Interpreting the Uninterpretable: The Ethics of Opaqueness as an Approach to Moments of Inscrutability in Fieldwork

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 431-446 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xymena Kurowska
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Production ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Relational Psychoanalysis ◽  
The Unconscious ◽  
Construction Of Meaning ◽  
Narrative Practice

Abstract This paper develops what I call “the ethics of opaqueness” as a response to conceptual impasses concerning the uninterpretability of intersubjective knowledge production in narrative practice. The ethics of opaqueness sees the other as inscrutable and radically heterogenous, and confronts interpretations of the other by the self as suspicious projections. Thus, such an ethics addresses the self, not the other, as the object of the “hermeneutics of suspicion.” In order to conceptualize the ethics of opaqueness, I look to relational psychoanalysis, which understands the unconscious as being inherently intersubjective. This results in a reformulation of the process of recognition, and deeper acknowledgment of countertransference—that is, the partly unconscious conflicts activated in the researcher through the research encounter, which may lead to imposing meaning on the other. The apparatus of relational psychoanalysis concretizes the limits of knowing either the other or the self and supplies a vocabulary to crystallize the double quality of “uninterpretable moments” in narrative practice. They may trigger an imposition of a frame and therefore an interpretive closure; however, they also supply a potentially transformative space for the contentious co-construction of meaning, often in the form of metaphors, which subverts any claim to interpretive mastery.

scholarly journals HOW DEEPLY DO WE INCLUDE ROBOTIC AGENTS IN THE SELF?

2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (01) ◽  
pp. 1350015 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANNA STENZEL ◽  
ERIS CHINELLATO ◽  
ANGEL P. DEL POBIL ◽  
MARKUS LAPPE ◽  
ROMAN LIEPELT
Keyword(s):  
Simon Task ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Cognitive Representations ◽  
Indirect Measure ◽  
Human Interactions ◽  
The Social ◽  
Report Data ◽  
High Degree

In human–human interactions, a consciously perceived high degree of self–other overlap is associated with a higher degree of integration of the other person's actions into one's own cognitive representations. Here, we report data suggesting that this pattern does not hold for human–robot interactions. Participants performed a social Simon task with a robot, and afterwards indicated the degree of self–other overlap using the Inclusion of the Other in the Self (IOS) scale. We found no overall correlation between the social Simon effect (as an indirect measure of self–other overlap) and the IOS score (as a direct measure of self–other overlap). For female participants we even observed a negative correlation. Our findings suggest that conscious and unconscious evaluations of a robot may come to different results, and hence point to the importance of carefully choosing a measure for quantifying the quality of human–robot interactions.

The Self and the Soul

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Omnia El Shakry
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Reading Public ◽  
The Unconscious ◽  
Religious Context ◽  
Islamic Tradition ◽  
Dialogical Relationship ◽  
Divine Transcendence ◽  
Elective Affinities ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter reconstructs a historical interlude between Sufism and psychoanalytic psychology in postwar Egypt. It considers how we might think through the relationship between psychoanalysis and the Islamic tradition, while respecting the “ontological stakes” of the latter, namely, the belief in divine transcendence and divine discourse. The chapter addresses this question through a detailed exploration of the writings of Abu al-Wafa al-Ghunaymi al-Taftazani and his mentor Muhammad Mustafa Hilmi, both prominent Egyptian intellectuals who expounded Sufi ideas for a broader reading public, beginning in the 1940s. Situating these figures within the larger intellectual and religious context of mid-twentieth-century Egypt, this chapter explores the elective affinities between Sufism and certain strands of psychoanalysis in terms of a dialogical relationship between the self and the Other, as mediated by the unconscious.

Grammar of the Uncanny

2010 ◽  
Vol 14 (5) ◽  
pp. 616-624
Author(s):  
Christopher Yates
Keyword(s):  
Martin Heidegger ◽  
Sigmund Freud ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Uncanny ◽  
Jules Renard ◽  
The One

AbstractInspired by the contemporary intersection between hermeneutics, phenomenology, and psychoanalysis on the one hand, and poetics on the other, this article is a study in the peculiar manifestation of strangeness that obtains within the self. It is a descriptive and autobiographical account of a disclosure that, though common, is irreducible to traditional categories of mimesis and ontology: the experience of displacement in self-consciousness and embodiment. Drawing upon insights by Sigmund Freud and Martin Heidegger, and in dialogue with the poetics of Jules Renard, the essay seeks to appreciate a certain grammar of ipseity that is formative of subjectivity and constitutive of the poetic vocation. Emphasis is placed on the productive quality of the “between” (Zwischen) as it obtains both geographically and internally, and the concentration potentially resulting from the “between” as one grapples to configure in language the experience of playing “host” to one’s own self.

scholarly journals Migrant identities in narrative practice

2015 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Sabaté Dalmau
Keyword(s):  
Identity Construction ◽  
Social Exclusion ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Narrative Approach ◽  
Social Categories ◽  
Migrant Networks ◽  
Narrative Practice ◽  
Interactional Processes ◽  
Discursive Constructions

From an interpretive, post-structuralist perspective, this paper analyzes the discursive constructions of fluid migrant identities through the lens of narrative practice. I describe the presentations of the Self /the Other which get inscribed in a series of truncated stories mobilized by three unsheltered Ghanaians who lived on a bench in a Catalan town. I explore their self-attributed /other-ascribed social categories and argue that these multifaceted identity acts are a lens into how heterogeneous migrant networks apprehend social exclusion in their host societies. I show that a narrative approach to the interactional processes of migrant identity construction may be revealing of these populations’ social structuration practices, which are ‘internally’ regulated in off-the-radar economies of meaning. I problematize hegemonic conceptions that present migrants as agency-less, decapitalized storied Selves, and suggest that stagnated populations may also be active tellers who act upon companions and rivals, when fighting for transnational survival in contexts of precariousness.

scholarly journals OTHERNESS IN NABOKOV’S HERMANN, HUMBERT AND KINBOTE

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (9) ◽  
pp. 211-223
Author(s):  
Slađana Stamenković
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Theoretical Concept ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Binary Opposition ◽  
Postmodern Theory ◽  
Artistic Experience ◽  
Different Levels

As one of the key notions in postmodern theory, Otherness is defined as a quality of being different and separate from the Self. Within the postmodern theory, it is defined within the center-margin binary opposition discussed by theoreticians such as Linda Hutcheon. Yet, long before the theory, three of Nabokov’s novels depicted the concept of Otherness in their respective protagonists. Hermann in Despair, Humbert in Lolita and Kinbote in Pale Fire are assigned the role of the Other in their communities on different levels, all of which lead them to construct their own alternative realities where the margin is the center. This paper discusses the occurrence of the theoretical concept of the Other in the novels that predate the official theory of Otherness. The reoccurrence of the concept of the Other in literature, (especially in the period before the theoretical framework officially appeared) testify to the high relevance of the theory and the concept for discussing different phenomena of the human spirit and artistic experience.

THE ARABIC FREUD: THE UNCONSCIOUS AND THE MODERN SUBJECT

2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-118 ◽  
Author(s):  
OMNIA EL SHAKRY
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Arab World ◽  
The Self ◽  
Human Sciences ◽  
The Unconscious ◽  
Dialectical Approach ◽  
Modern Subject ◽  
Close Study ◽  
Unity Of The Self ◽  
Psychoanalytic Thought

This essay considers how Freud traveled in postwar Egypt through an exploration of the work of Yusuf Murad, the founder of a school of thought within the psychological and human sciences, and provides a close study of the journal he co-edited,Majallat ʿIlm al-Nafs. Translating and blending key concepts from psychoanalysis and psychology with classical Islamic concepts, Murad put forth a dynamic and dialectical approach to selfhood that emphasized the unity of the self, while often insisting on an epistemological and ethical heterogeneity from European psychoanalytic thought, embodied in a rejection of the dissolution of the self and of the death drive. In stark contrast to the so-called “tale of mutual ignorance” between Islam and psychoanalysis, the essay traces a tale of historical interactions, hybridizations, and interconnected webs of knowledge production between the Arab world and Europe. Moving away from binary models of selfhood as either modern or traditional, Western or non-Western, it examines the points of condensation and divergence, and the epistemological resonances that psychoanalytic writings had in postwar Egypt. The coproduction of psychoanalytic knowledge across Arab and European knowledge formations definitively demonstrates the outmoded nature of historical models that presuppose originals and bad copies of the global modern subject—herself so constitutively defined by the presence of the unconscious.

Jung’s Compensatory Ethical Theory

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 143-146
Author(s):  
John Beebe
Keyword(s):  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Ethical Theory ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Unconscious ◽  
Conscious Mind ◽  
Ethical Position ◽  
Ethical Conflicts ◽  
The One

ABSTRACTThe author, reviewing a book on Jung’s moral psychology by the psychoanalyst Dan Merkur, concludes that Jung’s idea of a divergence in aim between conscious and unconscious creates in the psyche a conflict of duties, toward the ego and its persona, on the one hand, and toward the self and its soul, on the other. An individual mind can reconcile this conflict only by ethical position-taking, which is arrived at through moral effort that fosters a growth of consciousness but is never without ambivalence and uncertainty as to the principles that have informed it. Jung’s idea that the unconscious is there to compensate for any ethical position taken by the conscious mind is echoed by contemporary psychoanalytic notions of collaboration between superego and ego in producing moral stances. Merkur is praised for recognizing Jung’s priority at countering Freud’s position that the unconscious cannot think about the ethical conflicts that are experienced by the ego.

scholarly journals The beneficial differentiation within entrepreneurship of self-employed, business owner and entrepreneur

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annemarie Østergaard
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Financial Support ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Business Owner ◽  
Related Activity ◽  
Psychological Analysis ◽  
Personal Level ◽  
Expected Outcomes

This study explores the diversity among entrepreneurs to identify the innate factors behind the variation. The intention is to explain why some entrepreneurs prefer to be self-employed in one-person businesses, while others build enterprises with numerous employees. A factor analysis of the personality traits of active entrepreneurs reveals nine entrepreneurial factor types, which are further subjected to psychological analysis. Based on leadership, innovation, social and efficiency skills, the psychological interpretation reveals three categories in entrepreneurship: the self-employed, the business owner and the entrepreneur. The categories exhibit inherent dissimilarities and similarities that clearly explain the discrepancies in entrepreneurs’ preferences on a profoundly personal level. The concept of entrepreneur, commonly used to refer to a variety of individuals, accurately describes only one category. Instead, the concepts of self-employed and business owner better explain the related activity and outcomes of the other two categories. Accordingly, the results suggest that the quality of support, expected outcomes and consequently socio-economic growth will improve with a thorough consideration by authorities of each individual’s personality or at least by consideration of which category best describes the target group of, for example, teaching and financial support.

scholarly journals Doublespeak: The Empowerment of the Self and the Dis-Empowerment of the Other

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. p154
Author(s):  
Taher Ben Khalifa
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Personal Goals ◽  
Simple Method ◽  
The Us ◽  
Political Speeches

Regarding the ability doublespeak offers to its users to distort and mislead, the question about how power is (re)produce, distributed, and enacted becomes of great concern. Within this context, the present paper seeks to study how the use of doublespeak serves for the empowerment of the self and the dis-empowerment of the other. The study of this topic consists in the analysis of some examples that are taken from political speeches delivered by the US presidents; Bush, Obama, and Trump. To analyze these examples, a combination of three theories—theories of discourse analysis, theories of power, and theories of politics—is used. The application of this theoretical combination is based on the use of a simple method of research. This method follows three successive steps. First, the traces of doublespeak are detected and classified. Second, interest is given to the study of how each of the traced uses of doublespeak serves for empowerment. Third, interest shifts to the interpretation of the obtained results to highlight the political ends standing behind any struggle for power. The paper ended by offering a multi-disciplinary approach to the study of empowerment in the political uses of doublespeak as well as a simple method of research. Also, it proved that the use of doublespeak represents a strategy of empowerment that the speakers resorted to while seeking to get more power to dominate and to achieve personal goals. The paper might show as well some limitations like the uses of examples from other political contexts. However, this did not affect the quality of the research nor the results that are sought to be reached, instead, it represents a good start for future researches to look into other contexts.

scholarly journals A TOOLKIT TO EVALUATE THE IMPACT OF AN EDUCATIONAL ACTION TO SENIORS’ QUALITY OF LIFE

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 345
Author(s):  
Roger Esteller-Curto ◽  
Pilar Escuder-Mollon ◽  
Luis Ochoa
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Lifelong Learning ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Specific Knowledge ◽  
Knowledge And Skills ◽  
Personal Motivation ◽  
Teaching Learning ◽  
The Impact

When an institution needs to evaluate the teaching-learning process then it can be done evaluating the knowledge and skills acquired by the learners or by the self-evaluating the trainers from the students perspective. The qualifications in this context is the main measure to get the metric for evaluation. On the other hand, when there is not a need to acquire a specific knowledge or expertise but when the learners wants to continue learning because he/she enjoys it, wants to keep learning and being active or any other personal motivation, then evaluation becomes a big challenge. This is the case of seniors’ education (citizens over 65 or retired). Which metrics should be used when evaluating institution? how we can know if those institutions are doing the work correctly ? how can the institution increase the quality and effectiveness ? From this need the project QEduSen (supported by the Lifelong Learning Programme of the European Commission) produced an evaluation toolkit.

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