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Factors that determine the facilitation of stakeholders in environmental management – some philosophicalhistorical thoughts with the Merafong area as example
Get PDFIn essence, the article covers some fundamental principles of stakeholdership within a democratic process of environmental management. An effort is also made to point out several historical features of stakeholdership within the Wonderfonteinspruit (WFS) Catchment in the Merafong study area. Both these facets in the discussion accentuate stakeholdership as being primary participants (especially organisations that are government directed) and secondary participants (especially non-governmental organisations) in which both groups can reflect sufficient historical evidence in this economic environment to identify them as either the injurers, the injured or the participants/interested parties. To meaningfully conclude the discussion of stakeholdership in environmental management, some international and philosophical models and perspectives were also utilised to obtain a broader holistic perspective of a meaningful long-term stakeholder partnership. These applications, as reflected against a less fruitful awareness of the environmental practices in the past, can be applied efficiently in future stakeholder discussions regarding the WFS area as part of an approach featuring environmental justice and environmental remediation, compensation and monitoring
Religion, literature and identity in South Africa: the case of Alan Paton
Get PDFThis article draws on recent research into the early unpublished work of Alan Paton to suggest that the interrelationship of (English-language) literature and religion in South Africa is a much under-researched field despite numerous examples of such research elsewhere. One short case study based on Paton’s lecture on “God in modern thought” (1934) is offered. The value of a hermeneutic approach to literature that considers human identity in terms of incarnation, for example, is briefly argued and other possibilities suggested
Nuwe wyn in ou sakke? Hoe die morele grondslag van volhoubare ontwikkeling geskuif het
Get PDFNew wine in old wineskins? How the moral basis of sustainable development shifted This article traces the shift in the moral arguments in the sustainable development discourse, which occurred between 1972 and 2002. In the early 1970s ecological considerations were dominant and the zero-growth option had strong support. By the end of the 1980s the influential report of the Brundtland Commission recommended that the balance between the ecological, economic and social aspects of sustainable development ought to be maintained. From the 1990s there was a shift to poverty alleviation as the main focus of the sustainable development discourse. Representatives of the developing countries started making valuable contributions to the evolution of the concept of sustainable development and succeeded in merging the sustainable development discourse into the wider North-South debates. A decrease in wealth rather than a decrease in poverty would be the correct approach to the achievement of sustainable development. However, such a radical change of course would only be possible once considerable progress has been made towards redressing the imbalances in the current global dispensation
\u27Die verswygde storie\u27: ’n gevallestudie oor die manifestasie van bates by ’n kleuter met spina bifida miëlomeningoseel
Get PDF\u27The unmentioned story\u27: a case study of the manifestation of assets in a toddler with spina bifida miëlomeningoseel In South Africa a few major discourses with regard to disability can be distinguished. Although these discourses construct disability differently, three of them – the lay, charity and medical discourses – tend to view disability negatively. This article endeavours to challenge the stereotypical “picture” of a person with a disability. By conducting an intrinsic case study the unique intrapersonal assets of a boy (who has a physical disability, spina bifida) is identified. An asset-based approach accompanied the research design as a theoretical framework in order to explore whether positive aspects of this boy’s life-world could be identified. This article identifies and embraces the positive side of living with a physical disability and illustrates ways in which positive constructions of an individual with disabilities can be pursued
The moral challenge of poverty’s impact on individuals
Get PDFIn this article I want to substantiate the claim that poverty presents one of the most urgent moral challenges facing humanity. Poverty violates moral values about what constitutes a minimally decent human life broadly shared throughout the world and especially the standards for human living defined in Christianity. How can such a claim be substantiated? One has to judge the harmful impact of poverty on individuals and show that the moral repugnance of these effects on human beings makes it obligatory that poverty should be high on the agenda of all people. It is shown how devastating these effects of poverty can be for individual human beings and why poverty is such an affront to a person’s dignity. In the light of the consequences poverty has for the dignity of its sufferers, it is judged that Christians have a strong moral responsibility to become involved with the plight of poor people
Power: towards a third generation definition
Get PDFPower is a well-established concept in the social sciences especially in the political sciences. Although it is widely used in scientific discourse, different definitions and perspectives prevail with regard to it. This article aims to explore the possibilities of taking the debate further towards a third generation definition of social power. Although first generation definitions (associated with Weber and Dahl) and second generation definitions (associated with inter alia Giddens and Morriss) are still widely used in the academic field, they do not reflect the depth of the continuous debate on the concept of power. Viewpoints, especially with regard to agency and freedom, are not reflected in current definitions. To this can also be added the important dynamic relationship between power and change. This article summarises the important aspects of power debates relevant for defining power and discusses possible ways in which this can be accommodated in a definition of power. The current debate on the relationship between power and change is also reinterpreted with regard to defining social power. The article concludes by proposing necessary aspects of a third generation definition of power and suggests such a definition
Law and individuality
Get PDFThe main contours of the history of philosophical and scientific conceptions of law and individuality are portrayed. This includes an account of perspectives and views found in ancient Greece, the Graeco-Roman world, the medieval speculation and, via the Renaissance, in early modern developments that were continued in the Enlightenment era, in Romanticism and historicism, and were eventually manifested in the linguistic turn. What is important for a proper understanding of modern law conceptions is an acknowledgement of the all-pervading influence of modern nominalism. This orientation was characterised by employing two related distinctions, namely the distinction between conceptual knowledge and concept-transcending knowledge, and that between rationalism and irrationalism. From a systematic point of view, various aspectual terms provide a frame of reference for the idea of a law of nature as a compound basic concept of science. Special attention is given to the nature of normative principles and physical laws. In the last part of the article, these perspectives are applied to a brief assessment of differences and similarities in the thought of Dooyeweerd and Vollenhoven
Dissecting modernist religion in Gottfried Keller’s Das verlorene Lachen
Get PDFIn the wake of the Enlightenment and heavily influenced by serious challenges in Biblical scholarship to conventional doctrines, various kinds of liberal theology emerged in European Protestantism of both the Reformed and Lutheran traditions. Within the Calvinist-Zwinglian churches of Switzerland, this came to expression in, inter alia, progressive religion which stood in marked contrast to confessional orthodoxy. The novelist Gottfried Keller had been influenced by the German atheistic philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach in the 1840s and shortly thereafter gained prominence as one of the most gifted Swiss writers of his era. In his novella “Das verlorene Lachen”, Keller systematically rejected confessional Reformed orthodoxy, liberal currents in the Reformed churches, Roman Catholicism and Protestant nonconformity as intellectually archaic and out of harmony with the democratic and egalitarian spirit of the times, either products of supporters or a stratified social system which he found unacceptable
Preface
Get PDFIn this special edition of Koers scholars are dealing with a number of topics related to one of the identified subfields
Uitdagings vir ’n reformatoriese benadering tot prediking in ’n postliterêre kommunikatiewe konteks
Get PDFChallenges posed to reformed preaching in a postliterary communicative context In this article the tension field is explored which manifests itself in the natural resistance of the reformed tradition against inclusion of visual elements in preaching on the one hand and the demands posed to the communicative structure of preaching in a postliterary context on the other hand. The need for practical theological theory formation with respect to two particular dimensions is explored, namely: effective and responsible integration of visual elements in the communicative structure of preaching in a postliterary context. The exploration of these two dimensions leads to the formulation of two challenges posed to reformed preaching: a) How may visual elements be introduced “effectively” in the communicative structure of preaching in a way that do not disturb the essential Word event of speaking God’s Word?; and b) How may visual elements be introduced “responsibly” in the communicative structure of preaching without reducing infinite elements to the realm of the finite on the one hand and abstractising life-changing elements to the realm of the unrealised? First steps in answering these challenges on a practice theoretical level will be given in a follow-up article