Quality and inspiration. A study of the diversification of rhetoric of quality in relation to different conceptual domains in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values by Robert M. Pirsig

This article discusses the basic types of concepts of quality occurring in Robert M. Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values. These terms refer to the different conceptual domains, creating diversi ed types of rhetoric. All kinds of rhetoric refer to the discovery and awakening of individuality. The quality of education at university or on a motorbike must extend to all possible levels of the Great Chain of Being, it can not only be addressed with abstractedness. Conceptual diversi cation means diversifying rhetoric and style, which possibly corresponds to different levels of quality for Pirsig. In this sense, his proposals of a metaphysics of quality is part of a current dispute about the crisis within the humanities and the need to give it meaning, practicality and socially responsible utility. A metaphysics of quality uses the rhetoric of conceptual schemata which include: road, inclusion and container.Artykuł omawia podstawowe typy pojęcia jakości występujące w powieści Roberta M. Pirsiga pt. Zen i sztuka obsługi motocykla. Rozprawa o wartościach. Te pojęcia odnoszą się do różnych domen konceptualnych, tworząc tym samym zdywersyfkowane typy retoryki. Wszystkie typy retoryki odnoszą się do odkrywania i przebudzenia jednostkowości. Jakość kształcenia na uniwersytecie czy na motocyklu musi sięgać do wszystkich możliwych poziomów Wielkiego Łańcucha Bytu, nie może adresować jedynie abstrakcji. Dywersyfkacja konceptualna oznacza zdywersyfkowanie retoryki i stylu, co może odpowiadać także różnym poziomom jakości u Pirsiga. W tym sensie jego propozycja metafzyki jakości wpisuje się w aktualne spory o kryzysie humanistyki i konieczności jej usensownienia, upraktycznienia i użycia społecznie odpowiedzialnego. Metafzyka jakości posługuje się retoryką schematów konceptualnych drogi, inkluzji i pojemnika

Professional Philosophy, “Diversity,” and Racist Exclusion: On Van Norden’s Taking Back Philosophy: A Multicultural Manifesto

A critical review essay, this work explains the methodological, material, and ideological reasons for why "diversity" initiatives in philosophy face an up-hill battle

Living Knowledge

Diversity, especially manifested in language and knowledge, is a function of local goals, needs, competences, beliefs, culture, opinions and personal experience. The Living Knowledge project considers diversity as an asset rather than a problem. With the project, foundational ideas emerged from the synergic contribution of different disciplines, methodologies (with which many partners were previously unfamiliar) and technologies flowed in concrete diversity-aware applications such as the Future Predictor and the Media Content Analyser providing users with better structured information while coping with Web scale complexities. The key notions of diversity, fact, opinion and bias have been defined in relation to three methodologies: Media Content Analysis (MCA) which operates from a social sciences perspective; Multimodal Genre Analysis (MGA) which operates from a semiotic perspective and Facet Analysis (FA) which operates from a knowledge representation and organization perspective. A conceptual architecture that pulls all of them together has become the core of the tools for automatic extraction and the way they interact. In particular, the conceptual architecture has been implemented with the Media Content Analyser application. The scientific and technological results obtained are described in the following

Innovation Institution and Spatial Transfer of Energy Industry: The Case of Jiangsu Province, China

This study aims to explore the effect of innovation institution on spatial transfer of energy industry in Jiangsu, China. We focus on the disparity of innovation and energy industry, and analyze the spatial transfer difference in different types of energy industry, rather than view energy industry as a whole. The study demonstrates the spatial change of energy industry at regional level and maps the spatial pattern at city level. The study chooses intellectual property rights (IPRs) protection intensity, authorization patents and local research and development (R&D) investment as the proxy of innovation. Using official data and employing panel fixed-effect model at city-industry level, we conclude (a) innovation abilities significantly influence the spatial transfer of energy industry in Jiangsu. Especially, due to the different time, IPRs protection, patent counts, and R&D investment have different effects on different regions in Jiangsu; (b) 2010 is an important turning point for energy industry development in Jiangsu, and after 2010, the energy industry begins to shift to the middle and northern Jiangsu, whereas the spatial pattern of energy industry in coastal cities is basically unchanged; (c) there is a great difference between the regions in Jiangsu Province, and industrial upgrading has not been achieved in northern Jiangsu

Risk and resilience in the Scottish social housing sector: ‘We’re all risk managers’

Social housing providers confront an array of risks strategically and operationally. Recently, models of hybrid organisations have been developed to understand how non-profit landlords are changing in response to market and other external pressures. In this paper, we draw on a multidisciplinary conceptual framework of external and internal risks, multiple stakeholders and resilience strategies, as well as the notion of hybridity, in order to make sense of change in Scotland's social housing sector. The paper draws on elite interviews as well as case studies that seek to capture the range of approaches adopted by providers. Although providers handle and respond to risk in a variety of ways, risk management is a necessary part of the management of social housing businesses. Increasingly, providers are concerned with questions of resilience – the need to make themselves as organisations more resilient and also to promote greater resilience amongst tenants as a way of mitigating risk. Our research suggests that this is leading to some positive outcomes e.g. greater diversity within the sector and increased customer focus but there is concern that government policies remain within silos and are insufficiently flexible to deal with changed circumstances and the evolving needs and aspirations of the sector

Nollywood in Diversity: New Dimensions for Behaviour Change and National Security in Nigeria

This paper sets out to demystify the nature of Nollywood movies existing in diversity and to propose new dimensions for using film to achieve behaviour change and a dependable national security in Nigeria. The paper views national security as the art of ensuring national safety of the government. Nollywood has naturally diversified along ethnic dimensions including the Hausa movies (Kannywood) in the North, the Yoruba movies in the West and the Ibo movies in the Eastern part of the Nigeria. Others include the Akwa-Cross movies from the Southern part and the Tiv movies from the Middle Belt region of Nigeria. The paper adopts observation and analytical research methods depending on secondary sources. The paper finds out and concludes that Nollywood’s diversity is an opportunity to ameliorate some security challenges of the country and recommends the use of behaviour change focused themes which should be featured by Nollywood movie producers in Nigerian films produced along cultural, ethnic and regional boundaries

Risk, commercialism and social purpose: Repositioning the English housing association sector

Originally seen as the ‘third arm’ of UK housing policy, the independent, not-for-profit housing association sector had long been seen as effective in ‘filling the gap’ where the state or market were unable to provide for households in need. Since the 1980s in particular, successive governments had viewed housing associations in favourable terms as efficient, semi-autonomous social businesses, capable of leveraging significant private funding. By 2015, in contrast, central government had come to perceive the sector as inefficient, bureaucratic and wasteful of public subsidy. Making use of institutional theory, this paper considers this paradigm shift and examines the organisational responses to an increasingly challenging operating environment. By focusing, in particular, on large London housing associations, the paper analyses their strategic decision-making to address the opportunities and threats presented. The paper argues that in facing an era of minimal subsidy, low security and high risk, the 2015 reforms represent a critical juncture for the sector. Housing organisations face a stark dilemma about whether to continue a strategy of ‘profit for purpose’ or to embrace an unambiguously commercial ethos. The article contends that the trajectory of decision-making (although not unidirectional) leads ultimately towards an increased exposure to risk and vulnerability to changes in the housing market. More fundamentally, the attempt to reconcile social and commercial logics is likely to have wider consequences for the legitimacy of the sector