Novalis, the Early German Romantic poet and philosopher, had at the core of his work a mysterious depiction of the "absolute." The absolute is Novalis' name for a substance that defies precise knowledge yet calls for a tentative and sensitive speculation. How one asserts a truth, represents an object, and sets about encountering things…

We recently attended a conference at which a non-Maori presenter, drawing on a particular metaphor already established by Maori writers, related Maori natural world features to a research method. The presentation was useful because it highlighted several issues that call for our concern as Maori philosophers. In this article, we outline these…