1,720,980 research outputs found
Paphitis, Sharli Anne (Dr)
No full textAllan Gray Centre for Leadership Ethics Sharli Anne Paphitis ORCID 0000-0002-7625-9057</a
Book Review: Higher education for the public good: views from the South. Leibowitz, B. (ed.)
No full textReview of: Leibowitz, B. (ed.) 2012. Higher Education for the Public Good: views from the South. Stoke on Trent: Trentham Books. ISBN 978-1-920338-88-6. Pbk. Xxvii+224pp.
 
Control and authenticity: reflections on personal autonomy
Get PDFCurrently the most influential accounts of personal autonomy, at least in the Englishspeaking world, focus on providing conditions under which agents can be said to exercise self-control. Two distinct accounts of personal autonomy have emerged in this tradition: firstly, hierarchical models grounded in the work of Harry Frankfurt; and secondly, systems division models most famously articulated by Gary Watson. In this thesis I show the inadequacies of both of these models by exploring the problematic views of the self and self-control underlying each model. I will suggest that the problems faced by these models stem from the fact that they endorse a problematic fragmentation of the self. I suggest that a Nietzschean account of personal autonomy is able to avoid these problems. The Nietzschean account can largely, I show, be drawn from Nietzsche’s understanding of both the ‘man of ressentiment’ and his opposite, the sovereign individual. On this picture wholeness of self – rather than fragmentation of the self – is required in order for us to be most fully autonomous. Furthermore, this wholeness of self requires the kind of integrity which is opposed to the problematic fragmentation endorsed by Frankfurt and Watson
Vulnerability and the Sovereign Individual: Nussbaum and Nietzsche on the role of agency and vulnerability in personhood
No full textIn her paper Pity and Mercy: Nietzsche’s Stoicism, Martha Nussbaum argues that Nietzsche’s philosophical project can be seen in part as an attempt to ‘bring about a revival of Stoic values of self-command and self-transformation’. She argues that, to his detriment, Nietzsche’s ‘Sovereign Individual’ epitomises a kind of stoic ideal of inner strength and self-sufficiency that ‘goes beyond Stoicism’ in its valorisation of radical self emancipation from the contingencies of life and from our own human vulnerability. Nussbaum thus urges us to question whether the picture of strength in Nietzsche’s Sovereign Individual is really a picture of human strength at which we would be willing to, or at which we ought to, aim. In this paper I take up Nussbaum’s challenge, arguing that Nietzsche’s Sovereign Individual is both less stoical and provides us with a far more attractive picture of personhood than Nussbaum suggests.South African Journal of Philosophy 2013, 32(2): 123–13
Community engagement in theory & practice
No full textThe position of universities within our society has never been simultaneously more vulnerable nor important. Globally, the purpose and value of higher education in the twenty first century, is being seriously challenged more than ever before. Locally, we are confronted with social and economic problems that continue to plague the previously excluded and marginalised in South Africa. This fact is clearly evident in the location of Rhodes University, situated, as it is, in the midst of poverty, in a town with high unemployment and in one of the poorest and most neglected provinces in the country. This demands of us to ask the question that is currently resonating the world over: What then is the purpose of a university? And while we are attempting to answer this question, specifically for the South African context, we should be aware of the urgency to reimagine ourselves and step up, work collectively to redress the imbalances in our society. Universities do not exist in a vacuum - they exist within a particular social, economic, cultural, political and historical context and are an integral part of the community in which they exist. They shape and are shaped by the milieu in which they exist. Through their mission of knowledge creation, knowledge sharing and knowledge application, they are uniquely and ideally placed to play a critical role in the project of nation-building, social advancement and societal transformation. Given the complex and painful past of our nation that is characterised by centuries of colonialism and decades of apartheid, racial oppression and dispossession and the denial of opportunities to the majority of the citizens of this country, our universities cannot remain ‘ivory towers’ unconcerned with the daily struggles of those who were systematically excluded from opportunities to realise their full potential. It is our responsibility, indeed our duty, to ensure that we place at the service of our community and humankind the knowledge that we generate. In so doing, we will make it possible for ordinary citizens to become agents of their own emancipation and social advancement. On the occasion of my inauguration as the Vice-Chancellor of Rhodes University, I pointed out that: “If we remain true and faithful to our intellectual project, as we must, we will be able to advance the higher purpose of higher education: to transform individual lives for the better, to transform societies for the better and to transform the world for the better.” Indeed, the higher purpose of higher education is to transform lives for the better. Community engagement provides universities with opportunities to deepen and broaden our understanding of the role and purpose of our universities in the creation and sustaining of a better society and a better world. It is only when we build respectful, reciprocal and mutually beneficial partnerships with the previously excluded communities and draw on the different kinds of knowledge that reside in these communities that our knowledge project can start to respond meaningfully and appropriately to the cause of building and sustaining a more just, a more humane, a more caring, a more equitable, a fairer, a more compassionate and more inclusive society. Our University has committed itself to four guiding principles that will drive all our endeavours as an institution of higher learning. These are: • Sustainability – we need to ensure that the principle of sustainability permeates every aspect of our academic endeavour and every decision taken by our university. In the process, we want to produce graduates with an elevated sense of awareness and responsibility in building and sustaining sustainable communities. • Simultaneous local responsiveness and global engagement – our academic endeavour should seek to respond to the pressing and urgent local challenges while simultaneously contributing to our accumulated global stock of knowledge. This will allow us to enter the global knowledge system from our position of strength. • Advancing social justice – given the painful past of our country characterized by exclusion and denial of opportunities for some segments of our society, it is vitally important that we do all we can to restore the dignity and humanity of those who were treated as less than human by the previous dispensation. • Advancing the public good purpose of higher education – our university does not exist in a vacuum. It exists within social, cultural and economic milieu and has an important role to play in lifting the standard of living of our local community. These four principles should guide all academic endeavours in teaching, research and community engagement for the realisation of a society free of hunger, want, inequality and despair. And may it serve as a significant stepping stone towards placing community engagement on a more solid philosophical and moral footing. This publication is packed with a number of exciting and innovative case studies that amply demonstrate that Rhodes University is at the forefront of engaged scholarship and the nurturing of young, talented, committed and engaged citizens. All these initiatives are anchored on the five important pillars of community engagement – mutual respect, reciprocity, mutual benefit, co-creation, and sustainability. We thank all our colleagues and students who go above and beyond the call of duty to contribute in a very meaningful way in transforming the lives of our local community for the better. We are deeply grateful to our Community Engagement Office for enabling and facilitating the interaction between the Rhodes University staff and students and our local community. A word of deep gratitude and sincere appreciation to our community partners who are ever prepared to welcome us with open arms and are always ready to offer our staff and students a different kind of education to the one available within the walls of a lecture room. Our sincere appreciation and gratitude also to our Communications & Advancement Division for seeing to the production of this fabulous publication. I have no hesitation in strongly recommending this publication to all who share our vision of a better society and a better world and are committed to working with courage and conviction to the realisation of a society and a world of our dreams
Control and vulnerability : reflections on the nature of human agency and personhood
Get PDFFollowing the writings of philosophers such as Harry Frankfurt, Gary Watson,
and Alfred Mele, in this thesis I defend some central claims of the self-control
view of human agency. However, I not only defend, but also supplement this
view in the following two ways. First, drawing on work by Mary Midgley and
Sigmund Freud I advance the claim that self-control requires the experience of
internal conflict between an agent’s motivations and intentions. Second, drawing
on insights from Simone de Beauvoir and Friedrich Nietzsche, as well as recent
research in social psychology and cognitive science, I will argue in this thesis that
self-control and vulnerability are inextricably intertwined with one another, and
that as a result both are to be seen as constitutive of human agency. While it is
the capacity for self-control that marks us out as human agents, I argue that it is
also our uniquely human vulnerability which distinguishes our agency from the
kind of agency which we might attribute to other potential or actual forms of
sentience.
Further, while the concepts of human agency and personhood are
typically conflated in the analytic tradition of philosophy, in this thesis I will
show that there are good reasons for understanding these two concepts as subtly
distinct from one another. The term personhood, I will argue, can fruitfully be
understood in substantive rather than purely formal terms. A person, in the
superlative sense, is to be understood as someone who exercises their agency
well; and, as such, persons are answerable to a number of normative
prescriptions. Following Midgley, Nietzsche and Martha Nussbaum, I argue
against Frankfurt’s normative prescription for personhood in the form of what
he calls ‘wholeheartedness’, and offer four normative prescriptions for
personhood of my own
Siyahluma: a critical health education intervention
No full textRecent social science research points to various menstruation-related challenges facing women in the global South - most notably for our purposes here, young school-going girls in the global South report a lack of access to (1) reliable and hygienic menstrual products with which to manage their menstruation, as well as (2) the information they need to understand the process of menstruation, how to manage menstruation and how to perceive and treat their menstruating bodies given that menstruation is surrounded by a culture of taboo and silence - menstruation is seen as dirty, impure, contaminating and, importantly, as something to be concealed from others and not spoken about, particularly in relation to male others. This lack of access to information, or in many cases, provision of false, misleading or stigmatised information has a severe negative impact on the management of menstruation for both young girls and women in the global South
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
- …
