My ultimate aim in the first sections of this book is to present Habermas’ mature social theory, his two-tiered theory of society as system and lifeworld, and to show how this theory, after the pattern of classical critical theory, serves to point out and articulate the interests of groups who embody a potential for protest or resistance within the societal formation of advanced capitalism. On ...

Values exist not in isolation, but in complex wholes. Values are what they are because of the complex wholes in which they are situated. To do justice to this thesis will require a holistic ontology, a theory according to which many types of entities exist only as inseparable parts or moments of wider contexts or environments. An ontological theory of environment-s-with roots in Gestalt psychol...

Emphasis on knowing and doing as focal concerns of occupational therapy has tended to overshadow being as an essential ingredient of human experience. This article advocates greater concern with understanding our clients' being in place--that is, their immersion within a lifeworld that provides the culturally defined spatiotemporal setting or horizon of their everyday lives. It is suggested tha...

Media representations of massive open online courses (MOOCs) such as those offered by Coursera, edX and Udacity reflect tension and ambiguity in their bold promise of democratized education and global knowledge sharing. An approach to MOOCs that emphasizes the tacit epistemology of such representations suggests a richer account of the ambiguities of MOOCs, the unsettled linguistic and visual re...

Persons who are subject to care due to suicidal thoughts and/or acts, are in a vulnerable situation, struggling with issues related to life and death as well as experiences of hopelessness and powerlessness. They may also experience themselves as a burden for their relatives. The relatives’ struggle for contributing to the loved person’s survival, can involve experiences of taking responsibilit...

This study is grounded in a phenomenological lifeworld perspective. It aims at providing rich descriptions of lived experience of the process of losing weight after obesity surgery. Two women participated in in-depth interviews four times each during the first postoperative year. Based on the women's experiences, a meaning structure-the ambivalence of losing weight after obesity surgery-was ide...

The aim of this paper is to discuss the development of a cultural care framework that seeks to inform and embrace the philosophical ideals of caring science. Following a review of the literature that identified a lack of evidence of an explicit relationship between caring science and cultural care, a number of well-established transcultural care frameworks were reviewed. Our purpose was to sele...

The article discusses the appropriation of the theory developed by Habermas to analyze health policies and management. The fundamental concepts of the discursive theory of democracy as a deliberative policy, procedural democracy, the public sphere and civil society are analyzed. An attempt is made to demonstrate that the concepts of deliberative policies are grounded on basic theoretical catego...

Free radicals and oxidants may cause various damages both to the lifeworld different products. A typical solution for prophylaxis of oxidation-caused conditions is usage antioxidants. Among them, classes are found—polyphenols, conjugated polyalkenes, some sulfur nitrogen derivatives. Regarding active site in molecules, a widely discussed group compounds 1,3-dicarbonyl compounds. them natural (e...