The development of the concept of irreverence is examined in terms of its historical, theoretical and metatheoretical contexts. The underlying assumptions of the concepts of neutrality, curiosity, and irreverence are distinguished and contextualised. Neutrality is discussed with reference to Milan systemic therapy and first- and second-order cybernetics, while curiosity is examined in the light of constructivist and narrative approaches to psychotherapy. It is argued that these two concepts represent two sides of a dualism, which is transcended through irreverence. Irreverence is interpreted as a postmodern stance, involving the questioning and relativising of therapists' basic assumptions. The pragmatic components of an irreverent stance, namely self-reflexivity, orthogonality, flexibility and accountability, are explored with reference to related concepts in the work of other authors. Throughout the text metalogues are used in an attempt to engage reader and author in a collaborative enterprise of acknowledging and reevaluating their own basic assumptions. / Psychology / M.A. (Clinical Psychology)

Wir befinden uns mitten im Langzeitprojekt »Aufklärung«, dem Ausgang der Menschheit aus ihrer selbstverschuldeten Unmündigkeit – und bislang sieht es gut aus: Die Freiheit der Andersdenkenden, die Gleichheit aller vor dem Gesetz und die Solidarität unter den Menschen auf dem Erdball sind allgemein akzeptierte Entwicklungsziele. Über den Weg dahin lässt sich trefflich streiten, am besten in einer der schwatzhaftesten Staatsformen, eben in der parlamentarischen Demokratie. Der Aushandlungsprozess wird medienöffentlich geführt, von Kants Leserwelt bis zum world wide web von Berners-Lee nutzt der politische Mensch die Kulturtechniken Schrift, Bild und Zahl, um öffentlich von seiner Vernunft Gebrauch zu machen. Informatik ist die technische Wissenschaft, die sich mit dem Entwurf von informations- und kommunikationstechnischen Artefakten und deren Auswirkungen auf die Lebenswelt des Menschen beschäftigt, diese Arbeit fokussiert die technischen Bedingungen der Möglichkeit des öffentlichen Vernunftgebrauchs. Unter Technik soll in dieser Arbeit nicht nur die Gesamtheit der technischen Artefakte oder Systeme verstanden werden, sondern auch Handwerk, Handwerkskunst und sogar Geisteshaltungen, Gedankenketten sowie Algorithmen – ganz wie es die Etymologie des griechischen Wortes τέχνη verrät. Die vorliegende Untersuchung einer technē der Publizität führt uns von der antiken Agora über die aufklärerischen Salons bis zu den virtuellen und realen Orten der Netzöffentlichkeit. Technisch Handelnde besitzen eine ungeheure Macht, die öffentliche Deliberation zu ermöglichen oder zu bremsen. In der nun ausgerufenen Turing-Galaxis muss nun gerade die Informatik in allen Bindestrich-Varianten Verantwortung für die Gewährleistung von Öffentlichkeit übernehmen. Diese Arbeit soll dazu beitragen. / The long term project »Enlightenment« is in full swing: the freedom to dissent, equality under public law, and solidarity with all the people from all over the world – these self-imposed development goals are widely accepted by all human beings. Since everything is exquisitely debated in a parliamentary democracy, this chatty form of government, citizens will of course exquisitely debate on how to achieve these goals. The negotiation process is conducted in and by public media, from Kant''s world of readers (»Leserwelt«) on to the hypermedia of the world wide web, the homo politicus uses cultural techniques like writing, image and number for his public display of reasoning. Informatics (and also computer science for that matter) is the study of designing information and communications technology and assessing it in all social respects; this dissertation focuses on the necessary conditions for the possibility of public reasoning. The Greek word τέχνη is translated as either craft or art, in this political context technē also means mindset, chain of ideas or algorithms. In this enquiry entitled »technē der Publizität«, we will visit places of the public, starting from the Greek »agora« via Victorian coffee houses to the contemporary locations of the networked public sphere. Technicians yield the power to enable or suppress public deliberation; in the so called Turing Galaxy, Informaticians have the responsibility to ensure the possibilities of the existence of an informed public. This thesis tries to accept this responsibility.

The years around 1970 saw the emergence of an artistic fascination with maps and mapping. In the present thesis this fascination is conceptualised as a mapping impulse, acknowledging how the discourses of art and mapping, respectively, intertwine and merge. The aim of the study is to analyse this mapping impulse and to identify recurring themes and concepts in artworks and texts on art where maps and mapping processes are used as a visual expression and method.  In order to demonstrate how the scope of the thesis is shaped by later interpretations of art from around 1970, three exhibition publications from three decades are examined to illustrate how boundaries between the discourses of art and of mapping are renegotiated from the late 1960s up until the 2010s. The representing line of the map is analysed via the concepts of diagrams, maps, and models, such as the re-appearance of Claude Shannon’s and Warren Weaver’s Communication Model in the Swedish late 1960s, Öyvind Fahlström’s World Map (1972), and Sten Eklund’s paintings on glass from 1968 where he transfers ideas from Wittgenstein’s Tractatus into visual representations. The procedural aspects of encounters between the discourses of art and of mapping from around 1970 are analysed in Hans Haacke’s Gallery-Goers’ Birthplace and Residence Profile Pt. 1 and Sten Eklund’s Kullahusets hemlighet (The Secret of Kullahuset). The latter work is interpreted in the light of the role of the mapping, surveying individual, and in a figurative sense, the individual in the system. Here, the concept of alienation is used, as the work delineates the mapping subject who itself is being subject to mapping.  In this thesis the mapping impulse is identified as a way to deal with territory and truth in Western art around 1970. The map as a sign system and a practice is representative of a recent stage where art in various ways deal with a world undergoing rapid change. The mapping impulse circa 1970 can be identified as a visual regime of cartographic reason, characterized by legibility, clarity and lucidity. This also suggests alternative interpretations of the impact of the linguistic turn in the art of the 1960s and early 1970s, revealing a more ambiguous relationship between text and image.

The discourse that surrounds and constitutes the post-human emerged as a response to earlier claims of an essential or universal human or human nature. These discussions claim that the human is a discursive construct that emerges from various configurations of nature, embodiment, technology, and culture, configurations that have also been variously shaped by the forces of social history. And in the absence of an essential human figure, post-human discourses suggest that there are no restrictions or limitations on how the human can be reconfigured. This axiom has been extended in light of a plethora of technological reconfigurations and augmentations now potentially available to the human, and claims emerge from within this literature that these new technologies constitute a range of possibilities for future human biological evolution. This thesis questions the assumption contained within these discourses that technological incursions or reconfigurations of the biological human necessarily constitute human biological or human social evolution by discussing the role the evolution theories plays in our understanding of the human, the social, and technology. In this thesis I show that, in a reciprocal process, evolution theory draws metaphors from social institutions and ideologies, while social institutions and ideologies simultaneously draw on metaphors from evolution theory. Through this discussion, I propose a form of evolution literacy; a tool, I argue, is warranted in developing a sophisticated response to changes in both human shape and form. I argue that, as a whole, our understanding of evolution constitutes a metanarrative, a metaphor through which we understand the place of the human within the world; it follows that historical shifts in social paradigms will result in new definitions of evolution. I show that contemporary evolution theory reflects parts of the world as codified informatic systems of associated computational network logic through which the behaviour of participants is predefined according to an evolved or programmed structure. Working from within the discourse of contemporary evolution theory I develop a space through which a version of the post-human figure emerges. I promote this version of the post-human as an Artificial Intelligence computational programme or autonomous agent that, rather than seeking to replace, reduce or deny the human subject, is configured as an exosomatic supplement to and an extension of the biological human.

Thesis (Master').

Thesis (Engineer's) --Naval Postgraduate School, 1976. / "September 1976." "AD A035848." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 122-123) Available via the Internet.

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Text in German / This dissertation is a contribution to cybernetics, a sub-discipline ofPractical Theology. It is a dialogue between theology and management science. The first part discusses whether such a dialogue is reasonable at all. There are a lot of parallels between wisdom theology in the Old Testament and modern management theory. We discuss the benefits and the limitations of wisdom, and the way Israel took advantage of wisdom knowledge of the surrounding peoples. Finally, we draw conclusions for the way how church leadership could integrate knowledge from management theory. The main part of this dissertation is on anthropology and leadership. McGregor invented 1957/60 the so-called theories X andY. He demonstrated that leadership styles of managers are affected by the way they look at their subordinates. Leaders who regard people as lazy (theory X) will try to movitate people by extrinsic factors. Theory Y assumes that human beings have intrinsic motives to work. This assumption is an implicit basis of modem leadership concepts. The background and influence of these theories are explained. Especially, we follow the way from the anthropology of the reformators to theory X and from theory X (Taylorism) to theory Y. Limitations of theory Y are also discussed. In the next step we describe various facets of Old Testament anthropology dealing with man's willingness and capacity to work. The significance of the imago dei in this context is discussed by and large. Finally, we compare these facets with the theories X and Y. Result: The reformators emphasized one-sidedly the undignity of human beings implying that many Protestants consider theory Y as too positive, too humanistic. Old Testament portrays both the dignity and the undignity of human beings. Old Testament anthropology correlates better with theory Y. Thus theory Y is not an antibiblical theory. / Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology / D.Th (Practical Theology)

This dissertation explores the construction and experience of the sports champion's reality. In studying reality and its construction, I became familiar with, the post-modern perspective of reality and with theories such as systems theory, cybernetics, radical constructivism and social constructionism, which fall under the post-modern epistemological umbrella. The dissertation gives an exposition of my journey through this maze of theories, from a position of "knowing" how champions are made towards a more complex position of uncertainty and possibility. This is followed by an account of the qualitative research that I undertook, within a social constructionist framework, in which I used thematic discourse analysis. Finally, I interpret the discourses emerging from the analysis in order to demonstrate their operation or effect in the construction of a champion's reality. / Psychology / M.A. (Clinical Psychology)

This study is an endeavour to demonstrate the applicability of constructivist epistemology in different contexts. The black family is presented as one of such contexts. The study is further a demonstration of the role of a symptom as part of a recursive process of interaction in the context of a black family. It reflects an orientation rooted in cybernetics, ecology and systems theory. Therapy is presented as a context through which the therapist becomes incorporated and, therefore, adopting and speaking the language of the family's particular form of symptomatic communication in order to engender change. A literature study presenting a conceptual framework is presented. A case study presenting the research data is presented. Transcripts from video-taped sessions with the family are presented in the addendum. The implications of constructivist framework for the field of family therapy in the context of a black family are, therefore, outlined. / Social work / M.A. (Mental Health)