This thesis explores the argument that inherent in medical treatment interventions for chronic hepatitis C, there are certain implicit ontological assumptions about the relationship between the body, disease, and society. Focusing primarily on biomedical practices, it is argued that these assumptions might have a profound effect on the world-views of patients undergoing them. This in turn, might have far-reaching sociological implications. Using a methodology specifically developed for the purpose of explicating the ontological assumptions inherent in medical treatment, the visual and narrative texts produced by thirteen hepatitis C positive participants are examined. A deconstructive analytical approach is then applied to these texts as they relate to the treatment interventions pursued by participants. An exploration of the way participants engage with, negotiate, and/or resist the discourses and assumptions inherent in biomedicine, traditional Chinese medicine, and to some extent naturopathy, is conducted. Two broad ways in which the participants visualise the relationship between disease and their bodies, relating to treatment undertaken, are identified. The possible social implications of these are then suggested. The first, and predominant view, is aligned with biomedicine. The relationship between disease and the body is antagonistic in this view. It is suggested that this way of seeing might naturalise xenophobic attitudes and perpetuate social conflict. The marginal view is related to non-biomedical treatments for hepatitis C. The relationship in this case is the result of a negotiated accommodation with the disease. It is suggested that such a view might allow for non-resistant social tolerance of that which is perceived of as new and different. This qualitative study contributes to the body of knowledge in the field of the sociology of health and illness in two ways: Firstly, it proposes a methodology that may be taken up or adapted for future sociological research, and secondly, it suggests something of the social and political nature of treatment decisions made by people living with chronic hepatitis C.

The main claim of this thesis is that value-judgments should play a profound role in the construction and evaluation of species classifications. The arguments for this claim will be presented over the course of five chapters. These are divided into two main parts; part one, which consists of the two first chapters, presents an argument for a radical form of species pluralism; part two, which comprises the remaining chapters, discusses the implications of radical species pluralism for the role of values in species classification. The content of the five chapters is as follows. Chapter 1 starts with a discussion of the theoretical assumptions concerning species and natural kinds that form the broad framework within which the arguments of the thesis are placed. The aim of this chapter is to introduce a set of relatively uncontroversial assumptions that frame the rest of the thesis. On the basis of these assumptions, chapter 2 presents an argument for radical species pluralism. The chapter substantiates this argument with a broad range of examples, and compares this position to other forms of species pluralism. Chapter 3 returns to the main interest of the thesis, namely, the role of values in species classification. It introduces the notion of values and presents an argument for the value-ladenness of taxonomy on the basis of the considerations in the first two chapters. It then sketches three important views on values in science in the literature. Chapter 4 argues that the case presented in chapter 3 provides strong support for one of these views, called the ‘Aims View’, and against two other prominent views, called the ‘Epistemic Priority View’ and the ‘Value-Free Ideal’. The resulting view, in line with the Aims View, is that value-judgments should play a particularly substantial role in species classification. Chapter 5 then considers the popular assumption that these value-judgments in taxonomy commonly take the shape of generally accepted classificatory norms, and argues that this assumption is not tenable. Finally, a brief concluding chapter points at some implications of the claims and arguments in this thesis.

Ontologias são modelos conceituais explícitos do conhecimento compartilhado por um grupo de usuários focados em determinado domínio de interesse. Seu principal obje-tivo é facilitar a comunicação através da explicitação das relações semânticas entre con-ceitos da realidade. O problema conceitual de classificação dos entes do mundo é com-plexo, pois cada indivíduo possui a sua própria abstração da realidade. Quando o mode-lo é compartilhado, surgem mais divergências de idéias e conceitualizações. Os usuários podem dar diferentes nomes para o mesmo conceito (sinonímia) ou podem utilizar a mesma palavra para se referir a conceitos diferentes (falsa concordância). Dessa forma, a colaboração se tornou uma parte importante do processo de desenvolvimento de onto-logias, auxiliando na explicitação do conceito por trás do vocabulário e na evolução do vocabulário para seus novos significados. Uma ferramenta de software torna o processo de construção de ontologias mais efi-ciente e produtivo, facilitando a comunicação entre os usuários e o armazenamento do conhecimento envolvido no processo. O uso de uma ontologia de fundamentação tem papel importante na obtenção do consenso comum, pois reduz as possibilidades de in-terpretação sobre o domínio através da categorização semântica dos elementos da onto-logia. Ela tem o objetivo de estabelecer uma base para obter-se coerência nas negocia-ções de significado sobre um modelo conceitual, guiando a construção do modelo e aju-dando a estabelecer a classificação taxonômica e as relações entre os conceitos. Dessa forma, obtém-se uma redução de ambiguidade e um aumento da precisão e consistência do modelo. Além disso, existem domínios imagísticos onde a representação simbólica linguística nem sempre é suficiente para explicitar certos conhecimentos, ou seja, onde o conhecimento visual é crucial para capturar informação e dar suporte à resolução de problemas. Este trabalho apresenta um modelo baseado em metaontologias para permitir a espe-cificação e colaboração de ontologias. A proposta inclui um sistema Web para a cons-trução colaborativa de ontologias, baseado em metadados que fornecem construtos pre-cisos. Alguns construtos são utilizados para embasar as escolhas ontológicas através da expressividade semântica de uma ontologia de fundamentação, enquanto outros permi-tem a associação de imagens e ícones para permitir maior entendimento do domínio. A colaboração foca na importância da fundamentação ontológica e do suporte ao conhe-cimento visual. / Ontologies are explicit conceptual models of consensual knowledge of a community regarding some particular interest. The main goal of ontologies is improving the com-munication inside a group of people making use of the explicitation of semantic rela-tionships that express the meaning of concepts. The correct classification of the entities of the world is a complex conceptual problem, since each individual retain his/her own abstraction of reality. When people collaborate to build the same conceptual model, many different opinions and divergences arise. Even restricting the domain of problem, the vocabulary exchange and ontology construction can bring unexpected complexity. The users can give distinct names to the same concept (synonym) or use the same word referring distinct concepts (false agreement). Therefore, collaboration has become an important part of the process of ontology development, supporting the explicitation of the concepts behind the vocabulary and the vocabulary evolution to their new meanings. The support of a software tool improves the efficiency of the ontology building pro-cess, helping the communication and the structured knowledge capturing. By its side, the use of a foundational ontology has an important role in achieving the common sense by reducing the interpretation possibilities of the domain objects when restrics the se-mantic characterization of the ontology elements. It provides a framework to achieve coherence in the meaning negotiation during the collaboration process. In this way, the model to be built has reduced its ambiguity and increased the precision and consistence of the ontology representation. This is more important when we consider domains where the visual knowledge plays an important role in filling the semantic gaps of the concepts. In these imagistic domains, the symbolic representation through a language are not enough to express the knowledge content, so visual pattern recognition is crucial to capture information and support problem resolution. This work presents a metaontologias based model to allow ontology specification and collaboration. The approach includes a Web system for the collaborative ontology building based in a set of metadata that provides specialized constructs to create the domain ontology elements. Some constructs are applied to support the ontological choices supported by the semantic expressivity of the foundational ontology primitives. Other constructs allow the association of images and icons to allow higher domain un-derstanding. This work considers the collaboration as a supporting instrument for build-ing ontologies, taking in consideration the importance of the ontological foundation and visual knowledge support.

The accession into NATO and the EU, from the perspective of the new Central and Eastern European members, symbolized their ‘return to Europe’. However, as the former outsiders have become insiders, they have become subjected to a new form of hierarchy. This is even reflected in international relations literature that studies the socialization of the new members into ‘European’ or ‘Western’ states (Checkel 2005; Gheciu 2005; Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier 2005, etc.). The new members continue to be perceived as geographically and culturally on the ‘verge of Europe’, ‘not quite European’ or ‘in transition’ (Wolff 1994; Kuus 2004a; Mälksoo 2010; Zarycki 2014). Their status as ‘latecomers’ in Western institutions has become a stigma. This dissertation asks how stigmatization and subjection to tacit hierarchies, constructed through discourse, affect a state’s foreign policy. It focuses on the East-West relation in the European Union as one example of a hierarchy within this community of states. This dissertation looks at Poland’s foreign policy in the EU. Analytically, I build on the concept of strategic culture, a set of collective, historically shaped ideas and norms guiding a state’s pursuit of security. I go beyond the existing literature to argue that the guiding principle of a state’s strategic culture is the pursuit of not just physical but ontological security, which refers to stable subjectivity (Giddens 1991; Kinnvall 2004; Mitzen 2006a; Zarakol 2010). The recognition as a full member of the ‘Western’ and ‘European’ identity community is essential for Poland’s ontological security. This dependence on recognition makes Poland particularly sensitive to stigmatization within that community. In three case studies, the 2003 Iraq crisis, the 2008 Russo-Georgian war, and the 2013/4 Ukraine crisis, I study how its ‘latecomer’ stigma, and quest for recognition as a full-fledged member of ‘Europe’, and the ‘West’, affects Poland’s foreign policy. I show how Polish foreign policy-makers alternate between two possible responses to stigmatization, adaptation and contestation, and how, paradoxically, both of these strategies often reinforce stigmatization.

Ontologias são modelos conceituais explícitos do conhecimento compartilhado por um grupo de usuários focados em determinado domínio de interesse. Seu principal obje-tivo é facilitar a comunicação através da explicitação das relações semânticas entre con-ceitos da realidade. O problema conceitual de classificação dos entes do mundo é com-plexo, pois cada indivíduo possui a sua própria abstração da realidade. Quando o mode-lo é compartilhado, surgem mais divergências de idéias e conceitualizações. Os usuários podem dar diferentes nomes para o mesmo conceito (sinonímia) ou podem utilizar a mesma palavra para se referir a conceitos diferentes (falsa concordância). Dessa forma, a colaboração se tornou uma parte importante do processo de desenvolvimento de onto-logias, auxiliando na explicitação do conceito por trás do vocabulário e na evolução do vocabulário para seus novos significados. Uma ferramenta de software torna o processo de construção de ontologias mais efi-ciente e produtivo, facilitando a comunicação entre os usuários e o armazenamento do conhecimento envolvido no processo. O uso de uma ontologia de fundamentação tem papel importante na obtenção do consenso comum, pois reduz as possibilidades de in-terpretação sobre o domínio através da categorização semântica dos elementos da onto-logia. Ela tem o objetivo de estabelecer uma base para obter-se coerência nas negocia-ções de significado sobre um modelo conceitual, guiando a construção do modelo e aju-dando a estabelecer a classificação taxonômica e as relações entre os conceitos. Dessa forma, obtém-se uma redução de ambiguidade e um aumento da precisão e consistência do modelo. Além disso, existem domínios imagísticos onde a representação simbólica linguística nem sempre é suficiente para explicitar certos conhecimentos, ou seja, onde o conhecimento visual é crucial para capturar informação e dar suporte à resolução de problemas. Este trabalho apresenta um modelo baseado em metaontologias para permitir a espe-cificação e colaboração de ontologias. A proposta inclui um sistema Web para a cons-trução colaborativa de ontologias, baseado em metadados que fornecem construtos pre-cisos. Alguns construtos são utilizados para embasar as escolhas ontológicas através da expressividade semântica de uma ontologia de fundamentação, enquanto outros permi-tem a associação de imagens e ícones para permitir maior entendimento do domínio. A colaboração foca na importância da fundamentação ontológica e do suporte ao conhe-cimento visual. / Ontologies are explicit conceptual models of consensual knowledge of a community regarding some particular interest. The main goal of ontologies is improving the com-munication inside a group of people making use of the explicitation of semantic rela-tionships that express the meaning of concepts. The correct classification of the entities of the world is a complex conceptual problem, since each individual retain his/her own abstraction of reality. When people collaborate to build the same conceptual model, many different opinions and divergences arise. Even restricting the domain of problem, the vocabulary exchange and ontology construction can bring unexpected complexity. The users can give distinct names to the same concept (synonym) or use the same word referring distinct concepts (false agreement). Therefore, collaboration has become an important part of the process of ontology development, supporting the explicitation of the concepts behind the vocabulary and the vocabulary evolution to their new meanings. The support of a software tool improves the efficiency of the ontology building pro-cess, helping the communication and the structured knowledge capturing. By its side, the use of a foundational ontology has an important role in achieving the common sense by reducing the interpretation possibilities of the domain objects when restrics the se-mantic characterization of the ontology elements. It provides a framework to achieve coherence in the meaning negotiation during the collaboration process. In this way, the model to be built has reduced its ambiguity and increased the precision and consistence of the ontology representation. This is more important when we consider domains where the visual knowledge plays an important role in filling the semantic gaps of the concepts. In these imagistic domains, the symbolic representation through a language are not enough to express the knowledge content, so visual pattern recognition is crucial to capture information and support problem resolution. This work presents a metaontologias based model to allow ontology specification and collaboration. The approach includes a Web system for the collaborative ontology building based in a set of metadata that provides specialized constructs to create the domain ontology elements. Some constructs are applied to support the ontological choices supported by the semantic expressivity of the foundational ontology primitives. Other constructs allow the association of images and icons to allow higher domain un-derstanding. This work considers the collaboration as a supporting instrument for build-ing ontologies, taking in consideration the importance of the ontological foundation and visual knowledge support.

Ontologias são modelos conceituais explícitos do conhecimento compartilhado por um grupo de usuários focados em determinado domínio de interesse. Seu principal obje-tivo é facilitar a comunicação através da explicitação das relações semânticas entre con-ceitos da realidade. O problema conceitual de classificação dos entes do mundo é com-plexo, pois cada indivíduo possui a sua própria abstração da realidade. Quando o mode-lo é compartilhado, surgem mais divergências de idéias e conceitualizações. Os usuários podem dar diferentes nomes para o mesmo conceito (sinonímia) ou podem utilizar a mesma palavra para se referir a conceitos diferentes (falsa concordância). Dessa forma, a colaboração se tornou uma parte importante do processo de desenvolvimento de onto-logias, auxiliando na explicitação do conceito por trás do vocabulário e na evolução do vocabulário para seus novos significados. Uma ferramenta de software torna o processo de construção de ontologias mais efi-ciente e produtivo, facilitando a comunicação entre os usuários e o armazenamento do conhecimento envolvido no processo. O uso de uma ontologia de fundamentação tem papel importante na obtenção do consenso comum, pois reduz as possibilidades de in-terpretação sobre o domínio através da categorização semântica dos elementos da onto-logia. Ela tem o objetivo de estabelecer uma base para obter-se coerência nas negocia-ções de significado sobre um modelo conceitual, guiando a construção do modelo e aju-dando a estabelecer a classificação taxonômica e as relações entre os conceitos. Dessa forma, obtém-se uma redução de ambiguidade e um aumento da precisão e consistência do modelo. Além disso, existem domínios imagísticos onde a representação simbólica linguística nem sempre é suficiente para explicitar certos conhecimentos, ou seja, onde o conhecimento visual é crucial para capturar informação e dar suporte à resolução de problemas. Este trabalho apresenta um modelo baseado em metaontologias para permitir a espe-cificação e colaboração de ontologias. A proposta inclui um sistema Web para a cons-trução colaborativa de ontologias, baseado em metadados que fornecem construtos pre-cisos. Alguns construtos são utilizados para embasar as escolhas ontológicas através da expressividade semântica de uma ontologia de fundamentação, enquanto outros permi-tem a associação de imagens e ícones para permitir maior entendimento do domínio. A colaboração foca na importância da fundamentação ontológica e do suporte ao conhe-cimento visual. / Ontologies are explicit conceptual models of consensual knowledge of a community regarding some particular interest. The main goal of ontologies is improving the com-munication inside a group of people making use of the explicitation of semantic rela-tionships that express the meaning of concepts. The correct classification of the entities of the world is a complex conceptual problem, since each individual retain his/her own abstraction of reality. When people collaborate to build the same conceptual model, many different opinions and divergences arise. Even restricting the domain of problem, the vocabulary exchange and ontology construction can bring unexpected complexity. The users can give distinct names to the same concept (synonym) or use the same word referring distinct concepts (false agreement). Therefore, collaboration has become an important part of the process of ontology development, supporting the explicitation of the concepts behind the vocabulary and the vocabulary evolution to their new meanings. The support of a software tool improves the efficiency of the ontology building pro-cess, helping the communication and the structured knowledge capturing. By its side, the use of a foundational ontology has an important role in achieving the common sense by reducing the interpretation possibilities of the domain objects when restrics the se-mantic characterization of the ontology elements. It provides a framework to achieve coherence in the meaning negotiation during the collaboration process. In this way, the model to be built has reduced its ambiguity and increased the precision and consistence of the ontology representation. This is more important when we consider domains where the visual knowledge plays an important role in filling the semantic gaps of the concepts. In these imagistic domains, the symbolic representation through a language are not enough to express the knowledge content, so visual pattern recognition is crucial to capture information and support problem resolution. This work presents a metaontologias based model to allow ontology specification and collaboration. The approach includes a Web system for the collaborative ontology building based in a set of metadata that provides specialized constructs to create the domain ontology elements. Some constructs are applied to support the ontological choices supported by the semantic expressivity of the foundational ontology primitives. Other constructs allow the association of images and icons to allow higher domain un-derstanding. This work considers the collaboration as a supporting instrument for build-ing ontologies, taking in consideration the importance of the ontological foundation and visual knowledge support.

AFRIKAANS: In hierdie studie word daar 'n diepgaande studie van die kultuurstrategie-model van C.A. van Peursen gemaak vanuit 'n histories-opvoedkundige navorsingsmetode. Die doel van die studie is om te bepaal of opvoeding soos dit in die verlede gemanifesteer het met behulp van die model georden, geklassifiseer en gesistematiseer kan word. Indien moontlik, in hoe 'n mate kan die model toepassingswaarde hê vir die Historiese Opvoedkunde. Ten aanvang is daar in hoofstuk 1 'n breë raamwerk en agtergrond verskaf waarteen die studie gelees kan word. In hoofstuk 2 is relevante begrippe wat uit die studie voortvloei, gedefinieer en verklaar om die studie meer toeganklik te maak. Ten einde 'n breër perspektief te verskaf, is hoofstukke 3, 4 en 5 in drie onderskeie wordings- of ontwikkelingsfases van die mens verdeel onder andere die mitiese, ontologiese en funksionele fase. In elk van die fases is die verhouding en ingesteldheid van die mens met die werklikheid, medemens en die bonatuurlike bespreek. In elke fase word daar telkens verwys na eksemplare uit die verlede. Ten laaste is daar bevind dat die model uiters geskik en toepasbaar is vir die ordenning, klassifikasie en sistematisering van die opvoedingsverlede. Enkele aanbevelings word in hierdie verband gemaak. ENGLISH: This study involves a comprehensive and thorough examination of the Culture Strategy Model of C.A. Van Peursen from a historical-educational research perspective. The aim of the examination is to determine whether education, as was manifested in the past with the help of the model, can be classified and systematized. If at all possible, to which extent can the model contain application value for the History of Education. To commence with, Chapter 1 contains a broad framework and background for the reading of the study. In Chapter 2 we find relevant ideas which emanate from the study and which are defined and explained to facilitate the accessibility of the study. In order to provide a broader perspective, chapters 3, 4 and 5 are divided into three separate genetic or development phases of man that is the mythical, ontological and functional phases. In each of the phases we examine the relationship and involvement of man with reality, his fellow beings and the supernatural. In each phase reference will be made to specimens from the past. Finally, it was established that the model is extremely suitable and applicable for the arrangement and systemizing of the educational past. A few recommendations are made in this regard. / Dissertation (MEd)--University of Pretoria, 2005. / Humanities Education / Unrestricted

From the personal contemporary pastoral experience of caring for dying people, and with particular attention given to the psychospiritual anguish often associated with the perceived failure of death, I argue that suffering is primarily identified in the modern West as an insult to normality, often expressed in various forms of the question: 'Why me?'. I challenge this view of 'suffering as insult' by selectively identifying and critiquing some culturally embedded views of the nature of reality, taking note of the influence on suffering persons of the dialogue between science and faith in the UK, and by introducing dialogue with the process thought of Whitehead as an alternative to traditional theistic models of God. Such a dialogue also affects the nature of the person conceived in imago dei, and so I examine the effect of replacing the rational autonomous individual with the dialogical personhood of McFadyen. I then consider the rehabilitation of suffering as a key experience of metanoia in the formation of the person. Finally I reflect on suffering in postmodernity in the light of Ricoeur's hypothesis that reality is narrative in form, and develop the argument that suffering can be understood as an 'ontological impertinence', analogous to the 'semantic impertinence' which Ricoeur attributes to the category of metaphor.

This thesis aim is to investigate the propagation of the term 'Hybrid Warfare' in world politics, more specifically on NATO's discourses and official texts. Granted the argument that the term is unable to convey a concrete strategic doctrine or strategy due to its lack of conceptual fecundity, we argue that nonetheless, the usage of the term serves NATO as an Ontological Security exercise. The reasoning behind this argument is that Hybrid Threats (or war) have the capacity to make NATO ontologically (in)secure due to the latter's inability to respond efficiently. Thus, disrupting the alliance strategy of 'being' - that is a collective defense alliance in charge of security of all members via the Article V of the treaty - and at the same time its strategy of 'doing' which is the ability of the alliance to provide a peaceful and safe Euro-Atlantic region, inside and out. Following our attempted bridging on Hybrid War and NATO's Ontological Security, we then proceed to explicate policy changes influenced by the former. In order to do so, we chose to employ a three- layered model created by Jakub Eberle and Vladimir Handl which conceptualizes Ontological Security through narratives about the self, the other, and the overall international system. The argument is that when actors are threatened by a...

The text is concerned with informational privacy in infosphere. Infosphere according to Luciano Floridi presents a new type of techno-scientific ecology in which western societies organize themselves and operate. Privacy is conceptualized as a labor of division in the infosphere, where every (quasi)subject is mobilizing various actors in order to protect her outer boundaries and resist objectification. The labor of division in infosphere is then compared with similar types of labor in different ecologies and societies (i.e. Amazonia and Mongolia) in sake of identification of crucial agents carrying out this labor of division based on negotiations of categories such as human/non-human or self/non-self. The text distinguishes three types of actors of division according to three interconnected intruders; traders, overseers and criminals. The argument then is that through mobilization of various dividing actors depending on the type of intruder, different (quasi)subjects emerge, thus subjectivity in the infosphere is a political project co- constructed by non/human dividing actors. The last chapter than proposes general ethical directions which might be helpful in the future, when considering the problems of lack of privacy.