Figures of interpretation

This peer-reviewed article was intended to contribute to the general pedagogy of practice-led doctoral research through addressing the particular methodological issue of the relationship between written text and practice. This methodological issue concerns the modes of interpretation that arise in the relationship between the written text and the art work in practice-led doctoral research. The initial version of this paper was a contribution to the 5th Research into Practice conference (Royal Society of Arts, London, October 2008), whose central theme was the question of whether art practice-led doctoral research should provide the means for a clear interpretation of its contribution to knowledge, or whether it is a defining characteristic of art work that it is open to different interpretations. In the article I subsequently developed, I consider the idea that the act of interpretation which takes place between written text and art work is one that involves two distinct interpretative attitudes, and explore the possibility, with reference to Hayden White's work on the relationship between rhetorical figures and discourse, that a particular kind of knowledge is produced through the workings of their internal relationship

Pragmatic Administrative Law and Tax Exceptionalism

This Essay responds to the 2014 Duke Law Journal Administrative Law Symposium. Its principal contention is that courts and other commentators should give due weight to the history and virtues of the evolution of administrative law in the United States—and consider embracing the pragmatism and flexibility that it enables—in applying general principles of administrative law in the tax context

"Am iz kwiin" (I'm his queen): Combining interpretative phenomenological analysis with a feminist approach to work with gems in a resource-constrained setting

This article focuses on working with gems using a feminist approach to interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) in a resource-constrained setting. The research explores the experiences of maternal disclosure of HIV to children of HIV positive mothers in Kingston, Jamaica. A feminist approach helps recognise power imbalances within research relationships and the women’s lived experiences. We present three “gems” which illuminate women’s lived experiences and explore how popularised representations of women’s sexuality and mothering influence disclosure discourses. We use emotion work as a conceptual resource to structure the women’s narratives and challenge existing policy discourses, which arguably represent disclosure within a binary, rationalist, decision-making framework. This article adds to global literature on maternal HIV disclosure and problematises policy discourses by bringing into relief the emotion work women engage in when deciding if and how to communicate their HIV status to their children. It adds to the body of research using IPA, particularly in resource-constrained settings where IPA has thus far had little application

Ethical judgment and radical business changes: the role of entrepreneurial perspicacity

This study examines the implications of practical reason for entrepreneurial activities. Our study is based on Thomas Aquinas’ interpretation of such virtue, with a particular focus on the partition of practical reason in potential parts such as synesis, or common sense, and gnome, or perspicacity. Since entrepreneurial acts and actions deal with extremely uncertain situations, we argue that only this perspicacity, as the ability of correctly judging in exceptional cases, has the power to find wisdom under such blurred conditions. Perspicacity frees entrepreneurs from their cognitive schemata rendering them able to be truly entrepreneurial. Based on this vision and thanks to a semantic analysis of the meaning of the Greek word gnome, we construct an interpretative model for entrepreneurial judgment composed of three dimensions, specifically, knowledge-cognitive, external-affective and personal-reflective. The model highlights how a ‘successful’ entrepreneurial judgment is also such from a holistic point of view

Interpretation and the Constraints on International Courts

This paper argues that methodologies of interpretation do not do what they promise – they do not constrain interpretation by providing neutral steps that one can follow in finding out a meaning of a text – but nevertheless do their constraining work by being part of what can be described as the legal practice

Theology: Also (Green) Religious Experience Seeking Understanding

Religious experience in contemporary theological epistemology is a theme broad enough to allow for many approaches. This essay grants the concept of \u27religious experience\u27 tentative validity, subject to later qualification. The actual experience explored will be a \u27green\u27 experience of non-human nature that many Christians have in common with many non-Christians. The first section describes it in a general way, while the second probes its character as a possible \u27religious experience\u27. Then, a third section begins to explore its theological significance. A conclusion emphasizes the essential, dynamic partnership between theological method and non-methodical elements, such as religious experiences in general and the \u27green\u27 experience in particular

Interpetative thinking and impression formation in a prisoner's dilemma game.

In three experiments we examined the notion that interpretative thinking guides impression formation when playing a prisoner's dilemma game. In a first experiment, we demonstrated that an interpretation goal is spontaneously triggered upon receiving ambiguous information about an interaction partner in the context of a prisoner's dilemma game. In Experiment 2, we examined whether in this context accessible knowledge is used as an interpretation frame for judging the interaction partner. Indeed, we found that subliminally primed extreme person exemplars led to an assimilation effect in person judgment in a prisoner's dilemma game, whereas they led to a contrast effect when person judgments were made in a control condition. Finally in experiment 3, priming a comparison goal before entering a prisoner's dilemma game led participants to use subliminally presented extreme exemplars again as a standard of comparison in the judgment of an interaction partner.Information; Knowledge;