Written Culture in Daghestan. Edited by Moshe Gammer. Series Humaniora, vol. 369. Helsinki: Finnish Academy of Sciences, 2015. Pp. 226, figs. €35.

Nombre d’analyses et de réflexions d’Anglo-Saxons (mais aussi de Scandinaves et de Néerlandais) sur les interactions entre genre et culture écrite en Angleterre à la fin du Moyen Âge ont été, ces dernières années, d’une grande richesse. Elles méritent d’être appréhendées dans toute leur complexité et d’être confrontées aux récents questionnements de l’historiographie française. Une grande partie de ces travaux s’est inscrite dans le cadre d’une analyse renouvelée du triptyque « literacy/orality/ aurality » et insiste sur la complexité des (...) contenus et des formes de savoirs féminins et de leurs transmissions à tous les niveaux. Ces études soulignent la multiplicité des situations et des modèles selon les contextes sociaux, politiques et religieux. Elles élargissent et problématisent la notion de literacy ainsi que les rapports de domination hommes/femmes qui en résultent, dessinant un paysage culturel toujours plus dense. (shrink)

The article is devoted to an important area of scientific research related to the history and culture of Yakutia. Written monuments of historical and cultural heritage, along with material ones, occupy their permanent place. The solution to the problem of their preservation and interpretation is inextricably linked with publishing activities – modern technical capabilities increase its effectiveness. In the article we study the existing experience in this field by the example of the publication of Russian cursive sources of (...) the XVII century about the history of Yakutia, as well as cultural heritage. The object of the study is the historical and cultural heritage of Yakutia. The subject of the study ate the samples in various forms. The research summarized the experience of publishing historical and cultural heritage monuments on the example of Russian cursive documents of the XVII century about Yakutia, as well as the works of the first Yakut composer M.N. Zhirkov. Since they are of great value as samples of archival documents reflecting regional specifics, we have carried out work to determine their historical significance for the culture of Yakutia. In this article, based on an assessment of the internal content of the collections considered as examples and the quality of their publication, recommendations have been developed to improve further work in this direction. Undoubtedly, further work should be continued to identify such written monuments that require special storage and interpretation, have great historical and cultural value for the Yakut people, as well as transfer to modern media of this information, taking into account the necessary publication rules. For the first time, the question of creating a pan-Yakut electronic database of written monuments of historical and cultural heritage of Yakutia was raised. (shrink)

The Written Word in the Medieval Arabic Lands: A Social and Cultural History of Reading Practices. By Konrad Hirschler. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2012. Pp. vi + 234. £65, $105.

Recent theological anthropology emphasizes a dynamic and integral understanding of the human being, which is also related to Karl Rahner's idea of active self-transcendence and to the imago Dei doctrine. The recent neuroscientific discovery of the “visual word form area” for reading, regarded in light of the concept of cultural neural reuse, will produce fresh implications for the interrelation of brain biology and human culture. The theological and neuroscientific parts are shown in their mutual connections thus articulating the notion (...) that human beings shape and transcend themselves both at the biological and at the cultural level. This will have relevant implications for the timely topic of human uniqueness in science and theology, and in proposing a new research perspective in which theology may consider culture along with its biological import, but not necessarily in strictly evolutionary terms alone. (shrink)

If, at the outset, we postulate the totality of Jewish thought and lay down the principle of its organic unity and its call to universalism, thus asserting the active solidarity which dominates its relations with Jewish religious and intellectual life in the Maghreb, if we state that both have a privileged interrelationship and use the same modes of expression, then we must add that Maghrebian Judaism is an integral part of the intellectual space, the cultural landscape and the civilization of (...) the Muslim West where it was born, blossomed and bore fruit. (shrink)

The task of being oneself lies at the heart of human existence and entails the possibility of not being oneself. In the case of schizophrenia, this possibility may come to the fore in a disturbing way. Patients often report that they feel alienated from themselves. Therefore, it is perhaps unsurprising that schizophrenia sometimes has been described with the heideggerian notion of inauthenticity. The aim of this paper is to explore if this description is adequate. We discuss two phenomenological accounts of (...) schizophrenia: Binswanger’s account of schizophrenia as a form of inauthenticity and Blankenburg’s account of schizophrenia as a loss of common sense, which seems construable as a loss of inauthenticity. We argue that the accounts are highlighting aspects of the same underlying phenomenon, viz. schizophrenic autism. Moreover, we argue that Binswanger’s description of schizophrenia as a form of inauthenticity is inadequate and we discuss experiences of self-alienation in schizophrenia. (shrink)

A review of Geoffrey B. Saxe, Cultural Development of Mathematical Ideas. Saxe offers a comprehensive treatment of social and linguistic change in the number systems used for economic exchange in the Oksapmin community of Papua New Guinea. By taking the cognition-is-social approach, Saxe positions himself within emerging perspectives that view cognition as enacted, situated, and extended. The approach is somewhat risky in that sociality surely does not exhaust cognition. Brains, bodies, and materiality also contribute to cognition—causally at least, and possibly (...) constitutively as well (as argued by Clark & Chalmers; Renfrew & Malafouris). This omission necessarily excludes the material dimension of numeracy. (shrink)

Cultural Context of Multilevel Collective Social Actions: Framing, Reflection, Resonance and the Impact of Global and Local Anti-Poverty Movements In political science as well as in other social sciences much attention has been paid during recent years to the rapid growth of national and transnational activist networks and their increasing impact on domestic and world politics. Together with the proliferation of literature on the topic, concepts of collective action frames, framing processes, mobilizing ideas and meanings and their cultural resonance have (...) gained considerable currency. However, less has been written about the possibilities of and the constraints on the circulation of collective action frames or about the connection between the cultural adaptation of frames and the results of actual collective struggles. The paper explores this understudied issue both theoretically and empirically. After identifying possible links between collective action framing processes and the representational practices of particular cultures based on a review of existing theoretical approaches, the functional consequences are demonstrated by the example of the Global Call for Action against Poverty international campaign and the Czech national variant. (shrink)

In Culture, Genre, and Literary Vocation, Michael Davitt Bell charts the important and often overlooked connection between literary culture and authors' careers. Bell's influential essays on nineteenth-century American writers—originally written for such landmark projects as The Columbia Literary History of the United States and The Cambridge History of American Literature—are gathered here with a major new essay on Richard Wright. Throughout, Bell revisits issues of genre with an eye toward the unexpected details of authors' lives, and invites (...) us to reconsider the hidden functions that terms such as "romanticism" and "realism" served for authors and their critics. Whether tracing the demands of the market or the expectations of readers, Bell examines the intimate relationship between literary production and culture; each essay closely links the milieu in which American writers worked with the trajectory of their storied careers. (shrink)

Written by philosopher Jere Surber, Culture and Critique familiarizes students with both the broad and specialized meanings of cultural studies, providing detailed explanations of theoretical terms, critical strategies, and discursive traditions upon which it is based. In its broad and more theoretical sense, cultural studies indicates a range of modern discourses which, beyond disciplines and their particular theories, employ the notion of culture in a distinctive way and specify certain critical practices as appropriate for analyzing given cultural (...) activities, products, and institutions. In its narrower sense, cultural studies is a recently developed type of discourse, first appearing in several British universities in the 1950s, which, while eclectically drawing on certain theoretical aspects of earlier forms of critical cultural discourse, orients itself toward the analysis and practical critique of concrete contemporary cultural distinctions based on economic and political inequities.A useful reference for reading works in cultural studies, Culture and Critique puts unfamiliar terms and ideas into historical perspective and explains how the founding texts of the discipline first appeared. (shrink)

Peace, Culture, and Violence examines deeper sources of violence by providing a critical reflection on the forms of violence that permeate everyday life and our inability to recognize these forms of violence. Exploring the elements of culture that legitimize and normalize violence, the essays collected in this volume invite us to recognize and critically approach the violent aspects of reality we live in and encourage us to envision peaceful alternatives. Including chapters written by important scholars in the (...) fields of Peace Studies and Social and Political Philosophy, the volume represents an endeavour to seek peace in a world deeply marred by violence. Topics include: thug culture, language, hegemony, police violence, war on drugs, war, terrorism, gender, anti-Semitism, and other topics.. (shrink)

_Conscience and Corporate Culture_ advances the constructive dialogue on a moral conscience for corporations. Written for educators in the field of business ethics and practicing corporate executives, the book serves as a platform on a subject profoundly difficult and timely. Written from the unique vantage point of an author who is a philosopher, professor of business administration, and a corporate consultant A vital resource for both educators in the field of business ethics and practicing corporate executives Forwards the (...) constructive dialogue on a moral conscience for corporations Offers a philosophical and practical approach to considering business ethics. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Cross-Cultural Encounters and ExclusionEun-Jeung Lee (bio)There are only a handful of comprehensive studies about the role that knowledge of non-European civilizations and ideas played in the formation of early modern and Enlightenment European thought. Any in-depth treatment of how European thinkers understood China and India between 1600 and 1744 is therefore a more than welcome addition to existing research in this area. During this period, new information about Chinese (...) Confucian culture reached Europe through reports and writings of Jesuit missionaries. It was also during this time that Chinese and Indian ideas started to be excluded from the category of world philosophy.Early modern European thinkers who came into contact with reports about non-European cultures, such as China and India, embraced, rejected, or criticized the transmitted ideas in relation to their own system of thinking. In that sense, European thinkers were not much different from those East Asian scholars who in the seventeenth century first encountered translated Western books and books on the West written in classical Chinese, for [End Page 215] example the Korean literati of the Chosŏn dynasty. These scholars, in a fashion strikingly similar to how their contemporary European thinkers dealt with Chinese Confucian culture, accepted, rejected, or criticized Western knowledge based on their own canon of thought.1 This process can be said to be a ubiquitous response to such cross-cultural encounters. Today, it is generally accepted that it is through such reactions that we can understand the spiritual and social conditions of a society.2 The way European thinkers discussed Chinese or Indian thought throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries allows important insights into Western thought at the time, but not so much that of China or India.The eventual exclusion of Chinese and Indian thought from "world philosophy" in the eighteenth century, scholars agree, had its roots in the belief of the superiority of European civilization. "Histories of world philosophy" became mainstream in the latter half of the eighteenth century, forming the global standard for a very long time due to the effects of European imperialism and European intellectual hegemony. Current debates on the decolonization of philosophy recognize the importance of how to approach depictions of the history of philosophy from a practical and global perspective.3 A critical and systematic study of the process of exclusion of non-European cultures from histories of philosophy compiled in Europe are therefore crucial to such discussions. Selusi Ambrogio's study forms an important contribution to this area of inquiry.Chinese and Indian Ways of Thinking in Early Modern European Philosophy spans the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, when the arrival of information about the history and culture of China in Jesuit treatises and reports came as a great shock to European philosophers. Especially Chinese history and its ancient tradition of written culture, much older than Christian historiography, became the focus of interest in European intellectual circles. It is no coincidence that Descartes, widely considered the founder of modern philosophy, in his Discours de la méthode mentions China as a prime reason for the existence of a new uncertainty in European philosophy.4In his book, Ambrogio systematically shows how the philosophical dispute over the evaluation of Chinese philosophy was embedded within a paradigm shift from the older Philosophia perennis to the newer Philosophia sectaria and eclectica. This shift not only shaped the scientification of the history of philosophy in the eighteenth century, but also redefined European conceptions of time and history. In the debates about the correct paradigm for the history of philosophy, Confucian philosophy, as transmitted by the Jesuits, played a key role due to the long tradition of its canonical texts.Ambrogio summarizes how histories of philosophy written in Europe first included China but subsequently began a process of exclusion of Chinese thought. He does this by placing a special focus on the tension between theology and philosophy before the time of Hegel. In the first chapter, [End Page 216] Ambrogio shows how the Chinese were seen "as contemporaries" but, at the same time, "as ancient barbaric peoples inserted within the biblical history of philosophy" (p. 56). The second chapter deals with discussions that define... (shrink)

Written in a readable, accessible style, with plenty of up-to-date examples Psychoanalysis and Culture provides a brilliant introduction to key issues in the area of application of psychoanalytic theories to culture. The author argues that we cannot grasp the complexity of contemporary global issues without understanding some of the unconscious processes which underlie them. After introducing some major modern and postmodern psychoanalytic approaches, Minsky offers a broad-ranging critique of Lacan's theory of culture and the unconscious. She (...) explores a range of crucial and topical questions: how should we explain women's historical subordination and what is now often seen as a crisis in male identity? What constitutes 'masculinity' apart from power and control? How important is the father, actually and symbolically in children's development in the context of lone-parent families? Why is contemporary culture often still so violent and destructive? Why is consumer culture so attractive to so many and why is it so difficult to put limits on economic growth in the interests of preventing environmental disaster? This book will be of great interest to students and scholars in sociology, women's studies, cultural studies, psychology and history as well as psychoanalytic studies. It will also appeal to the general reader interested in the psychology of cultural change. (shrink)

Based on a newly conceptualized notion of the dialogical self, achieved by integrating Bakhtin's philosophical anthropology and Karmiloff-Smith's Representational Redescription model into the existing notion proposed by Hermans and colleagues, the present study focuses on examining the role of The Ox-Herding Pictures in cultivating the dialogical self. Methodologically, this study adopted the cultural-historical perspective and microdevelopmental approach of Vygotsky. In-depth case studies consisting of six interrelated phases of interviews and written responses were conducted. The results show that such a (...) unique cultural sign had different mediation effects upon subjects of different backgrounds. Two examples of considerable mediation effects are presented in more detail. A hermeneutical examination of this cultural object switched to a kind of self-representation in all cases, while the self-representation of all subjects developed from a less explicit to a more explicit level. Development of the dialogical self was characterized by its diversity in form and richness regarding content. (shrink)

This volume presents a selection of the philosophical papers which Richard Rorty has written over the past decade, and complements three previous volumes of his papers: Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth, Essays on Heidegger and Others, and Truth and Progress. Topics discussed include the changing role of philosophy in Western culture over the course of recent centuries, the role of the imagination in intellectual and moral progress, the notion of ‘moral identity’, the Wittgensteinian claim that the problems of philosophy (...) are linguistic in nature, the irrelevance of cognitive science to philosophy, and the mistaken idea that philosophers should find the ‘place’ of such things as consciousness and moral value in a world of physical particles. The papers form a rich and distinctive collection which will appeal to anyone with a serious interest in philosophy and its relation to culture. (shrink)

Morin has written a rich and valuable book. Its main aim is to isolate the factors involved in maintaining behavioural lineages over time, and to understand how these factors might interact. In doing so, it takes issue with the abstract and idealised models and arguments of dual-inheritance theorists, which are alleged in this account to rely on an overly simplistic notion of imitative learning. Morin’s book is full of ethnographic, anthropological, and psychological research, and there is much to commend (...) in it. However, Morin’s arguments against the dual-inheritance theorists are less convincing when put under scrutiny, and his positive picture which includes appeals to ostensive communication, intrinsic appeal and cultural attraction has some difficulties. I argue that when we contrast dual-inheritance theorists and Morin, we find that there may be fewer differences and greater commonalities than Morin’s book might suggest. (shrink)

The cultural imagery of women is deeply ingrained in our consciousness. So deeply, in fact, that feminists see this as a fundamental threat to female autonomy because it enshrines procreative heterosexuality as well as the relations of domination and subordination between men and women. Diana Meyers' book is about this cultural imagery - and how, once it is internalized, it shapes perception, reflection, judgement, and desire. These intergral images have a deep impact not only on the individual psyche, but also (...) on the social, political, and cultural syntax of society as a whole. Meyer's argues for the necessity of crafting a dissident, empowering, and 'emancipatory counter-imagery' for women. Rigorous, well written, and accessible, the reach of Gender in the mirror is arguably catholic, and addresses the interests or readers across an impressive range of intellectual disciplines. (shrink)

In "Cultural Variation and Cultural Creation in Chinese Biographical Writing and Carnegie's Work" Weidong Zhou discusses the impact on Chinese biographical writing via biographies written in Chinese and translated from English about Andrew Carnegie's life and work. The interpretation of Carnegie's philanthropy includes Chinese traditional cultural concepts such as "righteousness," "cause and effect," and "self-cultivation" which constitute the unique understanding of "philanthropy" in modern Chinese literature. From a "moral model" to "successful person" the overall images following Carnegie can reflect (...) the processes of acceptance of Western "individualism." Zhu argues that Carnegie's example was shaped as a "Youth Idol" in the May Fourth Movement from which the unique route of modernization in Chinese literature and culture can be traced. (shrink)

Written for both theoretical and practical purposes, Dysfunctional Culture discusses how to understand and identify political ideologies as cultural systems. Using examples related to family morality and reproduction, this book argues that belief in individual rights as the main basis for morality is not an adequate response to the moral challenges of the future.

In this book, one of America's leading philosophers offers a sweeping reconsideration of the philosophy of culture in the twentieth century. Morton White argues that the discipline is much more important than is often recognized, and that his version of holistic pragmatism can accommodate its breadth. Going beyond Quine's dictum that philosophy of science is philosophy enough, White suggests that it should contain the word "culture" in place of "science." He defends the holistic view that scientific belief is (...) tested by experience but that such testing is rightly applied to systems or conjunctions of beliefs, not isolated beliefs. He adds, however, that we test ethical systems by appealing to feelings of moral obligation as well as to sensory experiences. In the course of his lucidly written analysis, White treats central issues in the philosophy of science, of religion, of art, of history, of law, of politics, and of morality. While doing so he examines the views of Quine, Tarski, Goodman, and Rawls, and shows how they are related to the approaches of Peirce, James, Duhem, Russell, Dewey, Carnap, and the later Wittgenstein. He also discusses the ideas of the legal philosophers Holmes and Hart from a holistic standpoint. White demonstrates how his version of pragmatism bridges the traditional gulf between analytic and synthetic truth as well as that between moral and scientific belief. Indeed, the high point of the book is a brilliant presentation of his view of ethics, based on the idea that our scientific theories face the tribunal of observation whereas our ethical views face the joint tribunal of observation and moral feeling. Scholars and students of the history of ideas and of philosophy will welcome A Philosophy of Culture as the highly finished product of more than sixty years of philosophical reflection by an important thinker. (shrink)

Excerpt from Cultures and Institutions of Natural History: Essays in the History and Philosophy of Science This volume consists mainly of papers delivered at two meetings cosponsored by the Museo Civico di Storia Naturale in Milan and the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. The first, on the Culture of Natural History, was held in Milan, November l4-l 6, I996. The second, on Institutions of Natural History, was held in San Francisco, October 5 - 7, 1998. They followed (...) two earlier conferences on Biology as History (pinna and Ghiselin I996; Ghiselin and Pinna I996) likewise held in Milan and San Francisco. We intend to continue the series of meetings and have publications based on them in commemoration of the Academy's sesquicentennial in 2003. The emphasis here is mainly upon natural history museums and the kind of science that goes on in them. Although the essays were originally written to stand by themselves, when arranged in chronological order they suggest a common theme. To paraphrase Darwin, the culture and institutions of natural history have been, and are being, evolved. They have adapted to local circumstances, diversified, and sometimes even progressed. We may hope that the future holds more than just retrogression and extinction in store. Read as case studies the essays provide valuable insights into not just how, but why, the institutions have come into being and subsequently been transformed. Previous generations had quite different ideas than we do about how a collection of naturalia is supposed to function and how it should be organized. And there were con icting goals and serious disputes about policy, much as there are today. Often, though not always, the institutions turn out to be very different from what had been envisioned by their founders. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.". (shrink)

The world’s diverse written numeral systems are affected by human cognition; in turn, written numeral systems affect mathematical cognition in social environments. The present study investigates the constraints on graphic numerical notation, treating it neither as a byproduct of lexical numeration, nor a mere adjunct to writing, but as a specific written modality with its own cognitive properties. Constraints do not refute the notion of infinite cultural variability; rather, they recognize the infinity of variability within defined limits, (...) thus transcending the universalist/particularist dichotomy. In place of strictly innatist perspectives on mathematical cognition, a model is proposed that invokes domain-specific and notationally-specific constraints to explain patterns in numerical notations. The analysis of exceptions to cross-cultural generalizations makes the study of near-universals highly productive theoretically. The cross-cultural study of patterns in written numbers thus provides a rich complement to the cognitive analysis of writing systems. (shrink)