Jacques M. Chevalier – författare

Half-Brain Fables and Figs in Paradise starts the trilogy on the lateral plane and explores the tendency of each hemisphere to specialize but also to complement or supplement the other hemisphere. Brain and sign processing is thus shown to involve bimodal weavings or reticles of right-hemispheric similarities and left-hemispheric differences. Chevalier goes on to illustrate how whole-brain connectivity generates the crisscrossings of oppositions and metaphors in language, using symbolically rich material ranging from Western naming practices to expressions of ethnobotany in the bible (figs in Genesis), poetry (Longfellow''s Evangeline), and native Mexican mythology. Three major philosophical implications follow from Chevalier''s "theoreticle" perspective on the weavings of signs and synapse. First, the integrative concept of "nervous sign processing" should be substituted for models of the brain and the intellect that separate biology from mental and cultural activity. The subject matter of "semiosis" is both physical and communicational. Second, sign reticles are orderly and chaotic at the same time. They are subject to patterns of convergence but also to lines of divergence that defy simple modeling, whether analytical or dialectical. Third, sign events are governed by the principle of conferencing, not referencing. They do not refer to things or thoughts signified through representational means. Rather they confer meaning through "signaptic" conversations, reticles of fine lines evolving in language and in neural cells alike.

Chevalier shows how the attentions and inhibitions of affect and norm are best understood at the crossroads of several disciplines, including neuropsychology, semiotics, and philosophy. He delves into these linkages, with an emphasis on the reciprocal concessions between the pleasure principle and the teachings of normative language (moral, rational). These mutual allowances of sentiment and judgment go far beyond cognitive models of the mind. They also bridge the Freudian and Kantian gap between self-enjoyment and morality. Far from being constantly in struggle, The Corpus and the Cortex shows that norms and infractions are the warps and wefts of a single "neurosemiotic" fabric. Symbolic analyses illustrating these intriguing manifestations of brain, language, and culture range from personal anecdotes to cultural identity rhetoric, animal farm imagery, shoe fetishism, and body piercing. The 3-D Mind 2 presents these analyses against the background of theories and debates concerning concepts of identity construction, metaphor, rhetoric, simulation, consciousness, morality, and eroticism.

This is the coronal plane that governs the weavings of remembrance and anticipation, recollections of the past and expectations of the future. Chevalier shows that while brain and sign processing caters to events that succeed in attracting our attention, it also provides means to produce silence where unawareness is called for. Some inattention to things that are no longer or not yet is a requirement of the plotting of signs of hope and apprehension folding and unfolding in narrative time. The end result is a complex calculus of recollection, anticipation, and hope combined with traces of deferment, forgetfulness, and fear. This intricate "time-machine" built into language and the brain governs the "working memory system, an active memory operating by necessity in the present tense. Chevalier explores these issues in light of what philosophers such as St. Augustine, Kant, Heidegger, and Lévi-Strauss have said about memory and the nature of time. Arguing against all static and apocalyptic conceptions of time, Chevalier applies his own blending of "neurosemiotics" and Ricoeurian hermeneutics to the interpretive analysis of narrative plots ranging from a cat drawn by a child to intriguing speculations on the hot and the cold in Mexican Nahua agriculture. The 3-D Mind 3 also looks at prophecies of demonic scorpions in the Book of Revelation, and signs of the End heralded by the tragedy of Ground Zero.

Fully revised and updated, this second edition of Participatory Action Research (PAR) provides new theoretical insights and many robust tools that will guide researchers, professionals and students from all disciplines through the process of conducting action research ‘with’ people rather than ‘for’ them or ‘about’ them.PAR is collective reasoning and evidence-based learning focussed on social action. It has immediate relevance in fields ranging from community development to education, health, public engagement, environmental issues and problem solving in the workplace. This new edition has been extensively revised to create a user-friendly textbook on PAR theory and practice, including: updated references and a comprehensive overview of different approaches to PAR (pragmatic, psychosocial, critical); more emphasis on the art of process design, especially in complex social settings characterized by uncertainty and the unknown; developments in the use of Web2 collaborative tools and digital strategies to support real-time data gathering and processing; updated examples and stories from around the world, in a wide range of fields; critical commentaries on major issues in the social sciences, including stakeholder theory, systems thinking, causal analysis, monitoring and evaluation, research ethics, risk assessment and social innovation. This modular textbook provides novel perspectives and ideas in a longstanding tradition that strives to reconnect science and the inquiry process with life in society. It provides coherent and critical treatment of core issues in the ongoing evolution of PAR, making it suitable for a wide range of undergraduate and postgraduate courses. It is intended for use by researchers, students and working professionals seeking to improve or rethink their approach to co-creating knowledge and supporting action for the well-being of all.

Fully revised and updated, this second edition of Participatory Action Research (PAR) provides new theoretical insights and many robust tools that will guide researchers, professionals and students from all disciplines through the process of conducting action research ‘with’ people rather than ‘for’ them or ‘about’ them.PAR is collective reasoning and evidence-based learning focussed on social action. It has immediate relevance in fields ranging from community development to education, health, public engagement, environmental issues and problem solving in the workplace. This new edition has been extensively revised to create a user-friendly textbook on PAR theory and practice, including: updated references and a comprehensive overview of different approaches to PAR (pragmatic, psychosocial, critical); more emphasis on the art of process design, especially in complex social settings characterized by uncertainty and the unknown; developments in the use of Web2 collaborative tools and digital strategies to support real-time data gathering and processing; updated examples and stories from around the world, in a wide range of fields; critical commentaries on major issues in the social sciences, including stakeholder theory, systems thinking, causal analysis, monitoring and evaluation, research ethics, risk assessment and social innovation. This modular textbook provides novel perspectives and ideas in a longstanding tradition that strives to reconnect science and the inquiry process with life in society. It provides coherent and critical treatment of core issues in the ongoing evolution of PAR, making it suitable for a wide range of undergraduate and postgraduate courses. It is intended for use by researchers, students and working professionals seeking to improve or rethink their approach to co-creating knowledge and supporting action for the well-being of all.

Fully revised and updated, this second edition of Participatory Action Research (PAR) provides new theoretical insights and many robust tools that will guide researchers, professionals and students from all disciplines through the process of conducting action research ‘with’ people rather than ‘for’ them or ‘about’ them.

PAR is collective reasoning and evidence-based learning focussed on social action. It has immediate relevance in fields ranging from community development to education, health, public engagement, environmental issues and problem solving in the workplace. This new edition has been extensively revised to create a user-friendly textbook on PAR theory and practice, including:

updated references and a comprehensive overview of different approaches to PAR (pragmatic, psychosocial, critical);

more emphasis on the art of process design, especially in complex social settings characterized by uncertainty and the unknown;

developments in the use of Web2 collaborative tools and digital strategies to support real-time data gathering and processing;

updated examples and stories from around the world, in a wide range of fields;

critical commentaries on major issues in the social sciences, including stakeholder theory, systems thinking, causal analysis, monitoring and evaluation, research ethics, risk assessment and social innovation.

This modular textbook provides novel perspectives and ideas in a longstanding tradition that strives to reconnect science and the inquiry process with life in society. It provides coherent and critical treatment of core issues in the ongoing evolution of PAR, making it suitable for a wide range of undergraduate and postgraduate courses. It is intended for use by researchers, students and working professionals seeking to improve or rethink their approach to co-creating knowledge and supporting action for the well-being of all.

Fully revised and updated, this second edition of Participatory Action Research (PAR) provides new theoretical insights and many robust tools that will guide researchers, professionals and students from all disciplines through the process of conducting action research ‘with’ people rather than ‘for’ them or ‘about’ them.

PAR is collective reasoning and evidence-based learning focussed on social action. It has immediate relevance in fields ranging from community development to education, health, public engagement, environmental issues and problem solving in the workplace. This new edition has been extensively revised to create a user-friendly textbook on PAR theory and practice, including:

updated references and a comprehensive overview of different approaches to PAR (pragmatic, psychosocial, critical);

more emphasis on the art of process design, especially in complex social settings characterized by uncertainty and the unknown;

developments in the use of Web2 collaborative tools and digital strategies to support real-time data gathering and processing;

updated examples and stories from around the world, in a wide range of fields;

critical commentaries on major issues in the social sciences, including stakeholder theory, systems thinking, causal analysis, monitoring and evaluation, research ethics, risk assessment and social innovation.

This modular textbook provides novel perspectives and ideas in a longstanding tradition that strives to reconnect science and the inquiry process with life in society. It provides coherent and critical treatment of core issues in the ongoing evolution of PAR, making it suitable for a wide range of undergraduate and postgraduate courses. It is intended for use by researchers, students and working professionals seeking to improve or rethink their approach to co-creating knowledge and supporting action for the well-being of all.

In this new interpretation of the Book of Revelation, Jacques M. Chevalier examines the relationship between astromythology and Western interpretation. While scholars have noted the influence of ancient astromythology in Revelation before, Chevalier shows how John's heavenly imagery is the key to a polemical dialogue between modes of storytelling in Western history: astrology and eschatology, and naturalism and logocentrism. The book also explains how the 'genealogical' concerns of modern academia about the origins of natural and cultural history have supplanted the future-oriented visions of sidereal divination and Christian prophecy.The first three chapters and epilogue situate Chevalier's biblical analysis in the context of broader interpretations of astrology and the apocalypse developed by Jung, D.H. Lawrence, LTvi-Strauss, Derrida, Foucault, Cassirer, Adorno, Frye, Barthes, and Morin. They also provide the reader with a solid background in the history of astrological belief systems and exegetic readings of Revelation extending from antiquity to the late twentieth century. The remaining chapters are devoted to two questions. First, how does the imagery in Revelation relate to expressions of astromythology? Second, how do twentieth-century readings of Revelation reflect a 'genealogical' perspective on notions of signs, textuality, and destiny?A Postmodern Revelation is itself an 'apocalypse,' a revelation to scholars interested in sign theory, eschatology, and the history of astrology. The book does far more than interpret the specific biblical text of John's Revelation: it plays with polemics and parallels in the history of Western thought, tracing the history of signs and their meaning from antiquity to a postmodern era that heralds the end of all myths of the End.

Pre-Hispanic notions of heat and cold continue to shape native Mexican ideas about health and illness in humans and food plants. In The Hot and the Cold, Jacques Chevalier and AndrÉs SÁnchez Bain examine indigenous worldview and myth, and challenge the prevailing notion that hot-cold reasoning in Latin America is a product of the Hippocratic humoral doctrine brought by the Spaniards in the sixteenth century.Based on extensive field work in southern Veracruz, this innovative study details folk tales and stories of illness from indigenous people, and provides explanations that emphasize the close connections between healing practices, milpa cultivation, and corn mythology. These close connections reveal that human health and the life cycle of the corn plant are governed by the same principles founded on native concepts of the hot and the cold. Notions of what is frío and what is caliente pervade the ways in which the Nahuas and Zoque-Popolucas of the Sierra de Santa Marta think about their relationship with the land and all entities that surround them, including fellow humans, plants, animals, and spirits. By revealing the connections between ethnomedicine, agriculture, and mythology, Chevalier and SÁnchez help clarify puzzling aspects of Mesoamerican religion and symbolic thought, and lead the way towards better understanding of indigenous worldview in the modern world.

This two-volume work examines far-reaching debates on the concept of courage from Greek antiquity to the Christian and mediaeval periods, as well as the modern era. Volume 1 begins with Homeric poetry and the politics of fearless demi-gods thriving on war. The tales of lion-hearted Heracles, Achilles, and Ulysses, and their tragic fall at the hands of fate, eventually give way to classical views of courage based on competing theories of rational wisdom and truth. Fears of the enemy and anxieties about suffering and death are addressed through the lenses and teachings of medicine, geography, military history, moral philosophy, and metaphysics. For early Christian thinkers, the ethics of fear, fate, and fealty to the Almighty supplant the voice of reason and the wisdom of virtue. Much of Christian doctrine's history is a long journey towards bridging the gap between Greek philosophy and devotion to God and spirits in heaven. Some Church Fathers attempt to dispel the fear of suffering through a joyful craving for martyrdom and the eternal blessings that follow. Others show openness to one or more of the following principles: the abstractions of moral philosophy, the metaphysics of Gnostic enlightenment, the gift of free will and intentionality, the growth of church authority and hegemony, and the intrinsic worth of life on Earth. Augustine, Ambrose, Cassian, and Chrysostom play a central role in revisiting the foundations of Christian fortitude along some or all of these lines. They lay the groundwork for the scholastic adaptations of faith-based rationalism proposed by Peter Lombard, Philip the Chancellor, Albert the Great, and Thomas of Aquinas. The mediaeval period ends with church dissidents and Protestant Reform leaders condemning Rome’s corruption and calling for a return to early Christian faith and the courage of godly fear, submission, suffering, and fate.

This two-volume work examines far-reaching debates on the concept of courage from Greek antiquity to the Christian and mediaeval periods, as well as the modern era. Volume 1 begins with Homeric poetry and the politics of fearless demi-gods thriving on war. The tales of lion-hearted Heracles, Achilles, and Ulysses, and their tragic fall at the hands of fate, eventually give way to classical views of courage based on competing theories of rational wisdom and truth. Fears of the enemy and anxieties about suffering and death are addressed through the lenses and teachings of medicine, geography, military history, moral philosophy, and metaphysics.

For early Christian thinkers, the ethics of fear, fate, and fealty to the Almighty supplant the voice of reason and the wisdom of virtue. Much of Christian doctrine''s history is a long journey towards bridging the gap between Greek philosophy and devotion to God and spirits in heaven. Some Church Fathers attempt to dispel the fear of suffering through a joyful craving for martyrdom and the eternal blessings that follow. Others show openness to one or more of the following principles: the abstractions of moral philosophy, the metaphysics of Gnostic enlightenment, the gift of free will and intentionality, the growth of church authority and hegemony, and the intrinsic worth of life on Earth. Augustine, Ambrose, Cassian, and Chrysostom play a central role in revisiting the foundations of Christian fortitude along some or all of these lines. They lay the groundwork for the scholastic adaptations of faith-based rationalism proposed by Peter Lombard, Philip the Chancellor, Albert the Great, and Thomas of Aquinas.

The mediaeval period ends with church dissidents and Protestant Reform leaders condemning Rome’s corruption and calling for a return to early Christian faith and the courage of godly fear, submission, suffering, and fate. 

This two-volume work examines far-reaching debates on the concept of courage from Greek antiquity to the Christian and mediaeval periods, as well as the modern era. Volume 1 begins with Homeric poetry and the politics of fearless demi-gods thriving on war. The tales of lion-hearted Heracles, Achilles, and Ulysses, and their tragic fall at the hands of fate, eventually give way to classical views of courage based on competing theories of rational wisdom and truth. Fears of the enemy and anxieties about suffering and death are addressed through the lenses and teachings of medicine, geography, military history, moral philosophy, and metaphysics. For early Christian thinkers, the ethics of fear, fate, and fealty to the Almighty supplant the voice of reason and the wisdom of virtue. Much of Christian doctrine's history is a long journey towards bridging the gap between Greek philosophy and devotion to God and spirits in heaven. Some Church Fathers attempt to dispel the fear of suffering through a joyful craving for martyrdom and the eternal blessings that follow. Others show openness to one or more of the following principles: the abstractions of moral philosophy, the metaphysics of Gnostic enlightenment, the gift of free will and intentionality, the growth of church authority and hegemony, and the intrinsic worth of life on Earth. Augustine, Ambrose, Cassian, and Chrysostom play a central role in revisiting the foundations of Christian fortitude along some or all of these lines. They lay the groundwork for the scholastic adaptations of faith-based rationalism proposed by Peter Lombard, Philip the Chancellor, Albert the Great, and Thomas of Aquinas. The mediaeval period ends with church dissidents and Protestant Reform leaders condemning Rome’s corruption and calling for a return to early Christian faith and the courage of godly fear, submission, suffering, and fate.

This two-volume work examines far-reaching debates on the concept of courage from Greek antiquity to the Christian and mediaeval periods, as well as the modern era. Volume 1 explains how competing accounts of epistêmê, rational wisdom, and truth dominated classical antiquity. Early Christian and mediaeval thinkers, in contrast, favoured fortitude founded on faith and fear of God over philosophical reasoning left to its own devices.Volume 2 turns to theories of courage from the early modern period to the present. It shows how the twin laws of polis and physis are at the heart of post-medieval thought. Courage is found at the crossroads of love and dread, freedom and fate, happiness and suffering, as well as power and submission to the ruling order. The later influence of evolutionism, existentialism, and the social and natural sciences on moral philosophy is also addressed at some length. The protection of people's best interests, the passions and powersof the human will, and the rule of active energy in all aspects of life supplant courage formerly viewed through the lens of reason or faith, or a combination of the two.These new ideas, paradoxically, herald the end of the ethics of courage. They also undermine the courage of ethical thinking. Courage is no longer an end in itself, nor is it a means to happiness "at the end." Regardless of what Gandhi, Tillich, and Foucault have to say about the topic, late modernity and the global age witness a marked loss of interest in courage as an idea worthy of conceptual investigation. Debates about the moral implications of courage give way to the value-free science of resilience, which studies how people can recover from past trauma and find wellness, primarily in the realm of physis.

This two-volume work examines far-reaching debates on the concept of courage from Greek antiquity to the Christian and mediaeval periods, as well as the modern era. Volume 1 explains how competing accounts of epistêmê, rational wisdom, and truth dominated classical antiquity. Early Christian and mediaeval thinkers, in contrast, favoured fortitude founded on faith and fear of God over philosophical reasoning left to its own devices.

Volume 2 turns to theories of courage from the early modern period to the present. It shows how the twin laws of polis and physis are at the heart of post-medieval thought. Courage is found at the crossroads of love and dread, freedom and fate, happiness and suffering, as well as power and submission to the ruling order. The later influence of evolutionism, existentialism, and the social and natural sciences on moral philosophy is also addressed at some length. The protection of people''s best interests, the passions and powersof the human will, and the rule of active energy in all aspects of life supplant courage formerly viewed through the lens of reason or faith, or a combination of the two.

These new ideas, paradoxically, herald the end of the ethics of courage. They also undermine the courage of ethical thinking. Courage is no longer an end in itself, nor is it a means to happiness "at the end." Regardless of what Gandhi, Tillich, and Foucault have to say about the topic, late modernity and the global age witness a marked loss of interest in courage as an idea worthy of conceptual investigation. Debates about the moral implications of courage give way to the value-free science of resilience, which studies how people can recover from past trauma and find wellness, primarily in the realm of physis.

This two-volume work examines far-reaching debates on the concept of courage from Greek antiquity to the Christian and mediaeval periods, as well as the modern era. Volume 1 explains how competing accounts of epistêmê, rational wisdom, and truth dominated classical antiquity. Early Christian and mediaeval thinkers, in contrast, favoured fortitude founded on faith and fear of God over philosophical reasoning left to its own devices.Volume 2 turns to theories of courage from the early modern period to the present. It shows how the twin laws of polis and physis are at the heart of post-medieval thought. Courage is found at the crossroads of love and dread, freedom and fate, happiness and suffering, as well as power and submission to the ruling order. The later influence of evolutionism, existentialism, and the social and natural sciences on moral philosophy is also addressed at some length. The protection of people's best interests, the passions and powersof the human will, and the rule of active energy in all aspects of life supplant courage formerly viewed through the lens of reason or faith, or a combination of the two.These new ideas, paradoxically, herald the end of the ethics of courage. They also undermine the courage of ethical thinking. Courage is no longer an end in itself, nor is it a means to happiness "at the end." Regardless of what Gandhi, Tillich, and Foucault have to say about the topic, late modernity and the global age witness a marked loss of interest in courage as an idea worthy of conceptual investigation. Debates about the moral implications of courage give way to the value-free science of resilience, which studies how people can recover from past trauma and find wellness, primarily in the realm of physis.