Rittmann’s heritage: A philosophical approach for current research

ABSTRACT We present an interdisciplinary study between philosophy and science that uses a historical case to show some aspects of scientific research. The case in question is that of Alfred F. Rittmann (1893–1980), known as one of the central figures of twentieth-century volcanology. After outlining Rittmann’s scientific background and hypotheses, we briefly examine the set of his theories using Thomas Kuhn’s model of the development of science. We highlight the methodology of multiple working hypotheses and how they contributed to defining his geoscientific paradigm, namely, magmatological tectonics. Rittmann worked on his paradigm throughout his life, even making little-known criticisms on plate tectonics. We present some of them, contextualizing them in twentieth-century as well as current research. His use of multiple working hypotheses, along with his drive to search for synthetic visions between different models, could be a stimulating and pluralistic approach to unsolved geoscientific questions.

Making Knowledge Management Research more Scientific, Relevant, and Engaged: A Comparative Study of Academic ECKM Papers

The purpose is to analyse and compare all the academic papers in the proceedings of the European Conference on Knowledge Management (ECKM) in 2017 (Barcelona), 2018 (Padua), 2019 (Lisbon), and the digital conference in 2020 (Coventry). The methodology is to code and classify 440 papers and use five contemporary science frameworks to describe and analyse the papers. The theoretical implication of contemporary KM is a research field without common paradigms, domains, and perspectives without accumulating knowledge. The KM researchers do not understand the nature of knowledge management as a field where the research cannot be replicated, synthesized, or theorized. Knowledge management needs to move along from the empirical research paradigm to a clarified subjectivity and action-basedresearch. The criticism implying acceptable/unacceptable solutions and constructed adequate/inadequate solutions for corporations and societies have strengthened their place, offering new paradigms and perspectives. The way to do this is to let in controversial, greener, and sustainable studies, whatever objectivity or subjectivity the studies have. We need more actual problem focused and less knowledge and instrument focused studies. KM will have a higher responsibility for sustainability and greener corporations and the possibility of accumulating knowledge into replication and synthesizing for general knowledge. The rate of tested and replicated studies is for the four conferences zero. The tested part, but not replicated, is 80%. The rate of untheorized untheorizable concepts is zero, the rate of theorized but not synthesized studies is zero, while the number of synthesized, theorized, and conceptual studies is around 20%. To become a discipline or research domain KM needs to replicate both empirical and conceptual studies. The only way to accumulate knowledge is through replication giving paradigms for verification and falsification. To move ahead for better quality in the research, we must break free from the empirical and materialistic paradigms and move into the clarified subjectivity and action paradigm. Paradigmatic ecumenism will tend to a fiercer but idea-generating debate. This pluralistic approach will give more engaged practical research representing more sustainable societies and businesses. ECKM is on the road to include more pluralistic perspectives upon sustainability, value creation, gender issues, and the design of future knowledge work. There is a critical openness toward these issues making ECKM 2020 a more relevant conference than the ECKM conferences in 2017, 2018, and 2019. The 2020 conference more open up for reflections, dialogues, and criticism upon existing problems and knowledge asking about what is the adequate actual KM solutions.

On the Road Without a Map: Why We Need an “Ethic of Road Ecology”

Over the past two decades, our knowledge of the ecological impacts of roads has increased rapidly. It is now clear that the environmental effects of transportation infrastructure are inextricable from transportation benefits to economic, social, and cultural values. Despite the necessity of optimizing these multiple values, road planners, scientists, and practitioners have no established methodology or pluralistic approach to address growing ethical complexities. We articulate five ethical issues that could be addressed by developing an ethic of road ecology in order to facilitate the identification, reasoning, and harmonization of ethical dimensions of road planning and development. This inquiry into road ecology can draw lessons from existing applied ethics, such as in ecological restoration and urban planning, to build a narrative that is informed by both science and ethics. We illustrate five ethical issues presented through case studies that elaborate on the motivations, responsibilities, and duties that should be considered in ethically and scientifically complicated road building decisions. To address these issues, we encourage the development of a code of ethics, dedicated intellectual forums, and practical guidance to assist road planners, and more broadly transportation practitioners, to resolve complex ethical quandaries systematically. We hope this perspective encourages conversation for a holistic yet pragmatic approach to this applied ethics problem, while also assisting responsible parties as they navigate difficult moral terrain.

Post-Secular Identity? Developing a New Approach to Religion in International Relations and IR Studies

In spite of the increasing presence of religion in international relations with various publications observing this presence and numerous authorities calling for the inclusion of religion into mainstream research, there is no universal consent to recognize religion’s role in IR. In our opinion, the only way to reconcile IR with the international reality in which religion has been and will remain present in the foreseeable future is for the researchers themselves to construct—especially those oriented towards broad, non-Western perspective—a new face of the discipline, the face which in this article we call the post-secular identity of IR study. Assuming that identity is first and foremost a form of knowledge that tells us how we can define ourselves against the background of the surrounding world, our purpose is to look at the post-secular identity from two different perspectives which are analyzed in the two distinctive parts of the paper. On one hand, post-secular identity would mean the socio-political but also cultural phenomenon of the “knowledge of the self” expressed in the form of ideas, interests and goals of various state and nonstate actors, both religious and secular ones, that are more or less conditioned by religious determinants. We propose looking at them through the prism of a new kind of “partnership” emerging as a result of post-secular thinking in the area of IR. On the other hand, we want to look at post-secular identity as the badly required transformation within the area of IR study that, as we claim, needs to construct more inclusive views of IR scholars adopting a deliberative and pluralistic approach to the reality they examine based on widening their epistemological and hermeneutical horizons. This redefinition would be framed by recognizing religion as rational and adopting the view that the limits of the scientific methods do not coincide with the boundaries of rationality. We also adopt the view that along with the cognitive expansion of the universe, the concept of transcendence has been broadened.

Patterns for cost-sharing of agricultural technology transfer in Nigeria

With recent changes in the financing and delivery of agricultural technology transfer worldwide due to inability of many governments to cope with varied needs of clients, most reforms currently being initiated by governments tend towards a pluralistic approach and financial participation of all stakeholders. One of such reforms is through cost-sharing. The authors examined stakeholders’ (extension professionals and farmers) opinions on the appropriate patterns for cost-sharing of agricultural technology transfer in Nigeria. The study was carried out in six geopolitical zones of Nigeria. Multistage random sampling technique was applied in the selection of 268 farmers and 272 extension professionals. Mean scores and t-test statistics were utilized in realizing the objectives of the study. Results show that the stakeholders’ overall opinion on the appropriate pattern for cost-sharing was for beneficiaries of service to pay specified amounts of money to extension organizations every farming season through their cooperative societies. Results further showed that farmers proved to have more ideas on the best patterns of sharing the cost of technology transfer than the extension professionals. It was concluded that for cost-sharing to be effective, all the stakeholders have to participate in decision-making and implementation processes of agricultural technology transfer in the country. Key words: cost-sharing, agricultural technology transfer, farmers, extension professionals, Nigeria

Ethical Guidance for Hard Decisions: A Critical Review of Early International COVID-19 ICU Triage Guidelines

This article provides a critical comparative analysis of the substantive and procedural values and ethical concepts articulated in guidelines for allocating scarce resources in the COVID-19 pandemic. We identified 21 local and national guidelines written in English, Spanish, German and French; applicable to specific and identifiable jurisdictions; and providing guidance to clinicians for decision making when allocating critical care resources during the COVID-19 pandemic. US guidelines were not included, as these had recently been reviewed elsewhere. Information was extracted from each guideline on: 1) the development process; 2) the presence and nature of ethical, medical and social criteria for allocating critical care resources; and 3) the membership of and decision-making procedure of any triage committees. Results of our analysis show the majority appealed primarily to consequentialist reasoning in making allocation decisions, tempered by a largely pluralistic approach to other substantive and procedural values and ethical concepts. Medical and social criteria included medical need, co-morbidities, prognosis, age, disability and other factors, with a focus on seemingly objective medical criteria. There was little or no guidance on how to reconcile competing criteria, and little attention to internal contradictions within individual guidelines. Our analysis reveals the challenges in developing sound ethical guidance for allocating scarce medical resources, highlighting problems in operationalising ethical concepts and principles, divergence between guidelines, unresolved contradictions within the same guideline, and use of naïve objectivism in employing widely used medical criteria for allocating ICU resources.

Ways of life as modes of presentation

Books and journal articles have become the dominant modes of presentation in contemporary philosophy. This historically contingent paradigm prioritises textual expression and assumes a distinction between philosophical practice and its presented product. Using Socrates and Diogenes as exemplars, we challenge the presumed supremacy of the text and defend the importance of ways of life as modes of practiced presentation. We argue that text cannot capture the embodied activity of philosophy without remainder, and is therefore limited and incomplete. In particular, we contend that (1) a static text is essentially alienated from our practices of philosophising, (2) words cannot unambiguously represent lives, and (3) practiced presentation enriches our understanding beyond words alone. After discussing some pedagogical implications, we conclude with a plea for a pluralistic approach that recognises lives as legitimate and valuable modes of philosophical presentation.

A Pluralistic Perspective on Research in Psychotherapy: Harnessing Passion, Difference and Dialogue to Promote Justice and Relevance

The adoption of a pluralistic perspective on research design, processes of data collection and analysis and dissemination of findings, has the potential to enable psychotherapy research to make a more effective contribution to building a just society. A review of the key features of the concept of pluralism is followed by a historical analysis of the ways in which research in counselling, psychotherapy and related disciplines has moved in the direction of a pluralistic position around knowledge creation. Core principles of a pluralistic approach to research are identified and explored in the context of a critical case study of contemporary research into psychotherapy for depression, examples of pluralistically oriented research practices, and analysis of a pluralistic conceptualisation of the nature of evidence. Implications of a pluralistic perspective for research training and practice are discussed. Pluralistic inquiry that emphasises dialogue, collaboration, epistemic justice and the co-existence of multiple truths, creates opportunities for individuals, families and communities from a wide range of backgrounds to co-produce knowledge in ways that support their capacities for active citizenship and involvement in open democratic decision-making. To fulfil these possibilities, it is necessary for psychotherapy research to be oriented towards social goals that are sufficiently relevant to both researchers and co-participants to harness their passion and work together for a common good.

DETERMINING THE THRESHOLD FOR ORGANIZATIONAL RIGHTS: THE LEGAL QUAGMIRE FACING MINORITY UNIONS RESOLVED – South African Post Office v Commissioner Nowosenetz No (2013) 2 BLLR 216 (LC)

The issue of organizational rights facing minority unions has been a quagmire since the advent of the Labour Relations Act 66 of 1995(hereinafter “the LRA”). This quagmire exists, notwithstanding the fact that the Constitution affords every trade union the right to engage in collective bargaining (s 23 of the Constitution, 1996). The acquisition of organizational rights by trade unions plays a crucial rolein as far as collective bargaining is concerned. It is through collective bargaining that unions are able to negotiate with employers regarding the terms and conditions of employment. Commentators have often viewed the LRA as favouring larger unions and as conferring clear advantages on unions with majority support at the industry level. Chapter III of the LRA regulates collective bargaining. Whereas this chapterostensibly promotes a pluralistic approach to organizational rights it is unequivocally biased towards majoritarianism. This is the case despite minority trade unions fulfilling an important role in the current labour system especially when it comes to the balance of powerin the employment arena. In light of the above, the legal quagmire faced by the minority unions in the quest for acquiring organisation rights in terms of the relevant provisions of the LRA is clearly illustrated by the decision in South African Post Office v Commissioner Nowosenetz No ((2013) 2 BLLR 216 (LC) (hereinafter “ the South African Post Office case”)).