Key Influences on Ricoeur: Karl Jaspers

Ricoeur was a prisoner of war from 1940 to 1945. During this period, Ricoeur spent a great deal of time studying the complete works of the German existentialist philosopher Karl Jaspers.

According to Thornhill (2008) Jasper's work is "a subjective-experiential transformation of Kantian philosophy, which reconstructs Kantian transcendentalism as a doctrine of particular experience and spontaneous freedom, and emphasizes the constitutive importance of lived existence for authentic knowledge." Jasper's most important philosophical work is His three volume Philosophy.

Each of the three volumes explores a different way of being: orientation (vol. 1), existence (vol. 2) and metaphysical transcendence (vol. 3). Jaspers considers these three ways of being as the essential existential modalities of human life.

Thornhill (2008) writes,

Each level of being in Jaspers' Philosophy corresponds to one of the Kantian transcendental ideas, and the modes of thinking and knowing defining each level of existence elucidate the intellectual content of Kant's ideas. The level of orientation in the world corresponds to the idea of the unity of the world; the level of existence corresponds to the idea of the soul's immortality; the level of transcendence corresponds to the idea of God's necessary existence. However, whereas Kant saw transcendental ideas as the formal-regulative ideas of reason, serving, at most, to confer systematic organization on reason's immanent operations, Jaspers viewed transcendental ideas as realms of lived knowledge, though which consciousness passes and by whose experienced antinomies it is formed and guided to a knowledge of itself as transcendent. Jaspers thus attributed to transcendental ideas a substantial and experiential content. Ideas do not, as for Kant, simply mark the formal limits of knowledge, marking out the bounds of sense against speculative or metaphysical questions. Instead, ideas provide a constant impulsion for reason to overcome its limits, and to seek an ever more transcendent knowledge of itself, its contents and its possibilities.

Ricoeur's first book following his World War II captivity was Karl Jaspers et la Philosophie de l' Existence, co-authored with his friend and fellow prisoner, Mikel Dufrenne. In the 1950's Ricoeur had the intention to complete a three-part work titled Philosophy of the Will. In reality only two sections of the tripartie conception were formally completed: The Voluntary and the Involuntary and Finitude and Guilt (two volumes Fallible Man and The Symbolism of Evil).

In an interview with Charles Reagan (1996), Ricoeur reveals both how Jaspers influenced this project and how part three Poetics of the Will was completed through other endeavors.

The trilogy that I proposed in the preface to the philosophy of the will is clearly inspired by the trilogy in the philosophy of Karl Jaspers. . . . In his trilogy, the first part was called "Exploration of the World," the second "Existence," and the third "Transcendence and Metaphysics." This is the format I planned for my future work. . . . I deviated from this plan because of the development of the philosophy of the will itself. That is to say, I began with a reflexive method borrowed from Husserl . . . . the continued goal is less important than the change in method . . . . what I call the grafting of hermeneutics onto phenomenology. . . . As for the third part of the plan . . . I would claim that what I have already called a poetics of the will was accomplished in other modalities. (pp. 123, 124).

Ricoeur, in his conversation with Reagan (1996) gives the example of three of his works which accomplish the third part of his initial plan. First, The Rule of Metaphor examines the creativity in language on the semantic level. Second, Time and Narrative is concerned with the creativity of language at the level of constructing plots, and third, Idelogy and Utopia is an investigation of the social imagination.


References

Reagan, C. E. (1996). Paul Ricoeur : His life and his work. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Thornhill, Chris, "Karl Jaspers", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2008 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)

Key Influences on Ricoeur: Gabriel Marcel

Dauenhauer (2008) divides Ricoeur's professional works into two periods. The first is the pre-hermeneutic anthropology period. The second is the hermeneutic anthropology period. Ricoeur's works in the pre-hermeneutic anthropology period (prior to 1960) fall within the tradition of existential phenomenology. During the 1960's Ricoeur's work took a literary turn and his work integrated phenomenological description and hermeneutic interpretation.

The remainder of this post begins a discussion of Ricoeur's pre-hermeneutic anthropology period. Ricoeur's early works were particularly influenced by three philosophers Gabriel Marcel, Karl Jaspers, and Edmund Husserl. First we will take a look at the influence of Gabriel Marcel (pictured above) on Ricoeur.

Marcel (1889-1973) and Ricoeur first meet in 1934 while Ricoeur was studying at the Sorbonne. Marcel had a great influence on his personal life and his professional work. Marcel, a Catholic, is often associated with Christian existentialism, though He later resisted this designation. Consequently, both Marcel and Ricoeur are in the philosophical lineage of Soren Kierkegaard who is considered the "father of existentialism".

Treanor (2009) makes clear the significant influence of Marcel on the work of Ricouer.

Marcel's influence on contemporary philosophy is apparent, for example, in the work of Paul Ricoeur, his most famous student. Through Ricoeur, Marcel has influenced contemporary philosophy in and around the hermeneutic tradition. The pattern of “detour and return” that characterizes Ricoeur and some of his students closely resembles Marcel's dialectic of primary and secondary reflection.^[13] Likewise, Marcel's understanding of otherness—illustrated by his image of “constellations,” conglomerations of meaningfully connected but non-totalizable beings—is an explicit challenge to philosophers of absolute otherness including Emmanuel Levinas, Jacques Derrida, and John D. Caputo, and a valuable resource for philosophers with a chiastic understanding of otherness, including Ricoeur and Richard Kearney.

In my next post, I'll examine the influence of Karl Jaspers on Ricoeur.

References

Dauenhauer, Bernard, "Paul Ricoeur", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.).

Treanor, Brian, "Gabriel (-Honoré) Marcel", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2009 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.).

Paul Ricoeur and Philosophic Anthropology

Dauenhauer (2008) asserts that the ultimate aim of Ricoeur's philosophy can be described as a philosophic anthropology. According to Dauenhauer, Ricoeur referred to his work as an anthropology of the "capable person". Ricoeur's aim was to give an account of the fundamental capabilities and vulnerabilities that we display, as humans, in our ordinary lives. The accent is always on the the possibility of self-understanding. However, he rejects any notition that the self can be transparent to itself without any reference to or knowledge of the an exterior world.


Dauenhauer, Bernard, "Paul Ricoeur", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.).

A Classic in Millennial Studies

Norman Cohn's work, The pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary Messianism in Medieval and Reformation Europe and it Bearing on Modern Totalitarian Movements (1961), is a classic work in the field of millennial studies. It is also, perhaps surprisingly, relevant to today's contemporary environment of religious terrorism. Cohn was one of the first scholars to identify the phenomenon of apocalyptic violence which he refers to as militant, revolutionary chiliasm (p. 309). Cohn traces apocalyptic violence from the viewpoint of a historian. Concluding his work, Cohn discusses the two major totalitarian movements of the twentieth century, Nazism and Communism, and connects them with medieval apocalyptic movements. This book, according to the Times Literary Supplement, is rank among the 100 most influential books of the 20th century.

Getting to my Guess

Ricouer's interpretation theory consists of three stages (1) The Guess, (2) Validation, and (3) Comprehension and Appropriation. Right now I' m thinking about the Guess. This is the phase where one elucidates one's preliminary understandings of the text. Here one allows the text speak and takes its discourse at face value. In phenomenological terms, one observes as the text reveals itself through the appearance of various horizons. One then makes a preliminary guess concerning the meaning of these horizons apart from exegetical inquiry.

Horizons are similar to themes. However, horizons are unlimited and they are never static. For example, when I gaze into the sunset on the horizon, the way the horizon appears to me changes because I change my physical proximity to it, the descent of the sun, the movement of the clouds, or the appearance or disappearance of people or objects on the horizon that I had not anticipated. Likewise, horizons that appear in lived experience or in text become visible and recede or change as new aspects previously hidden to me come into my view.

So, how will I get to my Guess regarding John's Apocalypse? Because I am approaching John's Apocalypse not as prophetic literature but as narrative, I am beginning with David Barr's analysis of this text as three interrelated stories about Jesus. Barr structures the text around three scrolls: (a) the Letter Scroll (1:1-3:22), (b) the Worship Scroll (4:1-11:18), (c) the War Scroll (11:19-22:21).

In order to develop my Guess I plan to write 3 articles of around 1200 words each, one article for each Scroll. In these articles, I will simply observe and document the horizons that appear to me and describe their relationship to my research question which is: What does organizational leadership mean in a chaotic, nihilistic, and apocalyptic era?

Catching Up

Well, I can't believe its been almost 10 months since I posted to this blog. I took on new responsibilities at work and my dissertation went on the back burner. I had hoped to graduate this May, but that is not going to happen. So, I have to pick myself up and start again.

Not finishing is not an option!

So, let's review what has worked well in the past.

1) writing at least 200 words a day worked well.
2) spending an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening writing worked well.

I am still working on the Literature Review. I've gotten really tired of this section. So, on the advice of my Chairperson, I am going to start writing the Methodology chapter to take a break.

On the positive side. the first chapter of my dissertation was one of six winners of the Christian Business Faculty Association Dissertation Showcase. I presented the paper at the CBFA annual conference in Indianapolis this past November.

Making Progress

My recommitment to the dissertation progress is going well this week. As planned I got up at 4:00 am and wrote for an hour. It really feels good starting the day having finished an hour's work on my dissertation. It's very motivating for coming back to spend an hour in the evening.

So this morning, I finished the section on Aum Shinkiyo. I've included it below for those who are interested. This evening, I began working on a definition of religious apocalypticism. I'll be sharing segments of that work as it comes together.

So, tomorrow my goal is another two hours of work, one in the morning and one in the evening. I will continue to build the definition of religious apocalypticism.

____________________________________________________________________

Aum Shinkiyo and its leader, Shoko Asahara, gained the attention of the world in March 1995 when they released sarin gas into several Tokyo subway trains. According to Lifton (2003) Aum Shinrkiyo was a relatively small cultic group that acting upon its “vision of cosmic purification” (p. 57). The attack was not “apocalyptic” in its scope, killing only 12 persons. This limited loss of life occurred because Aum Shinkiyo knew Japanese authorities were closing in on the group, which caused the rushed execution of the attack. “The group’s plan had been to release enormous amounts of sarin later that year in order to create a major disaster and set in motion a series of catastrophic events and so fulfill its guru’s world-ending prophecies” (pp. 57, 58).

The cult was an eclectic mix of religious belief and practice. Its religious roots were Buddhist, but heavily influence by strains of early Tibetan Buddhism closely tied to Hinduism. In fact, Asahara, claimed Shiva, the Hindu world-destroying and restoring Hindu deity, as his personal god. Nevertheless, Asahara grounded his apocalyptic vision in the Christian concept of Armageddon. In addition, the group practiced high states of mystical experience often associated with New Age spirituality (pp 65, 66). Aum Shinkiyo’s aim was to be the sole survivors of an apocalyptic end of the world, who would “respiritualize a cleansed and vacant world” (p. 71).

Reference

Lifton, R. J. (2003). Superpower syndrome : America's apocalyptic confrontation with the world. New York: Thunder's Mouth Press/Nation Books.

When you can't sleep - Write!

Last night, I abruptly woke up and could not go back to sleep. So, I got up at spent two hours of quite writing time on my dissertation. This allowed me to meet my goal of 2 hours of writing time for today. Then, later this evening I did some reviewing, reading, and planning for my early morning writing tomorrow. In total, I spent 3.5 hours on my dissertation today.

For those of you interested in the content of my dissertation, here's what I wrote this morning.

Defining Apocalypticism

In constructing a definition of apocalypticism to guide this study, which embraces both the religious and secular expression apocalypticism, it is necessary to adopt a broad view of religious apocalypticism. While Christian apocalypticism is the most widely known form of apocalypticism in Western societies, apocalyptic thought both pre-dates Western civilization and extends beyond Western religious and cultural boundaries. Clifford (1998) traces the origins of apocalyptic thought to early Near Eastern cultures. The earliest extant literature is the Sumerian Lugal-e dating from the late third millennium (p. 7).

Seiwert (2000) documents the apocalyptic thought in the Chinese Daoist tradition beginning in the second century (CE). Then, an emergence of apocalyptic thought in Chinese Buddhism occurs in the fifth century. Siewert furthers our understanding of apocalypticism by underscoring its shared reference point with millenarianism, messianism, and eschatological speculation i.e. future events (p. 5). For Siewert, apocalypticism, within Chinese Buddhism, “denotes interpretations of history that predict and describe a catastrophic end of time” (p. 5).

Likewise, Peter Heine documents the messianic Islamic movement of the 18^th century in Haussaland (northern Nigeria). The leader of the movement, Sheikh Usman dan Fodio, was concerned about the corruption of Muslim religion in the area. Additionally, “there was a wide belief in the Muslim world that a Muslim world that a Mahdi would rise in the year 1200 Hidjra which corresponds to the year 1785/86 CE” (p. 70). Usman dan Fodio

Awaited the Mahdi to unravel the tangel of the times . . . He saw the world almost having run its course. Whatever reforms he might introduce . . . they were but a temporary expedient. Mankind had reached the point where it was not longer salvable by human agency . . . Hope lay only in the ultimate millennium . . . To prepare for the Mahdi was to play his appointed part in the divine order ( Hiskett cited in Heine, p. 73).

In this brief sampling of religious apocalypticism outside of the Christian tradition, we have observed its formation in the early Sumerian religious thought, its manifestation in medieval Chinese Buddhism, and it 18^th century manifestation among Muslims in Sub-Saharan Africa. The point, bearing reiteration here, is that apocalypticism in its religious expression far exceeds the boundaries of its Judeo-Christian expression. Lest one think this apocalyptic religious diversity is limited to the past, the Japanese Aum Shinrkyo offers an example from the late 20^th Century.

My writing plan for tomorrow morning is to write on Aum Shinrkyo.

References

Clifford, R. J. (1998). The roots of Apocalypticism in Near Eastern myth. In J. J. Collins (Ed.), The encyclopedia of apocalypticism (Vol. 1). New York: Continuum.

Heine, P. (2000). I am not the Mahdi, But . . . In A. I. Baumgarten (Ed.), Apocalyptic time. Leiden; Boston: Brill.

Seiwert, H. (2000). End of time and new time in medieval Chinese Buddhism. In A. I. Baumgarten (Ed.), Apocalyptic time. Leiden; Boston: Brill.

On Target with WR Time Tracker

I accomplished my writing goals for today. I was able to put in 5 hours of work on my dissertation. This allowed me to write about 4 pages of material, which is the most progress that I've made in several weeks.

I used WR Time Tracker, a free web-based project management application, to keep track of my progress through the day. You can have as many activities pertaining to your dissertation as you like and keep track of how much time you spend on those activities. A very nice feature is that it gives you a pie chart so you have a visual representation of how much time you spend on each activity (see screen shot to the left).

In addition, I detailed a proposed outline for finishing this section of my literature review. Here it is:

(1) Fukuyama review
(2) Define apocalypticism (2 branches)
(3) Pervasiveness of both branches
(4) Apocalyptic terror brings these branches together (first time in modern history to face this kind of threat - Kurth)
(5) Summary of sub-section
(6) Summary of section

Actually, I finished the Fukuyama review today. May goals for tomorrow are:

1) on hour of writing before work tomorrow. This means I'm up at 4:00 am.
2) in that our I will define the two branches of apocalypticism
3) tomorrow evening, I will spend on hour revising and planning my writing for the following day.

Perceptions of Apocalypticism in Contemporary Culture

This third sub-section of the first major topic in my literature review. It defines the concept of apocalypticism in contemporary culture through an exploration of the scholarly study of apocalypticism. It is this stream of scholarship that identifies (a) the historical and geo-cultural scope of apocalypticism and (b) the evidences of apocalypticism in contemporary culture. This section concludes with a discussion of the implications of apocalypticism in contemporary culture.

The following paragraph is the last paragraph I wrote in this section.

The American Interest magazine in 2006 assembled a diverse group of analysts, practitioners, policymakers and unconventional thinkers to consider why the future is so difficult to predict and how societies and governments might avoid the surprise of low probably, yet high impact events. One of the products of the conference is a collection of essays and discussions titled Blindside: How to Anticipate Forcing Events and Wild cards in Global Politics (Fukuyama, 2007).

The following comments state what I plan to work on tomorrow. I plan to spend at least 5 hrs on my dissertation tomorrow.

Here I want to talk about catastrophe and suffering and apocalypticsm found in Posner’s essay and then the possibility of moving toward uptopia in Easterbrook’s comments. This source is found in Ebrary.

I need another non-religious book here. There should be some discussion of the co-existence of the secular and religious apocalypticism. See quotes from Blumenberg in Apocalyptic Time and Peter Berger article in the online version of the American Interest. The books on political and religious terrorism also illustrate this. Then I can offer a working definition. Then proceed to a discussion of the pervasiveness of apocalypticism in contemporary culture.

Tune in tomorrow to for a report on what actually happened

Recommitting to the Process

I really do want to finish my dissertation, but I've made little progress in the past month. So, I have to change things up. Today, I signed up for The Secrets of Dissertation Success coaching site. It has valuable practical helps in various media forms and 2 email coaching sessions per month for a relatively low cost. Follow this link to find more.

Step two: I revised by time line as follows:

9-May	Graduation!!!
1-Apr	Revisions complete
15-Mar	Final Defense
1-Mar	Chapter 5 finished
1-Jan	Chapter 4 finished
1-Nov	Proposal Defended and Accepted
25-Sep	Chapter 3 finished
25-Jul	Chapter 2 finished
25-May	Recommit to process

Step 3: I have to make promises to myself that I can deliver on. I think I really need to invest 20 hours a week to meet the schedule above. So, that means 2 hours a day Monday through Friday and 10 hours over the weekend. I am going to try this, quick track of the time I am spending, and revise as necessary. I plan to write at least 1 hour before I go to work and I'll use an hour in the evening for reading and preparing my writing session for the next day.

Step 4: I'll journal my daily promises here and to monitor if I am keeping them.

True Confessions

Since my last major post entitled If You Keep Doing What You've Been Doing, You Will Keep Getting What You Have Been Getting, I haven't been following my own advice.

I started out well writing 200 words and rewarding myself. However, gradually, I drifted back into old habits and making little progress. You might say, I started doing what I had been doing and I got the same results that I had been getting. What went wrong?

1) My environment changed - slowly. Since January, may work load at work has gradually increased, and more recently, dramatically increased. I did not read the changes in my environment and make appropriate adjustments in my commitments to the dissertation process. Consequently, in order to deal with the increasing pressure at work - I allowed myself to drift back in to my old unproductive habits.

2) I did not regularly review my commitments i.e. writing 200 words and rewarding myself and writing in the mornings before work.

What do I plan to do about it?

1) recommit myself to my commitments and attempt to stay attentive to how to adopt them to my environment. I intend to start writing 200 words with a reward and writing again in the morning. However, I may need to adjust my morning writing to burst of a few days or 1 week. It is difficult, for me, to sustain weeks of getting up at 3:00 am to write.

2) Make a small change. I often find Nancy Wichard's blog Successful Writing Tips helpful in jump starting my writing process. In her post Three Quick Fixes to Jolt You into Action on Your Dissertation (see RSS feed in left column), she proposes putting a short cut on your desktop for your dissertation so it is only one click away. Well, I cleaned up my desktop so there are only 8 icons on my desktop (including my dissertation). Then I gave my dissertation a distinctive green arrow icon. The green arrow icon makes the dissertation easy to identify and the image, for me, symbolizes forward action - get going!

Points to Ponder
Has your environment been slowly or rapidly changing around you and causing you to drop your dissertation as you, perhaps unconsciously, attempt to navigate the changes? What do you need to do to adjust your commitment to your dissertation to your changing environment?

Thank You for Supporting this Blog!

I looked at my stats for this site for a first time in months. There have been over 650 unique visitors to this blog, many of whom appear to be returning on a regular basis. Thanks for supporting the Writing My Dissertation in 15 Minuets a Day blog. I'm delighted that people are apparently finding something useful here.

I'd really like to hear what you find most useful about this blog, so I can provide more of that content. So, feel free to leave a comment.

If You Keep Doing What You've Been Doing, You'll Keep Getting what You've Been Getting

It's been a long time since I made a post to this blog. That's because I've really been struggling with this dissertation. Even though I've been making steady progress, it has been extremely slow progress. So slow in fact, that it appears almost impossible that I will reach my goal of graduating in May.

In coaching teams, I have often use the phrase that titles this blog entry: If you keep doing what you've been doing, you'll keep getting what you've been getting. It is truly insane to think that if you are not happy with the results you are getting in a certain project that you can get different results by continuing to do what you've been doing - or worse yet - by doing more of what you've been doing!

So, over the course of the past month I've been trying to change the way I do things in regard to this dissertation project. So, what did I change?

Well, I know that my mind is quicker and fresher in the morning, but I've been working on my dissertation in the evenings after work when I'm already spent. So, I changed the time I work on my dissertation. I get up two hours earlier in the morning and work on my dissertation before I go to work. The advantage is that by time I go to work, I know I've already made progress on the dissertation and that feels very good! I also go to bed two hours earlier in the evening.

However, it has not been enough. Even though, I was putting the time in first thing in the morning, which for me was a major step in the right direction - progress was still slow. Thankfully, yesterday I read one of the RSS feeds on this blog, What to do if you are not making the progress that you want. This article talks about setting reasonable goals and rewarding yourself for making those goals.

So, yesterday, I set the goal of writing at least 200 words daily - 6 days a week. This may not sound like much but the cumulative effect is astounding. If you calculate that 200 words is about 1 double spaced page of typed text then in about 6 months you have a 200 page dissertation, which is about the page range I expect for my work. Of course, this assumes everything you write is usable, which I am not naive enough to think that! However, if you look at it over the course of a year, writing 200 words 6 days a week, would give you double the amount of material you need for a 200 page dissertation. So, in that scenario you only need a 50% usability rate!

I tried it yesterday, and I felt like a made more progress in that one day, than I had in the past week. Of course, I wrote more than 200 words. However, I rewarded myself after the 200 the first two hundred words with a break to play my baroque recorder. After the second set of 200, I rewarded myself by doing some personal internet browsing.

I just finished my first 200 words for today, and my reward is spending some time posting to this blog - which I wanted to do for some time, but felt guilty for taking the time away from the dissertation that I was not making much progress on.

Feel like your not making progress? Read some of the RSS feeds on this page for some ideas on things you can change about how you are approaching the process. Ask yourself what can I change today? Then just do it - and keep changing as often as necessary!

Stay on Target with Activity Tracker

Today I started using a new Google Gadget to boost my productivity in my writing process. One productivity activity that I sometimes use is alternating between activities every 15 - 20 minutes. This is good if you are bored or stuck. Using Activity Tracker I set up several sections of my dissertation as activities. I also included 3 non-dissertation activities that I needed to work on today. I set up Activity Tracker to prompt me every 15 minutes to change activities. You can choose different time levels and different languages and voices you would like for your your prompt. In addition to this, Activity Tracker tracks how much time you spend on each task. You can view your results on a graph, print your results, or export them to an Excel file.

Here's the office description from the Activity Tracker site: Track all your daily activity and find how you spend your time with this cool little punchclock gadget. Print cool graph and get a log or timesheet of all your activities. Punch-in when you start and punch-out when done. Let the gadget alert you when you forget to punchin or punchout. Use it - for improving productivity, as a recorder, as stopwatch, to jot down all tasks, for project management, for time management, as a counter, timer,simple tracker, to track todo list, to simply track your progress, to find time spent in meeting and appointments, as a graphing tool. Be productive and effective with this gadget. Perfect for anyone - student, consultant, employee, employer.

Download Activity Tracker for your Google homepage

Gearing up to write . . . again!

It has been awhile since I've done some serious work on my dissertation. The holiday's came and then I had an illness. All of this taken together through off most of what I had hoped to accomplish during the holidays. So, there is nothing left to do but regroup.

Once again MindManager had been a useful tool. I had to devise a plan for finishing my literature review. It was as simple as adding due dates to the branches of my literature outline map. Here's the map with the plan.

State of the 21st Century World - Part 1

Heading into the last two years of the first decade of the 21^st century, global problems weigh on our collective consciousness. J. F. Rischard (2002), former World Bank vice-president for Europe cites twenty contemporary global problems (p. 66).

Table 1: Rishard’s 20 Global Issues

Sharing our planet:Issues involving the global commons	Sharing our humanity: Issues requiring a global commitment	Sharing our rule book: Issues needing a global regulatory approach
Global warming	Massive step-up in the fight against poverty	Reinventing taxation for the 21st century
Biodiversity and ecosystem losses	Peacekeeping, conflict preventions, combating terrorism	Biotechnology rules
Fisheries depletion	Education for all	Global financial architecture
Deforestation	Global infectious diseases	Illegal drugs
Water deficits	Digital divide	Trade, investment, and completion rules
Maritime safety and pollution	Natural disaster prevention and mitigation	Intellectual property rights
		E-commerce rules
		International labor and migration rules

These problems are by-products of two major forces (a) demographic explosion and (b) the new world economy. According to Rischard these major forces will introduce unprecedented stresses on the world. At the same time, the technological and economic revolutions fueling the new world economy will introduce unprecedented opportunities (p. 7). Nevertheless, Rischard asserts that, “for many urgent global issues the turnaround time is now, in the next two decades, not in the next half century” (p. 200). Additionally, he argues that there exists “an undeniable failure of the entire international setup and the world’s nation states at the task of fast and effective global problem-solving” (p. 201). This is the case because the exploding population causes an exponentiality of scarcity. Simultaneously, the new economy offers an exponentiality of plenitude. Together these forces create a crisis of complexity, because the rate of change exceeds traditional institutions capacity to change rapidly (p.38).

Although Rischard insists on a 20-year window of opportunity to deal with these global issues, he does not specify the consequences of failure to address them. He does offer a solution. Rischard calls for a move from hierarchal government to a system of networked governance. Central this concept is the creation of Global Issues Networks (GIN). Each GIN addresses a specific global problem. The composition of the GIN is comprised of three types of partners: (a) national governments concerned by or experienced in the issue, (b) international civil society organizations who can contribute individuals with deep knowledge of the issue, and (c) businesses that have both knowledge of the issue and the ability to represent other business (p. 172).

In summary, Rischard uses twenty global issues which he admits is not an exhaustive list, to call attention to the crises of complexity caused by exponential growth in world population and creation of wealth by the new world economy. Fueling this crisis is the inability traditional nation-states and other international governance institutions to keep pace with the rate of world change. Rischard’s work appears grounded on three assumptions (a) a general sense of global crisis of complexity, (b) a perceived inability of nation-states and other international governance organizations to address the sense of global crisis and (c) and an implicit failure of leadership (national and international) to effect the necessary changes in nation-states and international governance organizations.

Reference

Rischard, J. F. (2002). High noon: 20 global problems 20 years to solve them. New York: Basic Books.

Starting the Literature Review Today

Here's a draft of the introduction to the Lit. Review


The central concern of this study is “What does organizational leadership mean in a chaotic, nihilistic, and apocalyptic era?” I posit that applying Paul Ricoeur’s theory of interpretation to John’s Apocalypse offers a relevant response to this concern. This chapter provides a foundation from the scholarly literature supporting the appropriateness of the data source and the method of analysis in addressing this question.

Beginning this foundation, I answer from the literature two questions:
(1) Does the state of the 21st century world support the research question’s underlying assumption of a broadly chaotic, nihilistic, and apocalyptic contemporary reality?
(2) If there is support of this assumption, what evidence of chaos, nihilism, and apocalypticism exist in contemporary organizations?
In the course of answering these questions, I define chaos, nihilism, and apocalypticism.

Continuing the foundation, I turn to an examination of the current philosophical and theoretical models generally applied by leaders within their 21st century organizational realities. I explore the apparent inadequacy of positivistic epistemology to respond to the contemporary organizational context. Within the literature, Chaos Theory and theories of spirituality rooted in postmodern epistemology emerge as alternatives to theories grounded in positivistic epistemology. Consequently, a thorough discussion of these two theoretical orientations follows. As a part of this discussion, I define organizations and organizational leadership.

Furthering the foundation, I show from the literature how Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutic phenomenology philosophy offers a step forward in constructing theories and best practices in organizational leadership within contemporary reality. Here I discuss the current application of Ricoeur’s hermeneutic phenomenology to organizational leadership studies.

Concluding the foundation, I demonstrate from the literature the potential of John’s Apocalypse to speak meaningfully to contemporary reality in general and in specific to the realities of 21st century organizations. Finally, from the literature, I offer an explanation of the appropriateness of Ricoeur’s hermeneutic phenomenological philosophy, and the theory of interpretation derived from it, in explaining and understanding John’s Apocalypse.

A Milestone - first chapter draft complete!

Since my last post, I've spent two weeks working in Africa. However, before I left the USA, I finally finished a reasonable draft of the first chapter of my dissertation. It got a good review from my dissertation chair. It's nice to have something about this dissertation that I can call somewhat finished.

In order to graduate in May, I really must finish my proposal by the end of December. That means two chapters must be finished in the next 20 days.

Patience Required

I was on a roll. Last week I finally finished reading Ricoeur's Interpretation Theory. Over the weekend, I wrote about 8 pages on the philosophical basis of my methodological approach. Then I hit a road block. I realized that before I could continue further, I had to have a good understanding of the first three chapters of Ricoeur's Time and Narrative (Vol. 1).

This was discouraging, I thought I had enough conceptual knowledge to complete the methodology section of the introduction. However, when it came down to it I needed a bridge between Ricoeur's theory of interpretation and my application of it to John's Apocalypse. That bridge is in Ricoeur's understanding of mimesis as the mediator between time and narrative.

So, I have spent the last three evening working through one and a half chapters. Patience. I have to remember that "reading is writing" in the sense that it is what I read that produces what I write. Perhaps the drive to keep getting words to page is a good thing. I hope it makes me read faster . . . it certainly makes me want to read faster!

The first chapter of Time and Narrative (Vol. 1) explores St. Augustine's concept of time from his Confessions (Book XI). I have found it intriguing how St. Augustine combines intellectual inquiry with communion with God. Indeed, his learning is expressed in a conversational (prayerful) interaction with God. Here's an example:

I would hear and understand, how “In the Beginning Thou madest the heaven and earth.” Moses wrote this, wrote and departed, passed hence from Thee to Thee; nor is he now before me. For if he were, I would hold him and ask him, and beseech him by Thee to open these things unto me, and would lay the ears of my body to the sounds bursting out of his mouth. And should he speak Hebrew, in vain will it strike on my senses, nor would aught of it touch my mind; but if Latin, I should know what he said. But whence should I know, whether he spake truth? Yea, and if I knew this also, should I know it from him? Truly within me, within, in the chamber of my thoughts, Truth, neither Hebrew, nor Greek, nor Latin, nor barbarian, without organs of voice or tongue, or sound of syllables, would say, “It is truth,” and I forthwith should say confidently to that man of Thine, “thou sayest truly.” Whereas then I cannot enquire of him, Thee, Thee I beseech, O Truth, full of Whom he spake truth, Thee, my God, I beseech, forgive my sins; and Thou, who gavest him Thy servant to speak these things, give to me also to understand them. (Book XI, Chapter III)

As a matter of a spiritual experiment, I want to try applying this approach in my own intellectual inquiry concerning this dissertation.