ON THE USE OF GILLIAN ROSE

Three recent attempts to draw resources for theology from the work of philosopher and social theorist Gillian Rose are examined. Although her work has received little attention, it has been influential in the development of ‘Radical Orthodoxy’. Yet her dense style has led to many misunderstandings of her work. Each of the three attempts to draw theological resources from her work examined is problematic, either because it misrepresents Rose's work or because it reads Rose too narrowly. The outline of a positive account of Rose's philosophy is developed through critical engagements with these three readers. I suggest that an alternative theological appropriation of Rose that focuses on her account of the theological virtues, particularly faith and love, might be possible.     

Assessing Conversational Cognition Levels of Cognitive Theory and Associated Methodological Requirements

Despite the prominence of cognitively oriented research in interpersonal communication, relatively little is known about the interplay of cognitive and communicative processes during conversation. For interpersonal communication scholars or at least those interested in interaction, the study of cognition is most useful if it reveals how interactants produce, monitor, modify, and process messages while engaged in conversation. The failure to collect data about in-process conversational cognition is partially due to excessive reliance on what have been identified as “implementation level” cognitive theories and models. Such theories are primarily concerned with specifying cognitive “architectures” and provide little guidance about how cognition is adapted to conversational tasks. However, a dearth of methodological creativity is also partially to blame for the lack of data about in-process conversational cognition. On encountering the admittedly formidable methodological difficulties of collecting data about conversational cognition, researchers have tended to rely on traditional but inadequate methods, or worse, have simply ignored theoretical questions pertinent to cognition in-process. This article suggests that claims about cognition can be made at four levels—biological, implementation, algorithmic, and rational—but that theoretical claims about conversational cognition can most usefully be pursued at the rational and algorithmic levels. In an effort to promote more research at these levels, criteria for studying conversational cognition are proposed, and promising methods are reviewed.     

A Formal Model for the Study of Communication Support Systems

The lack of conceptual frameworks available for integrating research on organizational computer-based communication technologies is documented. An integrated model for studying communication support phenomena in organizations is formalized from a knowledge management perspective using set-theoretic notation. Key constructs for understanding and exploring communication support systems are identified, such as knowledge workers, knowledge management activities, communicate-abilities, and knowledge management episodes. The implications associated with the identification and formalization of each of the foregoing constructs is discussed and further research avenues are explored. The model provides researchers and system developers with a means of studying both human and computer-based knowledge workers in organizations. Two types of communication support systems are defined.