scholarly journals Life is Suffering: Thrownness, Duhkha, Gaps, and the Origin of Existential-Spiritual Needs for Information

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger Chabot
Keyword(s):  
Martin Heidegger ◽  
Information Seeking ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Human Existence ◽  
Spiritual Needs ◽  
Information Need ◽  
Considerable Time ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Information Practices ◽  
The Human Condition

LIS scholars have spent considerable time investigating the incipient stages of information seeking: the so-called “information need” as well as a host of other motivators. A study of twenty New Kadampa Buddhists, whose experiences were collected through semi-structured interviews, sought to explore their spiritual information practices and their motivations for engaging in such behaviour. An analysis of these interviews suggests that Martin Heidegger’s concept of thrownness can be paralleled with Buddhism’s First Noble Truth and Dervin’s gap metaphor, all which identify existential-level faults as inherent to the human condition. This paper offers that it is these closely-related problematic elements of human existence that are the origin of spiritual and existential motivations for engaging in spiritual information practices.Les chercheurs en bibliothéconomie et sciences de l’information ont passé beaucoup de temps à étudier les premières étapes de la recherche d'information : le soi-disant «besoin d'information» ainsi qu'une foule d'autres facteurs de motivation. L’étude de vingt nouveaux bouddhistes kadampa, dont les expériences ont été recueillies à travers des entretiens semistructurés, a cherché à explorer leurs pratiques d'information spirituelle et les motivations de leur comportement. Une analyse de ces entrevues suggère que le concept de l’être-jeté de Martin Heidegger peut être mis en parallèle avec la Première Noble Vérité du Bouddhisme et la métaphore de la lacune de Dervin, qui identifient les failles au niveau existentiel comme inhérentes à la condition humaine. Cet article propose que ce sont ces éléments problématiques étroitement liés de l'existence humaine qui sont à l'origine des motivations spirituelles et existentielles pour s'engager dans des pratiques d'information spirituelle.

scholarly journals Young children’s information-seeking practices in center-based childcare

2021 ◽  
pp. 096100062096216
Author(s):  
Sarah Barriage
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Information Seeking ◽  
Day Care ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Photo Elicitation ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Information Practices ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Concept Of Information ◽  
Classroom Resources

Many children in the USA spend a significant amount of time in center-based childcare. However, research has yet to explore their information practices in this setting. This study investigates young children’s perceptions of the concept of information and their own information-seeking practices within the context of their day care classroom. The participants included 13 children between three and five years of age. Data was collected using participant observation, semi-structured interviews, child-led photo tours, and photo-elicitation interviews. The findings indicate that the children did not perceive the concept of information in a manner consistent with adult understandings of the term, and that they engaged in information-seeking related to finding out new things on their own, through interactions with others, and through classroom resources, activities, and routines. The findings have implications for both researchers and practitioners working with young children.

The Politics of Worldlessness

2020 ◽  
pp. 80-127
Author(s):  
Roland Végső
Keyword(s):  
Martin Heidegger ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
The Political ◽  
Simple Fact ◽  
Political World ◽  
Life Of The Mind ◽  
Life Itself ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Way ◽  
The Human Condition

The chapter examines Hannah Arendt’s critique of martin Heidegger and concentrates on the way Arendt tries to subvert the Heideggerian paradigm of worldlessness. While for Heidegger, the ontological paradigm of worldlessness was the lifeless stone, in Arendt’s book biological life itself emerges as the worldless condition of the political world of publicity. The theoretical challenge bequeathed to us by Arendt is to draw the consequences of the simple fact that life is worldless. The worldlessness of life, therefore, becomes a genuine condition of impossibility for politics: it makes politics possible, but at the same time it threatens the very existence of politics. The chapter traces the development of this argument in three of Arendt’s major works: The Origins of Totalitarianism, The Human Condition, and The Life of the Mind.

Conclusion

2019 ◽  
pp. 263-268
Author(s):  
Jarred A. Mercer
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Human Existence ◽  
De Trinitate ◽  
Theological Discourse ◽  
The Human Condition

The Conclusion provides a summary of the arguments of each chapter and shows how they cohere in Hilary of Poitiers’s trinitarian anthropology. In his autobiographical section of De Trinitate Hilary claims to have found “a hope greater than expected” (Trin. 1.11) in his contemplation of the infinite God, in which humanity, aided by its educative embodied existence (1.14), is destined for life and progress, not death and regress. Hilary’s theology reconstructed within his framework of trinitarian anthropology illuminates his own thought and provides avenues to reassess the nature of fourth-century theology and its controversies in a way that implicates the nature of humanity in that theological discourse. For Hilary, imperfect, mutable, finite human existence is defined by God’s perfect, immutable, and infinite life, so as to place the human condition in a state of perpetual progress from potentiality to perfection.

Technoscience, transhumanism, telos

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natasha Vita-More
Keyword(s):  
Human Condition ◽  
Human Existence ◽  
Moral Perception ◽  
Future Scenarios ◽  
Social Construct ◽  
Use Of Technology ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
Key Events ◽  
The Human Condition

This chapter focuses on human achievements accomplished with the use of technology and science as methods to explore humanity’s most daunting challenges. Each era of human achievement reveals previously unimaginable goals that, once attained, impact and positively transform the world and the future of humanity. Transhumanism offers a social construct for action-oriented strategies to inform and mitigate many of these threats. These strategies stem from diverse fields of inquiry, research, and analysis of possible future scenarios, and suggest the processes for implementing them. Notably, counterarguments to an intervention in the human condition—the characteristics and key events concerning human existence—often expose themselves as biases in moral perception that, in due course, fall short. Yet humans continue to be fueled by curiosity and a need for amelioration to transcend limits. What is lacking and most imminently necessary to address the exponentially increasing technology in our midst, and society’s varied perceptions and reactions, is straightforward guidance in navigating towards the telos of our humanity.

scholarly journals Hamlet, or about Death: A Romanian Hamlet directed by Vlad Mugur (2001)

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (35) ◽  
pp. 51-60
Author(s):  
Monica Matei-Chesnoiu
Keyword(s):  
Human Experience ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Human Existence ◽  
First Century ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
National Theatre ◽  
The World ◽  
Existential Issues ◽  
The Human Condition

This essay looks at the 2001 Romanian production of Hamlet directed by Vlad Mugur at the Cluj National Theatre (Romania) from the perspective of geocriticism and spatial literary studies, analysing the stage space opened in front of the audiences. While the bare stage suggests asceticism and alienation, the production distances the twenty-first century audiences from what might have seemed difficult to understand from their postmodern perspectives. The production abbreviates the topic to its bare essence, just as a map condenses space, in the form of “literary cartography” (Tally 20). There is no room in this production for baroque ornaments and theatrical flourishing; instead, the production explores the exposed depth of human existence. The production is an exploration of theatre and art, of what dramatists and directors can do with artful language, of the theatre as an exploration of human experience and potential. It is about the human condition and the artist’s place in the world, about old and new, about life and death, while everything happens on the edge of nothingness. The director’s own death before the opening night of the production ties Shakespeare’s Hamlet with existential issues in an even deeper way than the play itself allows us to expose.

‘Access necessitates being seen’: Queer visibility and intersectional embodiment within the health information practices of queer community leaders

2021 ◽  
pp. 016555152110406
Author(s):  
Travis L Wagner ◽  
Vanessa L Kitzie
Keyword(s):  
South Carolina ◽  
Health Information ◽  
Information Seeking ◽  
Community Leaders ◽  
Health Information Seeking ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Queer Identity ◽  
Non Profit ◽  
Information Practices ◽  
Information Professionals

Navigating healthcare infrastructures is particularly challenging for queer-identifying individuals, with significant barriers emerging around stigma and practitioner ignorance. Further intersecting, historically marginalised identities such as one’s race, age or ability exacerbate such engagement with healthcare, particularly the access to and use of reliable and appropriate health information. We explore the salience of one’s queer identity relative to other embodied identities when navigating health information and care for themselves and their communities. Thirty semi-structured interviews with queer community leaders from South Carolina inform our discussion of the role one’s queer visibility plays relational to the visibility of other identities. We find that leaders and their communities navigate these intersectional visibilities through unique and iterative approaches to health information seeking, sharing and use predicated upon anti-queer, racist, ableist and misogynistic sentiments. Findings can inform queer-inclusive, intersectionally informed interventions by health and information professionals such as non-profit advocacy organisations and medical librarians.

scholarly journals The information behaviours of maximum security prisoners

2019 ◽  
Vol 75 (2) ◽  
pp. 417-434 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cheryl Canning ◽  
Steven Buchanan
Keyword(s):  
Information Seeking ◽  
Information Needs ◽  
Information Sources ◽  
Emotional Needs ◽  
Information Need ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Maximum Security ◽  
Interpersonal Information ◽  
Insight Into

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to advance the understanding of the information behaviours of prisoners, providing insight into their information needs and information-seeking preferences, and the factors influencing their behaviours; to inform education and rehabilitation programmes. Design/methodology/approach The paper is an in-depth qualitative study. The theoretical framework was provided via Chatman’s (1996) concepts of information poverty. Participants were adult male prisoners in a Scottish maximum security prison, and prison staff. Data collection method was semi-structured interviews. Findings Prisoners have a broad range of information needs, many sensitive and many unmet. Interpersonal information sources are predominantly used due to a combination of natural preference and restricted access to other information sources. Issues of stigma and trust influence information behaviours. Further issues include restrictive social norms, and disinformation to incite violence. A significant degree of risk is therefore inherent within interpersonal information interactions, fostering self-protective acts of secrecy and deception amongst prisoners. Unmet emotional needs appear particularly problematic. Research limitations/implications The paper highlights the need for further research exploring issues of unmet emotional needs in prisoners; in particular, assistive methods of need recognition and support in the problematic context. Practical implications The paper identifies significant unmet information needs in prisoners that impact upon their ability to cope with incarceration, and prepare for successful release and reintegration. Originality/value The paper addresses an understudied group of significant societal concern and advances the understanding of information need in context, providing insight into unmet needs and issues of affect in the incarcerated small world context.

scholarly journals The Compassion of Zarathustra: Nietzsche on Sympathy and Strength

2006 ◽  
Vol 68 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael L. Frazer
Keyword(s):  
Friedrich Nietzsche ◽  
Essential Element ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Human Existence ◽  
Accurate Knowledge ◽  
The Human Condition

Contemporary theorists critical of the current vogue for compassion might like to turn to Friedrich Nietzsche as an obvious ally in their opposition to the sentiment. Yet this essay argues that Nietzsche's critique of compassion is not entirely critical, and that the endorsement of one's sympathetic feelings is actually a natural outgrowth of Nietzsche's immoralist ethics. Nietzsche understands the tendency to share in the suffering of their inferiors as a distinctive vulnerability of the spiritually strong and healthy. Their compassion, however, is an essential element of the imaginative creativity that Nietzsche holds to be the goal of human existence. Although shared suffering may prove debilitating for some, great individuals must come to affirm their compassion as necessary in achieving accurate knowledge of the human condition.

scholarly journals Hav, hage, teater og temperatur i Cora Sandels Alberte-bøker

Nordlit ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 31
Author(s):  
Morten Bartnæs
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Human Existence ◽  
Thermal Imagery ◽  
Central Function ◽  
Narrative Technique ◽  
Integral Element ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Human Condition

Current readings of Cora Sandel’s Alberta-trilogy (1926-1939) frequently tend to reuse the novels’ imagery in their own descriptive and interpretive statements – instead of treating this characteristic of the novels with the same degree of attention as, e.g., the trilogy’s psychological and political aspects, or its narrative technique. The present article attempts to draw attention to the trilogy’s imagery as a both autonomous and integral element in Cora Sandel’s novelistic art. Three metaphorical ways of thought which show their presence throughout the trilogy, are singled out: In the novels, the persons (and thus, implicitly or explicitly, the human condition) are frequently pictured as being situated on the high sea, in a garden or in a theatre. In the Alberta-trilogy, these time-honoured metaphors are the object of a refined practice of re-contextualization. In my attempt to trace this process, I draw special attention to the relationship between these metaphorical fields and the trilogy’s pervasive use of thermal imagery. In each case, I attempt to show that the thermal descriptions that are associated with the metaphorical views of human existence as a boat trip, a garden sojourn or a theatre performance have a central function in Cora Sandel’s use of these images.

scholarly journals Tożsamość i kondycja człowieka

2005 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-108
Author(s):  
Irena Grochowska
Keyword(s):  
Terminal Illness ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Human Existence ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Word Condition ◽  
Key Word ◽  
The Way ◽  
The Human Condition

Human aims for internal integrity and unison at all levels of human are identity and all dimensions of human existence. According to Rull integrity is a gift from God, but also a task for everybody, only possible when a human being is open for autotranscendency. Unity of mankind is based on condition. The key word condition means that a human being is not neutral. The conditions indicates limitations and burdens of human being, although more and more frequently modern man tries to deny it, defining by himself who he wants to be and taking the place of God. Modern individualism is a lonely following of traditional utopia of society. Delsol claims that the most certain thing, which we can say about a man, is the existence of his condition, which acceptance is possible under condition of leaving the theory of ruling. We are not independent from our condition, we can free ourselves from it like we cannot deny the way we look, the condition is like terminal illness. A person’s dignity grows from the wound of finiteness. Greatness of man is about receiving and solving problems, a constant struggle, not owing a panacea for all human problems. A man who rejects reality, wanting to create his own self loses form and falls. To realise about the human condition would mean leaving the possibility of existence, potentiality for act. Human being who does not accept the human condition becomes undefined, he does not know his identity, he is restricted to mass, to biological body, he looks after it, improves it looking for fulfilment. But identity requires defining, one cannot be oneself if one does not know what one should be.

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