Doctor of Philosophy / The aim of the research presented in this thesis was to come to a deeper understanding of clinical decision making from within the interpretive paradigm. The project draws on ideas from a number of schools of thought which have the common emphasis that the interpretive use of language is at the core of all human activity. This research project studied settings where health professionals and medical students engage in clinical decision making in groups. Settings included medical students participating in problem-based learning tutorials and a team of health professionals working in a multidisciplinary clinic. An underlying assumption of this project was that in such group settings, where health professionals are required to articulate their clinical reasoning for each other, the individuals involved are likely to have insights that could reveal the nature of clinical decision making. Another important assumption of this research is that human activities, such as clinical reasoning, take place in cultural contexts, are mediated by language and other symbol systems, and can be best understood when investigated in their historical development. Data were gathered by interviews of medical students and health professionals working in the two settings, and by non-participant observation. Data analysis and interpretation revealed that clinical decision making is primarily a social and linguistic skill, acquired by participating in communities of practice called health professions. These communities of practice have their own subculture including the language game called clinical decision making which includes an interpretive repertoire of specific language tools and skills. New participants to the profession must come to embody these skills under the guidance of more capable members of the profession, and do so by working through many cases. The interpretive repertoire that health professionals need to master includes skills with words, categories, metaphors, heuristics, narratives, rituals, rhetoric, and hermeneutics. All these skills need to be coordinated, both in constructing a diagnosis and management plan and in communicating clinical decisions to other people, in a manner that can be judged as intelligible, legitimate, persuasive, and carrying the moral authority for subsequent action.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-26T20:21:52Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 MauricioSantos.pdf: 600140 bytes, checksum: 4fa5c9b51e3521f9b2d6c0aa1a11bc57 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2005-10-17 / Tendo em vista as graves conseqüências sociais causadas pelo problema da inefetividade dos direitos humanos fundamentais - injustiça, ódio, violência... -, o objetivo deste trabalho é apresentar o contributo da hermenêutica filosófica de GADAMER para a solução deste problema, considerando que a metodologia científica - além de não resolver - constitui uma das causas da ineficácia social destes direitos, à medida em que sua utilização, no âmbito jurídico, impede a força normativa da Constituição

This thesis shows how democratic politics requires a commitment to pluralism as engagement and encounter of the other in their otherness. I contend that it is necessary to commit to such an idea of pluralism because of the problem of incomplete understanding. I establish this premise by drawing on Hans-Georg Gadamer’s account of human finitude. Based on this premise, I argue that the instantiation of Gadamer’s principle of openness leads democratic politics to pluralism as engagement and encounter of the other. Further, I develop accounts of asymmetric reciprocity, reflexivity, and agonism as modes of democratic politics that instantiate the principle of openness. In chapter 1, I establish discourse as a necessary element for democratic politics by drawing from the way Jurgen Habermas uses ‘discourse ethics’ to address the problems of understanding in plural societies. In chapter 2, I demonstrate how incomplete understanding poses a problem for discourse and gives rise to interpretive conflicts by drawing from Gadamer’s account of human finitude. Here I also develop an account of openness as a suitable principle for beings with incomplete understanding based on Gadamer’s idea of hermeneutical experience. In chapters 3-5, I develop accounts of asymmetric reciprocity, reflexivity, and agonism as modes of democratic politics that instantiate the principle of openness. I do so by drawing from Iris Young’s, John Dryzek’s, and Chantal Mouffe’s approaches to the problems that plurality poses to discourse ethics and democratic politics.

Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie were the most successful British women writers of their time. Christie and Blyton were contemporaries, living and writing in the United Kingdom during the first half of the twentieth century. This study takes into consideration these similarities in its examination of the depiction of dominant discourses in relation to emergent, alternative and oppositional discourses in their writing. This thesis suggests that while Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie offer alternatives to the dominant patriarchal discourses of the British Empire in the first half of the twentieth century, they show allegiance, too, to the dominant discourses of their time. Specific consideration is given to the portrayal of discourses concerned with gender, feminism, classism, British colonialism, racism, and xenophobia in their writing. The work of Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie was extremely popular in their time and still is today. Their important contribution to popular literature in England in the early twentieth century justifies a study of a selection of their work in relation to detective fiction and children’s literature as well as to studies of social history that include the investigation of how dominant discourse is both endorsed and challenged. / Thesis (DLitt)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / English / unrestricted

La presente tesis doctoral estudia una mirada innovadora sobre la poesía y su accionar en Lo poético, aproximándose a su aplicación en los diversos géneros, sobre todo en el teatral. Vislumbra la trascendencia de la poesía y los elementos que constituyen lo poético: el ritmo, la metáfora y la imagen. Indaga, además, sobre el trabajo teatral del dramaturgo argentino-ecuatoriano Arístides Vargas en el seno de su Grupo de Teatro Malayerba, contextualizándolo en una mirada retrospectiva a la memoria histórica nacional del Ecuador, al teatro ecuatoriano y a la producción literaria teatral ecuatoriana, mediante una cronología de dicha producción que va desde 1973 hasta el 2018 y que por primera vez se realiza en el país sudamericano. Luego realiza la convergencia entre la teoría de Hans Gadamer sobre el juego, y su concepción hermenéutica, y la potencial imagen, luego acto poético liberador, que propone Alejandro Jodorowsky. De esa manera construye el concepto de análisis el juego de la imagen/acto poético liberador para desentrañarlo en los libros teatrales de Vargas: Pluma y la tempestad, La casa de Rigoberta mira al sur y Foto de señoritas y esclusas.

This study explores reasons for Enid Blyton’s vast popularity. Blyton and her life are discussed in terms of the production and reception of her texts in the light of changing dominant discourses in society and varying horizons of expectation. It has been found that selected aspects of reception theory (in particular the horizon of expectation posited by Hans-Georg Gadamer and developed by Hans Jauss) and the theories of Michel Foucault on power and discourse can be used to examine the influence of societal and literary discourses on both Blyton’s writing and on those who read her work, including adults and children. The study includes a discussion of Blyton’s personal life, her role in education and her success in business. Blyton’s horizons of expectation – shaped not only by the dominant discourses that surrounded her, but also her training in the Froebel method of education – are examined. Furthermore, a number of aspects of Blyton’s life and writing subvert dominant discourses and these are discussed in terms of Foucault’s ideas on power relations. Evidence of the influence of her life on her work has been found in her texts. The criticism of Blyton is discussed in terms of both literary criticism and social criticism. Blyton’s popularity as a storyteller is also considered and it has been found that, regardless of criticism by adults, she remained popular with children. Furthermore, Blyton used a number of specific techniques (such as fast-paced plots and simple language and style) and it has been found that her techniques can be linked to both formula writing, the oral tradition, and to her training as a teacher in the Froebel method of education. These techniques are examined in terms of their manifestation in her writing, particularly in her series books – including adventure stories and school stories. In conclusion, the place of Blyton’s writing in contemporary society is deliberated and recommendations for further research are made. / Dissertation (MA (English))--University of Pretoria, 2003. / English / unrestricted

This dissertation examines the writings of three seminal twentieth century thinkers, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Theodor W. Adorno, and Jacques Derrida, through the lens of their encounter with the post-Shoah poetry of Paul Celan. These thinkers are associated with influential, competing movements in twentieth century literary theory: philosophical hermeneutics, critical theory, and deconstruction. The three philosophers have disparate biographies and political orientations, yet each championed the ambiguity of literary language as a bulwark against the problematic, even violent, certainties of quotidian language. Additionally, each of them regarded Celan as an exemplar of a salutary literary ambivalence. This project clarifies how the critics’ approaches to literature, honed through consideration of a survivor-poet, represent an attempt to come to terms with the catastrophic violence of the Holocaust. While perceptive in their readings of Celan’s poetry, each sought to secure trans-historical insights into the nature of human language, a task that risks effacing the ‘real’ historical and experiential specificity of Celan’s writing. Celan readings are thus a case study for understanding philosophical contemporaries’ treatment of literary texts and their relationship to contemporaneous history. By looking at these varied theorists in tandem and by showing how Celan’s poetry both informs and resists their ideas, this dissertation cultivates a method of reading that is adaptable and not beholden to one tradition. Treating what the thinkers neglect, new readings emerge that explore Celan’s allusions to the Hebrew Bible, Jewish ritual, and antisemitism. Celan’s poetry animates multiple, conflicting interpretive traditions, yet questions, in its testimonial character, the adequacy of a theoretical approach to literature.

This study strives to chart the occurrence of mystic and kabbalistic influences inthe textual liturgic material of Jewish prayer books - siddurim - in Stockholm,during the 19th century as well as of today. Two prayer books, both focusing onthe prayer service for sabbath and festivals, were studied and compared to amaterial corresponding to a more traditionally inclined ashkenaz liturgy. Alongsidethis comparative method, the study made use of the hermeneutics of Hans-GeorgeGadamer in order to gain a more thorough understanding of the backgroundleading up to the selection of materials within the Swedish siddurim. This involveda broad historical research of Jewish mysticism, Jewish liturgy and Jewish life inSweden. Furthermore, the reception history theory of Gadamer and Hans-RobertJauss was employed to analyze the reception of mystic and kabbalistic influencesupon the Swedish prayer books, taking in account the ways in which religioustexts are viewed within a certain tradition, depending on theological agendas,historical context, and the intercommunion between these, especially taking thereformist wave of Judaism in the 19th century under consideration. The results andanalysis came to show that, although there had been an extensive purge of explicitkabbalistic materials in the 19th century, texts with very clear connotations tomerkavah mysticism still remained. The siddur in use today has also reintroducedkabbalistic material to the liturgy. Through the lens of reception history theory,mystic and/or kabbalistic influences are shown to be a part of Jewish liturgy inStockholm, sometimes understood as an integral part of a wider liturgic tradition,sometimes as a devotional - but not explicitly esoteric - addition to the prayerservice.

In contemporary, French phenomenology, a debate has arisen concerning whether phenomenology can allow for a certain kind of “theological” consideration. In particular, Jean-Luc Marion argues that the potential of the reduction has not been fully explored and that a full reduction to pure givenness in fact allows one to give an account of the paradoxical experience of the impossible beyond experience, which is described as a phenomenon of revelation and may include a Revelation of God. Marion’s claims have been considered contentious. As I interpret it, the debate plays out between 1) those who also admit that phenomenology can occasion a form of “theological” consideration, but maintain, unlike Marion, that it remains a more existential affirmation of the impossible beyond experience, represented by Jacques Derrida and John Caputo, and 2) those who refuse any role for this impossible beyond experience within phenomenology (and perhaps more generally), and insist that phenomenology be preserved as an essentialist science of the appearances, represented by Dominique Janicaud. I take the positions of Derrida and Caputo, on the one hand, and Janicaud, on the other, to each entail extreme consequences that ought to be avoided—the former resulting in a form of irrationalism and the latter converting phenomenology into a form of pragmatism. Furthermore, I find Marion’s basic claim, that the impossible beyond experience ought to have a role in shaping finite experience, to be worth investigating further. However, Marion concedes too much to the deconstructive position of Derrida and Caputo at the outset, and so I find that the philosophy of Hans-Georg Gadamer provides an opportunity to correct some of the deficiencies in Marion’s position, but also argue to a similar end as he does. I find that Gadamer’s position incorporates an implicit analogical structure between rational experience and the impossible, thereby permitting one to maintain the impossible as impossible, but also affirm a certain possibility for understanding it.

As with other areas in healthcare, the public mental health body is regulated by governing documents and regulations. As with clinical care ”Socialstyrelsen” has developed national guidelines for how the mental health care should be managed. One of these documents focuses on the treatment of anxiety and depression. From the experience of working as a psychotherapist who meets referred patients for psychological support, the aim is to investigate if and how the national guidelines affect physical patient contact as well as how they influence the overall experience. Whilst trying to answer these questions I refer to hermeneutic and phenomenological theories. I will also use clinical psychology and psychotherapy literature. Through describing a session with a patient in need of support för experiences of anxiety and depression I will show how the recommendations as part of the national guidelines might affect our contact.