Hermeneutics (Research Methodology)

In this paper we argue that the use of the communicative theory of Jürgen Habermas in planning theory is problematic because it hampers an understanding of how power shapes planning. We posit an alternative approach based on the power analytics of Michel Foucault which focuses on ‘what is actually done’, as opposed to Habermas’s focus on ‘what should be done’. We discuss how the Foucauldian stance problematises planning, asking difficult questions about the treatment of legitimacy, rationality, knowledge and spatiality. We conclude that Foucault offers a type of analytic planning theory which offers better prospects than does Habermas for those interested in understanding and bringing about democratic social change through planning.

We have two ways of knowing. Our mind knows forms, things, both subtle and gross. Faces, hands, buildings, trees, math formulas, mind knows subject and the mind knows otherness. The mind knows dualities, the mind knows me and you, us and them, and this and that. Mind knows time, mind knows the past, the present and the sense of the future. The mind knows things and entities, the mind knows beings, infinite numbers of beings and things. The mind knows difference. The mind thinks conceptually, feels affectively, imagines through imagery, the mind has sense and the mind has memory. The mind knows dualistically.

At the same time that case studies are widely used and have produced canonical texts, it may be observed that the case study as a methodology is generally held in low regard, or is simply ignored, within the academy. For example, only 2 of the 30 top-ranked U.S. graduate programs in political science require a dedicated graduate course in case study or qualitative methods, and a full third of these programs do not even offer such a course. In contrast, all of the top 30 programs offer courses in quantitative methods and almost all of them require training in such methods, often several courses. In identifying this paradox of the case study’s wide use and low regard, Gerring rightly remarks that the case study survives in a “curious methodological limbo,” and that the reason is that the method is poorly understood. In what follows, we will try to resolve Gerring’s paradox and help case study research gain wider use and acceptance.

Back cover text: If the new fin de siècle marks a recurrence of the real, Bent Flyvbjerg’s Rationality and Power epitomizes that development and sets new standards for social and political inquiry. The Danish town of Aalborg is to Flyvbjerg what Florence was to Machiavelli: a laboratory for understanding the real workings of power, and for grasping what they mean to our more general concerns of social and political organization. Politics, administration, and planning are examined in ways that allow  a rare, in-depth understanding. The reader witnesses, firsthand, the classic and endless drama which defines what modernity and democracy are and can be.

Taken together, the works of Jurgen Habermas and Michel Foucault highlight an essential tension in modernity. This is the tension between the normative and the real, between what should be done and what is actually done. Understanding this tension is crucial to understanding modern democracy, what it is and what it could be. It has been argued that an effective way of making democracy stronger is to strengthen civil society. This article contains a comparative analysis of the central ideas of Habermas and Foucault as they pertain to the question of democracy and civil society. More specifically, the discourse ethics of Habermas is contrasted with the power analytics and ethics of Foucault evaluating their usefulness for those interested in understanding, and bringing about, democratic social change.

"ABSTRACT:
    This study assumes the subject's pursuit of meaning is generally incapacitating and should be suspended. It aims to demonstrate how such a suspension is theoretically accomplished by utilizing Lacan's formulae of sexuation integrated with his work in discourse theory and topology.
    Part I places this study into context by examining scholarship from the established fields of hermeneutics, phenomenology, (post)structuralism, aesthetic theory and psychoanalysis in order to extract out their respective theory of meaning. These theories reveal that an historical struggle with meaning has been underway since the Reformation and reaches near crisis proportions in the 20th century. On the one hand this crisis is mollified by the rise of Heideggerian-Gadamerian hermeneutical phenomenology which questions traditional epistemological approaches to the text using a new ontological conceptualization of meaning and a conscious rejection of methodology. On the other hand this crisis is exacerbated when the ubiquitous nature of meaning is itself challenged by (post)structuralism's discovery of the signifier which inscribes a limit to meaning, and by the domains of sense and nonsense newly opened up by aesthetic theory. These historical developments culminate in the field of psychoanalysis which most consequentially delimits a cause of meaning said to be closely linked to the core of subjectivity.
    Part II extends these findings by rigorously constructing out of the Lacanian sexuated formulae a decidedly non-hermeneutical phenomenological approach useful in demonstrating the sexual nature of meaning. Explicated in their static state by way of an account of their original derivation from the Aristotelian logical square, it is argued that these four formulae are relevant to basic concerns of textual theory inclusive of the hermeneutical circle of meaning. These formulae are then set into motion by integrating them with Lacan's four discourses to demonstrate the breakdown of meaning. Finally, the cuts and sutures of two-dimensional space that is topology as set down in L'étourdit are performed to confirm how the very field of meaning is ultimately suspended from a nonsensical singular point known in Lacanian psychoanalysis as objet a. The contention is that by occupying this point the subject frees himself from the debilitating grip of meaning."

In this chapter, I consider the significance of hermeneutics for architecture. I begin by locating some key concerns that a hermeneutics of buildings and other architectural works entails. As a heuristic context for discussing these concerns, I draw on comparative-religion scholar Lindsay Jones’ The Hermeneutics of Sacred Architecture, a two-volume work that is perhaps the most exhaustive recent effort to identify the diverse, multi-dimensioned ways in which an “architectural hermeneutics” might proceed (Jones 2000).
        I identify two major research dilemmas toward which Jones’ work points: first, the contentious question of whether buildings-in-themselves, as opposed to the personal, social, and cultural experiences and meanings of those buildings, can be examined hermeneutically; and, second, the difficult matter of interpretive trustworthiness. If, in other words, one assumes that buildings evoke divergent meanings for different experiencers and interpreters, how is he or she to evaluate the relative accuracy and validity of competing interpretations?
        As evidence of a hermeneutic approach that might circumvent these two interpretive concerns, I discuss two significant efforts to generate what might be called a hermeneutics of the language of architecture: first, philosopher Karsten Harries’ language of natural symbols; and, second, architect Thomas Thiis-Evensen’s language of architectural archetypes. I consider the relative interpretive power of these two hermeneutic languages to describe accurately and non-arbitrarily the lived experience of “buildings-in-themselves.”

There is a widespread idea that in grounded theory (GT) research, the researcher has to delay the literature review until the end of the analysis to avoid contamination – a dictum that might turn educational researchers away from GT. Nevertheless, in this article the author (a) problematizes the dictum of delaying a literature review in classic grounded theory, (b) presents arguments for using extant literature in the substantive field within a constructivist grounded theory, and (c) suggests data sensitizing principles in using literature, which are: theoretical agnosticism, theoretical pluralism, theoretical sampling of literature, staying grounded, theoretical playfulness, memoing extant knowledge associations, and constant reflexivity.

To illustrate what phenomenology and hermeneutics offer architectural research, I examine the Seattle Public Library from four different perspectives for which I procure real-world evidence via a range of research methods. I begin with a phenomenology of naïve architectural encounter in which I draw on visceral, visual reactions to the building on the part of laypersons who have never before seen the building. Second, I ask how the Seattle Public Library might be interpreted and better understood via Norwegian architect Thomas Thiis-Evensen’s hermeneutic phenomenology of architectural experience, of which a central premise is that architecture is the making of an inside in the midst of an outside (Thiis-Evensen 1989). Third, drawing on over 200 social-media “reviews” of the building by voluntary contributors, I delineate possibilities for a phenomenology of place as these accounts provide one kind of interpretive evidence. Last, I examine three reviews of the building written by Seattle architectural critic Lawrence Cheek. Using these reviews as an illustration, I suggest that our experience and understanding of a building may shift over time and that a comprehensive phenomenological and hermeneutical interpretation of architecture must incorporate the lived history of any building, including its design origins and uses and users over time.

Understandably, modern exegetes are hesitant about adopting the ancient church’s hermeneutical practices. Rather than attempt to rationalize or resolve patristic exegesis, this paper will propose how modern hermeneutics can incorporate the interpretive practices of the patristic era. Ultimately, a genuinely “Christian” interpretation of Scripture will conform to the “Christotelic” trajectories of interpretation exemplified by Christ, the apostles, and the patristic fathers, while recognizing that advances in biblical criticism can supplement patristic methodologies. Assumed here is the belief that a “Christian” hermeneutic necessarily patterns itself (at the very least) after Christ and the apostles (if not also church tradition). Any other exegesis that does not follow the example of Christ or the apostles, such as modern historical-grammatical hermeneutics, is essentially foreign to traditional Christianity.

English:
This work briefly analyzes the so called Amerindian Perspectivism, a theoretical approach that is gaining academic momentum in the framework of the ethnology of South American indigenous peoples. Even though I will not cover all of its features, contributions nor criticism, I suggest a few comments identifying the academic context within which it spread out, stressing the political economy of knowledge production from a postcolonial standpoint. While my perspective does not originate in the ethnographic core of this current, i.e. the Amazon region, it aims at surpassing its regional constraints,  locating the analysis theoretically in the study of Non-Western ontologies, a classic topic of anthropology of religion all over the world.

Spanish:
En este trabajo presentaré unas notas generales sobre el llamado perspectivismo amerindio, corriente teórica que está ganando espacio académico en el marco de los estudios antropológicos de sociedades indígenas de América del Sur. Aquí no agotaré la totalidad de sus particularidades, contribuciones o críticas, sino que esbozaré algunas observaciones preliminares, identificando asimismo el contexto académico más general de donde surge y aspectos relacionados con la economía política de la producción de conocimiento antropológico basado en una perspectiva postcolonial. Mi punto de vista, en un principio exterior al núcleo central etnográfico de esta corriente teórica etnológica, cuyo corazón se ubica en la región amazónica, será de índole más amplia en términos regionales, así como desde la teoría antropológica que se interesa por las ontologías no occidentales, especialmente la antropología de la religión.

[http://www.cambridge.org/knowledge/discountpromotion?code=PACKER12]

This book is a unique examination of qualitative research in the social sciences, raising and answering the question of why we do this kind of investigation. It explores the multiple roots of qualitative research – including phenomenology, hermeneutics, and critical theory – in order to diagnose the current state of play and recommend an alternative. The diagnosis is that much qualitative research today continues to employ the mind-world dualism that is typical of traditional experimental investigation. The recommendation is that we focus on constitution: the relationship of mutual formation between a form of life and its members. Michel Foucault’s program for “a historical ontology of ourselves” provides the basis for a fresh approach to investigation. The basic tools of qualitative research – interviews, ethnographic fieldwork, and analysis of discourse – are re-forged in order to articulate how our way of living makes us who we are, and so empower us to change this form of life.

"By combining the range of theories from different disciplines, this book makes an excellent textbook for beginners in social and behavioral sciences. Furthermore, this informative book will be useful for all those interested in different theories and methods framing qualitative inquiry. Specifically, this work would be particularly helpful for students employing qualitative methodologies and working on grounding their studies. Although this book covers many theories and methodologies, extensive background knowledge of the theorists and concepts is not required as Packer does a great job explaining in detail those topics required to understand the content."
The Qualitative Report

The three manumission laws of the Pentateuch (Exod 21:2-6; Lev 25:39-46; Deut 15:12-18), along with their narrative reflex in Jeremiah 34, intrinsically raise the issue of the relative dating, literary relation, and direction of influence of the literary sources of the Pentateuch. They served among the key cases to develop the classical model of the sequence of the legal collections: Covenant Code (BC), Deuteronomy 12-26 (D), and the Holiness Code (H; Leviticus 17-26). More recently, scholars have used these laws to challenge the classical model. In particular, the pivotal position of Deuteronomy as standing between the Covenant Code and the Holiness Code has come under attack. Sara Japhet and Jacob Milgrom maintain that Leviticus 25 precedes rather than follows Deuteronomy 15, which implies the sequence BC, H, D. In turning to biblical law to defend the claim for a late Yahwist (J), John Van Seters maintains that the manumission law of the Covenant Code is derived from that of Deuteronomy. Still other scholars have challenged the validity of diachronic analysis altogether or have argued that the laws allude to biblical narratives. With the foundations of pentateuchal theory thus in flux, this paper investigates the methodological assumptions involved in both the classical model and its challenges. At a number of points, standard models of text composition that prevail in the discipline, whereby composition and redaction are viewed as mutually exclusive, obscure the sophistication of these texts. The importance of biblical law for contemporary pentateuchal theory is stressed. The conclusion demonstrates the extent to which, in the utopian social vision promoted by the author of Leviticus 25, the text amounts to a systematic rewriting of earlier laws (BC and D). In a sense, the chapter represents an example of “rewritten Bible” or “rewritten Scripture” within the Pentateuch itself.

Keywords:
Rewritten Bible; manumission laws; Holiness Code; Leviticus 25; Covenant Code; Deuteronomy; Exodus 21; Deuteronomy 15; Jeremiah 34; Sara Japhet; Jacob Milgrom; John Van Seters; Date of Holiness Code; Date of Priestly source; Date of H; Date of P; source criticism; pentateuchal theory; intertextuality in Bible; sabbatical year; jubilee legislation; Cholewinski; Chirichigno; die Freilassung von Sklaven im Pentateuch; Levitikus 25; Dtn 15; Ex 21; Heiligkeitsgesetz; Deuteronomium; relecture; Holiness Code; Covenant Code; Leviticus 25; abrogation; lemmatic exegesis; pentateuchal theory; source criticism; inner-biblical exegesis; manumission laws; slave laws of the Pentateuch; Exodus 21; Septuagint; textual-criticism; translation theory; Biblical manumission laws; slave laws Bible; lemma; documentary hypothesis; dating of H; dating of Priestly source; Sara Japhet; John van Seters.

Timeless awareness is the essence of Dzogchen. Time experienced within timeless awareness is also an expression of the essence of Dzogchen. Dzogchen is an ancient form of Tibetan mystic humanism. Dzogchen makes the essential distinction between mind and awareness. A person can be located in mind alone and locked in time. As a person shifts from being located in mind alone (mindfulness) and goes beyond mind alone (mindfulness), one becomes aware of their own awareness. As we focus our awareness on our own innermost awareness, vast dimensions of awareness begin to open and self-reveal its nature to us. Awareness is a multidimensional experience and this awareness is infinite in its horizons. The innate qualities of awareness are spaciousness or openness or emptiness. Another quality of our awareness is luminous radiance and still another is awareness as energy. Awareness is alive and is both vast stillness and unceasing movement. The Union of Mind and Awareness When a person is able to experience the union of their mind and their awareness, then the person has a simultaneous experience of being in time and in timeless awareness. The mind is the place of thinking, feeling, sensation, memory and imagination and the mind is the mode of knowing singularity and difference in the world. This is the realm of ordinary knowingness and this is the realm of duality. Our mind is the realm of time. This time bound knowing is the knowing of you and I, us and them, this or that in time and place.

The chapter discusses the process of industrialization, development, and modernization in the margins of Europe, by comparing practices of governmentality and the nation-building projects of Romania and Norway. The theoretical framework draws on Freudian psychoanalysis, feminist psychoanalysis, Michel Foucault, Benedict Anderson, Actor-Network Theory, feminist theory, and postcolonial theory.

Revisions to the Greek NT in NA28 are restricted to the Catholic Epistles—the product of the Münster Institute’s ongoing work on the Editio critica maior. The text of the rest of the NT remains unaltered. The updated manuscript data, however, spans the apparatus of the entire NT and signals a new day for its textual history. The revised correctors of the Apocalypse in Codex Sinaiticus make the point. The proposed revisions have direct and far-reaching implications for the book’s textual history. Corrections once placed in the fourth through sixth centuries now occupy the seventh. The changes appear slight, even inconsequential—“touch ups” in support of the task of reconstruction. The clarification and re-dating of the correctors, though, represent a material shift with instant repercussions. The inclusion of new and additional witnesses—alongside of and in juxtaposition to the corrections—further portend altered textual alignments and disclose forgotten chapters in the history of textual criticism. The clarity of the new data also facilitates an examination of their limitations and unclutters the landscape for renewed textual research. The stage is set for a reappraisal of the Apocalypse’s textual history.

Vaclav Havel observed that a strong civil society is a crucial condition of strong democracy. Empowering civil society is a central concern for the project of democracy, just as the question of how best to think about such empowerment is important to social and political theory. But what is ‘civil society’? A search for clear definitions in the relevant literature is in vain. Not because the concept lacks definitions; rather the definitions are too multiple and varied to bring clarity. Most writers on civil society agree, however, that civil society has an institutional core constituted by voluntary associations outside the sphere of the state and the economy. Such associations range from, for example, churches, cultural associations, sport clubs and debating societies to independent media, academies, groups of concerned citizens, grass-roots initiatives and organizations of gender, race and sexuality, all the way to occupational associations, political parties and labour unions (Habermas 1992a: 453).

This article explores the concept of transdisciplinarity as a cultural endeavor. It centers on the concept of transdisciplinary hermeneutics, as a form of contextualizing science in the framework of cultural ideas, subjective experiences of the researchers involved in the research process, and of imagination and the artful creation of possible new realities. The concept is rooted in the work of Basarab Nicolescu and the Paris based CIRET, the " Centre International de Recherches et Études Transdisciplinaires. " In this approach, reality is seen as complex and multilayered, and cannot be known only through the lens of modern science. Philosophy, art and subjective experience are essential and complementary ways of knowledge production that provide context to scientific knowledge, giving it meaning and perspective. To be able to engage in transdisciplinary hermeneutics, researchers need to complement cognitive knowing with embodied and enacted knowing. They as well need to combine the formal and science-based language of what is seen and measured, with the poetic, polyphonic and metaphorical language of what is unseen but sensed, felt and envisioned. The article finally sketches the importance of two competencies that transdisciplinary researchers need to acquire, the competencies of mindfulness and of transdisciplinary dialogue of knowledges.

Jill Schostak and I wrote this book as part of our evolving interest in doing research radically.  By radically we mean engaging with people's voices to learn how to create the conditions for social justice and for democratising all the organisations of everyday life.  We draw on our own research but also on the ways in which the media is used to shaw people's voices and behaviours.  We explore all the ways in which the desires and demands of elites are inscribed upon minds and bodies as well as how writing may create the conditions for counter inscriptions.  Writing research is to engage politically.  Whether it is the Arab Spring re-inscribing hopes for freedom, the Occupy Movement or young people challenging orthodoxies at home or in classrooms through use of the media, it is the power of writing in its broadest sense that makes the difference.

This dissertation will be a study of the influence of the Christian tradition of
caritas in the philosophy and the subsequent hermeneutic of Saint Augustine of Hippo and will seek to establish the value of Augustine’s hermeneutic of caritas within contemporary philosophical scholarship. The shift in the Western philosophical tradition during the Enlightenment period resulted in a solid break from authority-based hermeneutics of theology to the autonomy of the mind of modern philosophy. The result was a greater emphasis on the literal meaning of a text through method over the spiritual meaning, or application of the greater meaning, in Christian living. This study will explore whether contemporary philosophical hermeneutics can cohere with Augustine’s embrace of caritas in his epistemology and subsequent hermeneutic. The unique aspect of Augustine’s hermeneutic is that caritas is a product of understanding while at the same time is the method, or means, by which caritas is produced. Therefore, Christian epistemology, as echoed in Augustine’s hermeneutic of caritas, is a uniquely valuable contribution to the academic discipline of philosophy. This dissertation will propose that the benefits of Augustine’s caritas as the a priori spirit of the biblical text, and the proper application of that spirit in scholarship, should be the epistemological focus of hermeneutics rather than the emphasis on method prevalent from Spinoza to Dilthey. Augustine’s caritas may prove beneficial as a renewed harmony for theological and philosophical hermeneutics.

This study examined the extant higher education literature on the development of professional identities (PID). Through a systematic review approach 20 articles were identified that discussed in some way professional identity development in higher education journals. These papers drew on varied theories, pedagogies and learning strategies; however, most did not make a strong connection to PID. Further research is needed to better understand the tensions between personal and professional values, structural and power influences, discipline versus generic, and the role of workplace learning on PID.

This article examines five common misunderstandings about case-study research: (a) theoretical knowledge is more valuable than practical knowledge; (b) one cannot generalize from a single case, therefore, the single-case study cannot contribute to scientific development; (c) the case study is most useful for generating hypotheses, whereas other methods are more suitable for hypotheses testing and theory building; (d) the case study contains a bias toward verification; and (e) it is often difficult to summarize specific case studies. This article explains and corrects these misunderstandings one by one and concludes with the Kuhnian insight that a scientific discipline without a large number of thoroughly executed case studies is a discipline without systematic production of exemplars, and a discipline without exemplars is an ineffective one. Social science may be strengthened by the execution of a greater number of good case studies.

In this article it is argued that the Qiblah passages in the Qur’an, which are commonly understood as referring to the direction of the prayer, are directly engaging with and interpreting the Shema passages in Deuteronomy and their Talmudic commentaries. By defining and applying the method of intertextual polysemy, nine points of intertextuality are identified between the various Qur’anic, Biblical, and Talmudic passages. Against this background, the article implies that narrations from traditional Qur’anic commentaries are lacking in their interpretation of these passages, since they do not employ any extra-Quranic contexts to explain their meaning. Through the method of intertextual polysemy, the alternative thesis propounded here is that the historical reference for the Qiblah passages is the Shema.

This is chapter 7 of the multi-authored book, Forged From Reformation: How Dispensational Thought Advances the Reformed Legacy, published by SCS Press and released in celebration of the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation.

The chapter demonstrates the irony and inconsistencies of Martin Luther's application of literal hermeneutics as he essentially dismissed the historicity of any prophecy given to national Israel. Thus, Luther held to an unbalanced application of the grammatical-historical hermeneutic. As such, Luther applied an allegorical interpretive methodology, which he inherited, to key texts ultimately justifying his radical anti-Semitism during the end of his otherwise heroic life.

Abstract:     
This book examines the doctrine of transgenerational punishment found in the Decalogue: the idea that God punishes sinners vicariously and extends the punishment due them to three or four generations of their progeny. Already in ancient Israel, even though it was a “God-given” law, the unfairness of punishing innocent people merely for being the children or grandchildren of wrongdoers was clearly recognized. A series of inner-biblical and post-biblical responses to the rule demonstrates that later writers were able to criticize, reject, and replace this problematic doctrine with the alternative notion of individual retribution. From this perspective, the formative canon is the source of its own renewal: it fosters critical reflection upon the textual tradition and sponsors intellectual freedom.

To round out the volume, a final chapter provides a valuable bibliographical essay on the distinctive approach of “inner-biblical exegesis.” This resource will support further study and shows the contributions of European, Israeli, and North American scholars. The volume opens new perspectives on current debates within the humanities about canonicity, textual authority, and authorship. There is an extended discussion of the formation of the German literary canon (Mme de Stael; Heinrich Heine and the “portatives Kanon”) and of German intellectual history (Immanuel Kant).

Keywords: Decalogue, Divine Justice, Canon, Intertextuality, Allusion, Immanuel Kant, Inner-Biblical Exegesis, Relecture, Fortschreibung, Kanon, Textuality, Literary Theory, Hammurabi, Vassal Treaty of Esarhaddon, Scribal Curriculum, Ruth, Authorship, Ezekiel 18, Hittite Laws, Lamentations 5:7

From the back cover (paperback edition, 2010):

“With this study Levinson demonstrates again how he masterfully integrates his own exegetical brilliance into larger theoretical frameworks beyond the constraints of biblical studies. Especially helpful to the specialist and colleagues from other fields is a long essay on the history of research about rewriting processes inside the Hebrew Bible.” —Journal of Ancient Judaism

"This just might be the best book I’ve read in a long time. It’s challenged my assumptions about the development of the Hebrew Bible and the role of innovation alongside preservation. . . . All in all, I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the issues of early biblical interpretation and the formation of the biblical canon. Specialists across the board in religious studies and biblical studies would profit from a closer look at Levinson’s book. I’m recommending it to everyone I know—NT students, rabbinics experts, early Christian studies people, Hebrew Bible colleagues — you know who you are — read this book!"
—Biblia Hebraica Blog

"The bibliographical essay is an excellent overview of research on what is now often called ‘inner-biblical exegesis,’ and it will serve as a superb tool for beginners and seasoned researchers alike. The other essays span a vast array of methodological problems and exegetical insights and are at the forefront of current research into legal traditions in the HB. A highly welcome volume." — Society for Old Testament Study Book List

"The book deserves a wide readership. It would serve well as a text for advanced undergraduate or graduate courses that deal with inner-biblical exegesis. One can also hope that scholars in other fields will read it and take to heart Levinson’s argument for the reintegration of biblical studies into the core of academic work in the humanities. In addition, there are faith communities that would be encouraged by Levinson’s insight into the nature of canon and the necessity for ongoing reinterpretation of tradition. The book’s research is thorough, its argument forceful, its writing elegant, and it is blessedly short. If books can be placed into tribes, may this one’s increase." — Review of Biblical Literature

This article provides an answer to what has been called the biggest problem in theorizing and understanding planning: the ambivalence about power found among planning researchers, theorists, and students. The author narrates how he came to work with issues of power and gives an example of how the methodology he developed for power studies—phronetic planning research—may be employed in practice. Phronetic planning research follows the tradition of power studies running from Machiavelli and Nietzsche to Michel Foucault and Pierre Bourdieu. It focuses on four value-rational questions: (1) Where are we going with planning? (2) Who gains and who loses, and by which mechanisms of power? (3) Is this development desirable? (4) What should be done? These questions are exemplified for a specific instance of Scandinavian urban planning. The author finds that the questions, and their answers, make a difference to planning in practice. They make planning research matter.

A short article on the origin and development of the longer Trinitarian text of 1 John 5:7-8 as found in the Textus Receptus. The typos that are present in this draft will be corrected before the final version is submitted for publication. These include: Lachman > Lachmann; 1881 > 1831; Montifortianus > Montfortianus; [Ayuso] Ionneum > Ioanneum; [Bludau 1903-1] Bibeldruchen > Bibeldrucken; [Bludau 1919-1] den Glaubensbekenntnis > dem Glaubensbekenntnis; [Fischer] pseudo-autustinischen > pseudo-augustinischen; obiectarum. > obiectarum.’; [Rivière] es trois > des trois. Thanks to Jeff Cate, Peter Gurry, and especially Jan Krans for alerting me to these when it was originally posted on academia in 2015. The data of this DRAFT will also fully updated and footnoted in the 2020 peer-reviewed version in "Early Christianity."

There is ferment in the social sciences. After years of sustained effort to build a science of society modelled on the natural sciences, that project, long treated with suspicion by some, is now openly being rethought. A critical intervention in this period of reflection was Making Social Science Matter (MSSM) by Bent Flyvbjerg, published in 2001. In that book Flyvbjerg challenged the very idea of social science as a science modelled on the natural sciences. Flyvbjerg argued that, as the social sciences study human interactions that involve human consciousness, volition, power and reflexivity, attempts to build generalizable, predictive models such as those for the natural world are misplaced and even futile.

In this article, I draw on a photograph by the eminent Hungarian-American photographer André Kertész (1894–1985) to point toward a phenomenology of aesthetic encounter.  Shown in figure 1, this photograph is Kertész’s frequently published 1928 image of Meudon, a Paris suburb1. Drawing on my own interpretive experience of the photograph as well as student responses, I delineate a continuum of lived encounter that ranges from partial seeing to deeper aesthetic insight. Making use of the progressively-intensive designations of philosopher Henri Bortoft (2012), I highlight a spectrum of aesthetic experience that extends from limited assimilation to a more comprehensive and engaged participatory understanding.

The Hermenetic Pattern of Hebrew Wisdom Literature. Hebrew Wisdom
Literature is one of the most distinctive kinds of literature that can found in the Old Testament. Particular hermeneutic patterns are needed to interpret literary books. The writings of the wisdom literature of the
Hebrew people are rich in various types of literary styles from being oral traditions to written forms and being part of the Old Testament canon. This paper aims to form a hermeneutic pattern in the form of
defining literary categories, capturing the main ideas of the writer, seeing the text in context, and paying attention to the style of language. Studying these four patterns will help the interpreter elevate the
meaning of the contents of the literature of Wisdom. Writing presented in a descriptive, analytical form.

Pola Hermenetik Sastra Hikmat Orang Ibrani. Sastra Hikmat Orang Ibrani
adalah salah satu sastra yang sangat khas yang dapat dijumpai di dalam Perjanjian Lama. Diperlukan pola hermenetik khusus untuk melakukan penafsiran terhadap kitab-kitab sastra tersebut. Hal tersebut diperlukan karena tulisan sastra hikmat orang ibrani kaya dengan berbagai jenis gaya kesusasteraan sejak menjadi tradisi oral hingga dalam bentuk tertulis dan menjadi bagian dari kanon Perjanjian Lama. Tulisan ini
bertujuan merumuskan pola hermenetik berupa menentukan kategori sastra, menangkap gagasan utama penulis, melihat teks di dalam konteks, dan memperhatikan gaya bahasa. Mempelajari keempat pola tersebut akan menolong penafsir mengangkat makna dari isi kitab-kitab sastra Hikmat. Tulisan disajikan di dalam bentuk deskriptif analitis.

Language is not simply about signs and signification. There is a tension between wording and word signs. Language is not simply the issue of signs and signification, but the emergence and manifestation of Being within human beings. The field of Being is unceasingly manifesting within human beings. The field of Being's manifestation of being within human beings may eventually become articulated as signs and symbols. The energetic manifestation of Being unfolds into signs and symbols of signification. Being manifests experientially as the felt sense of sublime vibrations and pulsations of energy becoming sound, sound becoming letters and letters becoming words and signifiers. In mind alone there is only the emphasis on the play of signification and the unfixed relations between signified and signifier. This is language as representation. This is also the language of reification. The language of awareness begins as the language of sublime vibrations, pulsations within the direct felt sense of inner experience. Mind alone is language as information. On the contrary the languaging of awareness within the awareness field is informing us and bringing us into the experience of beingness within the field of Being. Language within the field as the field expresses and manifests the energy of the word. The word, both written and spoken, is the energy of the field of Being embodied within us and expanding within us. The energetic field dimension of words and letters gives us and invokes within us the felt sense of Being. Language is the manifestation of Being within beings. Language is the medium of the field, just as the body is a medium of the field. Language and embodiment are co-emergent mediums of the field. Language arising within the body is a medium of the field within human embodiment. Language invokes the field, communicates the field and rides within and through the field. Sound is the vibration of field. Articulated sound is the field becoming words. As sounds are spoken, sound becomes syllables and letters arising from within our embodiment of the field. Our embodiment manifests configurations of the field. We are configurations of the field of awareness embodied in time and space. Sound and articulated syllables manifest the field within beings as Being. By giving Being to beings there is an opening for the symbolic signification and signifier. There is a felt difference in the relation and character of signifiers to significant within mind alone. Within the continuum of the awareness field, there is the self-manifestation of non-discursive experience becoming discursive experience. In mind alone signifiers are the representation of mind's ideation. Words arising within the embodiment of the field of awareness symbolize awareness. The symbolization of awareness experientially brings forth the sense of awareness in depth and breath and expresses the vast range of psyche. Language symbolizes awareness and language manifests awareness. Words symbolize the experiencing of the field within the field of Being as beingness. Words and beingness are in fluid intermingling oneness.

De-Introducing the NT is without a doubt one of the most probing and incisive works in the field of NT studies to have appeared in a long time. Far more than a rehearsal of research methods and theories operative in the historical study of the NT, the book constitutes a call to reflect on who we are, what we do, and why we do what we do as " historians " of the NT. The work is endlessly informative, unapologetically iconoclastic, and disarmingly understated, even empathetic. Readers should brace themselves, however. There is no second naiveté once the work is read.

Back cover text: Making Social Science Matter presents an exciting new approach to social science, including theoretical argument, methodological guidelines, and examples of practical application. Why has social science failed in attempts to emulate natural science and produce normal theory? Bent Flyvbjerg argues that the strength of social science is in its rich, reflexive analysis of values and power, essential to the social and economic development of any society. Richly informed, powerfully argued, and clearly written, this book provides essential reading for all those in the social and behavioral sciences.

The search for cultural relevance characterizes contextualization theory in missiology today. The development of a vernacular “African Theology” requires investigation as to its adherence to orthodox bibliology (the doctrines of revelation, inspiration, inerrancy, authority, sufficiency, and Canon). This paper will survey the foundational presuppositions and proposals of African Christologies within their governing hermeneutical and theological frameworks in order to discover the interplay between meaningfulness and orthodoxy within the parameters of Christological inquiry. Is there, or can there be, an ultimate comprehension of the person and work of Jesus Christ in the African perspective? An historical analysis and overview of contemporary African Christological options will demonstrate the principal use of extrabiblical concepts and titles which, rather than deepening the biblical, textual understanding of Jesus Christ, tend to advance contextual concepts and titles which are rooted in incompatible traditional worldviews. The study therefore serves to generally survey the increasingly complex African theological landscape as it pertains to the field of Christology.

For over fifty years, successive waves of critique have underscored that the apolitical character of much of Political Science research betrays the founding mission of the discipline to have science serve democracy. The Caucus for a New Political Science was originally based on such a critique, and the Perestroika movement in the discipline included a call for more problem-driven as opposed to theory- or method-driven work that would better connect Political Science research to ongoing political struggles. In recent years, movements for a public Sociology and public Anthropology as well as dissonant movements in Economics and related fields have added to the insistence that social science research was too often disconnected from the real world. Phronetic Social Science has emerged out of the ferment for change in the social sciences, starting with the much-debated book by Bent Flyvbjerg, Making Social Science Matter (Cambridge 2001). Flyvbjerg critiqued the social sciences for mimicking the natural sciences while proposing an alternative approach that focuses research on helping people address the problems they are facing in the context they are facing them. Today, Phronetic Social Science goes beyond the call for an alternative approach to social inquiry and its growing adherents are providing evidence that this alternative approach to doing research can enrich the social sciences by more effectively connecting research to efforts to address real world problems as people experience them. This essay provides a genealogy of efforts to connect Political Science to politics, a review of the major critiques of mainstream research, an explication of the rationale for more problem-driven, mixed methods research, a specification of the key principles of the phronetic approach, and examples of its application in the public realm. The essay concludes with implications for realizing a more political Political Science by way of taking a phronetic approach.

Despite popular contemporary interpretations that attempt to disassociate head coverings from Paul’s letter, a proper exegetical examination and historical analysis will reveal that Paul was particularly concerned about women wearing a veil during public worship.  This article will demonstrate that First Corinthians 11:2-16 addressed women neglecting sexual modesty and shaming their family by discarding the appropriate head attire customary in first century Corinth.  The article will present the earliest church interpretations of the passage, both historical and literary contexts, and the poetic features that highlight Paul’s concern for sexual chastity.  In the end, Paul used First Corinthians 11:2-16 to clarify that women must avoid shameful appearances in church.  In order to avoid the same disgrace, modern women should observe current social decorum that promotes sexual propriety. Exegetical studies demonstrate that Paul was concerned about women honoring God and avoiding shameful appearances by maintaining sexual chastity.  Paul used the passage as a reminder for women to help men avoid lust and fornication through their appearance at church.  This best coincides with historical interpretations, the historical and social settings of first century Corinth, and relates to Paul’s larger themes involving sexual immorality and being a hindrance to the gospel.  The passage does not relate to gender roles, establishing a gender hierarchy, or providing guidelines for women’s hairstyles. The passage specifically treated the issue of covering the head with a veil, which directly related to the social implications of sexual immorality that caused a distraction during worship.  The failings of other interpretations stem from a neglect of the passage’s poetic devices.