1. The writer experienced a crisis of meaning and identity during his undergraduate studies as he felt alone and disconnected from others. This prompted a search for meaning through various philosophical and religious texts.
2. The writer found resolution through the works of E.F. Schumacher, which provided a rational argument for a theistic worldview. This led the writer to personally commit to Christianity.
3. The experience raised the writer's awareness of paradigmatic issues and starting points of different worldviews. It influenced him to critically examine assumptions and look for coherence within different systems of meaning.
Materials Selection For Hot Stamped Automotive Body Parts: An Application of The Ashby Approach Based On The Strain Hardening Exponent and Stacking Fault Energy of Materials
1. The writer experienced a crisis of meaning and identity during his undergraduate studies as he felt alone and disconnected from others. This prompted a search for meaning through various philosophical and religious texts.
2. The writer found resolution through the works of E.F. Schumacher, which provided a rational argument for a theistic worldview. This led the writer to personally commit to Christianity.
3. The experience raised the writer's awareness of paradigmatic issues and starting points of different worldviews. It influenced him to critically examine assumptions and look for coherence within different systems of meaning.
1. The writer experienced a crisis of meaning and identity during his undergraduate studies as he felt alone and disconnected from others. This prompted a search for meaning through various philosophical and religious texts.
2. The writer found resolution through the works of E.F. Schumacher, which provided a rational argument for a theistic worldview. This led the writer to personally commit to Christianity.
3. The experience raised the writer's awareness of paradigmatic issues and starting points of different worldviews. It influenced him to critically examine assumptions and look for coherence within different systems of meaning.
1. The writer experienced a crisis of meaning and identity during his undergraduate studies as he felt alone and disconnected from others. This prompted a search for meaning through various philosophical and religious texts.
2. The writer found resolution through the works of E.F. Schumacher, which provided a rational argument for a theistic worldview. This led the writer to personally commit to Christianity.
3. The experience raised the writer's awareness of paradigmatic issues and starting points of different worldviews. It influenced him to critically examine assumptions and look for coherence within different systems of meaning.
“Developing Critical Thinkers” Edward J. "Ted" Newell (2002)
passing satisfaction. A basic philosophy collection
A Conversion Experience entitled something like Exploring the Meaning of Life I describe a paradigm transition from secularized essentially dismissed a favorite author's (Tolstoy’s) university student to beginner Christian in what follows. religious conversion in favor of language analysis. The series that I relate occurred during and just after Arguments that each has to make his or her meaning I undergraduate studies at a large Ontario, Canada passed by; possibly this was due to my search for university, 1981-1984. meaning also involving a search for community. But an Albert Camus piece comparing life to the myth of Triggers. Sisyphus pointed to another philosophical option -- the The trigger of my critical thinking was personal existentialist school. This school had a promising name. isolation. Simply put, I felt alone in a large university. But investigation seemed to feed nihilism. If I was to be Thirty thousand students or more commuted or lived on nihilistic, and if by now only a religious answer would campus. I came from a close family and a village on the suffice, Buddhism might serve. Several discussions with east coast of Canada. I lived on campus in a large a Buddhist carpenter and a book recommendation dormitory for my first year, but moved to a living however, produced only a resolve to meditate (the prime arrangement with graduate students with whom I was Buddhist resource). unable to develop friendships. I began to ask myself how My ultimate resource was a book by British economist to reconnect with people, and I attempted to do so E.F. Schumacher, in whose economics work I had through social clubs, student political events and the like. become interested as a third-world development But I discovered that a religious upbringing had a residue advocate. His argument for meaning is in thumbnail of distance from those untouched by religious concerns. form in Small is Beautiful. The fuller explanation in Perhaps as the effect of what was by now several Guide for the Perplexed seemed admirably suited to me. transitions, I began to ask about the meaning of life There, Schumacher appeared to turn the problem on its itself. A deliberate framework of meaning had been mine head. He claimed that the problem of meaning can be as a religious, rule oriented teenager but had been left resolved from a position outside experience itself. Only a behind around the time of transition to university, standpoint above earthbound experience can make sense deliberately abandoned after serious shocks to its of life. Frankly, I have forgotten the details of his coherence. I felt I needed a new framework to give argument, but I recall that his half-dozen chapters gave meaning to what had become a bare existence. me a rationale for a theistic paradigm that I experienced as a liberation. Resources. Process. A form of success came my way with my admission to the university’s reputable business school and from then The discovery of Schumacher's work was the on I found time for the meaning problem. The initial emotional high of my quest. I could understand that one resource was serious fiction. Growing up, I had been a could be a believer without 'parking your brains at the dedicated reader, and with literature I recalled a sense of door' -- my concern in the wake of the teen years’ purpose. An initially exciting discovery of Kurt disappointment. Schumacher provided an argument for Vonnegut's work proved of no value for my concern; for a religious answer by showing that all rationality is me, he fed nihilism. John Barth had a similar effect. predicated on a starting point. Huxley’s Point Counter Point showed modernity Emotional lows, barriers and hindrances of the pointing in many directions. Russian authors, especially process were the series of disappointments. These Tolstoy, gave a sense of hope but not clear direction. disappointments did serve, though, to prompt the Supplements from pop psychology such as Jess Lair's I continued investigation. I have to confess the Ain't Well But I Sure Am Better proved to provide fragmentary nature of the investigation. Life itself is Ted Newell: A Conversion Experience
fragmentary, disconnected, and my process was Implications.
irresolute, occasional, happenstance -- but driven by a ♦ Raised consciousness of paradigmatic issues may necessity that kept on surfacing within the time span. I occur in painful circumstances. While Tolstoy's would seem to exhaust the potential of one line of account suggested that his existential crisis occurred exploration only to take up another one. New lines of in the midst of personal prosperity and external well- investigation continued to suggest themselves. My being, mine occurred as I asked after ways to connect exhaustion of, for instance, the psychological angle with peers in meaningful ways. would lead to new openness to other voices previously dismissed, such as articles or books on existentialism ♦ Gaps in an apparently meaningful paradigm will (out of bounds in my teenage religion, now a new prompt critical reflection. University attendance for possibility) or on Buddhism (same). me was the fulfillment of an ambition of early childhood and of course an ambition shared by Consequences. parents. Yet a university setting characterized by As the end of my university career approached, I felt numbers of atomized individuals without rationale unprepared to accept stable employment. I felt I needed for community raised for me a possibility of space for reflection. If such a space would also permit a modernity’s barrenness. The secular paradigm, until meaningful contribution of work, so much the better. My then taken for granted as possessing sure meaning bolt-hole appeared through CUSO, the Canadian third- and purpose, began to have questionable meaning world development agency, an equivalent of Peace Corps and purpose. or Britain’s VSO. CUSO eventually offered me a position ♦ Paradigmatic issues may assert themselves as teaching business skills to early school leavers in Papua outward supports of taken-for-granted paradigms New Guinea. I was daunted by a two-year stipulation -- a (supports to life or society, possibly) are removed. long time for a graduate to be out of circulation -- but my ♦ Paradigmatic change may occur gradually, as need was significant enough that I signed on. alternatives are exhausted. Shortly after I arrived in Papua New Guinea, my ♦ As a learner and teacher, the experience of paradigm existential and ethical concerns crystallized in such a way transformation means that I ask about the starting that I literally woke up and formed a personal points of proposed ideas. In which system of commitment to a living Jesus Christ. Concretely, I meaning do they fit? What view of human being do returned to attendance at a local church. Some eighteen they reflect? How might these ideas be adapted to fit months later I was baptized. in a Christian paradigm? The experience has raised In the years since I have continued to ask after the my critical antennae and contributes (I hope) to rationality of my experiences. I continue to explore what clarity in teaching. amounts to a parallel system of rationality. This parallel system of thinking appears to exist on the other side of a divide from secular accounts of meaning and purpose. The system appears to have at least equal coherence with 1. According to the writer, which events secular accounts of meaning. Yes, the parallel system is challenged and destroyed his previous predicated on a starting point of supernatural origin. All identity? systems of thought start with an ‘unargued’ starting 2. How does the writer arrive a sense of point. The question is the coherence of the system. The identity? Christian system of meaning continues to account for the 3. If the reader is a secular person, how would world in a way that to me is as compelling now as it was he be challenged, or, how might he dismiss in early 1984. Witness to the inherent rationality of the account? Christian belief is a host of challenging thinkers and even a culture that survived at least 1700 years.
Materials Selection For Hot Stamped Automotive Body Parts: An Application of The Ashby Approach Based On The Strain Hardening Exponent and Stacking Fault Energy of Materials