In this thesis I discuss three normative claims that I take to be central elements of Charles Taylor’s political thought. The first of these is Taylor’s contention that, in contemporary pluralistic societies, justifying socially prevailing norms by appealing to universally binding moral values is unlikely to promote social solidarity. Because this approach tends to downplay the goods that people realise through membership in particular associations, Taylor believes we must adopt a model of justification that does not prioritise universal over particular goods if we are to further social co-operation. A second claim Taylor defends is that commitment to the liberal value of collective self-rule implies treating patriotically motivated public service as a non-instrumental good. We should not, Taylor argues, regard collective association as nothing more than a means to satisfying private goals. Taylor advances a third claim, that is, he maintains that liberal toleration for diverse ways of life may require a perfectionist state that supports particularistic ways of life when they are threatened by decline. I offer a qualified defence of the first two claims, but suggest that the third is less compelling. I attempt to do this by evaluating Taylor’s claims against the standards of lucid argumentation that he himself lays down. In discussing social and political norms, which he describes as “advocacy” issues, Taylor argues that our normative commitments necessarily rely on an underlying social ontology. More specifically, Taylor argues that the political values we defend are those that enable us to secure the interests we have as the bearers of an identity possessing both individual and collective dimensions. In setting out the conditions that favour integrated and free identity formation we may thereby reach a clearer understanding of the political norms that we wish to endorse. I argue that, while Taylor’s ontological reflections might well incline us to accept his model of justification and his account of patriotic social commitment, they do not of themselves dispose us to accept state perfectionism.

Submitted by Silvana Teresinha Dornelles Studzinski (sstudzinski) on 2017-04-12T15:29:55Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Gilberto Guimarães Filho_.pdf: 970599 bytes, checksum: f9c7740f79150f004cdd3a5b9277dedc (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-04-12T15:29:55Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Gilberto Guimarães Filho_.pdf: 970599 bytes, checksum: f9c7740f79150f004cdd3a5b9277dedc (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-03-31 / Nenhuma / Os estudos constitucionais têm como preocupação central a limitação dos poderes e a definição dos direitos fundamentais. A importância disto é inegável, porém, tal perspectiva tem por fundamento concepções liberais, contratualistas, que, aliadas à ciência, excluem do pensamento constitucional os elementos e consequências narrativas, simbólicas e poéticas deste modelo narrativo. Neste sentido, partiremos da teoria narrativa, especialmente por meio da identidade narrativa em Paul Ricoeur, para desvelarmos elementos ocultos do pensamento constitucional que ignora o caráter narrativo da Constituição. Para este trajeto, no primeiro capítulo compreenderemos o que é a narrativa, a sua relação com a nossa identidade enquanto seres que narram a si mesmos (homo fabulans) e a dialética entre a mesmidade e a ipseidade em Paul Ricoeur. Feito este passo, no segundo capítulo entraremos no debate sobre a Constituição democrática a partir do debate entre Hans Kelsen e Carl Schmitt, enfocando no pluralismo atomismo de Kelsen e na unidade do povo em Schmitt, para retomarmos o pensamento constitucional como um pensamento sobre uma narrativa política fundamental, identificarmos diversas questões como questões narrativas. No terceiro e último capítulo desdobraremos as consequências da pequena ética de Ricoeur, recolocando a questão da constituição democrática na busca do que seria uma Constituição justa e a sua relação circular com uma promessa coletiva que une a nação (elemento da constituição democrática schmittiana) e, ao mesmo tempo, garantindo o pluralismo (elemento da constituição democrática kelseniana). A Constituição justa como a que concilia uma narrativa comum e as diversas narrativas singulares, reconhecendo-as no plano político. / The constitutional studies have as a central concern about the Constitution the power limitation and the definition of fundamental rights. The importance of this is undeniable, however, this perspective is founded on liberal and contractualist ideas, which, together with science, exclude at the constitutional thinking narrative, symbolic and poetic elements and consequences. In this sense, we depart with the narrative theory, especially through narrative identity in Paul Ricoeur, in order to unveil hidden elements of the narrative character of constitutional thought. For this path, in the first chapter we understand what is narrative, its relationship to our identity as beings who narrate themselves (homo fabulans) and the dialectic between sameness and selfhood in Paul Ricoeur. Done this step, the second chapter will enter into the debate on democratic Constitution from the debate between Hans Kelsen and Carl Schmitt, focusing on atomism and pluralism in Kelsen and the unity of the people in Schmitt, to reconstruct the constitutional thinking such a thought about a politics fundamental narrative, identifying various issues as narratives issues. In the third and final chapter entering the consequences of Ricoeur’s Little Ethics, we replace the issue of democratic constitution in search of what would be a fair Constitution and its circular relationship with a collective promise that unites the nation (Schmittian democratic constitution element) and, at the same time ensuring pluralism (kelsenian democratic constitution element). The fair Constitution which combines a common narrative and several unique narratives, recognizing them politically.

Cette thèse a pour objet la mise en place d'ateliers de philosophie auprès élèves adultes incarcérés. Notre dispositif pédagogique initie des discussions philosophiques sur des dilemmes moraux. En prison, l'enseignement a pour objectif principal de préparer le détenu à la sortie et de lui permettre de comprendre le monde dans lequel il vit. C'est dans cette optique que s'inscrit notre travail de recherche. Notre question centrale est : Dans quelle mesure le recours à la discussion de dilemmes moraux entre adultes incarcérés peut-il participer à leur développement moral ? Notre première hypothèse porte sur la mobilisation de la dimension rationnelle dans le jugement, afin de favoriser l'accès des détenus à un stade de développement moral plus avancé qu'auparavant. La seconde hypothèse concerne la nécessaire prise en compte de la dimension émotionnelle et affective dans la formulation des jugements moraux, car elle interfère avec les approches rationnelles. Sur le plan méthodologique, nous recourons à une méthode qualitative, l'analyse de contenu. A partir de la retranscription des discussions sur les dilemmes moraux, nous procédons au codage des unités de sens des verbatim, en lien avec les valeurs orientant la théorie des stades de développement moral de Kohlberg. Ensuite, nous appliquons la méthode de l'analyse de contenu afin d'accéder à la compréhension fine des arguments des apprenants. Puis nous appréhendons, sur l'ensemble des discussions, le niveau de développement moral des détenus, et dressons leur profil d'éducabilité morale. Ce travail réflexif sur le dilemme vise l'éducabilité morale du sujet, en se fondant sur le postulat d'une éducabilité toujours possible. Les résultats de cette recherche, en évaluant le potentiel l'éducabilité morale des détenus, pourrait permettre de rendre une décision sur le plan judiciaire. Notre recherche montre également qu'il est impossible de rattacher certaines argumentations à la grille de Kohlberg.En effet, la théorie des niveaux de développement moral ne prend pas en compte la primauté des valeurs familiales, idéalisées chez les personnes détenues. Nous postulons donc l'existence d'un nouveau stade de développement moral, de niveau post conventionnel, qui pourrait être nommé «stade du respect inconditionnel des valeurs familiales». Il aurait, comme principe directeur, la préservation absolue des membres de sa famille / This thesis's subject is the setting up of philosophy workshops aimed at inmates serving some time in jail. Our educational project allows them to learn and exchange on philosophical topics related to moral dilemmas. In prison, the teacher's main role is to prepare the inmates for their release and teach them how to understand better the world in which they live. Our research founds its framework for this purpose. The issue raised in this particular work is «To what extent can the use of discussions on moral dilemmas between inmates take a part in their moral development and/or behaviour ?». Our first hypothesis deals with the mobilisation of the rational dimension in their own judgement, in order to give them the opportunity to develop and increase their previous state of moral behaviour. The second hypothesis takes into account the emotional and affective dimension as regard the wording of moral judgements, as it might alter the rational approaches. On the methodological aspect, we focus on the qualitative side that is to say on the content analysis. Starting from the transcript of the discussions on moral dilemmas, we proceed to the coding of the units of meaning of the verbatim, in connection with the values guiding the theory of the stages of moral development of Kohlberg. Then, we apply the content analysis method to reach the sharp understanding of the learners' arguments. At last, from the whole discussions, we grasp the level of the prisoners' moral development and draw their profile of moral educability. This reflexive work on the dilemma aims at the subject's moral educability, based on the premise of a still possible educability. The outcomes of this research, by assessing the potential of the moral educability of the detainees, could alter a decision making on the judicial level. Our research also shows that some arguments can't be related to Kohlberg's grid. Indeed, the theory of moral development levels does not take into account the presence of family values, idealized for detained people. We therefore postulate the existence of a new stage of moral development, of a postconventional level, which could be called "stage of unconditional respect for family values". It would have, as a guiding principle, the absolute preservation of one's family members

Given the teacher-as-technician view and the instrumentalist values that pervade professional schools, practices, and policy decisions (Kinsella & Pitman, 2012a; Zeichner, 2012) with regard to teacher qualification, evidence-based practices, and scripted curricula, there is growing concern that something of fundamental importance and moral significance is missing from the vision of what it means to be a professional, particularly in the field of education. In order to articulate teacher practical knowledge in a way that reflects the complexities of practice, a framework that captures the complexity of teaching practice and helps to define the type of knowledge beyond content and technique, which enables teachers to make practically wise decisions is needed. The purpose of this study was to explore and describe the practical reasoning of highly competent teachers as it is revealed through meaning making about their experiences of pedagogical reasoning. The aim of this study was to provide an interpretive description of teacher pedagogical reasoning, then utilize the construct of professional phronesis as a framework for understanding the dimension of teacher knowledge involved in judgment (Coulter & Wiens, 2002; Kinsella, 2012). In order to develop a detailed, multi-perspectival account of the constructs of pedagogical reasoning and professional phronesis, I employed an interpretive phenomenological case study design (Smith et al. 2009) to examine the experiences of three participants. Analysis of the data revealed the pedagogical reasoning of the participants as a knowledge that continuously develops over time through a corpus of instructional experiences including: purposeful professional development, problem solving and reflection. The pedagogical reasoning of the participants was also found to operate as an instructional decision-making process that occurs in two modes: in deliberate planning and preparation for instruction, and spontaneously as they engage in instruction. Finally, the pedagogical reasoning of the participants was characterized by an orientation towards achieving multiple goals at once. All participants acknowledged the content of her discipline as an established goal; however, they described their decision-making in terms of goals for both themselves as practitioners regarding their role in student learning, as well as goals for student outcomes that extended beyond the development of student content knowledge. Professional/personal and instructional goals are tied to the identities of the individual participants and reflect how the unique dispositions of the participants influences the factors they consider in making instructional decisions, regardless of operational mode. Finally, all participants discussed a personal paradigmatic shift in focus from an early-career focus on content delivery to a focus on the needs of individual students and the necessity of developing relationships with students in order to achieve their personal/professional goals and goals for student growth. These themes regarding the experience of pedagogical reasoning reflected the six features of professional phronesis outlined by Kinsella and Pitman (2012b), which suggests that phronesis is a viable construct within the practice knowledge of highly competent teachers.

Researchers have stressed the importance of addressing the social/emotional needs of early childhood (EC) children, including the development of resilience; however, some U.S. school personnel focus more on academics than on these needs. When young children possess these skills, they can handle social/emotional challenges later in life. The purpose of this qualitative bounded case study was to explore school social workers' (SWs) perspectives about resilience in EC settings. Research questions focused on knowledge of existing programs, participants' perceptions of the successes and challenges of working with EC students, and their recommendations to improve EC students' education. Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory and O'Neill's and Gopnik's work on needs of young children informed this study. Five elementary school SWs with at least 6 years' experience from 5 districts in the U.S. Midwest participated in 2 semistructured individual interviews. Interpretive phenomenological analysis, involving first-cycle, transition, and second cycle coding, was used to identify themes. SWs' experiences indicated a need for a clear definition of resilience, and needs of young children, including EC programs that develop psychological resilience of children's thoughts and an increase in adults to promote resilience. Additional research may expand and enhance educators' and families' understanding of resilience and help develop research-based preventive programs and strategies to foster psychological resilience in young children. These endeavors may enhance positive social change by adding components of psychological resilience to EC programs for school personnel and students and in parent/family workshops, which may result in sound mental health practices that enable them to become productive members of society.

Dugald Stewart was an influential teacher and philosopher during the final years of the Scottish Enlightenment. Until recently he has been seen as merely a significant expositor of Thomas Reid's common sense philosophy. This thesis does not attempt to assess the novelty of Stewart's writings in relation to his Scottish predecessors such as Reid: rather, it offers a detailed historical study of aspects of his work, placing them in the political and cultural context of the period following the French Revolution. Two questions stimulated this thesis. First, what prompted Stewart, a moral philosopher who was not an experimental philosopher, to write a major work on methodology? Second, why was there a gap of twenty-two years between the first volume of his Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind (1792) and the second (1814), which contained his methodological treatise? I aim to answer these questions by offering a contextual intellectual history of some important aspects of Stewart's work. The thesis argues that Stewart faced a new problem: he had to deal with attacks on moral philosophy - the core subject of the Edinburgh University curriculum - some of which were produced by institutional and political factors affecting the Scottish universities, others by the rising authority of the experimental physical sciences. I consider a selection of Stewart's writings in the light of this problem. In 1804 Stewart's own student, Francis Jeffrey, gave public voice to the charge that the science of mind (which constituted the central part of Scottish common sense philosophy) was outdated, unscientific and useless. Thereafter, Stewart was engaged in what he saw as an urgent task - the defence of the very status of philosophy and the role of the philosopher. The thesis considers some of his major works (and other writings) from this perspective: Philosophical Essays (1810) contained his first direct retort to Jeffrey; Stewart's treatment of methodology in Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind, Volume 2 (1814) and his section on intellectual character in Volume 3 (1827) are viewed as two significant components of his attempt to reassert the primacy of moral philosophy and the role of the moral philosopher.

Imre Kertész ist 1929 in Budapest geboren und dort aufgewachsen. 1944 wurde er im Rahmen einer Judendeportation verhaftet und über Auschwitz in das KZ Buchenwald verbracht. Nach der Befreiung des Lagers 1945 kehrte er in seine Heimatstadt zurück, wo er seit 1953 als Schriftsteller und Übersetzer tätig war. 2001 verlegte er seinen Lebensmittelpunkt nach Berlin. 2002 erhielt er den Nobelpreis für Literatur. Ziel der Untersuchung ist die Rekonstruktion einer in Kertész’ Werk allegorisch codierten Anthropologie und einer damit implizierten Ästhetik. Die Basis der fraglichen Anthropologie ist der Begriff des Lebens. Das spezifisch menschliche Leben zeichnet sich durch den Prozess der kulturellen Evolution aus, welcher durch verständigungsorientierte Mittel rational zu steuern ist. Die hieraus resultierende Dialektik wird von autonomen Personen konstituiert. Dabei erscheint die generationenübergreifende Reproduktion der Personenrolle und des damit einhergehenden menschlichen Bewusstseins als unbedingte Pflicht im Sinne Kants. Letzterer Vorgang kann als ästhetische Erfahrung beschrieben werden, bei der die menschliche Ontogenese jeweils in Orientierung an paradigmatischen Darstellungen der Personalität respektive der Personalisierung erfolgt. / Imre Kertész was born in Budapest in 1929. He lived there until 1944, when, in the course of a deportation of Jews, he was arrested and taken to the KZ Buchenwald via Auschwitz. After the liberation of the camp in 1945 he returned to his home town, where he began to work as a writer and translator in 1953. In the year 2001 he moved to Berlin. He was awarded the Nobel prize for literature in 2002. The objective of the study is to reconstruct an anthropology allegorically encoded in the oeuvre of Kertész and a theory of aesthetics intrinsic to it. Fundamental to the anthropology in question is the concept of life. Human life in particular is characterized by the process of cultural evolution, which has to be controlled rationally by means of communication. The resulting dialectic is supported by autonomous persons. Thereby the transgenerational reproduction of personality and the corresponding human consciousness appears as a categorical duty in the sense of Kant. The latter proceeding can be described as an aesthetic experience in which the individual human ontogenesis is oriented to paradigmatic representations of personality respectively of personalization.

This doctoral thesis comprises a critical comparison of the theme of concursus, the way in which God and humanity interact, in the Pentecostal-Charismatic and Process-Relational traditions. The comparison is literature-based / similarities and differences in the theological literature of each tradition are compared in order to determine the extent of compatibilities and incompatibilities. The hypothesis is that similarities in the literature sufficiently leverage differences. The first chapter includes a statement of the problem, namely that the global expansion of the Pentecostal-Charismatic movements necessitates interaction with more academically and philosophically oriented theological traditions such as Process- Relational theology. The second chapter comprises an historical survey of the Pentecostal-Charismatic movements, including key dogmas and practices. Chapter three comprises an historical survey of Process-Relational theology, including its philosophical, metaphysical, and scientific orientations. Seminal Process- Relational theists such as Whitehead, Hartshorne, and Cobb are surveyed. Chapter four consists of a broad historical survey of the theological theme of concursus, including the notions of causation, free will, and determinism in both philosophy and theology. Further, the fourth chapter includes a broad historical survey of pneumatology, which is framed as the basis for a comparison of concursus. Chapters five and six comprise surveys of concursus in the Pentecostal- Charismatic and Process-Relational traditions respectively. Chapter seven entails an extensive analysis of differences and synthesis of similarities between the Pentecostal-Charismatic and Process-Relational notions of concursus. Four differences and four similarities are identified. Differences and similarities are ranked and compared for compatibility...

This thesis is about how project results can be improved in organizations. The focus is on project-intensive organizations, where a central part of the operative work is carried out in project form. This is common in product development, software development, business development, industrial construction, etc. In this thesis, a framework for project result improvement in organizations is developed (PRIO framework). The empirical data is based on a clinical research project in an organization called “Alpha”. People in Alpha worked for several years with improving the preconditions for product development projects, for example, by training employees, creating process descriptions, designing work templates and implementing information systems. The empirical material is understood using theories from project management, business process management and improvement work. In the analysis of the case, the author finds a need to go deeper towards the philosophcial realm and asking fundamental questions about the relationship between changes and the differences they make in project results. Philosophical foundations are explicated in order to provide a basis for understanding how project results can be improved. The PRIO framework highlights personal work processes and the way in which these processes influence strategy development processes, improvement processes, operative project processes and customer operations processes. Particular emphasis is put on the interaction between mind, body and artifacts when work is performed. For example: How can we understand the relationship between a documented project method and actions of employees? With a focus on project result improvement, several questions arise. What difference do you want to make? What order of change is required to make the difference? What can you change? How does the change lead to the difference? The answers to these questions have far-reaching consequences for initiatives targeting project result improvement. A fundamental question lies at the core of the thesis: What is the pattern which connects the change and the difference? The thesis suggests using a theory structure of calibration between multiple levels. The resulting PRIO framework can be used as a frame for inspiration for people working with project result improvement. The thesis is ended with a dialog written to highlight the findings in a consumable format. / Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögskolan, 2005

This thesis is a comparison of the philosophical systems of Zen Buddhism, which is an Eastern Philosophy, with Ludwig Wittgenstein&rsquo / s philosophical studies, who is an extraordinary name of the Western Philosophy in the 20th century. The history and sources of Zen Buddhism were given with its adoption in the use of language and arts. Besides, this study exemplifies the philosophy of Zen Buddhism with the examples from the life story of Wittgenstein. The thesis is written with a full awareness of the sensitivity of comparing different systems which always embody counterexamples and speculations. This is the reason why speculative ideas and resources were deliberately ignored. The aim is to contribute the cultural life of Turkey by taking such a subject to the academic milieu. Moreover, Turkey is the passage of the East and the West both geographically and culturally. There are resemblances between Zen and Wittgenstein by means of method and the useof language. Furthermore, it was given the names of the books that Wittgenstein read and the philosophers who influenced Wittgenstein. The parallels between Zen and Wittgenstein are justified.