This speculative article endeavours to highlight the polemics and disputations of knowledge transformation, while simultaneously demonstrating the productive possibilities of such disputations via three examples of refractions. The latter are generated within the crises and critiques of the discourses within which Social Theory, Human Rights and Philosophy are located. They are further cultivated and sharpened by the interplays between these discourses, suggesting the possibility of self-transforming knowledge constellations. The article concludes that the political import of refractions allows the prospects of just social practices to come sharper into view.