting the multicomponent traditional Chinese medicine compound and multitarget and multichannel characteristics. The research in this paper provides a theoretical basis for the pharmacological mechanism of traditional Chinese medicine in the treatment of diabetic retinopathy.

The Temporality of and Competition between Infrastructures

This article examines the competition between taxis and e-hailing from the perspective of the temporality of infrastructures, which refers to 1) decay and maintenance of infrastructures, 2) imaginations of infrastructures regarding old, new, past, and future, and 3) the (spatio)temporal experience of infrastructure supporters. I propose that taxis and e-hailing are simultaneously transport and livelihood infrastructures that facilitate passengers’ and drivers' lives, and that they are maintained by the two parties. One reason that taxis are maintained in this competition lies in taxi drivers’ preference for taxis as a livelihood infrastructure. The article highlights infrastructure supporters’ labor and spatiotemporal experience, emphasizes the importance of the perspective of the decay and maintenance of infrastructures, and proposes a dialectic view of the infrastructure-related imaginations of old and new, especially in a context in which disruptive innovations in infrastructural technologies are continuously emerging.

Looking Backwards and Forwards: The Development of Film Art in the People’s Republic of China

Abstract The development of film art in the People’s Republic of China throughout the past 70 years can be roughly divided into two stages: before and after the reform and opening-up．During this period, Chinese films not only influenced the political, economic, social, and cultural spheres, but they also produced aesthetics with uniquely Chinese characteristics, distinguishing themselves on the world film stage. However, after 70 years of development, Chinese films still have many contradictions and problems, namely: how to deal with the relationships between education and entertainment, plan and market, tradition/China/subjectivity, and modernity/world/diversity. Prejudicial tendencies can be avoided with a dialectical view of these relationships, and a healthy, integrated, and developmental track can be achieved. With this new historical contextualization in mind, to realize the transformation from a big film country to a strong film country, Chinese films should keep pace with the country’s economic and social strategic development, enhancing their quality and making contributions to a culturally advanced country with many high-standard films in the new era.

Colloquium 1 Dialectic, Persuasion, and Science in Aristotle

Abstract What is dialectic and what is it for, in Aristotle? Aristotle’s answer in Topics 1.2 seems surprisingly lacking in unity. He seems to imply that insofar as dialectic is an expertise (τέχνη), it is a disposition to three (possibly four) different kinds of productive achievement. Insofar as dialectic is a method, it is one whose use is seemingly subject to multiple, differing standards of evaluation. The goal of the paper is to resist this problematic “multi-tool” view of Aristotelian dialectic, by explaining how dialectic’s contributions to training, encounters, and the philosophical sciences are of the same kind. What unifies them, I argue, is the kind of reasoning that improves the epistemic position of the person that engages with it. The kind of reasoning-based practices in which dialectic is the expertise are, at heart, tools of inquiry, tools for improving people’s understanding. This is why dialectic is beneficial for persuasive encounters: it is an expertise that enables its possessor to persuade by improving the understanding of their participants.

Towards an Eco-decolonial Museology: A critical realist analysis of the crises of South African museums

South African museums face multivalent, simultaneous crises. The MELD dialectical framework of critical realist philosophy can be used to explore potential for a deep reimagining of museum theory and practice that may generate a new, relational mode better able than persistent dualist modes to respond to complex, emergent crises. This has been conceived by the author (Jeffery, 2021) as an ecological-decolonial, or eco-decolonial, mode of museology, and is further developed in the present analysis.
 At 1M, the MELD analysis surfaces the implicit neoliberal ontology of South African museum work and the emergent paradox of ‘emancipatory neoliberalism’. This paradox is generative of a number of constraints on practice and agency, including commodification of heritage, a restrictive form of official memory, and quantitative management practice. These limit potential for museums to respond to complex crises that require relational capabilities. 
 2E explores the potential negation of these constraints. To disrupt the principle of collection as the grounding ontological activity of museum practice may disrupt the implicit neoliberal ontology. This may contribute to emergent, sophisticated socialecological trends in museum practice, both in South Africa and internationally.
 At 3L, a dialectical view on the concept of cultural landscape offers a relational frame for an eco-decolonial museum practice that may better respond to the crises faced by museums. The practical implications of the eco-decolonial approach are considered at 4D.
 Keywords: museum practice, critical realism, ontology, eco-decolonial, collection, cultural landscape

Resistance as a Cultural Universal of Human Psyche: a Dialectical View.

In its overall intent, the paper aims to instantiate the Valsinerian (2018) proposal of resistance as a fundamental process of human psyche. It attempts to use the concept of resistance to challenge the dualistic axiomatic basis of traditional psychology and argues for the benefits of dialectical metatheory in which theory of resistance is grounded. As a fundamental attribute of human functioning, resistance arises out of the tension of contradictions between opposites within the same whole. To grasp its nature and operation, the dialectical metatheory is needed rather than a dualistic metatheory which is endemic in traditional Psychology. The paper contrasts the two metatheories with each other and outlines the basic premises of dialectical metatheory. It also further elaborates the theory of resistance by addressing the three significant questions about the nature of resistance: Is resistance present in all encounters between persons and between persons and culture? Is resistance limited to negation or is it generative? Is resistance central to making development possible and bringing about transformational change? Through the application of dialectical framework in conceptualizing individual and collective relations, the dualistic thinking in cultural psychology about individualism and collectivism as mutually exclusive categories is questioned. Also, it opens out the space for finding the hidden transcripts of resistance in collectivist culture.

MỘT SỐ THAY ĐỔI VỀ THI PHÁP XÂY DỰNG HÌNH TƯỢNG ANH HÙNG TRONG TIỂU THUYẾT LỊCH SỬ VIỆT NAM SAU ĐỔI MỚI

The article presents changes in prosody of hero image creation in Vietnamese historical novels after the Doi moi period. In which, the change of the artistic conception of human and artistic point of view is the most important condition to help writers create multi-faceted hero characters. There, the personality of the hero is set by the novelists in specific contexts to explain from many aspects with a dialectical view instead of the “defaults” of history itself. Characters are reflected on many different aspects of real life. They appear lively as contemporary people in all its inherent complexity.

Language and Its Limits: Meaning, Reference and the Ineffable in Buddhist Philosophy

Buddhist schools of thought share two fundamental assumptions about language. On the one hand, language (śabda) is identified with conceptual thinking (kalpanā), which according to the Buddhist doctrine (dharma) separates us from the momentary and fleeting nature of reality (satya, “truth”). Language is comprised of generally applicable forms, which fuel the reificatory proclivity for clinging to the distorted – and ultimately fictious – belief in substantial existence. On the other hand, the distrust of language is mitigated by the doctrine of ineffability (anirdeśya), which although asserts that reality is beyond the scope of linguistic description, submits that philosophical analyses of key Buddhist concepts is a means of overcoming the limitations that language imposes on our experience and facilitating insight into the nature of reality (bodhi). This paper provides an overview of Buddhist philosophy of language, with an emphasis on the dialectical view of language as indispensable but ultimately insufficient for contemplation. The Buddhist discussions of ineffability are explicated and compared with its treatment in modern Occidental thought, specifically the similarities and differences with Wittgenstein’s philosophy of language.

The Concrete Notion of the Ready-To-Hand Equipment: A Dialectical View on the Existential Analytic

The article explores one of the aspects of Heidegger's existential analytic – everyday dealings with ready-to-hand equipment (tools). The author’s aim is to analyze the phenomenon of equipment in a broader perspective to widen the borders of everyday being-in-the-world characterized by routine nonthematic dealings with things that distract man from his true being. The author claims that in everyday use man discovers only functionality of equipment which cannot be considered its genuine grasp. The actual knowledge of things is accessible mainly to their creators for whom they are not ready-to-hand tools but the aim of their thematic investigative thought. The concrete notion of a thing is developed by those who know the origin and formation of things. Accordingly, Dasein’s everyday concern for the world is not the primary mode of being-in-the-world. The primary one is the master's non-daily creative work in his being-in-the-world which allows him/her to discover true being of things.

Analysis of the principal contradiction of Chinese society for a new era based on the theory “On Contradiction”

The view of contradiction is the fundamental view of materialistic dialectics, and the thinking of Mao Tse-tung’s dialectical has been an important theoretical weapon in guiding the Chinese social revolution in modern times. Comrade Mao Tes-tung’s On Contradiction is a philosophical work on Marxist dialectics that is rich in philosophical principles. The principles and methodology contained therein are important inspirations for exploring the various contradictions in our social development and resolving the major contradictions in our society for a new era.

The use of interactive techniques in the development of the talent and leadership of primary school students

The worldview is a system of dialectical views and beliefs that determines the development of nature, social society, thinking and the content of activities of Primary School students. Within the framework of this system, the principles formed on the basis of socio-ideological, philosophical, economic, natural-scientific, spiritual-moral, aesthetic, legal and environmental knowledge are represented as the main structural elements. The lessons of mother tongue, mathematics, reading, manners, Natural Science passed in the primary classes occupy a special place in the educational system according to their essence, goals and tasks. So, it stands on their ground the basis of literacy and moral-educational upbringing. In this article, we will discuss the factors of talent and leadership development of Primary School students, the importance of using pedagogical technologies and interactive techniques in teaching.

Reactualizing Hegel: Žižek, the Universality of Islam, and Its Political Potentiality (Revisiting “the Archives of Islam”)

This article revisits the controversy over the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek’s sympathetic, yet critical and provocative, views on Islam and fundamentalist terrorism as developed in his ‘A Glance on the Archives of Islam.’ Žižek, I argue, offers an original reading of the universality of Islam and its political potentiality, by reactualizing the originary impulse in Hegel’s dialectical analysis of Islam as endogenous to the series of monotheistic religions, without falling into the trap of either Hegel’s racist Orientalist, Eurocentric, and Islamophobic views about Islam or their antithetical Islamocentric views. First, I show that Žižek rejects Hegel’s emphasis on both Islam’s temporal incongruity and the Islamic unique conception of an abstract and transcendent God. Instead, Žižek reloads Hegel’s dialectical views and manages to resolve the deadlock in Hegel’s approach to Islam that could not account for the universality of Islam. Second, I draw out the political aspect of Žižek’s philosophical analysis of Islam, by examining his claim that Islam is the most politicized religion today. Grounding the emergence of political Islam in the encroachment of modernization project on the Islamicate world, he notes the ambiguity about sacrifice (martyrdom and terrorism) in Islam and attributes the rise of Islamic extremism (violence) to the contradictions and impasses of the global capitalist system.

A crítica do método marxiano à racionalidade burguesa e à educação tecnicista

Exercendo a interpretação materialista do desenvolvimento histórico e a visão dialética acerca das transformações sociais, o método marxiano segue sendo a mais adequada ferramenta teórica para a compreensão crítica das contradições da realidade social burguesa, ainda que visto por muitos de forma marginalizada e/ou ultrapassada. Marx vincula-se, na verdade, a um projeto revolucionário de sociedade e, em atenção à complexidade histórica desse projeto, a crítica à produção do conhecimento técnico e científico, assim como à educação como projeto enviesado de transformação social, requer um tratamento delicado: de análise acerca das bases de produção social das atuais instituições e modos da vida capitalista. Propomo-nos, diante disso, à explicitação de evidências a propósito da asserção e da atualidade desse método: como o que melhor possibilita a compreensão das contradições da realidade social burguesa, em face à explicitação de seus comprometimentos ideológicos na produção do conhecimento técnico-científico e na vituperação da educação das classes trabalhadoras.

Political Forgiveness

The recent protest in Hong Kong since summer 2019 makes political forgiveness an urgent public issue facing the Christian churches. Through a contextual and multidisciplinary dialogue with Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971), this study argues for a realistic understanding that political forgiveness is possible as well as desirable, which should be based on a dialectical view of human nature, rather than a naïve and optimistic view of human compassion. This realistic understanding of political forgiveness is grounded on Niebuhr’s thought and relevance to the Hong Kong context.

Dialectical Infinity and the Third Mathematical Crisis —On the Fundamental Error of Actual Infinity

This paper discusses the problem of finity and infinity based on the philosophical perspectives of opposing idealism and receiving dialectical materialism. Based on Hegel’s dialectical infinity view, this paper makes a comprehensive criticism of the thought of actual infinity. After Hegel’s dialectical infinite thought scientifically explained the limit concept in calculus, the Second Mathematical Crisis caused by the contradiction of infinitesimal quantity was solved thoroughly. However, the mathematics world has not learned the experience and lessons in history, has always adhered to the idealist thought and methodology of actual infinity, this thought finally brought the third crisis to mathematics. At the end of this paper, based on the infinite view of dialectical materialism, the author analyzes the Principle of Comprehension and the Maximum Ordinal Paradox, and points out that the essence of the Principle of Comprehension is a kind of actual infinity thought. Only by limiting the Principle of Comprehension to a potential infinity can we solve the Third Mathematical Crisis completely.

PHILOSOPHICAL AND LOGICAL ANALYSIS OF SOPHISTIC THINKING IN THE WORK “SHARH AL-AQEED ANNASAFI” BY THE GREAT THINKER SADEDDIN TAFTAZANI

This article analyzes the socio-philosophical and logical aspects of sophistic thinking in the work of the thinker Saduddin Taftazani “Sharh al-Aka’id”, who defned knowledge as the essence of human life. Sophistic interpretations of various sociological considerations that have arisen in the context of the history of Islamic philosophy are described from a scientifc point of view. All the information presented in the article is covered based on comparative historical, logical methods, the attitude of representatives of the philosophy of the new period to the sophistic and scientifc approaches is theoretically analyzed. This study, which analyzes the scientifc signifcance of sophistic thinking for time and space, conducts a historical and philosophical study of the appearance of this term in the region, its objective and subjective reasons. From an ontological point of view, the article examines the attitude of Islamic philosophy, in particular theology, to certain sociophilosophical issues arising based on sophisticated views. Also, scientifc solutions to the problems of everyday life, the social signifcance of sophistry in space, and time are philosophically analyzed. Based on the epistemological knowledge of the scientist Saduddin Taftazani, the following are stated: the reasons and factors for the penetration of the subject of philosophy into the Arab regions, as well as the philosophical and historical attitude to the features associated with the role of individuals in this process. In the fnal part of the article, based on dialectical views, the importance of the spiritual heritage, which has arisen based on the Islamic phenomenon, is explained in ensuring social harmony between peoples and nations. In particular, the theoretical and methodological foundations of the factors that serve to ensure social balance in society have been investigated, as opposed to the unsubstantiated notions of perverted trends that arose in the process of the Islamization of the regions. This article cites quotes from the frst edition of Sharh alAqaid al-Nasafya, published in Arabic in 2009 by Maktabat ul-bushro publishing house in the state of Pakistan, Karachi.

Realism and Dialectic: The Speculative Turn and the History of the Nineteenth-Century European Novel

AbstractA narrative impulse and a scenic impulse: as Fredric Jameson persuasively argues in The Antinomies of Realism, the history of literary realism has been shaped by the dialectic between these two competing drives, each identified by a specific temporality. Yet realism's dialectic between a narrative and a scenic impulse omits something crucial if we are to understand European realist narrative, especially in the second half of the nineteenth century. This article reassesses Jameson's dialectical view of realism in light of the speculative turn in the history of the European novel in 1860s Russian and 1880s French narrative. I will query Jameson's dialectic of realism and subsume it under a larger dialectical framework encompassing a further, temporally neuter impulse. This is the speculative impulse, which will help us reconsider some of the most important developments of nineteenth-century European realism.