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This paper describes the methodological design of a qualitative research strategy that followed the bricolage approach. The research, a qualitative case study, followed the empowerment journey of 12 adult learners in a second chance educational programme, aiming at recording the mechanisms through which the learners were empowered or disempowered. The initial plan to use a single methodology was modified to address the challenges that raised from the study itself. This modification led to the implementation of the bricolage approach. Following the bricolage principles opened a space of a creative combination of different methodologies, theories, and tools and the implementation of all the five types of bricolage, namely the theoretical, the methodological, the interpretive, the narrative, and the political. The paper presents a detailed account on how bricolage was developed as a "custom-fit" construct to serve the goals of the study. Hermeneutic Phenomenology and Critical Discourse Analysis were the two main methodologies combined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, Eric Santner's theory of political flesh is appreciated in its relation to philosophy of religion and Christian theology. In the first part of the paper, Santner's speculative concept is brought into conversation with the debate on embodiment, incarnation, and a hermeneutics of the flesh. Santner's conception of the flesh is shown to follow a logic of excarnation, or rather disincorporation, and thus to be at odds with contemporary harmonistic theories of embodiment that attempt to think body and spirit together without rupture. In contrast, the relevance of Santner's theory lies precisely in its antagonistic reading of the dynamics that constitute human embodied being – a dimension overlooked by most recent theories of embodiment. The second part of the article develops a reading of Protestantism as a "religion of the flesh" in line with Santner's argument. In doing so, it is shown that the Protestant narrative of self-modernization and progress (Hegel's "religion of freedom") can be subverted by the conception of the flesh brought into play by Santner, revealing a much more ambivalent history of Protestantism. In a re-reading of the theologies of Karl Barth, Friedrich Schleiermacher, and John Calvin, it is shown that the Protestant understanding of the church can be made transparent to a figure of the undead that is virulent in it, namely the undead flesh of Jesus Christ. In the end, the question is raised whether this figure of an "undead" Christ might not be interpreted as a paradoxological intervention in the sense of Eric Santner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the relationship between exile and migration as reflected in a case study of biblical exegesis in modern Jewish thought. I consider the place of the biblical figure of Joseph in an early text by Léon Askenazi (also known as Manitou), a North African kabbalist and French intellectual, and a key spiritual leader of Francophone Jewry in the second half of the twentieth century. The paper begins by locating Askenazi within the mass migration, or "repatriation", of the Algerian Jewish community to metropolitan France. I then examine and analyze the reinterpretation of Joseph in an early and unpublished text by Askenazi. I show how Askenazi's explication departs from a common reading of the Joseph story by recasting it as a positive diasporic narrative with direct contemporary implications. I argue that during Askenazi's early years in Paris, he sought to offer a "Josephic" model for Jewish life in postwar France, a model which also functioned as an alternative to the Zionist ethos of the negation of exile. The paper's conclusion reflects on how Askenazi's ideas may speak to conversations on religion and immigration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses an innovative use of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) within a coach development research project. Since its introduction, key authors of IPA have been inviting researchers to innovate within the methodology. However, the response to the invitation has, to-date, been limited. In this paper, we address this absence by reflecting on the methodological choices within a recent global coaching study. This study is innovative compared to many IPA studies due to (a) the relatively large sample size; (b) involvement of multiple researchers and analysts; (c) researchers being part of the community and having direct experience of the phenomenon being investigated and (d) introduction of additional analytical steps. These individually and taken together within one project, provide a unique IPA research design. Our innovation facilitated a detailed account of the participants' experience and a clear research output with implications for practice and research. This novel approach to IPA may help improve the scholarly confidence to innovate within qualitative methodologies in general, but particularly within IPA studies. The benefits of our approach – such as richness and enhanced understanding of the diversity of the phenomenon – may encourage scholars to explore bolder research designs to uncover hidden phenomena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The notion of ‘tradition' still haunts anthropological discourse as something to be addressed with great scepticism and suspicion. Anthropologists are usually among the first to highlight the supposed impetus for reification that inhabits the idea of tradition, as well as its nationalistic, ideological, or political functions. Taking as a point of departure the Japanese notion of furusato (‘hometown', ‘native place') and its interpretation as an ‘invented tradition’, this paper attempts to look beyond the surface of these kind of functionalist evaluations and invites anthropologists to consider instead the mode of being and coming to be of tradition in human worlds; in other words, not the truth about tradition but the truth of tradition. Our understanding of tradition will be enhanced – this paper proposes – if we see it not as the 'thing' transmitted, but as the horizon of intelligibility disclosed and set in motion by that which is transmitted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper interprets the concept of δοῦλος in 1 Timothy 6:1-2 in the context of socio-economic slavery in Nigeria. Using the liberation hermeneutics approach, the paper argues that the concept of δοῦλος in 1 Timothy 6:1-2 is a typical reflection of injustice and oppression to the person or group being socio-economically exploited. The resonance of the text with the Ibibio narrative of socio-economic slavery in Nigeria is the similarity of treatments accorded the δοῦλος in domestic and economic affairs in first-century Greco-Roman setting. Drawing on existing literature and the text in view, it interrogates the meaning of δοῦλος in a Greco-Roman setting and the status accorded the δοῦλος in the original and contemporary socio-economic settings of the study. The result shows that δοῦλος is interpreted to mean slavery. It recommends that the Church and state should put resources together to carry out economic and educational empowerment for the youth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ian McEwan's The Children Act serves as a profound narrative inquiry into the intricate legal challenges of British civil court practice. This paper responds to the scholarly omission of the law's practical portrayal in the novel by foregrounding its hermeneutic dimensions. Beginning with the novel's illustration of legal contradictions, the study examines law as a form of social praxis. It emphasizes the interpretive nature shared by both law and literature, and applies hermeneutic theory to elucidate the impact of individual subjectivities on the interpretation of law as depicted through the novel's characters. Concluding with an analysis from the legal practitioners' standpoint, the research navigates through the paradoxes and pragmatic realities inherent in legal proceedings. By conducting this hermeneutic exploration of The Children Act, the paper enhances our understanding of its thematic underpinnings and provides substantive hermeneutic contributions to the field of legal research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a hermeneutic technology assessment of quantum technologies. It offers a “vision assessment” of quantum technologies that can eventually lead to socio-ethical analysis. Section 2 describes this methodological approach and in particular the concept of the hermeneutic circle applied to technology. Section 3 gives a generic overview of quantum technologies and their impacts. Sections 4 and 5 apply the hermeneutic technology assessment approach to the study of quantum technologies. Section 5 proposes distinguishing three levels in the analysis of the creation and communication of social meanings to quantum technologies: (a) fictions, (b) popularization, and (c) scientific journalism. Section 6 analyzes the results and defines some lines of action to increase social acceptance and trust in quantum technologies. The aim of this paper is to contribute to the debate on quantum technologies by enhancing the reflection on them and their potential, as well as illustrating the complexity of technological innovation and the need to shape it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alfredo Panizo was a philosopher who served in various capacities at the University of Santo Tomas (UST) during the twentieth century. In 1954, he gave an address at the university that was also published in book form as Art and Morals. In his address/book, Panizo systematically laid out his aesthetics, which offers a criticism of modern art during a time when Edades and other modernists received institutional support from UST. Unfortunately, scholars have neither provided a comprehensive explication of Panizo's aesthetics nor situated it in the broader history of Philippine modern art. This paper aims to address this problem. By employing Gadamerian hermeneutics, the author of the paper offers an interpretation of Panizo's aesthetics that (1) forms a connection between his ideas and S. P. Lopez's thoughts on proletarian art, (2) explicates Panizo's views on beauty and transcendence, and (3) investigates Panizo's position on modern art. Through this paper, the author hopes to add more nuance to the story of modern art in the Philippines. Although much has been written about the modernists, who made UST a springboard for spreading their ideas, scholars have barely looked at what the Dominicans at the university thought about modern art. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is about the opposite of judgement and calculation. This opposition has been a traditional anchor of critiques concerned with the rise of AI decision making over human judgement. Contrary to these approaches, it is argued that human judgement is not and cannot be replaced by calculation, but that it is human judgement that contextualises computational structures and gives them meaning and purpose. The article focuses on the epistemic structure of algorithms and artificial neural networks to find that they always depend on human judgement to be related to real life objects or purposes. By introducing the philosophical concept of judgement, it becomes clear that the property of judgement to provide meaning and purposiveness is based on the temporality of human life and the ambiguity of language, which quantitative processes lack. A juxtaposition shows that calculations and clustering can be used and referred to in more or less prejudiced and reflecting as well as opaque and transparent ways, but thereby always depend on human judgement. The paper clearly asserts that the transparency of AI is necessary for their autonomous use. This transparency requires the explicitness of the judgements that constitute these computational structures, thereby creating an awareness of the conditionality of such epistemic entities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tsenay Serequeberhan's hermeneutics has been crucial to the development of African philosophy. Initially employed as a pathway through the ethno- and professional philosophical debates, scholars have engaged how Serequeberhan's hermeneutics grapples with one's own place within a socio-historical world in service of liberation/self-determination. However, this scholarship mainly has focused on his adaptation of Gadamer's 'effective-historical consciousness' for his own concept of heritage. This consequently leaves his concept of a 'lived existence' – which is equally crucial – under-examined. This paper probes what a 'lived existence' entails and its essentiality when explicating how one even begins to authentically think, which is the groundwork to Serequeberhan's hermeneutics. This deepens why his concept of heritage matters as a starting point for self-determination. Addressing this lacuna, this article asks, where does philosophy begin and where should it go, particularly when rationality has been historically denied? Serequeberhan's point of departure to answer this question proposes Heidegger's concept of thinking itself to arrive at a notion of existence; contrariwise to most African scholars who employ a Sartrean existentialism via Frantz Fanon. As such, this paper gives an in-depth exploration of Serequeberhan's initial reading of Heidegger, and then unfolds how he appropriates Heidegger to craft his notion of 'lived existence'. The upshot this is twofold: First, a broader understanding of Serequeberhan's project, its non-existentialist view of existence; Second, it describes how he specifically tailors his 'lived existence' to undergird his hermeneutical approach to heritage as a prescriptive, activist project which dynamically addresses the postcolonial situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accessible Summary What is known on the subject? What the paper adds to existing knowledge? implications for practice? Introduction Aim/Question Method Results Discussion Implications for Practice In daily psychiatric practice, understanding individuals often involves formulating the clinical case, which may lead to viewing them solely as symptoms to be solved. Consequently, it can be challenging to see the individual beyond their symptoms. However, trying to understand the individual by his/her writings about narratives can offer broader perspectives and extend beyond being a medium for patients to express their experiences. On understanding writing, hermeneutics will be a resourceful method. This study aims to propose a reevaluation of the nature of therapeutic communication among individuals with schizophrenia, psychiatrists, and psychiatric nurses by interpreting their writings on the same written narratives through a hermeneutic analysis. Our study has unique features compared to previous studies on communication between mental health professionals and patients. We directly investigated the act of understanding through the writings of the three groups of participants. The participants were also engaged in reading and writing about the narratives instead of relying on clinical interviews or self‐report questionnaires. To the best of our knowledge, our study is the first hermeneutic study to examine the nature of reflection while all three groups encounter the same narratives as readers. The results point to the need for psychiatrists/psychiatric nurses to develop new perspectives and skills in understanding/interacting with individuals with schizophrenia. Our study could be a pioneer sample in applying hermeneutics as a prevailing method to mental health nursing practice. Understanding individuals with schizophrenia is an essential but challenging phenomenon in psychiatry.This study proposes a reevaluation of the nature of therapeutic communication among individuals with schizophrenia, psychiatrists and psychiatric nurses by interpreting their writings on the same written narratives through a hermeneutic analysis.In this study, employing a qualitative descriptive methodology utilising hermeneutic analysis, participants read the five narratives, wrote down their opinions on each narratives and answered nine questions to express their own personal writing experiences.Participants from each group acted as both ‘readers’ and ‘authors’ while rewriting the selected five short narratives based on their own sense of readings. The expression, rewriting refers to the act of reading and written interpretations of participants and researchers in this study. While individuals with schizophrenia primarily focused on the text (narrative) in their readings and writings, psychiatrists and psychiatric nurses tended to focus on reader (themselves) in their interpretations.Although reading should be approached as a process of discovery rather than merely seeking predetermined knowledge, psychiatrists and psychiatric nurses read the narratives as if the author were a patient or as the signs of an illness.The results point to the need for psychiatrists/psychiatric nurses to develop new perspectives and skills in understanding and interacting with individuals with schizophrenia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We are frequently confronted with moral situations that are unsettling, confusing, disorienting. We try to come to grips with them. When we do so, we engage in a distinctive type of moral inquiry: hermeneutical inquiry. Its aim is to make sense of our situation. What is it to make sense of one's situation? Hermeneutical inquiry is part of our everyday moral experience. Understanding its nature and its place in moral epistemology is important. Yet, I argue, that existing accounts of moral inquiry do not give us the resources to do so. This paper develops a positive account of hermeneutical inquiry. I argue that when we engage in hermeneutical inquiry, we search for an apt perspective on our situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is a reply to George Pattison's magistral triology on a "Philosophy of Christian Life" – focusing on its second part: "A Rhetorics of the Words" (2019). The paper offers an analysis of the main concept, namely the 'call' or the 'vocation'. This leads to three basic questions concerning the lack of vocation's communal character in Pattison's account; his one-sided inclination to pessimism in his cultural critique; and, the only marginal role that other articulations than the call might play within a "devout life" and its ambivalent authority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a qualitative methodological framework grounded in the interpretation of skeuomorphs. Scholarly attention to this phenomenon has largely come from the spheres of archaeology and design/technology. Drawing on Benjamin's ideas about the interpretive scope of objects, I propose that skeuomorphs reflect the social conditions of their creation and can therefore be the starting point for generating a series of contemporary sociological insights. The proposed framework is applied to two case studies for the purpose of clarification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This comment is analysing the last section of a paper by Piotr Blaszczyk, Mikhail G. Katz, and David Sherry on alleged misconceptions committed by historians of mathematics regarding the history of analysis, published in this journal in the first issue of 2013. Since this section abounds of wrong attributions and denouncing statements regarding my research and a key publication, the comment serves to rectify them and to recall some minimal methodological requirements for historical research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In establishing the Christian faith on African soil, the first missionaries to Africa came along with the Bible. They were determined to share the word of God with the indigenous Africans. This was undertaken effectively; however, it came at a cost. In an attempt to produce translated versions of the Bible for the natives, they ended up producing translations, some of which did not reflect the thoughts of the indigenous people. This has called for an enterprise whereby these texts need to be retranslated and interpreted to reflect the thoughts of the indigenous people. Mother-tongue biblical hermeneutics in Ghana has been advantageous to this enterprise since it seeks to remedy the situation by examining the mother-tongue translations and making proposals for retranslations and interpretation. This has attracted some scholars to come up with a methodology and approaches that would be appropriate in this direction. This paper seeks to assess and evaluate the use of the mother-tongue interpretation, as well as its methodology and approaches in Ghana in the light of African biblical hermeneutics. Though this enterprise is recommendable to African exegetes, it is a special area of biblical studies in search of a standard methodological approach. The paper calls for much attention to how the mother-tongue interpretation could bring the meaning of the text closer to the culture of the Ghanaian reader—however, not at the expense of neglecting the cultural milieu of the original author in which the text was couched. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines Nietzsche’s intellectual integrity, with a view to showing that despite his attempt to overcome metaphysics, using this concept, Nietzsche remains within the comfort of metaphysics. Intellectual integrity represents Nietzsche’s unique style of questioning and his critical method of analysing Western metaphysical foundations. It is a flexible and dialectic principle, which approaches the question of ‘being’ as a dynamic process of endless interpretations and becoming, instead of as a fixed essence or a metaphysical absolute. Attempts are made, in the paper, to examine the dynamics of Nietzsche’s intellectual integrity, as well as its intimate link with other key concepts in his philosophy. To achieve its goal, the paper adopts the method of historical hermeneutics and textual analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines Emmanuel Levinas's philosophical development from Totality and Infinity to Otherwise than Being as a self-critique and revised understanding of Martin Heidegger. It focuses on later Levinas's analysis of language in terms of the difference between Saying and Said. For Levinas, the Said represents the betrayal of ethical Saying into ontological essence. This echoes Heidegger's notion of the forgetfulness of Being in beings. However, Levinas critiques Heidegger's own philosophy as remaining within the Said. The paper explores three strategies of "unsaying" that Levinas discerns in Western philosophy to disrupt ontological Said: ontology itself, skepticism, and philosophical conversation. It argues that Levinas ultimately seeks an alternative "prophetic" mode of language beyond philosophy that enacts difference, which the paper relates to Talmud. The paper claims that the later Levinas no longer simply opposes Greek to Jewish thought, but rather seeks to deploy a specifically Jewish form of language to interrupt Western metaphysics from within. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to provide empirical evidence of the role of Social Entrepreneurship (SE) in bridging the Gender Gap. The unprecedented rise in the social and economic issues in developing countries, like Pakistan, has fostered efforts to achieve a new organizational model under SE to counter the said issues. SE is a new way of offering an innovative and creative solution to the problems of societies. In this paper, the authors have examined the role of SE in overcoming the GG in society, which is otherwise left unaddressed. A qualitative study is conducted by adopting the hermeneutic view of reality. The data is collected by conducting a semi-structured interview with social entrepreneurs working in Pakistan. For validating the findings, the secondary source of data is collected from the published reports by the British Council consulting on the role of SE in Pakistan. Findings revealed that SE is contributing to reducing the GG in Pakistan through increased women empowerment and employment. It is helping to create more opportunities for women in the field and overcoming the social issues of the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As Pentecostalism continues to develop distinct processes, practices, and pedagogies as a unique worshipping community within the Church, little attention has been given to the production of a Pentecostal homiletic, or, at the very least, whether there is a need for one. Since Pentecostal hermeneutics has continued to evolve and solidify over the past century, it naturally follows that the next question to answer would be this: how do Pentecostals produce their sermons? This paper will address the philosophies of the Church; how worldview/hermeneutics/didoiesis build upon each other within the worshipping community; how Pentecostals view the church service, with specific attention to the sermon; and what Pentecostal homiletics would look like practically. Additionally, this paper argues that not only do Pentecostals provide renewal and re-enchanted views of scripture: but they also establish a unique 11-step homiletic, building upon the works of Karl Barth, James K.A. Smith, Chris E.W. Green, and Cheryl Bridges Johns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper concerns the essential and permanent place of roles and rules in human life, or what I call 'the dilemma of compliance.' The paper begins with previous scholarship warning therapists and psychologists about the danger of unknowingly reinforcing violent and toxic social expectations. A distinction is drawn between conformity and compliance, with the former standing for rote and mindless following of rules, and the latter a self-conscious and flexible way of relating to rules and roles. The paper argues that following rules and filling roles is unavoidable, and, consequently, a human life is always a double-life, divided between pre-existing, generic roles, and our private and unique way of relating to those roles. The crucial difficulty is learning to comply with rules and roles rather than merely conforming to them. Two extreme cases are examined to develop this problem of rules, roles, and living a double-life: schizophrenia and censorship. It is argued that schizophrenia and censorship are cases in which the place of rules and roles become overbearing and urgent. Finally, the paper argues that attention to the dilemma of compliance highlights the significance of trauma-informed care, as trauma is often connected to how one fits or does not fit into a social milieu constituted by roles, rules, and expectations. The arguments are developed primarily in historical, philosophical, and clinical terms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses a version of the hermeneutic philosophy of science. Special focus is placed on the ways of reading theoretical objects in scientific inquiry. In implementing readable technologies, this reading succeeds in contextually visualizing the theoretical objects by means of various sorts of signs. A configuration of readable technology accomplishes a further step. The configuration textualizes the contextually produced signs. Textualizing the reading of theoretical objects interlaces the meaningful articulation and objectification of scientific domains. The horizon of possibilities for textualizing is constantly shifting in the process of normal-scientific inquiry, and the shifting horizon plays the role of a hermeneutic fore-structuring of the outcomes of textualizing. The paper explores the importance of "material hermeneutics" for the contextual reading of theoretical objects. The conclusion is drawn that the hermeneutic study of the entanglement of technological artifacts with the outcomes from reading-as-textualizing requires the introduction of ontic-ontological difference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I would like to introduce the notion of machine hermeneutics in this paper. The notion refers to hermeneutical activity performed by machines. Machines are now capable of making the very interpretive tasks, using artificial intelligence algorithms based on the technology of machine learning that used to be the exclusive domain of human beings. In making this claim, I am not talking about possible conscious machines of the future, but those existing here and now. With facial recognition algorithms, for example, machines are now performing routinely what must be regarded as hermeneutical analyses with astounding accuracy and power. Thus, machine hermeneutics supplements Don Ihde's notion of material hermeneutics. In the latter, it is still human beings who do the interpretation, through the lenses provided the natural sciences; in this case, the natural sciences, or the technology afforded by the sciences, intervene between the human being and the world. In machine hermeneutics, on the contrary, the intervening comes in two layers. On the one hand, there is the usual intervention that Ihde talks about, but on the other, the artificial intelligence algorithm performs its own kind of intervention and interpretation, presenting an already interpreted result to the human beings, who then perceive it through the aid of the usual intervention such as the normal eyeglasses. Then the paper discusses the problem of how to justify the kind of perception that undergoes this process. In what sense can it be said that the algorithm is performing the right action, i.e., one such that the process comes up with a right picture of the world? I contend that this does not merely consist of technical excellence for the technology involved, but also ethical excellence. The two cannot be considered one apart from the other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a combination of a grandfather's musings over his grandson's drawings, combined with a reconsideration of hermeneutics as an early childhood educational theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is important to explore the ways that the working lives of persons provides meaning in personal, professional, and organizational ways. In this paper, the author utilized the processes of Parse's (2021a) humanbecoming hermeneutic sciencing (discoursing with penetrating engaging, interpreting with quiescent beholding, and understanding with inspiring envisaging) and the leading-following model to further understanding of the meaning of "working" through Stephen Schwarz's Broadway show, Working, the Musical (Browning & Schwartz, 1982/2002). Although not a formal sciencing project, this interpretive reflection provided a way to "see" how work is "lived out" uniquely. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The curriculum work of teachers is understood and conceptualised in different ways. A prevalent view is that teachers are an integral part of a system of transmission and their work with curriculum essentially a technical exercise. Some form of this view seems to be assumed by policymakers, parents and at least some teachers. However, when this same work is considered from the perspective of interpretation theory or 'hermeneutics', a contrasting picture emerges. Rather than positioning teachers as relays of explicit information, interpretation theory alerts us to the complexities and uncertainties inherent in the reading, appreciation and application of texts. On this view, meaning is not stable but transformed through interpretation, and the process itself has no definite end point. Interpretation theory thus undermines major assumptions of the technical‐transmission understanding of curriculum work. In this paper, the potential contribution of this body of theory to illuminating curriculum work is explored. Noting that hermeneutics is a vast area of study, a selection of concepts will be made that demonstrates some of these insights. The exploration will yield both critical and generative contributions to curriculum theory. The way hermeneutics undermines the transmission view of teachers' curriculum work will become clear, and at the same time, the inherent creativity of curriculum interpretation becomes an inescapable feature of teacher expertise that could be celebrated rather than neglected, denied or repressed. A hermeneutic analysis of curriculum work thus has implications for what teachers know and do and for their role in contemporary society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hermeneutical religious positions among Muslim educators vary in flexibility and openness to critical thought. Those within a school community may disagree on how Islam should be interpreted and practiced. In the light of this, who determines which expressions of the faith are acceptable in particular locations, and how? And what messages do these processes send to students? Based on 18 months of ethnographic research at a K-12 Islamic school in the midwestern United States, this paper describes conflict-ridden instances in which school faculty subtly communicated interpretive norms through implication or example. These demonstrate select ways that distinct approaches to Islam were constructed and contested within the community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is a reply to George Pattison's magistral triology on a "Philosophy of Christian Life" – focusing on its second part: "A Rhetorics of the Words" (2019). The paper offers an analysis of the main concept, namely the 'call' or the 'vocation'. This leads to three basic questions concerning the lack of vocation's communal character in Pattison's account; his one-sided inclination to pessimism in his cultural critique; and, the only marginal role that other articulations than the call might play within a "devout life" and its ambivalent authority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Every stage of a construction project has a time and cost aspect. Project delays are normal and frequently happen in the construction industry. Delays have a massive impact on completing deadlines for projects, managing cash flow, and maintaining the appropriate level of quality. This paper aims to identify the financial problems facing by the contractor of construction sector and their effects on the projects in Kedah and Perlis. The goal of the study was to identify the options and tactical approaches that may be used to address these financial issues, as well as to analyse the causes, consequences, and repercussions of these issue. The hermeneutic phenomenology method is chosen for this study and six respondents who were chosen based on their expertise and skill in managing building projects in rural areas with more than 10 years of experience participated in structured interview sessions utilising standard semi-structured questions. The paper reveals that the critical financial issues in Kedah and Perlis of the construction industry are the withholding of payment by the approval parties, lack of cash flow management, past due payment received from the client, difficulties in obtaining funds from financial institutions, and inflation. The recommendations made to enhance and resolve the financial issues encountered, meaning that all these things had to take place earlier stage in the construction process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

African contextual biblical hermeneutics, practiced mainly among those from the southern hemisphere, is framed by conflicting academic approaches, methods, epistemologies, rationalities, etc. The general challenge put before the Bible scholars in this part of the world mostly concerns methodologies. This paper focuses on the link between a biblical text and the context of its interpretation. To avoid any specific context or interpreter gaining hermeneutical hegemony over the text, in contextual biblical hermeneutics, the coherence should be first and foremost between the text and the context of its interpretation. The interpretation method of Ifá, the sacred orature of Yoruba and some non-Yoruba people in West Africa, helps to achieve that coherence. This paper is a theoretical presentation of what a contextual biblical hermeneutic can learn from this African Sacred literature reading in context. The hermeneutical rationale of Ifá stories is one of "speaking in proverbs", considering both the stories and their interpretations as proverbs. In line with this rationale, the ideal link between a biblical text and its hermeneutical context is like the one between a "proverb story" and the many stories (contexts) of its harmonious utterances. The epistemological and hermeneutical functions of the context of interpretation are not to interpret the biblical text but to verify the validity of proposed interpretations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines some of the issues surrounding this 'computational turn' and proposes a 'human focused' approach. It begins by addressing questions concerning whether there is a need empirical evidence in literary studies, and the roles played by human and technical agents in interpretative practices. It adopts Don Ihde Postphenomenological ideas (especially 'embodiment' and 'hermeneutics' human-technology relations) to expatiate on the nature of relationship that exists between a literary scholar and a computational tool during interpretative practices. On one hand, it uses postphenomenomelogy as a theoretical framework to provides rich conceptual terminologies by which we could interrogate humanists-computer relationship within the practice of computational textual analysis. And on the other hand, uses postphenomenology method to highlight the notion of subjectivity in contrast to the promise of observer-independent objectivity. The research appraise the impact of quantification and visualizations in literary studies using the research output of Franco Moretti and his colleagues at the Stanford Lit Lab, as well as performs textual experimentation on some corpora using Stefan Sinclair and Geoffrey Rockwell's Voyant tools and Python NLP packages. But refutes the idea that quantification and visualization of textual data with the use of computational tools and methods could guarantee objectivity of textual interpretation in literary studies. The argument in this paper is divided across its three sections: The first section discusses the goal of reading; it concerns 'Close reading' and 'Distant reading'. The second section questions the possibility of objectivity in textual interpretation using quantifiable and visual evidence provided as the output of the computational analysis of humanistic texts. Then, in the third section defends the following claims: a) the human person is the principal actor in the interpretation process, and all other forms of representation or visualisation of the text are meant to aid humans; b. data in the humanities are not limited to printed texts, but include digitised, born-digital and electronic text in various digital forms (images, sounds, videos, etc.); c. the humanities aim more at interpretive practices than a quest for verifiable knowledge; d. interpretative practices in the humanities focus on humans and their experiences; e. attention must be drawn to human developers' subjectivity whenever we are using computational interpretative tools – on the ground that this will help in bracketing of our biases, prejudices, preconceptions, and theoretical frameworks. The paper concludes with the argument that computational tools used for textual analysis in the humanities need interpretation as they are not neutral in hermeneutic practices. It argues that the humans involved in the creation of those tools are prone to errors, have preferences, and incorporate their subjective ideas into developmental processes. Then proposes 'Hermeneutical Postphenomenology' as an ideal lens through which the claim to objectivity could be debunked. Then recommends that our productivity in textual scholarship can be enriched when we understand the true nature of the relationship between the human inquirer and technical agents within the cognitive assemblage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Background: Much has been published related to the epistemology of Heideggerian hermeneutic research. We seek to reveal insights from our experience of enacting such research. Objective: To articulate the lived experience of ‘doing’ Heideggerian hermeneutic research. Design: The authors of this paper shared their experiences with the primary author towards articulating the process of ‘doing’ such research. Participants: The authors all have long experience with Heideggerian hermeneutic research and meet regularly at the Institute for Interpretive Phenomenology. They supervise student''s research and are mindful of the process of coming to understand how to work in a phenomenological/hermeneutic manner. Methods: First the section on philosophical underpinnings was written by the primary author and then shared with all authors. There was published data related to the experience of three of the participants already available. This provided a spring board to further conversations when the primary author visited America, able to engage in daily conversations with three of the co-authors. In the spirit of phenomenology this paper represents a process of reading, talking, writing, talking, reading, re-writing, re-talking and so forth. Results: The process of doing hermeneutic phenomenology is represented as a journey of ‘thinking’ in which researchers are caught up in a cycle of reading-writing-dialogue- which spirals onwards. Through such disciplined and committed engagement insights ‘come’. The researcher is always open to questions, and to following a felt-sense of what needs to happen next. However, it is not a process of ‘do whatever you like’ but rather a very attentive attunement to ‘thinking’ and listening to how the texts speak. Conclusion: This paper argues that alongside a disciplined understanding of the methodology, both researcher and reader need to share a commitment to ‘thinking’ which is willing to question, and open to trusting the resonance of understanding that ‘comes’ without expecting answers that are declared ‘truth’ for all time. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In this paper I take up Dana Amir's concept of the “chameleon language” of perversion considering Wittgenstein's idea of thelanguage-gameand the necessity of taking up the context of communication. The setting of psychoanalysis represents a new context for the language of perversion, one that at first implicitly and later explicitly recognizes the bid for tenderness beneath the stealth. I suggest it is the analyst's willingness to risk vulnerability in this game, as much as the interpretation of perverse pacts, that fosters clinical change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the version of doctor Hermann Argelander on the hermeneutic foundation of psychoanalysis. It says that the communication processes between psychoanalyst and its patient take place in the preconscious level which can be apprehended by situational and subjective perception. It also mentions that scenic understanding as the essential tool of perception.

A good interpretation contributes to the patient's feeling of being witnessed or recognized. Recognition is an affective experience, not a matter of truth value, so that the truth in an interpretation, while it may be necessary to the recognition, is not sufficient. In fact, since interpretation is hardly the only form in which recognition can be couched, a good outcome can take place apart from any kind of interpretation. But this does not mean that new understanding is unimportant. It's just that the place of that new understanding in clinical process matters more than its content. I discuss Ellen F. Fries'case of Andres from this perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper studies the concept of "ontological pluralism", developed by Heidegger scholar Iain Thomson, in relation to the waḥdat al-wujūd framework of Ibn ʻArabī's school. Heidegger's ontological difference between being and entities, and the definition of being in excess of any particular entitative determination, calls for an ethic of pluralism and acceptance of the myriad ways in which being is encountered and understood. In my paper, this pluralism—and its conceptual foundation on the meaning and reality of being—is developed further through Ibn ʻArabī's complex distinction and interpenetration between the Real's transcendence (tanzīh) and immanence (tashbīh). The pluralistic and polysemic possibilities of this Akbarian "transimmanence" is compared with Heideggerian ontological pluralism, using Milad Milani's recent Heideggerian approach to the study of Sufism. This comparison asks if elements of a robust pluralism cannot be found in an avowedly premodern metaphysical framework like that of Ibn ʻArabī, thereby attempting to trouble the uniqueness of the critical breaks in the history of modern Western thought. An attempt to develop a decolonial approach to the study of pluralism sees waḥdat al-wujūd and its later development not just as an object of historical analysis but as a theoretical framework that can positively inform our political and ethical concerns. This is why this paper brings together Heideggerian and Akbarian approaches to pluralism in their own terms. This combined conceptual framework is then used to bring to light the Akbarian pluralism in the life, death, and writings of subcontinental Sufis like Dārā Shikōh and Sarmad Kāshānī. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A key epistemological assumption in the ideologies of many of the groups termed extremist is that there is an unmediated access to a Divine Will. Driven by this assumption, and facilitated by several other factors, a range of coercive actions (including violence) to force others into submission to the perceived Will of God are seen as justified by some of these groups. A consideration of how religion is discussed in various contexts, from seminaries and schools to media and policy discourses, shows that this assumption about unmediated access to Divine Will is widely shared and that most children grow up socialized into it. In this paper, Farid Panjwani argues that challenging this assumption through educational settings can help young people acquire critical capacities that may lead to a critique of extremist narratives, thereby decreasing their attractions. In this regard, the paper draws upon a range of theoretical ideas, for example, the hermeneutical tradition (in particular the work of Hans‐Georg Gadamer), as well as historical and textual examples, to make a case for a rethinking of religious education to develop more critical capacities among the students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper critically approaches the connections established by Heidegger between phenomenology and hermeneutics throughout his work in view of the defense of the philosophical richness of its inseparability beyond Heidegger’s works. To do so the paper proposes a consideration of Heidegger’s works in two parts, considering two concepts of destruction: the 20’s is considered under the concept of phenomenological destruction and the 30’s under the concept of poetical destruction. The aim is to understand the continuities and ruptures through the different stages of Heidegger’s works from the 20’s to the 30’s, which is presented by analyses of the phenomenological approach in the 20’s and the onto-(theo)-poetical of the 30’s. The hypothesis is that the contrasting analysis of this two moments of Heidegger’s work reveals a change from hermeneutics to phenomenology, which in philosophical terms would be a loss, not of something merely accidental, but the loss of “the thing itself” to which both phenomenology and hermeneutics refer to. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Ferenczi produced elaborations on the regression, the traumatism, the transference and counter transference which question deeply the practice of the cure. His first texts (1908–1912) ask still current clinical questions (on the status of the interpretation and on the place of the body and of the acting in the cures, on the status of the language) and open the way to the elaborations of other psychoanalysts. They will be used as a point of departure of our reflection. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The aim of this paper is to analyze the hermeneutical nature of the concept of the understanding-of-being that grounds Heidegger's fundamental ontology. I first consider the merging between ontology and hermeneutics that takes place in Being and Time and then interpret the hermeneutical sections of Being and Time (§§ 31-32) in order to clarify the ontological scope of understanding, interpretation, and meaning. This allows me to examine the three dimensions of the "understanding-of-being principle" (according to which our encounter with entities is made possible by an understanding-of-being): the semantic, the ontological, and the transcendental. Finally, I try to make sense of the problematic use Heidegger makes of the concept of understanding for both the ontic encounter with entities and the ontological access to being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to bring together two trends in contemporary phenomenological research: an investigation of the sciences and a re-examination of Martin Heidegger's understanding of logic and inference. I will do so by examining the foundations of the "just-as" truth found in the sciences, finding that scientific truth claims rest on apophantic speech, the contextual nature of disclosure, and, ultimately, the as-structure of Dasein. This leads to the implication that the laws of inference for the sciences are based on how beings show themselves within a science rather than preceding the sciences. I will finish by showing that this implies logical and scientific pluralism and the rejection of philosophical naturalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues against Galen Strawson’s criticism of the narrativist identity thesis. Strawson points out that the narrativist thesis fails to portray those with an episodic perception of themselves. I claim that episodicity is rather problematic and that we should question the validity of this notion. The first step in this goal is to decipher Strawson’s basis of the self which is an amalgam between the cultural and social and is perceived differently by different people. Afterwards, I will try to use the claims derived from Strawson’s basis and apply the critique of his method. I pose a question about the relationship between episodic and diachronic and, ultimately, argue that both culturally and biologically, assuming the diachronic aspect of the self is necessary, apart from the very small number of cases. In this sense, the main conclusion is that Strawson’s thesis is limiting but does not pose a valid alternative to the narrativist identity thesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the horrors of the Second World War, Henri de Lubac and Simone Weil both discovered the potential of tropological self-techniques and applied biblical resources to shed light on the crises and catastrophes of their time to develop possible ways out. There is an original understanding of revelation at the heart of tropological hermeneutics. According to this understanding, the object of interpretation regarding divine revelation is the lived now and it applies Scripture as its interpretative tool. The paper outlines the individual perspectives of Henri de Lubac and Simone Weil by suggesting a concept how this understanding of revelation can be described within the historical horizon of the Second World War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For Lorraine Daston, humans long to possess a knowledge formation that transcends the limitations of our species. After briefly introducing the wider project of which this paper forms a part -- a rethinking of solidarity for the Anthropocene -- I sketch a program for philosophical anthropology I call (repurposing Johann Michel) homo interpretans, the human as most basically a hermeneutic animal, by way of an extended quarrel with Daston. In doing so, my aim is to press the hermeneutics of revelation in two new directions: first by taking Daston's claim (theology haunts epistemology) as opening a fresh vantage onto Christian hermeneutics' own locus classicus, Augustine's De Doctrina; second by showing how this unlikely convergence of Christian hermeneutics and modern history of science matters for the task of rethinking solidarity in the present amid racial modernity. I organize this argument by contending that Daston's claim above is at once brilliant (Part 1) and odd (Part 2), then I turn to sketch its salience for rethinking the human within the world race built by a brief suggestive engagement with the notion of homo narrans in the work of Black feminist theorist Sylvia Wynter (Part 4). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to explore the connection between Ricoeur's account of the linguistic imagination and his preference for understanding revelation as a matter of the world of the text rather than of religious experience. To understand revelation as poetic is not to violate the purity and alterity of the phenomena but to remain open to the poetic richness of the world of the text, which creates new meaning and enables new ways of being. To make this argument, I will follow Ricoeur's method of detour-- return. The first detour--return will traverse Ricoeur's account of the productive imagination and consider how the notion of the "world of the text" can enrich our understanding of revelation as the revelation of a new world that we can inhabit. In the second detour--return, I will consider the role of critical distanciation in the preservation of discernment. An important part of this argument will be an examination of Ricoeur's account of the human being as a mixture of finite and infinite. I argue that this implies that human finitude is not utterly opposed to divine infinitude and that, by extension, human understanding is not always and only a contamination or limitation of the divine excess. In the final detour--return, I will follow Ricoeur's recommendation that a phenomenology of religion take the hermeneutical path of examining the texts in which religious phenomena come to expression. I will examine select passages from the Rig Veda to consider the possibilities for understanding revelation as a theo-poeisis -- viz., a divine creativity in which we participate. Ultimately, I hope to show that revelation involves the creation of a new world and the regeneration of human capability such that we can inhabit that world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I first lay out three reasons why hermeneutics is necessary for our understanding of God's self-Revelation. I then consider whether Jean-Luc Marion's work, "D'ailleurs, la Révélation", can measure up to this definition of hermeneutics by focusing in particular his analysis of the encounter with the Incarnate Christ in the scriptures. I argue that Marion's account is sufficiently hermeneutical, but only if we take into account his expansion of the very notion of hermeneutics to include what he calls its alethic as well as its apokalyptic dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to the ongoing debate surrounding the place of 'worldviews' in Religious Education. We examine the British Commission on Religious Education proposal that the subject be renamed 'Religions and Worldviews' from the perspective of Worldview Theory and Critical Religious Education and make the following suggestions: (a) the twin notion of 'ultimate nature of reality' and 'our place in the 'ultimate order-of things' provides a substantial content for RE largely absent from the Commission's vision; (b) worldviews are frequently implicit rather than explicitly affirmed in religious creeds and philosophical assertions; (c) worldviews are complex, interpersonal and take varying communal forms, surpassing the polarity of 'personal' and 'institutional'; (d) the concept of 'worldview' has pedagogic and hermeneutical potential transcending content-driven curriculum development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his commentary on the Qurʾān, Faḫr al-Dīn al-Rāzī makes use of various traditional and rational sciences, among them legal theory (uṣūl al-fiqh). This science plays a primary role within his exegetical device, since he draws from it many notions and arguments that allow him to propose new interpretations or to refute the opinions issued by his predecessors. The present paper aims to study the contribution of legal theory to al-Rāzī's exegesis. Our purpose is to show how this author uses the hermeneutical rules borrowed from the science of uṣūl al-fiqh and the benefits he derives from them, especially in the debates opposing him to other commentators of the Qurʾān. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]