Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology

Within dynamic 21st century knowledge economies, future-building knowledge, that bears capacities to transcend existing boundaries and create something new, is of particular importance. Within the first decade of the new century, new concepts such as "learning from the future" or "self-transcending knowledge" developed within knowledge management. So far, they lacked a theoretical grounding in relevant learning theory as well as a sound acknowledgement and consideration of such knowledge structures' emergence and social embeddedness. Thus, key principles and leverage factors for designing respective knowledge processes were difficult to derive. This dissertation investigates theoretical ground that can provide a basis to explain the creation of future-building knowledge in collective structures. It is guided by the following research question: "How can the emergence of self-transcending knowledge in collective organizational settings be rooted in theories of knowledge, learning and cognition?" Starting from the model of knowledge-based management, the model is expanded by exploring cognitive, creative and social systemic aspects of knowledge creation on a transdisciplinary basis. Research draws on constructivist learning theory, complexity-based approaches in knowledge management and organizational learning, recent accounts in cognitive science (enaction/embodiment) and a creative logic of emergence to derive an integrated model for collective self-transcending knowledge. The model contributes to the integration of knowledge management, organizational learning and cognitive science, expanding knowledge-based management towards attention-based management. The model's three dimensions and three domains form an integrated theoretical basis to derive key principles and leverage factors for steering future-building knowledge processes. Simultaneously, they reveal leverage factors' limited - i.e. enabling, not determining - impact on processes of "organizing future". (author's abstract)

Magnetic flux emergence is the subject of how magnetic fields from the solar interior can rise and expand into the atmosphere to produce active regions. It is the link that joins dynamics in the convection zone with dynamics in the atmosphere. In this thesis, we study many aspects of magnetic flux emergence through mathematical modelling and computer simulations. Our primary aim is to understand the key physical processes that lie behind emergence. The first chapter introduces flux emergence and the theoretical framework, magnetohydrodynamics (MHD), that describes it. In the second chapter, we discuss the numerical techniques used to solve the highly non-linear problems that arise from flux emergence. The third chapter summarizes the current literature. In the fourth chapter, we consider how changing the geometry and parameter values of the initial magnetic field can affect the dynamic evolution of the emerging magnetic field. For an initial toroidal magnetic field, it is found that its axis can emerge to the corona if the tube’s initial field strength is large enough. The fifth chapter describes how flux emergence models can produce large-scale solar eruptions. A 2.5D model of the breakout model, using only dynamic flux emergence, fails to produce any large scale eruptions. A 3D model of toroidal emergence with an overlying magnetic field does, however, produce multiple large-scale eruptions and the form of these is related to the breakout model. The sixth chapter is concerned with signatures of flux emergence and how to identify emerging twisted magnetic structures correctly. Here, a flux emergence model produces signatures found in observations. The signatures from the model, however, have different underlying physical mechanisms to the original interpretations of the observations. The thesis concludes with some final thoughts on current trends in theoretical magnetic flux emergence and possible future directions.

Clear changes occurred in the field of conventional arms control in the last two decades. States adopted a multitude of norms on especially small arms control in various multilateral control instruments. In addition, non-governmental advocacy actors often established themselves as active participants in control debates with governments. The changes are surprising because they took place in the security sphere and therewith in an area traditionally understood to be the exclusive domain of governments. This research project investigates the significance of the changes for the traditional understanding of security governance. Specifically, it investigates the emergence of control norms and the role and policy impact of non-governmental actors in the promotion of the norms. It asks whether the normative changes and significance of nongovernmental actors therein challenge the understanding of security governance that underpins many established approaches to international relations theory.

This doctoral dissertation proposes a fuller, more inclusive account of practice than that which dominates current discourse on organizations, which typically turns upon occupations, professions and jobs as manifestations of publicly recognized roles or functions within organized activity, established as a function of prescribed divisions of labour and the application of skills and techniques, and assumes that people interact in the ways that their assigned roles and functions are planned to work as interrelated parts of a shared task. The approach here is a reflexive process akin to what Lévi-Strauss characterizes as ‘bricolage’, using ready-to-hand materials linking narrative, literature and argument, adding pieces iteratively in an open-ended building process over the course of the dissertation. The reflexive process entails (a) the act of writing narratives (derived from the author’s own management experiences in the private, public and voluntary sectors) so as to produce insights and themes of interest in relation to the broader theme of practice; and (b) readings of certain key works of the literature on organizations and organized activity (including Sarbin and Allen, Denzin, Wiley, Collins, Elias, Mead, Habermas, Stacey and Mintzberg) so as to expose practice-related themes relevant to the construction of an alternative account which proposes the following: (1) Practice in organizations is communicative in nature and entails the enactment of roles. Conventionally, enactment is taken to mean that the role-incumbent meets expectations set by decision-makers and premised on conformity to preset structures within a metaphorical organizational space. In an alternative account of practice, however, enactment can be more accurately framed as a dialectical process of co-emergence of role and organization by virtue of the local social interaction of the persons involved. (2) In active life the mutually-exclusive emergent process and the spatial organizational metaphor necessarily co-exist. Reframing role enactment opens a path to new understanding, such that role enactment and practice thus become problematized in that practitioners can be seen as holding a paradoxical position of some considerable relevance to practice. Today’s predominantly objectivist management thinking primarily stresses accountability for the communicative interaction of others within the organizational space. The reflexive processual approach contests the adequacy and exclusivity of this position, because managing as an emergent practice is more comprehensively communicative and open-ended. (3) The co-presence of both the objectivist and emergent accounts thus requires the manager paradoxically to hold both these views of role and organization at the same time in his or her experiences of managing. As paradox cannot be resolved, it is instead taken up by the manager-practitioner by virtue of the reflexivity central to all processes of communicative interaction. (4) It follows that acknowledging processes of enactment and the centrality of reflexivity in the practice of managing and bringing that to the attention of managers and management educators will enhance how managing sophisticated cooperation is understood and carried out.

Novel infectious diseases in humans are of great concern to public health authorities and researchers in epidemiology. Zoonotic pathogens in particular have the potential to cause epidemics without any or little warning. In this thesis, I investigate evolutionary and environmental conditions, and the interactions between both, which facilitate the zoonotic emergence of novel pathogens. I start with a list of the mechanisms and processes which might influence a zoonotic emergence, and identify some unsolved problems. I address these with multiple, theoretical models. First, I use a village-city model with different adaptation scenarios to examine the influence of spatial heterogeneity on the emergence process. I derive general analytical results for the statistical properties of emergence events, including the probability distribution of outbreak sizes. My results suggest that, for typical connection strengths between communities, spatial heterogeneity has only a weak effect on outbreak size distributions, and on the risk of emergence per introduction. Next, I extend the research on environmental conditions by looking at pathogen specialisation in multi-host systems. I derive threshold connectivities for which generalist pathogens, which infect multiple species and might therefore be more dangerous to cross into the human species, can sustain transmission and are not dominated by specialists, which can only cause sustained transmission chains in a single host species, but are able to cause emergences with little warning. My third research chapter is interested in the effect of the loss of biodiversity. I analytically derive expected prevalences for fast growing and slow growing species. If fast growing species tend to perform better in degraded environments, my analytical results suggest that the overall prevalence level of infectious diseases will rise as environments degrade, which facilitates the chance of zoonotic jumps. In my last research chapter, I examine the actual impact of a novel, emerging infectious disease. I use data from the recent `Swine flu' epidemic in England to estimate epidemiological parameters of the infectious agent. My results suggest that the majority of infected cases showed no or only mild symptoms. This reveals that more data than just the estimated number of cases are necessary to fully evaluate the danger of a possible zoonotic, emerging infectious disease. I conclude by discussing my results and the implications which these might have.

The notion that we are voluntary agents who exercise power to choose and, in doing so, determine some of what happens in the world has been an important notion in certain theological accounts concerning our relationship with God (e.g. 'the freewill defence' for God's goodness and omnipotence in light of moral evil and accounts of human moral responsibility in relation to God). However, it has been claimed that the physicalism supported by contemporary neuroscience research calls into question human voluntary agency and, with it, human power to choose. Emergentist (or non-reductive physicalist) accounts of psychological phenomena have been presented as a way of reconciling the physicalism supported by contemporary neuroscience and the theologically important notion of human power to choose. But there are several issues that remain for the plausibility of the required kind of emergentist account; namely - Does recent neuroscience research show that voluntary agency is an illusion? and Is there evidence for neurophysiological causes which, along with neurophysiological conditions, determine all we do? In this dissertation I set out to address these issues and, in doing so, present an account of voluntary agency as power to choose in the state of being aware of alternatives. I argue that this account allows for the notion that human beings determine some of what happens in a way that is consistent with what contemporary neuroscience shows. Thus, contemporary neuroscience does not undermine this notion of human voluntary agency; or, then, the predominant theological view that we are morally responsible in our relationship with God.

L’objectif de cette thèse est d’analyser les modes d’émergence de la voix chez cinq écrivains québécois ayant initié, durant les années 1940-1970, leur parcours littéraire à travers la pratique de la poésie. Cette thèse puise à même les ressources de la poétique telle qu’alimentée par les penseurs contemporains (Agamben, Blanchot, Didi-Huberman, Lyotard, Rey, Anzieu) et utilise certains outils d’analyse que fournissent la psychanalyse, la sociocritique, la linguistique et la philosophie. Aussi, certains documents personnels exhumés de divers fonds d’archives des cinq auteurs (lettres, journal, notes, brouillons) concourent à éclairer les modes d’émergence à l’oeuvre dans les premiers poèmes, afin de démontrer comment les écrits à venir se trouvent entièrement préfigurés dans ces textes initiaux. Il s’agit, en somme, de montrer comment ces poètes furent aux prises avec certaines problématiques communes, notamment le grand défi de fonder une parole authentique au sein d’une communauté poétique si longtemps réservée aux élites. Ayant tous amorcé un processus d’écriture à la moitié du XXe siècle, Gaston Miron, Alexis Lefrançois, Claude Gauvreau, Roland Giguère et Anne Hébert n’en demeurent pas moins déterminés par la culture qui les a formés; leurs oeuvres respectives sont, par conséquent, fondamentalement ancrées dans une quête d’élucidation de soi et de l’autre qui ne saurait s’élaborer qu’en suivant les chemins les plus intimes, et dont je tenterai, à travers une lecture personnelle de leurs premiers textes, de rendre toute la portée. / The purpose of this thesis is to analyse the rising modes of the voice in five Quebec writer’s work; these authors have started to write between 1940 and 1970, and their artistic path led them all to express themselves, in the first place, through poetry. This thesis digs into the resources of recent poetic studies (Agamben, Blanchot, Didi-Huberman, Lyotard, Rey, Anzieu) and uses certain tools given by parallel academic disciplines such as psychoanalysis, sociocriticism, linguistic and philosophy. Also, certain personal documents extracted from private and public archive founds (letters, notes, drafts, journal) contribute to throw light on the emergence’s modes in action in the first poems of the chosen writers, in addition to demonstrate how the writings to come may see themselves foreshadowed in the initial work. Therefore, this thesis will try to demonstrate how these five poets battling with similar poetic issues (in particular with the great challenge that consists of creating an authentic language in a society where only elites could have access to culture and education) will initiate their creative process in Quebec province in the middle of the XXth century. Despite all their efforts to move forward, Gaston Miron, Alexis Lefrançois, Claude Gauvreau, Roland Gguère and Anne Hébert will remain partially shaped by the popular culture that has raised them, giving birth to poems that are deeply influenced by their inner quest and could only arise through a deeply intimate journey, of which I will try to show the impressive range, using my knowledge of their first texts.

Cette étude vise à développer la notion de figuration hors des jalons établis par les sciences de l’image et du langage, sans remettre en question les domaines spécifiques de l’iconologie et de la sémiologie. Elle s’appuie pour cela sur deux champs d’investigation principaux : l’expérience de la peinture, poïétique et esthétique, et la philosophie. Il s’agit plus précisément d’amener l’expérience intime du faire, du voir et du faire-voir, à l’éclaircissement d’une certaine conscience figurale : que signifie « représenter » pour la conscience créatrice ? Quels processus psycho-sensoriels sont en jeu dans l’acte de figurer ? Comment définir la liberté d’action du peintre face, d’un côté, à sa part d’inconscience, et, de l’autre, au déterminisme de l’imitation ?Il ne s’agit donc pas d’étudier la peinture figurative, par opposition à la peinture abstraite, gestuelle, informelle…, mais la tendance intime qui, dans n’importe quel tableau, donne à voir des configurations. Une figure peut être fidèle aux apparences, tout juste allusive ou totalement détachée du monde visible (comme un cercle parfait ou une simple tache de peinture), elle détient toujours une puissance d’évocation, ainsi qu’une capacité à se conglomérer avec d’autres et à inspirer des rapports logiques. Figurer ne signifie pas clicher le monde visible, mais, d’une manière qui reste encore à définir, laisser émerger des schèmes animés, favoriser le surgissement de motifs imaginaires ; entités primitives, identitaires, fondatrices de notre mode d'habitation du monde. / This study is aimed to develop the notion of representation beyond the reference points established by the image and the language sciences, without challenging the specific fields of iconography and semiology. It is based on two main domains of investigation : painting experiment, both poïetic and esthetic, and philosophy. More precisely, it consists in bringing the intimate consciousness of making, seeing and making someone see to the clarification of a kind of figurative awareness : what does « representing » mean to the creative consciousness ? Which psycho-sensorial processes are in play in the action of representing (i-e painting recognizable shapes) ? How could we define the painter’s freedom of action in relation to, on the one hand, his/her unconsciousness and, on the other hand, the determinism of imitation ?Thus, this work is not about studying representational painting, as opposed to abstract, informal or action painting, but the intimate tendency which, in any painting, shows outlines. A figure may be true to life, hardly allusive or totally unconnected to the visible world (like a perfect circle or just a paint spot), it always has an evocation power, as well as an ability of mixing with other figures and inspiring logical links. Representing does not mean taking a picture of the visible world but in a way that still has to be defined, it means enabling alive schemes to appear, encouraging the springing up of imaginary designs, primitive, identifying, founding entities of the way we live in this world.

Il est possible d'isoler, parmi les tentatives de définition du vivant, deux traditions concurrentes : l'une a fait de la reproduction le propre du vivant, tandis que l'autre a vu dans la nutrition puis le métabolisme (le processus matériel par lequel un organisme se maintient en transformant une matière étrangère en substance vivante) une propriété essentielle et un critère d'unification de toutes les formes vivantes. Or, le second terme de cette polarité se subdivise à son tour en un mouvement permanent d'oppositions qui semble caractériser la vie comme « tourbillon » incessant, circulation ininterrompue ou flux constant de matière entre l'intérieur et l'extérieur, les corps et leur environnement. C’est à explorer les mutations conceptuelles internes à cette seconde tradition, la nutrition et le métabolisme, que le présent travail est consacré. Comment le métabolisme s'est-il constitué en problème pour la biologie ? Cette thèse propose une analyse généalogique du concept de métabolisme compris à la fois comme pont reliant la spécificité vitale des organismes à leur.; conditions chimiques d'existence, et comme schème à travers lequel l'autoproduction et le maintien de l'identité biologique ont pu être appréhendés dans une perspective naturaliste. Cette thèse propose une histoire des développements d'une théorie matérielle, chimique, de la vie, et montre, dans le même mouvement, comment l'élaboration d'un « espace épistémique » autour du concept de métabolisme a progressivement permis de redéfinir les contours sous lesquels la question de l'identité biologique été saisie depuis. / It is possible to isolate, among the attempts to define living organisms, two competing traditions: one has made reproduction the proper of living organisms, while the other has seen in nutrition and then metabolism (the material process by which an organism maintains itself by transforming a foreign matter into a living substance) an essential property and a criterion for the unification of ail living forms. However, the second term of this polarity is in tum subdivided into a pem1anent movement of oppositions that seems to characterize life as an incessant "whirlwind", an uninterrupted circulation or constant flow of matter between the inside and the outside, the bodies and their environment. This work is devoted to exploring the conceptual changes within this second tradition, nutrition and metabolism. How did metabolism become a problem for biology? This thesis proposes a genealogical analysis of the concept of metabolism understood both as a bridge linking the vital specificity of organisms to their chemical conditions of existence, and as a scheme through which self-production and the maintenance of biological identity could be approached from a naturalistic perspective. This thesis proposes a history of the developments of a material, chemical and life theory and shows, in the same movement, how the elaboration of an "epistemic space" around the concept of metabolism has gradually made it possible to redefine the contours under which the question of biological identity has since been addressed.