ETHICAL AND EPISTEMOLOGICAL TENSIONS IN APPLYING A POSTMODERN PERSPECTIVE TO FEMINIST RESEARCH

We examine tensions that arise in applying postmodernism to feminist research. First, we consider epistemological tensions generated in the process of deconstructing existing knowledge and constructing new knowledge that benefits women. Second, we examine six ethical issues that reflect the tensions in feminist practice as we attempt to justify the dialectic between knowledge and power. In keeping with a postmodernist perspective, we pose these six issues as questions: Is feminist post-modernism "postfeminist"? Does postmodernist language mystify feminist practice and goals? Are qualitative methods more feminist than quantitative ones? Must feminists have a liberatory purpose in their research? Is the personal too personal? Whose aims are served, feminists or their collaborators? We conclude that by adopting a postmodern feminist perspective, we can embrace the struggle between knowledge and practice rather than privilege one over the other.     

Rhetoric and Dialectic: Some Historical and Legal Perspectives

The thesis is defended that rhetoric is not, as is often said, a discipline which is hierarchically subordinate to dialectic. It is argued that the modalities of the links between rhetoric and dialectic must be seen in a somewhat different light: rhetoric and dialectic should be viewed as two complementary disciplines. On the basis of a historical survey of the views of various authors on the links between rhetoric and dialectic, it is concluded that efforts to establish clear boundaries or unequivocal conceptual or moral hierarchical relationships between the two disciplines have failed and that therefore, they must be conceived as being mutually dependent.     

FORTY YEARS LATER: WHAT HAVE WE ACCOMPLISHED?

Abstract. I examine the responses to John Caiazza's “Athens, Jerusalem, and the Arrival of Techno‐Secularism” as part of Zygon's forty‐year anniversary symposium. The responses reveal that issues of modernism and postmodernism are central to understanding the dynamic of the current science‐religion/theology dialogue and that the resistance of many of the participants to the influences of postmodernism is a sign not of its backwardness but rather of some of the weaknesses inherent in the postmodern project. This does not mean that the many insights of postmodernism should be rejected. Rather, the science‐religion/theology dialogue may be in an intellectually opportune place to construct successors to the worn label of postmodernism.     

From Canon to Dialectic to Antinomy: Giving Inclinations Their Due

In a recent paper, Eckart Förster challenges interpreters to explain why in the first Critique practical reason has a canon but no dialectic, whereas in the second Critique, there is not only a dialectic, but an antinomy of practical reason. In the Groundwork, Kant claims that there is a natural dialectic with respect to morality (4:405), a different claim from those advanced in the first and second Critiques. Förster's challenge may therefore be reformulated as the problem of explaining why practical reason has a canon in the first Critique, a dialectic in the Groundwork, and an antinomy in the second Critique. In this paper, I answer this challenge. I argue that these differences are due to the different aims and scope of the works, and in particular, the different place of the inclinations in their arguments.     

The real problem for postmodernism

This essay is a critique of postmodernism and its relationship to family therapy. It is argued that the strengths of a postmodern approach (its relativism and narrative focus) are not unique but shared by traditions, modern and antiquarian, which the advocates of postmodernism now seek to displace both in the academy and the clinic. The negative baggage of accepting the emerging postmodernist orthodoxy is created, in the main, by the abandonment of a realist ontology. A variety of points are made about the relationship between postmodernism and general systems theory to highlight this point. At the end, critical or sceptical social realism is offered as a positive alternative to naïve realism or postmodernism. Some notes are made in conclusion about the implications of the essay's arguments for family therapists.     

从“概念思辨”到“资本批判”——论马克思主义辩证法对传统辩证法的改造及其实质

关于马克思主义辩证法是物质辩证法还是实践辩证法的论争,是贯穿我国近30年来哲学研究的一条主线。这场论争虽然推进了问题的研究,但并没有真正取得突破性进展。这主要表现在:争论方法仍停留在直观或概念思辨层面,以至于不仅争论双方相持不下,而且未能阐明马克思颠倒黑格尔辩证法的真义。其根源就在于人们忽略了如下史实:马克思颠倒黑格尔辩证法的关键     

Existentialism and postmodernism. Continuities,breaks, and some consequences for medical theory

Since existentialism lost its influence in philosophy in the 1960s, postmodern theory has taken over criticizing basic concepts of western thought. From a postmodern point of view, the main shortcomings of existentialism is that it criticizes traditional unitarian concepts, while re-inventing new unitarian models. Against these unitarian approaches postmodernism holds that the world can only be described in terms of difference. In this article the postmodern program and its differences from existentialism are explained in reference to three concepts of western philosophy: subject, truth, and ethics. Applying these concepts, the relevance of postmodernism for medical theory is illustrated.     

Postmodernism—A cross‐cultural perspective

In this paper, I attempt to throw light on the phenomenon of postmodernism by comparing it with the understanding of other cultures such as the Indian and Chinese. One can say that postmodernism, like, say Mahayana Buddhism, Taoism and Advaita Vedanta recognise the impossibility of finding an absolute in the world. However, unlike the latter three, rather than moving on beyond finite things, postmodernism seems content to simply sit and play around with the non‐absolutes that it has found (even if ‘ironically'). Comparison with the philosophies of other cultures, and also the message of Christianity, show clearly the mistake that postmodernism makes in doing this. Finally, I note some of the responsibilities that Western postmodern philosophers have.     

Comment — Carl Rogers and postmodernism: continuing the conversation

This paper continues the conversation about the relationship between Carl Rogers and postmodernism initiated by Harlene Anderson and taken up by Maryhelen Snyder. The view adopted here is that postmodernism is undertheorized and there is a need to unravel definitions and concepts which arise from a conflation of social constructionism, post–structuralism and Rogers' existential humanism. It is argued that person–centred principles lie at he heart of therapy and should neither be neglected nor taken for granted.     

马克思思想与后现代性

马克思与后现代都致力于实现从实体主义和本质主义的思维方式向实践的和关系性的思维方式的转变,但马克思思想中蕴含的历史自我意识则与后现代主义的历史相对主义形成了一种批判性的对话。后现代性语境下的马克思思想提醒我们反思当代西方思想的人类性价值以及当代精神的过渡性状况。作为马克思核心论阈的社会与社会化的人给后现代哲学所关注的核心问题主体间性提供了一种有效的反省与治疗价值。     

Adorno’s Negative Dialectic: Theme,Point, and Methodological Status

Abstract

This paper provides a criticial interpretation of the theme, point, and methodological status of Adorno’s so‐called negative dialectic. The theme at issue, ‘non‐identity’, comes in several varieties; and the point of Adorno’s dialectic, namely reconciliation, is multifaceted. Exploration of those topics shows that negative dialectic seques into substantive doctrines, including a version of transcendentalism and a claim about deformation. The peculiar methodological status of negative dialectic explains that adumbration. In the appraisive register, my principal contentions include these: Adorno’s transcendentalism makes some sense of the aforementioned deformation claim; and negative dialectic qua method avoids mystery and metaphysical excess.     

Adorno,Hegel, and Dialectic

This article explores critical theory's relations to German idealism by clarifying how Adorno's thought relates to Hegel's. Adorno's apparently mixed responses to Hegel centre on the dialectic and actually form a coherent whole. In his Logic, Hegel outlines the dialectical process by which categories – fundamental forms of thought and reality – necessarily follow one another in three stages: abstraction, dialectic proper, and the speculative (famously simplified as ‘thesis, antithesis, synthesis’). Adorno's allegiance to Hegel's dialectic emerges when he traces the dialectical process whereby enlightenment reverts to myth and human domination over nature reverts into our domination by nature. However, Adorno criticizes Hegel's dialectic as the ultimate form of ‘identity thinking’, subsuming unique, material objects under universal concepts by using dialectical reason to expand those concepts to cover objects utterly. These two responses cohere because Adorno shares Hegel's view that dialectical contradictions require reconciliation, but differs from Hegel on the nature of reconciliation. For Hegel, reconciliation unites differences into a whole; for Adorno, reconciled differences co-exist as differences. Finally, against Habermas who holds that Adorno cannot consistently criticize the enlightenment practice of critique, I show that Adorno can do so consistently because of how he reshapes Hegelian dialectic.     

Consequences of the Postmodernist Vision: Diversity as the Guiding Value for the Counseling Profession

The counseling profession has strongly identified with the multicultural movement. Nevertheless, postmodernism, which is the ideological foundation of multiculturalism, has had relatively little impact on other segments of the profession. The author argues that many realms of the counseling profession are locked within modernism and could be significantly enriched by a foundational shift to postmodernism. Two of these realms, professional identity issues and the helping relationship, are elaborated, and conclusions for counseling practice are discussed.     

Topical Roots of Formal Dialectic

Formal dialectic has its roots in ancient dialectic. We can trace this influence in Charles Hamblin’s book on fallacies, in which he introduced his first formal dialectical systems. Earlier, Paul Lorenzen proposed systems of dialogical logic, which were in fact formal dialectical systems avant la lettre, with roles similar to those of the Greek Questioner and Answerer. In order to make a comparison between ancient dialectic and contemporary formal dialectic, I shall formalize part of the Aristotelian procedure for Academic debates. The resulting system will be compared (1) with Van Eemeren and Grootendorst’s system of rules of Critical Discussion (the pragma-dialectical discussion procedure), which must, however, first itself be reconstructed as a formal dialectical system, and (2) with a Hamblin-type system, and (3) a Lorenzen-type system. When drawing comparisons, it will become clear that there is a line to be drawn from Aristotle to formal dialectic and pragma-dialectics, extending to contemporary computational models of argument.     

Making use of the vignette technique to examine methods of bereavement counselling: An exploratory study

Aim: The principal objective of this small‐scale study was to examine methods of bereavement counselling because of their lack of clarity. Method: The study made use of the vignette technique along with six semi‐structured interviews analysed by means of thematic analysis. Findings: Results showed that bereavement counsellors are using a multitude of different and diverse methods of counselling, characteristic of postmodernism. Advantages of these postmodern methods are that bereavement counselling methods are rich, creative, supportive, pluralistic and attentive to otherness. However, disadvantages of these postmodern methods have led to a lack of consensus amongst experts, unclear methods and an anti‐methodological way of working by counsellors. Implications for practice: Postmodernism is inherent in bereavement counselling. As a result no two counsellors work in exactly the same way because of the difference in their background and experience similarly it can be said that no one counselling method has exclusivity due to the diverse nature of postmodernism.     

Subjective reality, objective reality, modes of relatedness, and therapeutic action

This paper describes a dialectic believed to be at the heart of therapeutic interaction within a relational model. The dialectic consists of the interrelationship of two modes: the dyadic and the triadic. In the dyadic mode, the analyst responds with aspects of his or her self that singularly reflect the patient's subjectivity. This mode of attunement is uniquely suited to bringing the patient's experience into a place where it can then be seen and known. In the triadic mode, realities are recognized that are important to, but still outside of, the subjectivity of the patient. The analyst invites the patient to see him- or herself not only from inside his or her own space, but also from a point outside, through the perspective of others. The analyst is charged with asymmetric but not exclusive responsibility for negotiating and sustaining a fluid and flexible relationship between these modes. Optimally, this occurs through spontaneous and authentic engagement informed by intuition, empathy, and clinical judgment. However, when this dialectic loses its robust and kinetic quality (as frequently occurs in approaches ranging from the classical to the postmodern), an impermeable dyad is formed by extruding potentially triangulating aspects of reality (and subjectivity). This can result in curiosity and the openness of uncertainty being replaced by closed-mindedness and proclamation.     

Reconcilable Differences? Human Diversity,Cultural Relativity,and Sense of Community

Sense of community (SOC) is one of the most widely used and studied constructs in community psychology. As proposed by Sarason in (The Psychological sense of community: prospects for a community psychology, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 1974), SOC represents the strength of bonding among community members. It is a valuable component of community life, and it has been linked to positive mental health outcomes, citizen participation, and community connectedness. However, promotion of SOC can become problematic in community psychology praxis when it conflicts with other core values proposed to define the field, namely values of human diversity, cultural relativity, and heterogeneity of experience and perspective. Several commentators have noted that promotion of SOC can conflict with multicultural diversity because it tends to emphasize group member similarity and appears to be higher in homogeneous communities. In this paper, we introduce the idea of a community-diversity dialectic as part of praxis and research in community psychology. We argue that systematic consideration of cultural psychology perspectives can guide efforts to address a community-diversity dialectic and revise SOC formulations that ultimately will invigorate community research and action. We provide a working agenda for addressing this dialectic, proposing that systematic consideration of the creative tension between SOC and diversity can be beneficial to community psychology.     

The Challenge of Postmodernism and the Health of Theology

This article addresses the situation of contemporary theological thinking in relation to postmodernism, or contemporary Continental philosophy. Using a criterion of health from Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis, it argues that theology should avoid either simpleminded assimilation of postmodernism or closeminded rejection. After critically surveying some current theological movements and figures, such as Radical Orthodoxy, I turn away from a paradigm of theology based on Barth to one based on Paul Tillich. Finally, an alternative notion of health is elaborated which leads to a deep and transformative encounter between postmodernism and theology.     

Fight the power: the limits of empiricism and the costs of positivistic rigor

A summary of the influence of positivistic philosophy and empiricism on the field of psychology is followed by a critique of the empirical method. The dialectic process is advocated as an alternative method of inquiry. The main advantage of the dialectic method is that it is open to any logical argument, including empirical hypotheses, but unlike empiricism, it does not automatically reject arguments that are not based on observable data. Evolutionary and moral psychology are discussed as examples of important fields of study that could benefit from types of arguments that frequently do not conform to the empirical standards of systematic observation and falsifiability of hypotheses. A dialectic method is shown to be a suitable perspective for those fields of research, because it allows for logical arguments that are not empirical and because it fosters a functionalist perspective, which is indispensable for both evolutionary and moral theories. It is suggested that all psychologists may gain from adopting a dialectic approach, rather than restricting themselves to empirical arguments alone.