Zugl.: München, Univ., Habil.-Schr., 2002

According to Greek mythology, when the god of opportunity appears, there is but an instant in which a person must seize him in order to take advantage of the god's beneficence. If the moment is missed, the god passes by, finalizing the loss of opportunity. As a rhetorical concept, kairos emphasizes the importance of seizing--even creating--opportunities in a manner that is situationally effective and appropriate. Though kairos is often discussed as a single, pivotal moment of opportunity, this study argues that in order to better understand kairos and its role in rhetorical studies, the concept must be understood much more expansively.One of the central ways in which this dissertation broadens the concept of kairos is by acknowledging the long-standing conceptual and iconographic link between kairos and metanoia. In artwork and epigrams, the god of opportunity is often depicted with a female figure named Metanoia who brings elements such as repentance, reflection, regret, and transformation into the kairotic moment. Additionally, exploring the connections between kairos and metanoia introduces the concepts of metis (cunning or skill) and akairos (the inopportune) into kairos. Thus this dissertation expands the realm of kairos to include both opportune and inopportune moments that the savvy (or metis-endowed) rhetor can navigate.In addition to acknowledging the vital roles that metanoia, metis, and akairos play in the kairotic moment, this dissertation argues that an expanded theory of kairos offers new avenues for studying and employing emotion in the field of rhetoric and composition. In particular, it introduces the concept of akairos as both a rhetorical strategy (akairotic rhetoric) and an entry point into analytical discussions of the ways in which emotion functions on both individual and societal levels to alter perceptions of the possible. This dissertation argues that an expanded theory of kairos, one that recognizes the importance of akairos, extends the options for emotion as rhetorical device by challenging the etiquettes of emotion that traditional theories of kairos maintain.

Army doctrine imbues the organization and its personnel with characteristics of professionalism. Texts analyzed for this dissertation present the Army professional's demeanor and awareness in terms of an ability to recognize and capitalize on fleeting opportunities. These doctrinal texts show that the Army professional embodies the rhetorical concept of kairos. In rhetoric studies, Kairos is understood to be an independent force that a rhetor must accommodate and also as an ability whereby a rhetor creates an opening for action; both models are rooted in reasoned action. Recent work on bodily rhetorics makes room for an immanent, embodied, and nonrational model of kairos as a kind of instinctual awareness. An analysis of how the notion of professionalism is conveyed in the selected corpus shows that the Army's philosophy of command is communicated in terms of kairos, and offers insight into how the Army professional is taught to recognize and act on opportunity. Army doctrine provides an example of how all three models of kairos function in the education of the Army professional. / Ph. D.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Texas at Arlington, 2006.

Zugl.: Benediktbeuern, Philos.-Theol. Hochsch., Diss., 2006 u.d.T.: Ostheimer, Jochen: Kairologie der Kontingenz

The following is the architectural narrative of a slow meal. Slowness is rich with meaning and expectations. I sought to explore slow not in terms of speed or a measured passage of time, but in terms of the passage of opportunity. Slow is the seizing of an opportunity - a pause for pleasure in the mundane. Architecture is fast, constantly engaging all our senses. It is through a deliberate pause that I find pleasure in thinking, drawing, and experiencing. Good taste is the wisdom that pleasure must be seized; the Latin sapor "taste" and sapiens "a wise man." I intend to explore slow in architecture through taste. Taste and architecture are uniquely linked to place. They both immediately establish place by engaging all senses simultaneously. Knowledge of the qualities of an ingredient or material, both seen and the unseen, inform drawing and building just as they do cooking and the meal. A recipe does not mean that a result is prescribed. An imprecise precision exists in drawing and cooking that varies every time it is done, allowing new discoveries to be made. I seek to discover how the act of making is evident in a drawing, a building, and a meal. The pleasure in making and the memory of the hand is a continuous narrative. I explore this narrative through a culinary school, restaurant, chefs residence, and a meal set on the Potomac River waterfront in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia at the terminus of Prince Street, south of Waterfront Park. / Master of Architecture

Héritier des présocratiques et des conceptions homériques sur la valeur du discours, Protagoras place l'homme au centre d'un monde en devenir constant, dans lequel la connaissance du kairos guide la production discursive comme l'action.La reconstruction de la pensée de Protagoras d'Abdère requiert d'abord de le situer dans son contexte historique pour dégager les tensions qui existent parmi les intellectuels de l'époque au sujet des trois éléments qui permettent cette reconstruction : le discours (logos), l'action (pragma, chrèma, praxis), le temps (chronos, kairos).Les aspects gnoséologiques et ontologiques sont soulignés dans la doctrine de l'homo mensura. La position de Protagoras relativement à la valeur du logos insiste sur l'importance des éléments relatifs à chaque situation pour la détermination de ce qui est prédiqué au moment de sa prédication. L'aspect éthique est, à son tour, déterminé par cette réalité humaine. Si une axiologie est possible elle doit nécessairement dériver de l'expérience (askesis) de l'homme et être adéquate aux besoins et aux objectifs de la société dans laquelle il se trouve.Deux facteurs déterminent principalement l'homme : la réalité sociale en perpétuel devenir et l'expérience particulière des individus soumise elle aussi au devenir en sorte que selon Protagoras l'homme se construit constamment dans une double dimension temporelle, diachronique et synchronique.L'influence des positions du sophiste sur les philosophes (Platon et Aristote) comme sur les orateurs (Isocrate) postérieurs à Protagoras confirme la reconstruction de la pensée de l'Abdéritain. / The legacy of the presocratic and homeric thinking is present in Protagoras' conception of language. He places man in the center of a world constantly changing, in which knowledge of kairos is a guide for discursive production, as well as for action. The reconstruction of the thinking or Protagoras of Abdera requires to place it in its historical context to understund the tensions among the intellectuals of his time. This reconstruction will be done in three axis: speech (logos), action (pragma, praxis), time (chronos, kairos). The epistemological and ontological aspects are emphasized in the doctrine of man-mesure. Protagoras' position on the value of logos stresses the importance of situational factors to determine what is properly predicated. Man is also determined by two other variables: the social reality in constant evolution and the specific experience of individual subjects. Protagoras thinks that man builts this reality in a double temporal dimension: diachronic and synchronic. We can confirm our conclusions in the thought of later philosophers (Plato and Aristotle) and orators (Isocrates).

Made available in DSpace on 2015-05-14T12:11:44Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 3147093 bytes, checksum: 09f4734402463a74f0c8fcb2d687de39 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-12-06 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / This work aims to show the transformation of Aristotle s predicative comprehension of kairos concept in Heidegger s existential comprehension of the same one. Since Aristotle s definition of kairo,j is the Good, said in according to category of time (when), Heidegger has not anymore interpreted the same concept in predicative sense, but has integrated the phenomenon of kairo,j in his Existential Analytics as an instant (Augenblick), in what the existence freely open up to History as own historicity. It will be saw that, this transformation of the phenomenon of kairo,j from a predicative sense to an existential and historical sense is the ground to an Ethics, that could be called Ethics of Historical Freedom. / A presente tese pretende apresentar a passagem de uma compreensão categorial a uma compreensão existencial do conceito de kairo,j, operada por Heidegger a partir de suas interpretações de Aristóteles no contexto do projeto de sua Analítica Existencial. Para tanto, toma como ponto de partida, a compreensão aristotélica segundo a qual o kairo,j é o bem dito segundo o quando como figura da predicação, ou seja, o tempo em sentido categorial. Levando em conta as interpretações heideggerianas de Aristóteles, procurase, então, apresentar como o kairo,j foi interpretado por Heidegger primeiramente no contexto da filosofia aristotélica, para depois ser integrado como um fenômeno existencial fundamental do ser-aí. Evidencia-se com isso que, enquanto a compreensão aristotélica do conceito de tempo como kairo,j se constitui no plano da Ética, ao compreender o fenômeno não em termos categoriais, como o faz Aristóteles, mas em termos existenciais, Heidegger o coloca na perspectiva da história, e fornece o fundamento para o que poderia ser nomeada uma Ética da Liberdade Histórica.

In the years following World War II social activists learned to refine rhetorical techniques for gaining the attention of the new global mass media and developed anti-corporate campaigns to convince some of the world’s largest companies to concede to their demands. Despite these developments, rhetorical critics have tended to overlook anti-corporate campaigns as objects of study in their own right. One can account for the remarkable success of anti-corporate campaigns by understanding how activists have practiced prospective narrative disclosure, a calculated rhetorical wager that, through the public circulation of stories and texts disclosing problematic practices and answerable decision makers, activists can influence the policies and practices of prominent corporations. In support of this thesis, I provide case studies of two anti-corporate campaigns: the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union vs. J. P. Stevens (1976 – 1980) and the Coalition of Immokalee Workers vs. Taco Bell (2001—2005). Each campaign represents a typology of practice within prospective narrative disclosure: martial (instrumental emphasis) and confrontation/alliance (popular, constitutive emphasis) respectively. The former is more likely to spark defensive responses and public backlash, and the latter is more likely to sway entire market sectors and produce lasting changes in the de facto corporate social responsibility standards of global markets.

The writing of this thesis was inspired by a chance remark I had with a friend from the Dutch Reformed Church. I had made the point that having been through such a difficult time of apartheid in South Africa we shall not cross the same river twice. His response to me was that it may be true but cautioned that we needed to be careful not to cross a different river the same wrong way. It was then that I decided on a hypothesis that the Kairos Document could still be a guide to the present day events in a new democratic dispensation. I then embarked on a study to revisit the Kairos Document to research whether it could assist the Church once more as it grappled with the question of how to relate to this new government that has been elected by the majority of the people of South Africa. The rationale behind all this was twofold: one, fighting apartheid was a hard struggle but clear-cut, it was the apartheid enemy as represented by an easily identifiable National Party and a compliant church, the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC); two, the temptation to repeat what the DRC did during apartheid was highly likely. The Church today needs to learn from past mistakes so as not to repeat them. The DRC had an opportunity to positively shape events in South Africa but chose to take the wrong path of leading the State into the disastrous policy of apartheid. The thesis traces a brief history of the Dutch Reformed Church and how it had failed the entire Church and the country by promoting State Theology, as described by the Kairos Document. Profuse source documents on the history of the DRC have already been written and from which I got my information. Among the writers on the history of the DRC were Cecil Ngcokovane and Colleen Ryan who wrote Demons of Apartheid and Beyers Naude: Pilgrimage of Faith respectively, and who gave excellently researched material on the history of the DRC in respect of the rise and fall of apartheid. My research led me to another insight, namely, that there were also other Afrikaner prophets apart from Beyers Naude who suffered greatly within the DRC, and that they have gone mainly unnoticed. What followed was the history of the Church with its fight against apartheid. The leading light in the fight was the leadership of the South African Council of Churches (SACC) with its programmes. There were other strong organisations such as the Black Sash whose work was invaluable, but these did not fall within my scope of research. In addition to my own knowledge of and experience within the SACC, as Director of Faith and Mission, and before this having been Organising Secretary of the Western Province Council of Churches (WPCC), my observer-participant status had been greatly enhanced. For further information I used the South African History Archives (SAHA) at the Cullinan Library, Witwatersand University, for my primary sources, and other relevant books and documents written by SACC stalwart and theologian, Wolfram Kistner, by Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu and by Bernard Spong who was for years in the Communications department of the SACC. I traced briefly the history of the struggle for liberation in South Africa from the general perspective, especially from 1912 when the African National Congress was started through to the Pan African Congress’ 1960 march which led to the Sharpeville shootings, to the efforts of the Black Consciousness Movement from 1968 to the 1976 Students Uprising until the advent of the new South Africa. The oppressed people of South Africa did a lot to revive pride among themselves as a downtrodden people with many efforts from a number of initiatives. The Trade Unions, COSATU in particular, also shook the foundations of apartheid in an effective targeting of the economic situation and big business. The thesis shows how South Africans attacked apartheid from different angles. The production of the Kairos Document seemed to overshadow a number of other efforts that had been undertaken by the Church and yet the KD was a comment on the lackluster contribution of the Church with a view to making it true to its calling. There had been a series of initiatives, including many other publications, which tried to challenge the apartheid government to change its ways. The government then always responded with more repressive laws. Among the series of attempts at destroying apartheid was the establishment of the Wilgespruiit Fellowship Centre to promote friendship and training against a government policy that thrived on racial separation. After the Sharpeville massacre there was the Cottesloe Consultation in 1960 which was sponsored by the World Council of Churches, another church body that was very active in its support for the victims of apartheid. There was also the Christian Institute which became so reputable that it got banned by the government. The Message to the People of South Africa in 1968 made some inroads in terms of raising the level of the debate among white people especially. Many white people at that time enjoyed the insulation against the sufferings of the black masses which they enjoyed through the policy of isolation. The Belhar Confession in 1982 shook the DRC because it contained elements which were directly in opposition to the teachings of the DRC regarding the separation of races. Other catalysts towards change were the Soweto Students’ Uprisings against Afrikaans as a language of instruction at schools in line with Bantu Education. There were also rent boycotts and boycotts of businesses to force the government to change. By the early eighties repression had escalated so much that a group of Christian activists met, first in Cape Town and then in Johannesburg, to chart what is now known as the Kairos Document (Speckman and Kaufmann 2001:18ff). My research dealt with the three types of theologies as expounded by the KD: State Theology, Church Theology and Prophetic Theology. Again my participant-observer position was activated because I became the next Director of the Institute of Contextual Theology (ICT) and have understood the KD’s importance in the broader history of the Church. The literature I have used had to do with liberation and hope as found in writers such as Moltmann, Jacques Ellul, and liberation theologians such as Albert Nolan, Church and State theologians such as Charles Villa-Vicencio and John de Gruchy and many others. In my research I analysed the situation in the Church today as exposed by interviews and questionnaires with those who had been involved with the KD before, plus a social analysis gleaned from the media and from discussions and relevant writings. The result of my research is that there are principles and ideas contained in the KD and that the three theologies will be applicable for a long time to come. The context has changed remarkably but the Church needs to develop itself to be able to meet a different challenge. The Church can still fall into the same trap as the DRC did during the time of apartheid by doing the reverse and opting out of issues, and by not assisting the government and the country to mobilise its forces to work towards nation building. Furthermore, the Church needs to work more with other religions across the board to fight against the ills within the country which know no borders. I maintain again, as I say in my conclusion, that there is still more to be done in this field of the Research I have undertaken and my intention here is to awaken debate again towards a healthy Church-State relationship with the Church constantly being aware of the imperative preferential option for the poor and oppressed. There is another added kind of “poor and oppressed”. How is the Church going to deal with those who have become poor by the quality of a life of the poverty of consumerism and materialism plus the oppression of a greedy lifestyle. The Church dare not ignore its mandate. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Science of Religion and Missiology / unrestricted