This essay deals with the issue how to obtain a wider understanding regarding the value of critical thinking and dialogue in philosophy teaching at upper secondary school? This main question has been investigated with the guidance of Hannah Arendt. The conclusion is: Critical thinking and dialogue is a prerequisite for knowledge and knowing. The essay also deals with reasons why critical thinking and dialog no longer can be carried out in everyday schooling. The answer is that schools in Sweden slowly have been transformed into a commercial market, where customer satisfaction and the loyalty to the powers- that- be, and in many cases profitability are driving values. During the corresponding period, the teacher's practical professional skills have been degraded

This essay proposes an understanding of transformation (förvandling) as a bridging between body and soul through active imagination. The act of active imagination is upheld as an act of the spirit, in the sense of being a mediator between body and soul. Three different theories grounded in the philosophy of Aristotle will be put together in order to explore this process of transformation. Although based on theory, this essay will be embodied through examples from the dance-aesthetic butoh.

I den här vetenskapliga essän vid Centrum för praktisk kunskap har jag undersökt min känsla av kluvenhet och frustration i mitt yrke som gymnasielärare i svenska. Dessa känslor gestaltas i två möten med elever, ett möte med en klass då jag presenterar ett nytt romanprojekt och ett med eleven Lilly som inte hinner med att lära sig i sin egen takt, utan tvingas ta bort kurser för att orka med.     Frustrationen och kluvenheten har sitt ursprung i en känsla av att inte kunna vara den lärare jag vill. Det grundar sig i att vara i konflikt med den kunskapssyn och det språk som finns i läroplanen GY11 och att värna om det skönlitterära språket och den kunskap som skönlitteraturen ger. Genom att undersöka begreppet fronesis med hjälp av Aristoteles och Fink hittar jag analogier med hur skönlitteraturen fungerar i läsaren och även hur fronesis fungerar i läraren som fostrare av goda medborgare. Med hjälp av filosofen Gadamer ser jag tolkningen av text som en väg till kunskap och den hermeneutiska dimensionen av fronesis. Vidare tar jag även hjälp av författarens Knausgård och litteraturprofessorn Toril Mois syn på skönlitteraturen som ett sätt att bli uppmärksam på språket, världen, livet och sig själv. Även här hittar jag fronetiska drag hos skönlitteraturen.      Essän utmynnar i en idé om att skönlitteraturen har något fronestisk över sig. Den framhåller också att skönlitteratur har en viktig plats i svensk skola för att vi ska få vara erfarande och kunskapande subjekt och inte endast mätbara objekt. / In this scientific essay at the Center for Practical Knowledge, I have investigated my feeling of ambivalence and frustration in my profession as a high school teacher of Swedish. These feelings are embodied in two encounters with students, one with a class where I present a new novel project and one with the student Lilly, who does not have time to learn at her own pace and is forced to drop courses to keep up.    The frustration and ambivalence originate from a feeling of not being able to be the teacher I want to be. It is rooted in a conflict with the knowledge perspective and language found in the GY11 curriculum, and the need to value the literary language and knowledge that literature provides. By examining the concept of phronesis with the help of Aristotle and Fink, I find analogies with how literature functions in the reader and also how phronesis functions in the teacher as a nurturer of good citizens. With the help of the philosopher Gadamer, I see the interpretation of text as a path to knowledge and the hermeneutic dimension of phronesis. Furthermore, I also draw on the author Knausgård's and literature professor Toril Moi's views on literature as a way to become attentive to language, the world, life, and oneself. Here, too, I find phronetic features of literature.    The essay culminates in an idea that literature has something phronetic about it. It also emphasizes that literature has an important place in Swedish schools so that we can be experiencing and knowledge-creating subjects and not just measurable objects.

Uppsatsen undersöker med hjälp av en hermeneutisk närläsning och en komparativ studie likheter och skillnader mellan ortodox och hinduistisk syn heliga bilder och statyer. Undersökningen har tre jämförelsepunkter: framställning, form och funktion. Undersökningen utgår från två böcker, Pavel Florenskijs Iconostasis. (1996) och Darśan, det gudomliga skådandet  av  Diana L. Ecks (1996). Resultatet visar att det finns många likheter i valet av material och hur gudabilderna framställs. I båda traditionerna finns kanoniska skrifter som ger riktlinjer som efterföljs. Det kan handla om vilka material som används samt vem som får framställa gudabilderna.  Det finns även likheter i form och funktion där gudabilden i båda traditionerna vördas och hedras och anses vara vad den rumänska religionsvetaren Mircea Eliade kallar hierofanier. Det heliga manifesterar sig i dessa bilder. En skillnad är att det i hinduismen är guden själv som tar boning i bilden medan den kristna ikonen bara har en symbolisk koppling till helgonet, visserligen finns en ontologisk koppling mellan bilden och den avbildade men det det är inte guden som tar plats i den. Två möjliga utvecklingar av materialet hade varit att ta med C G Jungs arketyper i resonemanget samt att även jämföra med den tibetanska buddhistiska ikonografin.

This research overview addresses how Christianity and Islam are represented in Swedish religion textbooks for lower- and upper-secondary schools. It also scrutinises how pupils positioned in either one of these religions perceives the representation during non-confessional religious education. The aim of this essay is to clarify, for religion teachers in Sweden, the importance of analysing textbooks intended for use. The study aspires to encourage religion teachers to be more aware of how they unconsciously/consciously present these religions and their adherents partaking in the class. The findings in this research indicate that teachers and textbooks legitimise and/or delegitimise the systematic and constructed social hierarchy that can enable an “us versus them” mentality. Moreover, it shows that some religion textbooks portray these two religions stereotypically as, among other things, homogenous and outmoded. These stereotypes can transfer and emerge on a classroom level, affecting students positioned within Islam and Christianity with frustration and worry. Stressing that a misrepresentation of their religions might influence their classmates to intolerance and scepticism. The selection of studies used in this essay was found through searching in the following research databases: Libsearch (EBSCO), Swepub and ERIC. The composed material shows that textbooks and teachers can either reinforce or prevent the production of negative preconceived notions of these religions.  Deviating from generalising and reproducing the implied stereotypes has been challenging. Worthy of acknowledgement is the awareness of both our and the researchers’ backgrounds which is predominantly Euro- and Christocentric. Even though there is a great and firm dedication intending to digress from this, our white European heritage and Christian roots will influence this analysis unintentionally.

Following developments in the last decades in the philosophical and theological studies of film, this study investigates film noir from the classic Hollywood era (1940-1959) from this perspective. It presents the key ideas behind the fields of film-philosophy and film-theology. Turning more specifically to film noir, the study addresses themes that come to the fore in these films, focusing especially on the depiction of human existence as characterized by a need for escape, that is at the same time impossible. The set of questions that arises with this starting point is developed through readings of a number of films, most lengthily Laura (directed by Otto Preminger, 1944) and Criss Cross (Robert Siodmak, 1949). It is suggested that film noir in interesting ways problematizes the persistent post-Enlightenment view of the subject as first and foremost rational and autonomous, and further, that film noir can be seen as following the Christian doctrine of original sin in seeing human existence as standing in need of redemption, while holding that it is at best uncertain if such redemption is possible.

The purpose of this thesis is to analyze and compare a Christian and transhumanist worldview, particularly with regard to the compatibility between their views on humanity and human nature. The analysis utilizes Leslie Stevenson's analytical framework of what constitutes a theory of human nature, coupled with the philosophical method of analyzing the contents of ideas, advocated by Carl-Henric Grenholm. Through examination of articles authored by transhumanists and representatives of the Swedish church, the thesis examines how, and in what way, transhumanist visions of the technological advancements of humanity could be argued to harmonize with the Christian notions of Imago Dei and co-creation. The analysis concludes by summarizing which arguments for or against compatibility prove to be most convincing and argues that, given certain essential conditions, there could be compatibility between a Christian and transhumanist view of humanity.

Syftet med uppsatsen är att undersöka attityden mot datorspel i undervisning hos religionslärare på gymnasienivå i Luleå kommun. En enkätundersökning och en intervjuundersökning med hermeneutisk utgångspunkt ligger till grund för detta. Enkätundersökningen visade att attityden var neutral lutandes åt det negativa, medan intervjuundersökningen visade en allmänt positiv inställning till datorspel i undervisning. Denna diskrepans kunde åtminstone delvis spåras till att vissa av respondenterna på enkätundersökningen, som utgjorde underlag till intervjupersonerna, var, av någon anledning, mer positiva i intervjusituationen än när de svarade på enkäten. Den positiva inställning som intervjuundersökningen resulterade i stämde väl överens med den tidigare forskning som gjorts på lärare i Sverige. I resultatet framkom att lärarna inte var oroliga för datorspels eventuella skadliga inverkan och i vissa fall kunde de ge exempel på hur man kunde använda datorspel i undervisningen. Problem som kunde ses var kostnader och bristande kunskap på hur man skulle använda datorspel på ett givande sätt.

Research was conducted on the ways that smaller organizations establish and maintain their ethical standards as they grow. In this study, the development of business ethics and corporate social responsibility in growing firms is studied using two successful organizations: AB Gavlegardarna and Lantmateriet, both in Gavle. Both the legal compliance strategy and integrity strategy have been used by these firms in guiding their policies with respect to the stakeholders of the organization. The values of the leaders in each of these organizations have been inserted into the business via unwritten policies and by the patterns of ethical behavior by the founders.   Keywords: Business ethics, Corporate social justice, Swedish context

This works seeks to examine a small selection of biographies of Padmasambhava, the figure who introduced and spread the Buddhist teachings in Tibet during the eighth century. These writings appear to have a function that goes beyond merely recounting the details of Padmasambhava’s life and works. Two of these functions – the transmission of various teachings and support for the Tibetan identity – have been the main focus for my investigation.