The theory of evolution: The rise and impact of evolutionary ideas, by R. Scoon. Evolution in its relation to the philosophy of nature and the philosophy of culture, by F.S.C. Northrop. The genetic nature of differences among men, by T. Dobzhansky. Evolutionary thought in America: Evolution and American sociology by R.E.L. Faris. The impact of the idea of evolution on the American political and constitutional tradition, by E.S. Corwin. Evolutionism in American economics, 1800-1946, by J.J. Spengler. The influence of evolutionary (...) theory upon American psychological thought, by E.G. Boring. Naturalism in American literature, by M. Cowley. The idea of organic expression and American architecture, by D.D. Egbert. Evolution and moral theory in America, W.F. Quillian, Jr. Evolution and theology in America, by S. Persons. (shrink)

Cultural evolution, the propagation and transfer of ideas from generation to generation, as well as from one person to another and from one culture to another, is much faster than normal, genetic evolution. This could account for the speedy proliferation of humankind on this planet, at the expense of other life forms.

This book seeks to generate a theoretical and a reflective framework to re-connect people with culture and spirituality. It seeks to recreate important links between these domains to provide interpretative, foundational, and ethical perspectives. It is distinctive in that it focusses on the challenges that humanity is facing at a cultural, social, moral, and spiritual level. It provides a philosophical understanding of humanity from a humanistic and multidisciplinary perspective (encompassing ethics, language, art/cinema, political, cultural and gender approaches) and offers a (...) variety of ways of how we can rethink our culture and our society for the future. (shrink)

The Covid-19 pandemic has put a strain on the health system, as well as the social, economic, and cultural ones at the Global level. After the pandemic, the risk is that the process of inclusion of persons with disabilities is grinding to a halt. But the chance is to find new ideas. This paper will define a brief but significant framework of principles that should be taken into consideration in order to support strategies of inclusion of people with disabilities in (...) the fields of health care and cultural life, especially through the research. (shrink)

This article focuses on the difference between the personal God image and the God image that people perceive as normative, that is to say, the God image they believe they should have according to religious culture. A sample of 544 Dutch respondents, of which 244 received psychotherapy, completed the Dutch Questionnaire of God Images . In general, there appeared to be a discrepancy between the personal and the normative God image. Whether discrepancies were experienced as conflictive was related to religious (...) denomination and mental health. Conflictive feelings were associated with lower religious saliency and higher educational level. Moreover, they were associated with mental health per se and the interaction between mental health and denomination, with patients reporting more conflicts than normals except in the Roman Catholic and Orthodox-Reformed group, where patients and non-patients hardly differed in the experience of conflict. (shrink)

Focusing on Mind, Self and Society, I contend that George Herbert Mead's theory is incapable of explaining the interactions in a song by Oscar Brown Jr., "The Snake," and that a satisfactory explanation of these actions, which illuminate everyday conduct familiar to us all, requires the conceptualization of personality systems grounded in affect and cultural systems understood as symbolic logics that make intelligible certain activities. My argument is important not primarily as a critique of Mead, but of rational-choice and (...) other cognitive theories that reduce emotions to cognitions, and of the currently dominant sociological and anthropological conceptualizations that reduce culture to forms of social practice. (shrink)

The article discusses the features of the love-passionate plot in the stories of Ivan Bunin. The question is raised why Bunin, describing the strange or immoral acts of the heroes, does not condemn them, and in general draws a bright, sometimes sad atmosphere. Analysis of L. S. Vygotsky’s short story “Easy Breathing” by Bunin allows us to express an idea about a certain strategy for building Bunin’s works. Based on this consideration, the methods by which Bunin achieves the effect of (...) perception of the characters he needs are analyzed. There are three such techniques: the convergence of the actions and behavior of the characters with the life and breath of nature, the depiction of the life of the characters from the point of view that Bunin needs, and the endowment of the characters with personality traits that exclude ethical characteristics and problems. The scientific explanation of Bunin's artistic constructions is based on the analysis of mental trauma (caused by the departure of the first wife and the horrors of the revolution), artistic understanding of the events that interest the writer, and the peculiarities of the conceptualization of these events. In addition, it is proposed to take into account that Bunin began and became famous as a poet, and as a poet he composed his prose partly according to the laws of versification. (shrink)

1. Although a number of personality variables have been identified by various authors as the determinants of religious behavior, independent of specific religious denomination, the results of the studies under consideration certainly appear to be inconsistent with such claims. It is suggested instead that the personality correlates of religious behavior vary with the specific religious denomination. 2. For most people religious belief and religious observance are acquired or learned in the socialization process. In a culture in which there (...) is no social pressure to conform in relation to religious behavior , individual differences in adult religious behavior may be a result of certain personality differences. In the Israeli Jewish sample a number of personality variables were found to covary with religious belief and/or observance. Religious belief and observance, however, were also highly significant sources of variance in subjects' values. These value differences probably influence the what and how of the socialization process which in turn may be responsible for some-although probably not all-of the personality variables associated with religious behavior. 3. In cultures which are characterized by strong social pressure in relation to religious conformity, e. g. the culture represented by our United States Protestant sample, the religious behavior of many individuals will be a result of their need to conform rather than other personality variables directly related to their religious behavior as such. Thus in the United States Protestant sample conformity and variables associated with it were the only significant sources of variance in subjects' religious behavior. The results of our studies indicate the importance of differentiating between religious belief and observance which is merely the result of social conformity and religious belief and observance which is also the result of other variables which are more directly related to religious behavior as such. Presently we are in the process of constructing instruments to measure these two types of religious behavior. 4. Finally, it is suggested that in trying to discover the determinants of individual differences in religious behavior there has been too much emphasis on motivational variables and not enough on environmental factors. A social learning model may be the best suited for the investigation of the sources of individual differences in religious behavior. (shrink)

In many industrialized countries ethicists and lawyers favour advance directives as a tool to guarantee patient autonomy in end-of-life-decisions. However, most citizens seem reluctant to adopt the practice; the number of patients who have an advance directive is low across most countries. The article discusses the key argument for seeing such documents as an instrument of self-interpretation and life-planning, which ultimately have to be interpreted by third parties as well. Interpretation by third parties and the process of self-reflection are conceptually (...) linked by a qualitative concept of identity. Identity is conceived here as constructed in a processual dialogue between a personal and a cultural perspective. How the cultural dimension comes into play in understanding the motivation, rejection or content of wished for end-of-life-decisions, is shown by a brief review of empirical and cultural studies. Understanding advance directives as a culturally embedded tool of self-interpretation should help to overcome urgent moral problems in clinical settings: how to interpret such documents, how to deliberate on the content and on the best form. (shrink)

The value and importance accorded to personal autonomy within liberalism would seem to suggest that cultural practices that severely constrain the choices of individuals through heavyhanded role socialization and restriction ought to be strongly discouraged in liberal societies. In this paper, I explore this claim in connection with the custom of arranged marriage, which has recently come under fire in some liberal democratic states, notably Britain. My aim is to try to complicate the liberal understanding of the relationship between cultural (...) traditions and personal autonomy. In the course of this discussion, I analyze and offer some criticisms of autonomy as a substantive ideal and requirement for flourishing. In revisiting and evaluating arguments in favor of a thick or substantive ideal of autonomy criticisms, I hope to show that a substantive ideal of autonomy as independence is culturally bounded in ways that are often overlooked by liberal philosophers. (shrink)

Humans are complex social beings. To understand human behaviour, an integrated perspective is required - one which considers both what we regularly do and what motivates us. Personality, Values, Culture uses an evolutionary perspective to look at the similarities and differences in personality and values across modern societies. Integrating research on personality and human values into a functional framework that highlights their underlying compatibilities, Fischer describes how personality is shaped by the complex interplay between genes and (...) the environment, both over the course of human evolution and within the lifespan of individuals. He proposes a gene-culture coevolution model of personality and values to explain how and why people differ around the world and how genes, economics, social conditions, and climate jointly shape personality. (shrink)

Disturbed identity is one of the defining characteristics of Borderline Personality Disorder manifested in a broad spectrum of dysfunctions related to the self, including disturbances in meaning-generating self-narratives. Autobiographical memories are memories of personal events that provide crucial building-blocks in our construction of a life-story, self-concept, and a meaning-generating narrative identity. The cultural life script represents culturally shared expectations as to the order and timing of life events in a prototypical life course within a given culture. It is used (...) to organize one’s autobiographical memories. Here, 17 BPD-patients, 14 OCD-patients, and 23 non-clinical controls generated three important autobiographical memories and their conceptions of the cultural life script. BPD-patients reported substantially more negative memories, fewer of their memories were of prototypical life script events, their memory narratives were less coherent and more disoriented, and the overall typicality of their life scripts was lower as compared with the other two groups. (shrink)

Building upon the scholarship of Michael Polanyi, William Poteat has dedicated himself to offering an alternative model to the Cartesian dichotomy of mind and matter that has dominated Western thought for centuries. These essays, collected by James Nickell and James Stines, cover a wide range of subjects, from Poteat's analysis of the epistemological crisis brought on by the Cartesian program to his first attempts at formulating an alternative to the mind-body dichotomy. These essays relentlessly diagnose the present situation of Western (...) thought by making explicit the philosophical presuppositions to which it is committed. They include theological affirmations, reflections on epistemology, conceptual analyses, as well as dialogues with other writers in the field of cultural criticism and linguistic theory such as George Steiner, Noam Chomsky, and Walker Percy. Most significant is Poteat's bold affirmation of the primacy of persons and his analysis and critique of our cultural misconstructions of human awareness. _The Primacy of Persons and the Language of Culture_ provides an excellent introduction to the scholarship of William Poteat. It should be of particular interest to scholars of philosophy and theology, as well as others who share Poteat's deep concern for the state of human culture. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------- The above was already on the database - below was copied from the web William Poteat has dedicated himself to offering an alternative model to the Cartesian dichotomy of mind and matter that has dominated Western thought for centuries. These essays further diagnose the present situation of Western thought by making explicit the philosophical presuppositions to which it is committed. (shrink)

Individual identity and the multiplicity of cultural factors that “influence” the individual obviously raise the question of who we are as persons. But it is equally obvious that such individual reality is temporal, thereby constituting individual history. The latter seems to be like a Heraclitean flux where change is the only constant. In other words, since we never cease to change—even imperceptibly—shouldn’t we conclude that we never remain identical to ourselves in such a process of becoming? To use a concept (...) put forward by Ricœur, Idem-Identity, as stable and substantial sameness, appears to be an illusion, as we are the history of our actions and experiences, a history that continues to shape... (shrink)

On July 19th 2021, the UK government lifted the COVID-19 restrictions that had been in place since March 2020, including wearing masks, social distancing, and all other legal requirements. The return to in-person events has been slow and gradual, showing that audiences are still cautious when they resume engaging in arts and culture. Patterns of audience behavior have also changed, shifting toward local attendance, greater digital and hybrid engagement, and openness to event format changes. As the arts and cultural industry (...) recovers from the pandemic, it is important to adopt an audience-oriented approach and look at the changing patterns of engaging in arts and culture. This study aims to better understand the impact of the pandemic on the patterns of cultural and arts engagement. Eight qualitative interviews were conducted to explore the changes in arts and cultural engagement since the restrictions were lifted, focusing particularly on the audience’s experiences of returning to in-person arts and cultural events in the Liverpool City Region. Using framework analysis, three themes were identified from the data: The new normal: reframing pre-pandemic and pandemic experiences of arts and culture, Re-adjusting to in-person provision, and Moving forward: online and blended provision. The findings show that the pandemic altered the ways that people engage in arts and culture. The “new normal,” a blend of pandemic and pre-pandemic experiences, illustrates how the pandemic has highlighted and reconfigured the importance of arts and culture, in terms of personal and cultural identity. Resuming in-person engagement after a long break, participants noted that they were able to feel more like themselves again. Arts and culture were perceived to be beneficial in rebuilding personal resilience and confidence. Engaging in arts and culture, following the isolating experience of the pandemic, has also helped participants feel reconnected to others through their shared experiences. Finally, the findings suggest that online provision remains vital for many, ensuring wider inclusivity, particularly for vulnerable audiences. At the same time, it is important to acknowledge the barriers to online inclusion and the possibility of this resulting in a growing digital divide. (shrink)

What kind of animals are human beings? And how do our visions of the human shape our theories of social action and institutions? In Moral, Believing Animals>, Christian Smith advances a creative theory of human persons and culture that offers innovative, challenging answers to these and other fundamental questions in sociological, cultural, and religious theory. Smith suggests that human beings have a peculiar set of capacities and proclivities that distinguishes them significantly from other animals on this planet. Despite the vast (...) differences in humanity between cultures and across history, no matter how differently people narrate their lives and histories, there remains an underlying structure of human personhood that helps to order human culture, history, and narration. Drawing on important recent insights in moral philosophy, epistemology, and narrative studies, Smith argues that humans are animals who have an inescapable moral and spiritual dimension. They cannot avoid a fundamental moral orientation in life and this, says Smith, has profound consequences for how sociology must study human beings. (shrink)

Character and Culture by Irving Babbitt is the latest volume in the Library of Conservative Thought. Babbitt was the leader of the twentieth-century intellectual and cultural movement called American Humanism or the New Humanism. More than half a century after his death his intellectual staying power remains undiminished. The qualities that marked Irving Babbitt as a thinker and cultural critic of the first rank are richly represented in "Character and Culture. "First published togetherin 1940 (under the misleading title "Spanish Character), (...) "these essays span his scholarly career and cover a wide range of subjects. The diverse topics discussed here--aesthetics, ethics, religion, politics, literature--are illuminated by the same unifying vision of human existence that informs and structures all of Babbitt's writing. Babbitt never took up a subject out of idle curiosity. All of his books and articles grew out of a desire to address certain fundamental questions of life and letters. The essaysin this volume are as worthy of attention now as when they were originally written. Set in then- philosophical and historical context by Claes G. Ryn's new introduction, they are a good place to start for persons who wish to acquaint themselves not only with Babbitt's central ideas but with the scope of his mind and interests. Readers familiar with other books by Babbitt may recognize particular ideas and formulations but will also find much new material to ponder. Ryn's introduction provides a comprehensive look at Irving Babbitt's life, career, writings, and influence. He shows how Babbitt has survived and sustained often harsh criticism from representatives of dominant trends. Ryn describes his writing style as having "a kind of rugged American elegance." The substantial critical introduction also elucidates Babbitt's central ideas in relation to the volume. "Character and Culture "will be of interest to scholars of literature, philosophers, historians, theologians, and political theorists. The extensive index to all of Babbitt's books, including this one, increases the value of the volume. (shrink)

Persons and Minds is an inquiry into the possibilities of materialism. Professor Margolis starts his investigation, however, with a critique of the range of contemporary materialist theories, and does not find them viable. None of them, he argues, "can accommodate in a convincing way the most distinctive features of the mental life of men and oflower creatures and the imaginative possibilities of discovery and technology" (p. 8). In an extraordinarily rich analysis, Margolis carefully considers and criticizes mind-body identity theories, physicalism, (...) eliminative materialism, behaviorism, as inadequate precisely in that they are reductive. He argues, then, for ramified concepts of emergence, and embodiment which will sustain a philosophically coherent account both of the distinctive non-natural character of persons and of their being naturally embodied. But Margolis provokes us to ask, what is an em bodied mind? The crucial context for him is not the plain physical body as such, but culture. "Persons", he writes, "are in a sense not natural entities: they exist only in cultural contexts and are identifiable as such only by refer ence to their mastery of language and of whatever further abilities presuppose such mastery" (p. 245). The hallmark of persons, in Margolis's account, is their capacity for freedom, as well as their physical endowment. Thus he writes, " . . . their characteristic powers - in effect, their freedom - must inform the order of purely physical causes in a distinctive way" (p. 246). (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 23 (2003) 101-116 [Access article in PDF] Persons and Awareness Tyson Anderson Saint Leo University The aim of this essay is to relate Christianity and Buddhism through a consideration of two key terms, "persons" and "awareness," the first being central for Christianity and the second being central for Buddhism.The first thing that needs to be noticed is the relatively indefinable character of these words. I of course (...) intend to give as clear an indication as is possible concerning their meaning, but as I considered some of the important concepts that are involved in the topic—language, world, love, understanding—I began to realize that we are surely in the realm of mystery here. By "mystery" I mean something that we can understand somewhat but cannot comprehend, much as Saint Thomas Aquinas thought of God. 1 As is well known, LudwigWittgenstein believed that there is something mysterious even about language itself, that basically what it is can be "shown" but not "said." 2 A certain tentativeness here in regard to propositional adequacy, I might add, is perfectly compatible with strong confidence in one's relation to what Wittgenstein called "the higher." 3 In regard to the truth to be found in the beliefs of others, even a megapandit such as Ken Wilber—not noted for his modesty and circumspection—observes that "the human mind is incapable of producing 100% error." 4 Perhaps some misunderstandings among those engaging in dialogue can be avoided if we remain mindful of the mysterious character of the subject matter and are less confident about the sufficiency of our own articulation of the truth.As to dialogue itself, it is perhaps well to remember when the issues of "fruit salad" and syncretism arise, 5 that thinking itself has typically a dialogical structure, with the result that "fruit salad" is actually the normal condition of persons as they develop in understanding themselves and their world. 6 In conversation with Laurence Freeman, O.S.B., the Dalai Lama appears to disapprove of mixing traditions—"Do not try to put a yak's head on a sheep's body" 7 —but it would be difficult to conceive of a more syncretistic religion than Tibetan Buddhism or Catholicism. Indeed, if we compare the early Jesus movement to the medieval church, the development of Catholicism might well be described by Luther or Calvin, had they thought of it, as an operation that put a yak's head on a sheep's body. The dialogical and finite structure of thinking is in fact one of the reasons why it is possible to conceive of a "universal religion," contrary to what the Dalai Lama thinks. 8 This is so because, since human understanding is never absolute and completed, there is always the possibility that future [End Page 101] understanding will yield a vision that embraces a multiplicity and diversity of religious insights in a way that is impossible for us to foresee at this time. Moreover, part of the point of American culture, I would think, is the benefits of mongrelization, and so perhaps Americans ought to be less suspicious than some at the thought of having "strange bedfellows." Looking for historical examples of conscious syncretism, one thinks of Mani and Jesuit syncretism exemplified in Matteo Ricci (outfitted first as a Buddhist monk and then later as a Confucian scholar) and the evangelization of New Spain, 9 and more recently, Hazrat Inayat Khan and his son, Pir Vilayat Khan. Also, there is Jesaiah Ben-Aharon, a Jewish thinker who interprets the Holocaust in terms of the Christ. 10 I find such efforts to be commendable, and so although doctrinal and cultural immaculacy has its charms, I believe it to be the call of maya. I will proceed, then, in constructing a mysterious and miscegenational fruit salad, my only justification being that this seems to reflect accurately the truth of the matter and that we really have no other peaceable choice. 11 Persons "Person" is often used in the same sense as "human being." By "person" I mean a being who can love and who, as a human being, is the... (shrink)

Business ethics has become a very important concern in global business and understanding the effects of various factors on ethical judgments continues to attract research and practitioner attention. Using the Multidimensional Ethics Scale with its five generally accepted philosophical constructs, and vignettes developed by Cohen et al., current study investigates the relationship between cultural values, personality, religiosity and the ethical sensitivity of business students. We focus on a rapidly emerging country, Turkey, whose economic environment is similar to that of (...) the most Western nations but with a significantly different background and cultural values. Data for the study is collected from a major university in the southeastern Turkey. Although some significant relationships are identified between ethical sensitivity and cultural values and personality, our study findings confirm that MES dimensions had the highest influence on ethical sensitivity levels of business students. (shrink)

The importance of ethical leadership in organizations has been increasingly recognized, especially as a shield against unethical employee behaviors and corporate misconducts. Ethical leadership has been theorized to include two aspects: “moral person” and “moral manager.” This conceptualization resonates well with Chinese teachings of Confucius on leadership and management—namely xiuji and anren. Based on the theoretical framework of ethical leadership, we develop and validate a new ethical leadership measure. Through qualitative studies and five quantitative studies, we establish the reliability and (...) convergent, discriminant, and predictive validities of the ELM in a Chinese context. In addition, using a US sample, we find that the ELM has partial measurement invariance across Chinese and American contexts. (shrink)

The development and use of advanced and innovative neuroscience, neurotechnology and some forms of artificial intelligence have exposed potential threats to the human condition, including human rights. As a result, reconceptualizing or creating human rights (i.e. neurorights) has been proposed to address specific brain and mind issues like free will, personal identity and cognitive liberty. However, perceptions, interpretations and meanings of these issues—and of neurorights—may vary between countries, contexts and cultures, all relevant for an international-consensus definition and implementation of neurorights. (...) Thus, we encourage reflecting on the proactive inclusion of transnational, cross-cultural and contextual considerations and concerns to contribute to the global discourse. This inclusion does not mean endorsing ethical relativism but rather a call to foster a universal understanding of key concepts and concerns. Including contextual and cultural perspectives may truly anticipate global concerns which could be addressed while developing and implementing neurorights. Consequently, any ethical and/or legal regulatory framework(s) for the translational and transnational use of advanced neuroscience, neurotechnology and some forms of artificial intelligence intended to protect and safeguard human dignity should be contextually and culturally mindful, responsible, respectful and inclusive of not only human rights and fundamental freedoms but also of neurocognitive cultural diversity. (shrink)

This research attempts to describe the identity development of students/teachers who used a virtual social network –Facebook to work with historical mathematics and mathematicians in the frame of a second degree course. Fifteen participants aged from 24 to 53 years old participated in the course in which they were required to attend mathematical Facebook sites involved with math history. The research findings arrived at using the grounded theory approach indicate that working with historical mathematicians and talking and discussing their work (...) in virtual social networks, students/ teachers developed their identity in four aspects: the educational aspect, the cultural aspect, the personality aspect, and the ethnic aspect. These identity aspects were developed due to the different conditions of the learning environment, together with the actions/ interactions of the participants. Specifically, working with the history of mathematics in virtual social networks made the participants aware of the advantages of integrating technology in learning and teaching, the advantages of integrating history in the learning and teaching of mathematics and science, and the possibility to move their culture to one that is involved more in science and mathematics. In addition, working with the history of mathematics in virtual social networks made the participants proud of their heritage and as a result they increased their self esteem. (shrink)

Persons and Valuable Worlds argues for pluralistic ethics, philosophical anthropology, and epistemology in a cross-cultural context. It provides an account of what it means to be a genuine social and spiritual being—what it means to be a person in the diverse worlds of which we are a part, and to which we contribute in significant ways. It further strives to reintegrate moral and value considerations into philosophy throughout the range of its inquiries.

In this descriptive – correlative study we examined the relationship between big five personality traits with cultural intelligence in 113 active soccer coaches in the city of Mashhad in north-eastern of Iran. Anget. al cultural intelligence and Costa & McCrae Revised NEO Personality Inventory and NEO Five-Factor Inventory with Cultural intelligence. A significant reverse relationship was observed between neuroticism and Cultural intelligence. A significant difference was observed between coaches with A and B coaching degree, in comparison with C (...) and D coaching degree in terms of cultural intelligence. No significant difference was observed between these two groups regarding personality traits. Our results show that some of the personality characteristics are crucial and related to a capability to function effectively in diverse settings. (shrink)

In recent years, due to factors such as rising sea levels, several island nations such as Maldives, Tuvalu, Kiribati, and the Marshall Islands are in danger of disappearing completely. When the land of an island country disappeared, the human rights protection of Environmentally Displaced Persons in the migration process and the possible loss of their unique culture, language, and lifestyle have aroused great concern. We call such Environmentally Displaced Persons as EDPs. This study selects the EDPs’ data of 241 countries (...) or regions from 2008 to 2018, establishes an ARIMA model, and predicts the future population of EDPs. By combining the influencing factors of cultural loss, the risk assessment model of cultural loss is established to evaluate the possibility of cultural loss during the migration process of EDPs. We have established a Bayesian Network and a Fault Tree Model to demonstrate the improvement brought about by the implementation of policy recommendations from both qualitative and quantitative perspectives and use the method of fault tree analysis to illustrate the importance of policies from the degree of probability reduction after policy changes. Finally, based on the above model establishment and data analysis, corresponding countermeasures are proposed to protect EDPs’ human rights from being violated and their culture will not be lost. (shrink)

How do we refer to people in everyday conversation? No matter the language or culture, we must choose from a range of options: full name ('Robert Smith'), reduced name ('Bob'), description ('tall guy'), kin term ('my son') etc. Our choices reflect how we know that person in context, and allow us to take a particular perspective on them. This book brings together a team of leading linguists, sociologists and anthropologists to show that there is more to person reference than meets (...) the eye. Drawing on video-recorded, everyday interactions in nine languages, it examines the fascinating ways in which we exploit person reference for social and cultural purposes, and reveals the underlying principles of person reference across cultures from the Americas to Asia to the South Pacific. Combining rich ethnographic detail with cross-linguistic generalizations, it will be welcomed by researchers and graduate students interested in the relationship between language and culture. (shrink)

Heritable personality traits often predict fundamental philosophical disagreement. This conclusion is based on studies of more than 15,000 people sampled from diverse cultures and educational backgrounds, including verifiable experts. In this chapter, we review some of this research showing links between personality and philosophical bias in free will, intentional action, and ethics. Our discussion focuses on serious challenges that these philosophical biases pose (e.g., limits on the use of philosophical intuitions as evidence). We close with discussion of the (...) Philosophical Personality Argument and brief consideration of emerging projects in applied experimental philosophy. (shrink)

The concept of ‘geneticization’ has been introduced in the scholarly literature to describe the various interlocking and imperceptible mechanisms of interaction between medicine, genetics, society and culture. It is argued that Western culture currently is deeply involved in a process of geneticization. This process implies a redefinition of individuals in terms of DNA codes, a new language to describe and interpret human life and behavior in a genomic vocabulary of codes, blueprints, traits, dispositions, genetic mapping, and a gentechnological approach to (...) disease, health and the body. This article analyses the thesis of ‘geneticization’. Explaining the implications of the thesis, and discussing the critical refutations, it is argued that ‘geneticization’ primarily is a heuristic tool that can help to re-focus the moral debate on the implications of new genetic knowledge towards interpersonal relations, the power of medicine, the cultural context and social constraints, rather than emphasizing issues as personal autonomy and individual rights. (shrink)

Religion, belief and culture should be recognized as potential sources of moral purpose and personal strength in healthcare, enhancing the welfare of both clinicians and patients amidst the experience of ill-health, healing, suffering and dying. Communication between doctors and patients and between healthcare staff should attend sensitively to the welfare benefits of religion, belief and culture. Doctors should respect personal religious and cultural commitments, taking account of their significance for treatment and care preferences. Good doctors understand their own beliefs and (...) those of others. They hold that patient welfare is best served by understanding the importance of religion, belief and culture to patients and colleagues. The sensitive navigation of differences between people's religions, beliefs and cultures is part of doctors' civic obligations and in the UK should follow the guidance of the General Medical Council and Department of Health. In particular, apparent conflict between clinical judgement or normal practices and a patient's culture, religion and belief should be considered carefully. Doctors' own religion or culture may play an important role in promoting adherence to this good practice. In all matters, doctors' conduct should be governed by the law and arrangements for conscientious objection that are in effect. (shrink)

This book paints a portrait of Ludwig Wittgenstein that is very different from conventional portraits that narrowly depict him as a philosopher's philosopher silent about social, ethical and cultural questions.

Over the past four decades, I have been asked many questions regarding the substance and methodology of my essay “Person and Community in African Thought”. I cannot in the space of these pages retrieve or reframe the content and implications of these several questions and it would be fool-hardy to attempt an answer to all of them here. But that is no reason not to try to say a few things, by way of additional commentary, on the occasion of this (...) retrospective on the essay. It would be helpful to proceed by concentrating on a few issues which have been of some concern, or interest, to readers over the years, adding a response, however brief, as I go along. Keywords: Community, Personhood, Descriptive Metaphysics Africa Philosophy Human Person. (shrink)

The concept of ‘geneticization’ has been introduced in the scholarly literature to describe the various interlocking and imperceptible mechanisms of interaction between medicine, genetics, society and culture. It is argued that Western culture currently is deeply involved in a process of geneticization. This process implies a redefinition of individuals in terms of DNA codes, a new language to describe and interpret human life and behavior in a genomic vocabulary of codes, blueprints, traits, dispositions, genetic mapping, and a gentechnological approach to (...) disease, health and the body. This article analyses the thesis of ‘geneticization’. Explaining the implications of the thesis, and discussing the critical refutations, it is argued that ‘geneticization’ primarily is a heuristic tool that can help to re-focus the moral debate on the implications of new genetic knowledge towards interpersonal relations, the power of medicine, the cultural context and social constraints, rather than emphasizing issues as personal autonomy and individual rights. (shrink)

The development of artificial agents for social interaction pushes to enrich robots with social skills and knowledge about (local) social norms. One possibility is to distinguish the expressive and the functional orders during a human-robot interaction. The overarching aim of this work is to set a framework to make the artificial agent socially-competent beyond dyadic interaction – interaction in varying multi-party social situations – and beyond individual-based user personalization, thereby enlarging the current conception of “culturally-adaptive”. The core idea is to (...) provide the artificial agent with the capability to handle different kinds of interactional disruptions, and associated recovery strategies, in microsociology. The result is obtained by classifying functional and social disruptions, and by investigating the requirements a robot’s architecture should satisfy to exploit such knowledge. The paper also highlights how this level of competence is achieved by focusing on just three dimensions: (i) social capability, (ii) relational role, and (iii) proximity, leaving aside the further complexity of full-fledged human-human interactions. Without going into technical aspects, End-to-end Data-driven Architectures and Modular Architectures are discussed to evaluate the degree to which they can exploit this new set of social and cultural knowledge. Finally, a list of general requirements for such agents is proposed. (shrink)

The article deals with the little-studied but actual problem of loneliness of an outstanding creative personality as a consequence of stereotypical understanding of his works and activity. The cultural and philosophical meaning of Ivan Turgenev’s motif of loneliness is that he was a lone creator, recognized by Russian critics and historians of literature only in the context of the activities of other recognized great writers: Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov. The problem of loneliness is revealed through the paradoxical statement (...) by Turgenev on the question about strange loners and aggressive crowd. The paper presents the loneliness of I.S. Turgenev as a rejection of the understandable and normality among the non-understandable and weirdness. In Russian literatury critical and historico-cultural tradition, during the discussion of Russian classics, the general opinion has been formed: Turgenev is apparently non-Russian author, moreover he is not a classic writer indeed. (shrink)