Geistesgeschichte en Christelike Wetenskap . Betogings vir en teen ’n Christelike siening van kunsgeskiedenis*

This essay has three motives. In the first place it wants to argue against Wellek and Warren who maintain that all extrinsic approaches to art are unable to furnish aesthetics with a “rational” foundation. But if Wellek and Warren's claim is a crass generalization, it does not mean that a so called Christian approach to art can easily be justified. Therefore, secondly, a critique - a Christian scientific critique - of some current and so called Christian views on art has become necessary. The last motive, a somewhat old-fashioned one, seems to contravene the second one: this essay wants to state a case for a Christian approach to (the history of) art

The significance and insignificance of Clive Bell’s formalism1

Clive Bell coined the phrase significant form. The way he initially defined the phrase and the way he implemented it were two different matters. In this article Bell's procedure is analysed as a characteristic of late modernist aesthetics, i.e. an attempt to come to terms with the challenge of the radically new in art. It is suggested that one should bear in mind that formalism in this sense is a theory of artistic material which explains how meaning is communicated and perceived through non-discursive qualities of the artistic material. That is the relevance of Susanne K. Longer's reinterpretation of Bell's phrase

Transendentale kritiek en negatiewe dialektiek: ’n vergelyking tussen Dooyeweerd en Adorno se samelewingskritiek

Transcendental critique and negative dialectics: a comparison between Dooyeweerd’s and Adorno’s social critique. Plato's allegory of the cave set a fashion for philosophy, i.e. to distinguish between appearance and reality. This fashion is still distinguishable in the work of two philosophers whose social critiques, at a first glance, are worlds apart: Herman Dooyeweerd of the Free University in Amsterdam, and Theodor Adorno o f the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt. Upon a closer look, however, many similarities appear. Their diagnoses of Western society probes beneath the beguiling surface of scientific and technological progress to reveal serious tensions deeply embedded in Western culture. The question arises: how conscious are they of their own embeddedness in this cultural crisis? Dooyeweerd and Adorno are analysed on this issue, and the conclusion shows Dooyeweerd’s philosophy to suffer from an intellectual hybris, whereas Adorno’s is portrayed as burdened with a paralysing aestheticism. The result of this critical analysis of Dooyeweerd and Adorno is a suggestion to rehabilitate the tradition of Christian thinking as an ongoing debate between rival interpretations of the biblical message, which offers creative opportunities to respond to cultural crises and the suffering they entail

Filosofie op die rand

Philosophy on the edgeThe modem idea of the university initially assigned Philosophy to the heart of this institution. But the combination of this idea and an idealist philosophy soon got the better of both - the process o f modernisation fragmented the university into a disparate collection of discourses and interest groups, each struggling for control of whatever resources could be claimed. The process of modernisation, spawned by the very same Enlightenment philosophy, marginalised Philosophy within the university itself, and in society at large. What, then, does the future hold for Philosophy as an academic and a cultural endeavour? A typology of four options, reconstructed from the (albeit recent) history of Philosophy, especially since the Enlightenment, is investigated. After their merits and demerits have been outlined, proposals are made for a postmodern rehabilitation of Philosophy. These proposals centre in Philosophy as trustee of cultural literacy, multidimensional creativity, taking care of thinking itself, and, finally, Philosophy as caretaker of the otherwise)

Huldeblyk: Johan Degenaar (1926-2015)

A tribute to Johan Degenaar, Professor of philosophy at Stellenbosch University

Development of a large-area, low-cost solar water-heating system for South Africa with a high thermal energy collection capacity

A low-cost heat-exchanger system that can be used in high-pressure/low-pressure isolated solar water-heating systems in South Africa was developed for household applications. The combination of a copper coil and electrical heater allowed for isolation of the high-pressure and low-pressure sections of the system and enabled the utilisation of large low-cost solar heat-absorber platforms that operated at low pressure with a low risk of fouling and leaking. The design comprised a copper coil heat exchanger to be installed inside a conventional geyser, to replace the normal heating element and thermostat system in a conventional commercially available household geyser. The electric heating element still supplements the system in low solar energy conditions. The circulation in the system is created by a small separate photovoltaic panel and a circulation pump. An integrated switch allows the system to alternate between conventional electrical heating and solar water-heating according to prevailing weather conditions. Current tests show that the system of 15 m2 area can be installed at a cost of approximately ZAR 10 000–12 000. The system can provide hot water at approximately 12 cents per kWh, with a total heat storage capacity of up to 10 kWh per day. This implies a saving to the customer of up to ZAR 600 per month. The accumulated saving to a household over the ten-year lifetime of the product is estimated at ZAR 200 000. As the thermal energy storage capacity of current systems as available on the local market is approximately 1 kWhr per day for a 2 m2 collector. A typical increase in thermal energy collection capacity of tenfold more than the capability of conventional systems on the market is hence achieved. The system offers implementation possibilities for South Africa’s low-cost housing schemes and can provide for creating numerous new business and job opportunities on the African continent with its abundant solar irradiation resources

Electronic properties of bilayer and multilayer graphene

We study the effects of site dilution disorder on the electronic properties in graphene multilayers, in particular the bilayer and the infinite stack. The simplicity of the model allows for an easy implementation of the coherent potential approximation and some analytical results. Within the model we compute the self-energies, the density of states and the spectral functions. Moreover, we obtain the frequency and temperature dependence of the conductivity as well as the DC conductivity. The c-axis response is unconventional in the sense that impurities increase the response for low enough doping. We also study the problem of impurities in the biased graphene bilayer.Comment: 36 pages, 42 figures, references adde

The Dutch Reformed Church as a prominent established South African church: In transition towards the 21st century

The Dutch Reformed Church (Nederduitse Gereformeerde Kerk) is in transition because of the influences of the more recent South African epochs of democratisation, Africanisation and globalisation. The histories of these epochs extend over more than 20 years and have had a significant influence on the church. The Dutch Reformed (DR) Church changed institutionally because its place and influence within society changed considerably as a result of political and social transformation since 1994. The ongoing process of Africanisation that accompanies these transformations brings certain reactions to the bosom of the church via the experiences of its members. Most are Afrikaners being more inclined to westernised social frames of reference. Ironically, these people are more susceptible to the effects of globalisation, especially secularisation, which transposes the religious set-up of the DR Church into an open and individuated system. These developments pose major challenges to the DR Church in the sense that it has to reconsider how it approaches society, what it can contribute to the ecumenical church, why it is necessary to reflect on its denominational identity and what its academic, theological endeavours in these regards entail.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: This article has an interdisciplinary scope because the multiplicity of the present-day calls for interdisciplinary academic reflection. For the purpose of this article, Church Historiography helps to systemise recent ecclesiastical developments within the DR Church. To clarify the influences of these developments on the DR Church, sociological premises are incorporated to describe them within a broader social context. References to the conducted empirical study serve to explain respondents� (members of the DR Church) social and religious constructs regarding these ecclesiastical and sociological phenomena.</p

Trpljenje in politika spomina

The paper attempts a post apartheid reading of the Women’s memorial, unveiled in 1913, in South Africa. The social function of comparable memorials (eg. the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, and the Dachau memorial near Munich) is outlined in order to highlight the aesthetic ideology of the Women’s Memorial. It is suggested that the Women’s Memorial, as it stands, can be rehabilitated in a post apartheid society, if its perception can be informed by a wider knowledge of the sufferings of war. The memorial can be recontextualized so that the voices of the other, i.e. women and black victims of the long gone conflict between Boer and British, can become audible.Avtor se loteva postapartheidovskega branja »spomenika ženskam«, ki so ga leta 1913 odkrili v Južni Afriki. Oris družbene funkcije podobnih spomenikov (npr. »Spomenika vietnamskim veteranom« v Washingtonu in »Dachauskega spomenika« blizu Münchna) služi, da bi poudarili estetsko ideologijo »Spomenika ženskam«. Avtor meni, da bi spomenik, takšnega kot je, lahko rehabilitirali v postapartheidovski družbi, če bi njegovo percepcijo dopolnjevalo širše poznavanje vojnega trpljenja. Spomenik bi lahko rekontekstualizirali tako, da bi omogočili slišanje drugih glasov, tj. glasov ženskih in črnskih žrtev davnega spopada med Buri in Britanci