Only recently research in social psychology has started to systematically investigate intergroup attitudes among members of stigmatized minority groups. In particular, the study of the way people with mental health problems perceive the social groups around them is so far very scarce. In this work, we focused on people with schizophrenia, analyzing their attitudes toward another stigmatized group, namely Black individuals. In Study 1, the attitudes toward White and Black people were assessed in a sample of respondents with (...) a diagnosis of schizophrenia and in a sample of non-clinical individuals. Results showed the presence of less negative attitudes toward the minority outgroup among the clinical sample. In Study 2, we aimed at investigating what members belonging to the majority group believe about the attitudes toward Black people held by individuals with a diagnosis of schizophrenia. In general, results suggested a general awareness in lay persons that people with a diagnosis of schizophrenia, as compared to people with no history of mental disorders, hold reduced negative attitudes toward Black individuals. Overall, these results may help to enrich our knowledge about social cognition among members of stigmatized groups in general and, more specifically, among individuals with a diagnosis of schizophrenia. (shrink)

In this commentary, John O'Neill concentrates upon three themes in the goal Merleau-Ponty set for himself, namely "to restore to things their concrete physiognomy, to organisms their individual ways of dealing with the world, and to subjectivity its inherence in history." O'Neill considers the three objectives in their original order: first, the study of animal and human psychology; then, the phenomenology of perception; and finally, certain extensions of these perspectives in the historical and social sciences.

Little understood in early U.S. history, the Florida manatee suffered at the hands of people. After the manatees were listed as endangered, scientists began to study manatees and gained much knowledge about them. With education efforts, the species then went from inspiring acts of cruelty to inspiring dedication and admiration among scientists, policymakers, and the interested public. The image of the manatee underwent a transformation. The social and cultural reinvention of the Florida manatees improved their chances for protection.

Every generation re-writes history in its own way'. Re-writing History applies Collingwood's dictum to a series of topics and themes, some of which have been central to prehistoric and protohistoric archaeology for the past century or more, while some have been triggered by more recent changes in technology or social attitudes. Some issues are highly controversial, like the proposals for the Stonehenge World Heritage sites. Others challenge long-held popular myths, like the deconstruction of the Celts and by (...) extension the Picts. Yet some traditional tenets of scholarship have gone unchallenged for too long, like the classical definition of civilization itself. But why should it matter? Surely it is in the order of things that each generation rejects received wisdom and adopts ideas that are radical or might offend previous generations? Is this not simply symptomatic of healthy and vibrant debate? Or are there grounds for believing that current changes are of a more disquieting character, denying the basic assumptions of rational argument and freedom of enquiry and expression that have been the foundation of western scholarship since the eighteenth century Enlightenment? Re-writing History addresses contemporary concerns about information and its interpretation, including issues of misinformation and airbrushing of politically-incorrect history. Its subject matter is the archaeology of prehistoric and early historic Britain, and the changes witnessed over two centuries and more in the interpretation of the archaeological heritage by changes in the prevailing political and social as well as intellectual climate. Far from being topics of concern only to academics in ivory towers, the way in which seemingly innocuous issues such as cultural diffusion or social reconstruction in the remote past are studied and presented reflects important shifts in contemporary thinking that challenge long-accepted conventions of free speech and debate. (shrink)

Originally published in 1971, this volume examines the relationship between the history and sociology of education. History does not stand in isolation, but has much to draw from and contribute to, other disciplines. The methods and concepts of sociology, in particular, are exerting increasing influence on historical studies, especially the history of education. Since education is considered to be part of the social system, historians and sociologists have come to survey similar fields; yet each discipline appears (...) to have its own aims and methodology. (shrink)

Scholars have sometimes argued that we should conceive of social research as a form of moral inquiry, at least in part, but none have made clear exactly how and why observational research can make a distinctive contribution to moral insight. Returning to an era before the modern distinction between social science and the humanities became entrenched, this article argues that Adam Smith provided a clear and forceful rationale for the moral role of social research, especially history. (...) Smith believed that moral understanding relies on emotional reactions to richly described cases, preferably where our own interests are not at stake. These meditations on particular cases, in turn, provide the basis for moral generalizations that can inform future encounters with particular cases. This perspective led Smith (along with his friend David Hume) to the view that historical writing makes a more important contribution to moral understanding than abstract philosophy does. This article reconstructs Smith’s arguments about the role of empirical observation in cultivating moral sensibility in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, his Lectures on Jurisprudence, and his Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres. It then connects his argument to contemporary ideas about the nature of moral understanding in philosophy and cognitive science. (shrink)

Originally published in 1972, this book is concerned with education as part of a larger social history. Chapters include: The roots of Anglican supremacy in English education The Board schools of London The use of ecclesiastical records for the history of education Topographical resources: private and secondary education from the sixteenth to the twentieth century.

The concept of brain death as equivalent to cardiopulmonary death was initially conceived following developments in neuroscience, critical care, and transplant technology. It is now a routine part of medicine in Western countries, including the United States. In contrast, Eastern countries have been reluctant to incorporate brain death into legislation and medical practice. Several countries, most notably China, still lack laws recognizing brain death and national medical standards for making the diagnosis. The perception is that Asians are less likely (...) to approve of brain death or organ transplant from brain dead donors. Cultural and religious traditions have been referenced to explain this apparent difference. In the West, the status of the brain as home to the soul in Enlightenment philosophy, combined with pragmatism and utilitarianism, supports the concept of brain death. In the East, the integration of body with spirit and nature in Buddhist and folk beliefs, along with the Confucian social structure that builds upon interpersonal relationships, argues against brain death. However, it is unclear whether these reasoning strategies are explicitly used when families and medical providers are faced with acknowledging brain death. Their decisions are more likely to involve a prioritization of values and a rationalization of intuitive responses. Why and whether there might be differences between East and West in the acceptance of the brain death concept requires further empirical testing, which would help inform policy-making and facilitate communication between providers and patients from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds. (shrink)

Afterthoughts on biases in history perception Contemporary social psychology describes various deformations of processing social information leading to distortions of knowledge about other people. What is more, a person in everyday life refers to lay convictions and ideas common in his/her cultural environment that distort his/her perceptions. Therefore it is difficult to be surprised that authors of narrations in which participants of history are presented use easily available common-sense psychology, deforming images of both the participants (...) of history and their activities, as well as the sequence of events determined by these activities. Which cognitive biases, how often, and in what intensity they will be presented in historical narrations depend on statements of dominating common-sense psychology. The article outlines some biases made by historian-lay psychologists, such as attributional asymmetry or hindsight effects, whose occurrence in their thinking, as formed in the cultural sphere of the West, influences history perception and conducted historical interpretations. (shrink)

This is at once a fascinating, illuminating, perceptive, and perplexing book. It has many virtues. There are probably few intellectuals in any "discipline" who can write about the sweep of Western civilization with such scope, insight, and perceptiveness. Nisbet has attempted to write a history of a metaphor which has exerted an enormous influence on Western thinking from the Greeks until our time. It is the metaphor of organic development as applied to the understanding of social development. According (...) to Nisbet we find this basic metaphor at the root of Greek thinking about cycles, the Christian idea of epic, and the modern idea of development as progress. The first part subtly sketches the variations on the metaphor of organic growth in The Greeks, The Christians, and The Moderns. This in turn establishes a background for exploring the theory of social development articulated from the eighteenth century to the present. Although Nisbet is modest in his claims about his distinctive contribution to each of these historical chapters, he does bring fresh insight to bear and exposes numerous myths that have cluttered our historical understanding. Given the scope of his treatment, there is plenty that "specialists" may question, although even where one disagrees with his interpretations, one can't help admiring his command of the material. It is the final chapter that leaves one perplexed. For while Nisbet has made an excellent case for showing how deep the metaphor of organic development has been in Western thought, he seems to be genuinely ambivalent about its significance and pragmatic value. Operating in this chapter is a dichotomy between the "literal" and the "metaphoric" that is never fully explicated. Nisbet seems to think that with proper judiciousness, the metaphor can be revealing when applied to large scale units such as "civilization" and "culture," but that it is disastrous and dogmatic when used to account for specific instances of social behavior. The book ends with a rather sharp polemical attack on contemporary functionalists. It would seem that Nisbet set out to trace the variations of the metaphor of organic development in order to show how it still influences contemporary "sophisticated" thinking and to expose the abuses and irrelevance of the metaphor for understanding social behavior, but in the course of his masterful exploration he has succeeded in laying the groundwork for a serious questioning of his own polemical conclusions.--R. J. B. (shrink)

An emerging body of research recognizes the importance of the past and history for corporate social responsibility scholarship and practice. However, the meanings that scholars and practitioners can ascribe to the past and history differ fundamentally, posing challenges to the integration of history and CSR thinking. This essay reviews diverse approaches and proposes a broad conceptualization of the relationship between the past, history, and CSR. We suggest historical CSR as an umbrella term that comprises three (...) distinct theoretical perspectives. The “past-of-CSR” perspective is concerned with the history of CSR and business ethics as a set of concepts and practices. The “past-in-CSR” perspective involves employing empirical historical research to substantiate and elaborate CSR concepts and theories. Finally, the “past-as-CSR” perspective seeks to understand the past as a living, yet contested, facet of current organizations, influencing contemporary perceptions of corporate and managerial responsibility. We then elaborate on conceptual issues and paths that may prove useful for future research. In all, this essay and the thematic symposium it precedes strive to deepen and broaden the salience of the past and history for thinking about business ethics and business responsibilities. (shrink)

Several researchers have proposed that humans are predisposed to treat ethnic identities as stable and inherent. However, the ethnographic, historical, and genetic records attest to the ubiquity of inter-ethnic migrations across human history. These two claims seem to be at odds. In this article we compare three evolutionary accounts of how people reason about identity stability, and the effect that the cultural evolution of ethnic group boundaries may have on these beliefs. We test our hypotheses among Himba pastoralists in (...) Namibia, whose recent fission from the neighboring Herero makes them ideal for studying the effect of cultural distance on folk beliefs about identity stability. In a vignette experiment, we asked participants whether an individual born in one group who moved to another group would retain their original group membership and cultural characteristics or acquire those of the new group. Across vignette conditions we examine the importance of the direction of migration, parental social influence, and age at migration on perceptions of identity stability. We also compare participant responses to two out-groups, the Herero, and the more distantly related Damara. We find that participants seldom thought of identity as stable or fixed at birth. Furthermore, we show that cultural distance and endogamous preferences are independent of beliefs of identity stability. Himba believed the Damara character was more likely to change identity and cultural traits than was the Herero character, despite their greater cultural distance from the former group, and despite the fact that all participants expressed more anti-Damara than anti-Herero sentiment. (shrink)

Politics and Modernity provides a critical review of the key interface of contemporary political theory and social theory about the questions of modernity and postmodernity. Review essays offer a broad-ranging assessment of the issues at stake in current debates. Among the works reviewed are those of William Connolly, Anthony Giddens, J[um]urgen Habermas, Alasdair MacIntyre, Richard Rorty, Charles Taylor and Roy Bhaskar. As well as reviewing the contemporary literature, the contributors assess the historical roots of current problems in the works (...) of Nietzsche and Max Weber. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to examine the perceptions of American history among adolescent Mexican Americans at the eight-grade level in a mid-west town's middle school. This qualitative study shows that multiple contexts influenced the process of teaching and learning history between and among a white teacher and adolescent Mexican Americans at Atkinson Middle School. Those overlapping contexts (the context of the education of minority language students, the context of social studies education, and the school's culture) (...) created a unique totality responsible for shaping the experiences of learning American history by Mexican-American students. These experiences were detrimental for the appreciation by Mexican-American students of American history's potential meanings and significance. (shrink)

Focusing on episodes of student-generated and -sustained talk during document-based disciplinary history discussions, this study explored what teacher candidates prioritize and value about social studies discussions, and how these priorities align with their actions and goals as facilitators. Using a complex systems-based model, we investigated candidates’ goals as they planned for, facilitated, and reflected upon student sensemaking relative to three common orientations for social studies discussions: disciplinary history, participatory civics, and critical literacy. Findings revealed that candidates (...) employed elements from all three orientations, yet without clear alignment to any particular approach. This misalignment reflected tensions between candidates’ stated goals, beliefs about student engagement, and instructional decisions. We draw implications for teacher education to support candidates in developing coherent practices for discussion facilitation that align with their instructional visions and sociocultural contexts. (shrink)

Reflecting on the technological age, poet Rainer Maria Rilke wrote of the intense emotions with which people can endow manufactured objects. We seem to "charge" the world of things as we would a battery. Now German art historian Christoph Asendorf explores this transformation of human sense perception in the industrial age and contributes to a new understanding of European culture and modernity. Drawing from literature, painting, architecture, film, philosophy, anthropology, and popular culture, Asendorf offers rich analyses of works by (...) Manet, Baudelaire, Monet, Zola, Benjamin, Heidegger, and Duchamp. These close readings are combined with a montage of key cultural images and events ranging from Paxton's Crystal Palace to the introduction of electricity. The result is a striking account of the emergence of consumer culture within the developing commodity economy of modern Europe. Certain to challenge the mono-disciplinary perspectives of many specialists, this book will interest historians of art, culture, literature, science, and technology. (shrink)

We can experience music as sad, as exuberant, as sombre. We can experience it as expressing immensity, identification with the rest of humanity, or gratitude. The foundational question of what it is for music to express these or anything else is easily asked; and it has proved extraordinarily difficult to answer satisfactorily. The question of what it is for emotion or other states to be heard in music is not the causal or computational question of how it comes to be (...) heard. It is not the question of the social influences on how we hear music. Nor is it the question of the evolutionary explanation, if such there be, of the existence of such perceptions. It is the constitutive question, the ‘what-is-it?’ question, that is my concern here. It is a question unaddressed by purely syntactic analyses of music. A correct answer to this constitutive question constrains all those other, equally challenging, empirical questions about music. I am going to propose an answer to the constitutive question, drawing on the resources of our current philosophy of perception and cognition within contemporary philosophy of mind. In the very tight space available to me, I will not survey the extant competing proposals, but simply offer my own suggestion straight out, while noting some points of contrast with other approaches. My account is built from three components, or more strictly, from two components together with a certain conception of the way they are related to each other in the perception of music. My plan is to expound these components; to formulate the account built from them; to give some examples of what the account can explain; and to discuss very briefly its bearing on some classical issues about the perception of music. (shrink)

Moral perception is typically understood as moral properties perception, i.e., the perceptual registration of moral properties such as wrongness or dignity. In this article, I defend a view of moral perception as a process that involves imaginative apprehension of reality. It is meant as an adjustment to the dominant view of moral perception as moral properties perception and as an addition to existing Murdochian approaches to moral perception. The view I present here builds on (...) Iris Murdoch’s moral psychology and holds that moral perception is an imaginative exploration of the particularity of concrete objects of moral reality (e.g., persons, situations, and events), rather than a registration of moral properties. I argue that such imaginative apprehension includes direct and reflective uses of imagination and that this process grounds experiential moral knowledge that serves the ultimate role of moral perception: getting a better grip on concrete objects of moral reality. (shrink)

Our fascination with artificial intelligence (AI), robots and sentient machines has a long history, and references to such humanoids are present even in ancient myths and folklore. The advancements in digital and computational technology have turned this fascination into apprehension, with the machines often being depicted as a binary to the human. However, the recent domains of academic enquiry such as transhumanism and posthumanism have produced many a literature in the genre of science fiction (SF) that endeavours to alter (...) this antagonistic notion of AI. In his novel Klara and the Sun, Kazuo Ishiguro explores this notion of AI as a caring machine capable of nursing an ailing young girl back to health. Through this portrayal of AI as a sentient being capable of empathy and cognition, Ishiguro is attempting to usher in a new perception of AI: a posthuman perception that challenges the conventional notions of AI as a machine devoid of emotions. The novel further expands on the idea of self, soul and human consciousness and ponders on the question, what makes humans human, and if it is possible to imbibe these qualities onto an AI. Owing to the novelty of this notion, an unexplored avenue that deserves further exploration, this paper examines the plausibility of this new notion of AI through a careful exegesis of the novel. The paper also attempts to chart the impact of SF in society and culture. The study reveals a positive shift in perception towards AI, and there seems to be much scope for interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research. (shrink)

Adolf Reinach’s theory of social acts and Czesław Znamierowski theory of the environment can show a new perspective of analysis in the fields of computer science and digital communication. This paper will begin analysing the performance of social acts in two categories of digital environments: (i) fictional digital environment and (ii) real digital environment. The analysis will be supported by examples from the history of computer science. In both kinds of digital environments, organigrams play a significant role (...) and depend on the users’ digital power to perform a real or fictional social act. Finally, the paper will analyse one of the possible roles that AI plays in performing social acts in digital environments. It will show how AI could affect the perception of social acts. (shrink)

This article describes the conceptual framework within which knowledge about Africa was legitimized in eighteenth-century French philosophy. The article traces a shift or rupture in this conceptual framework which, at the end of the eighteenth century, led to the emergence of new conditions for knowledge legitimation that altered Europe's perception of Africa. The article examines these two conceptual frameworks within the context of a discussion of the social theory of the time, which categorized Africans first as savages, and (...) then, with the advent of our modern "style of reasoning," as primitives. The argument used to demonstrate this change in categorizations is historical. The greater part of the article analyzes in detail the principal social theory of Enlightenment philosophy, the stadial theory of society, with the aim of demonstrating how it determined what could be affirmed about Africa. The shift in the perception of Africans from savages to primitives involved an epistemological change in how societies were grasped. The article provides a greater understanding of the constitution of Africa as a cognitive construct, which is not only of theoretical concern; this construct shaped Europe's intervention in Africa, and continues to influence what we believe Africa is and should become. (shrink)

Introduction -- "Every Legitimate Government is Republican": Rousseau's Debt to and Departure from Montesquieu on Republicanism -- What if There is no Legislator? Rousseau's History of the Government of Geneva -- Rousseau's Republican Citizenship: The Moral Psychology of The Social Contract -- Rousseau's negative liberty: Themes of domination and skepticism in The Social Contract -- Rousseau's Ancient Ends of Legislation: Liberty, Equality (& Fraternity) -- Property and Possession in Rousseau's Social Contract -- Political Equality Among Unequals (...) -- On the Primacy of Peoplehood: Nations and Nationalism in Rousseau's Social Contract -- Rousseau on Voting and Electoral Laws -- Rousseau and the puzzle of the Roman Republic -- Rousseau's Case against Democracy -- Rousseau's Dilemma or "Of Civil Religion" -- Entreating the Political: Politics and Theology in Rousseau's Social Contract -- Civil Religion and Political Unity: Social Contract 4.8. (shrink)

Through communication, we form beliefs about the world, its history, others and ourselves. A vast proportion of these beliefs we count as knowledge. We seem to possess this knowledge only because it has been communicated. If those justifications that depended on communication were outlawed, all that would remain would be body of illsupported prejudice. The recognition of our ineradicable dependence on testimony for much of what we take ourselves to know has suggested to many that an epistemological account of (...) testimony should be essentially similar to accounts of perception and memory. This premise I want to dispute. (shrink)

The topic of pain and suffering is complex and requires a holistic vision. This article begins by clarifying concepts to understand pain as a biological, psychological, and social phenomenon that has an evolutionary history whose maximum expression arises in humans. Established this common ground, it explores altruism and animal cooperation as incipient phenomena of care for the other, though contextual. Then it points out that the difference with humans is that they perceive caring for the weak, innocent, and (...) marginalized as a moral duty and a path of personal flourishing. Finally, in the face of human weakness and from Christian theology, God shows with deeds a path of care for the weak by making himself weak, suffering and remaining innocent. (shrink)

A physician says, "I have an ethical obligation never to cause the death of a patient," another responds, "My ethical obligation is to relieve pain even if the patient dies." The current argument over the role of physicians in assisting patients to die constantly refers to the ethical duties of the profession. References to the Hippocratic Oath are often heard. Many modern problems, from assisted suicide to accessible health care, raise questions about the traditional ethics of medicine and the medical (...) profession. However, few know what the traditional ethics are and how they came into being. This book provides a brief tour of the complex story of medical ethics evolved over centuries in both Western and Eastern culture. It sets this story in the social and cultural contexts in which the work of healing was practiced and suggests that, behind the many different perceptions about the ethical duties of physicians, certain themes appear constantly, and may be relevant to modern debates. The book begins with the Hippocratic medicine of ancient Greece, moves through the Middle Ages, Renaissance and Enlightenment in Europe, and the long history of Indian and Chinese medicine, ending as the problems raised modern medical science and technology challenge the settled ethics of the long tradition. (shrink)

Germany's leading contemporary social theorist provides a definitive analysis of art as a social and perceptual system which not only represents an important intellectual step in discussions of art but also an important advance in systems theory. Luhmann insists on the radical incommensurability between psychic systems (perception) and social systems (communication). Art is a special kind of communication that operates at the boundary between the social system and consciousness in ways that profoundly irritate communication while (...) remaining strictly internal to the social. Each chapter elaborates a particular aspect of the general problem of art's status as a social system. The book draws on a vast body of research in the social sciences, phenomenology, evolutionary biology, cybernetics, and information theory, combined with an intimate knowledge of art history, literature, aesthetics, and contemporary literary theory. The book also engages virtually every major theorist of art and aesthetics from Baumgarten to Derrida. (shrink)

Whereas Phenomenology of Perception concludes with a puzzling turn to “heroism,” this article examines the short essay “Man, the Hero” as a source of insight into Merleau-Ponty’s thought in the early postwar period. In this essay, Merleau-Ponty presented a conception of heroism through which he expressed the attitude toward post-Hegelian philosophy of history that underwrote his efforts to reform Marxism along existential lines. Analyzing this conception of heroism by unpacking the implicit contrasts with Kojève, Aron, Caillois, and Bataille, (...) I show that its philosophical rationale was to supply experiential evidence attesting to the latent presence of human universality. It is a mythic device intended to animate the faith necessary for Marxist politics by showing that universal sociality is possible, and that the historically transformative praxis needed to realize it does not imply sacrifice. This sheds considerable light on Merleau-Ponty’s early postwar political thought. But inasmuch as the latter cannot be severed from his broader philosophical concerns, the prospect is raised that his entire phenomenological project in the early postwar period rested on a myth. Not necessarily a bad myth, but a myth nonetheless. (shrink)

This thesis sets out to show that a philosophical reflection on history is, in the strongest possible way, an essential feature of Hume's project of a science of human nature: a philosophical investigation of human nature, for Hume, cannot be successful independently of an understanding of the relation of human beings to their history. Hume intended to criticize traditional metaphysics by referring all knowledge to experience. But it is almost always assumed that Hume means by "experience" the result (...) of an individual's past sense perception or personal observation. Accordingly, Hume's criticism of traditional metaphysics is taken to lead to an individualistic conception of knowledge and human nature. In this thesis I claim that this picture of Hume's "empiricism" is simply wrong. He is not a philosopher who reduces "experience" to the merely private happenings within a personal psychology. On the contrary, Hume has a wider notion of experience, one that includes not only personal observation and memory, but, fundamentally, one that includes implicit knowledge of human history. Experience, so understood, brings about what I term a historical point of view, namely, the point of view of someone who seeks to extend his experience as far as it is possible in order to acquire the capacity to produce more nuanced and impartial judgments in any given practice. It is precisely this historical point of view that enables us to depart from the individualistic perspective that we would otherwise be bound to adopt not only in epistemology but, most significantly, in politics, in social life, in religion, etc. ;Chapter 1 presents the historical background against which Hume elaborates his views of history's role in philosophy. Chapter 2 discusses and criticizes the individualist reading of Hume by showing that he had a satisfactory account of beliefs formed via human testimony. Chapter 3 presents a view of Hume on explanation that underscores his interest in practical and informal explanations as those of history. Chapter 4 provides a discussion of Hume's notion of historical experience in relation both to his theory of perception and to his project of a "science of man.". (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “On Climate Change Research, the Crisis of Science and Second-order Science” by Philipp Aufenvenne, Heike Egner & Kirsten von Elverfeldt. Upshot: Second-order science primarily focuses on perception and cognition. However, social contexts, including political interpretations of science, are also included because they are part of the interpretations of the observer. To understand a scientific theory, it is helpful to understand neurophysiology, the history of the individual and the social and political (...) context in which the scientist was operating. (shrink)

Aspects of human life history and cognition, such as our long childhoods and extensive use of teaching, theoretically evolved to facilitate the acquisition of complex tasks. The present paper empirically examines the relationship between subsistence task difficulty and age of acquisition, rates of teaching, and rates of oblique transmission among Hadza and BaYaka foragers from Tanzania and the Republic of Congo. We further examine cross-cultural variation in how and from whom learning occurred. Learning patterns and community perceptions of task (...) difficulty were assessed through interviews. We found no relationship between task difficulty, age of acquisition, and oblique transmission, and a weak but positive relationship between task difficulty and rates of teaching. While same-sex transmission was normative in both societies, tasks ranked as more difficult were more likely to be transmitted by men among the BaYaka, but not among the Hadza, potentially reflecting cross-cultural differences in the sexual division of subsistence and teaching labor. Further, the BaYaka were more likely to report learning via teaching, and less likely to report learning via observation, than the Hadza, possibly owing to differences in socialization practices. (shrink)

Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar feels the civilization crisis in his soul like the most of the intellectuals who witnessed the last days of the Ottoman State and the establishment of the Republic. This uneasy intellectual of the Republic tries to find peace with a reasonable synthesis, such as changing to continue and continuing to change. The soul of time and space pervades every line that comes out of Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar's pen. In his poem Time in Bursa (Bursa’da Zaman), which deals (...) with Ottoman life manifestations, is written to Bursa, known for its profound influence on the Tanpınar, where the synthesis of culture is seen on each corner. To comprehend Tanpınar’s poetry, it is necessary to think about time, space, memory, history, dream and imagination. These concepts take place in the lines of the Tanpınar as a call to the forgotten social identity. It is certain that imaginative memory has a collective dimension. The cultural memory that transcends individual life and becomes historical re-establishes the past by way of recollection. At this point, memory holds on to time and space against forgetting. For this reason, Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar looks at time and space with another perspective. The poet, aware of the interaction of time and space with memory, attributes a symbolic meaning to these concepts. In this study, time and space perception of Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar will be sketched out from the poem of Time in Bursa and the world of feeling and thought that shapes his works will be tried to be determined. (shrink)

In recent decades, memory has become one of the major concepts and a dominant topic in philosophy, sociology, politics, history, science, cultural studies, literary theory, and the discussions of trauma and the Holocaust. In contemporary debates, the concept of memory is often used rather broadly and thus not always unambiguously. For this reason, the clarification of the range of the historical meaning of the concept of memory is a very important and urgent task. This volume shows how the concept (...) of memory has been used and appropriated in different historical circumstances and how it has changed throughout the history of philosophy. In ancient philosophy, memory was considered a repository of sensible and mental impressions and was complemented by recollection-the process of recovering the content of past thoughts and perceptions. Such an understanding of memory led to the development both of mnemotechnics and the attempts to locate memory within the structure of cognitive faculties. In contemporary philosophical and historical debates, memory frequently substitutes for reason by becoming a predominant capacity to which one refers when one wants to explain not only the personal identity but also a historical, political, or social phenomenon. In contemporary interpretation, it is memory, and not reason, that acts in and through human actions and history, which is a critical reaction to the overly rationalized and simplified concept of reason in the Enlightenment. Moreover, in modernity memory has taken on one of the most distinctive features of reason: it is thought of as capable not only of recollecting past events and meanings, but also itself. In this respect, the volume can be also taken as a reflective philosophical attempt by memory to recall itself, its functioning and transformations throughout its own history. (shrink)

Face recognition depends upon the uniqueness of each human face. This is accomplished by the patterns formed by the unique relationship among face features. Unique face-patterns are produced by the intrusion of random factors into the process of biological growth and development. Processes are described which enable a unique face-pattern to be represented as a percept in the visual sensory system. The components of the face recognition system are analyzed as is the manner in which the precept is connected through (...) microcircuits to a memory file so that the history of a perceiver’s encounters with a familiar face enables the perceiver to access a memory store that is a record of the outcome of past encounters with the perceived. The importance of the face recognition system in enabling humans to individuate members the social group is discussed, as well as the importance of face recognition in the development of the individual’s social identity and ability to be a collaborative member of the social groups to which it belongs. The role of prosopagnosia—the inability to recognize familiar faces—in furthering an understanding of the face recognition system is examined, as is its importance in demonstrating the crucial nature of face recognition in human social functions. It is proposed that human face recognition is not a unique phenomenon but is an elaboration of processes existing in nonhuman primates as well as in lower animals. (shrink)

The direct social perception thesis claims that we can directly perceive some mental states of other people. The direct perception of mental states has been formulated phenomenologically and psychologically, and typically restricted to the mental state types of intentions and emotions. I will compare DSP to another account of mindreading: dual process accounts that posit a fast, automatic “Type 1” form of mindreading and a slow, effortful “Type 2” form. I will here analyze whether dual process accounts’ (...) Type 1 mindreading serves as a rival to DSP or whether some Type 1 mindreading can be perceptual. I will focus on Apperly and Butterfill’s dual process account of mindreading epistemic states such as perception, knowledge, and belief. This account posits a minimal form of Type 1 mindreading of belief-like states called registrations. I will argue that general dual process theories fit well with a modular view of perception that is considered a kind of Type 1 process. I will show that this modular view of perception challenges and has significant advantages over DSP’s phenomenological and psychological theses. Finally, I will argue that if such a modular view of perception is accepted, there is significant reason for thinking Type 1 mindreading of belief-like states is perceptual in nature. This would mean extending the scope of DSP to at least one type of epistemic state. (shrink)

'Ugly as sin', 'ugly duckling', 'rear its ugly head'. The word 'ugly' is used freely, yet it is a loaded term: from the simply plain and unsightly to the repulsive and even offensive, definitions slide all over the place. Hovering around 'feared and dreaded', ugliness both repels and fascinates. But the concept of ugliness has a lineage that has long haunted our cultural imagination. Gretchen E. Henderson explores perceptions of ugliness through history, from ancient Roman feasts to medieval grotesque (...) gargoyles, from Mary Shelley's monster cobbled from corpses to the Nazi Exhibition of Degenerate Art. Covering literature, art, music and even Uglydolls, Henderson reveals how ugliness has long posed a challenge to aesthetics and taste. Henderson digs into the muck of ugliness, moving beyond the traditional philosophic argument or mere opposition to beauty, and emerges with more than a selection of fascinating tidbits. Following ugly bodies and dismantling ugly senses across periods and continents, [this book] draws on a wealth of fields to cross cultures and times, delineating the changing map of ugliness as it charges the public imagination. Illustrated with a range of artefacts, this book offers a refreshing perspective that moves beyond the surface to ask what 'ugly' truly is, even as its meaning continues to shift. (shrink)

Abstract This paper proposes a new phenomenological approach to social history by clarifying, critiquing and developing key insights from Husserl’s late work. First, it clarifies how Husserl began to refute phenomenology’s so-called solipsism and ahistoricality by advancing a concept of history that integrates subjective, intersubjective and communal organizations of experience. This concept, his “history of presence”, can be called a “temporal mode of oriented constitution”. Its value is to show how a single recursive series of determinations (...) organizes a diverse set of epistemic norms, personal memories, and intersubjective apperceptions. As we analyze each moment of this series, the history of presence emerges as highly relevant to social inquiry, inasmuch as it highlights the roles of intersubjective awareness and shared “world-time”. Second, however, the paper shows that Husserl grounded his history, not in this self-other-world triad, but in metaphysical foundations. By falling back on an atemporal principle of identity, Husserl’s thirst for Cartesian certainty obscured some of his insights. To develop these, the paper concludes with a new look at Les maîtres fous, a famous and controversial ethnographic film by Jean Rouch. Much of Rouch’s film echoes Husserl’s own problems, but Rouch’s use of montage replaces metaphysics with rhythm, identity with alterity, hegemony with mimicry, harmonious perception with dissonant yet generative apperception. Thus, Rouch dramatizes Husserl’s relevance to the phenomenology of social history. This paper’s internal critique and cross-cultural juxtaposition of Husserl’s late work portrays such relevance more accurately than Derrida’s uncharitable “metaphysics of presence” critique. (shrink)

This paper addresses value changes that have occurred to college?educated youth as China is going through drastic social transformations under Western influences. It explains how socio?economic and cultural forces interplay within a particular historical and political context in bringing about such notable changes as individualism, materialism and moral crisis. Through exploring young people's perceptions of the relative status of China versus the West, represented by the USA, the paper reveals a collective inferiority complex and resulting dislocation of cultural identities, (...) manifested as national nihilism and a magnified, empty patriotism. Conclusions are drawn on the importance of educating the younger generations with a sound knowledge of Chinese history, culture and traditional values, and a sensible perspective as regards Western civilization. (shrink)

Americans have a long history of public arguments about taste, the uses of leisure, and what is culturally appropriate in a democracy that has a strong work ethic. Michael Kammen surveys these debates as well as our changing taste preferences, especially in the past century, and the shifting perceptions that have accompanied them. Professor Kammen shows how the post-traditional popular culture that flourished after the 1880s became full-blown mass culture after World War II, in an era of unprecedented affluence (...) and travel. He charts the influence of advertising and opinion polling; the development of standardized products, shopping centers, and mass-marketing; the separation of youth and adult culture; the gradual repudiation of the genteel tradition; and the commercialization of organized entertainment. He stresses the significance of television in the shaping of mass culture, and of consumerism in its reconfiguration over the past two decades. Focusing on our own time, Kammen discusses the use of the fluid nature of cultural taste to enlarge audiences and increase revenues, and reveals how the public role of intellectuals and cultural critics has declined as the power of corporate sponsors and promoters has risen. As a result of this diminution of cultural authority, he says, definitive pronouncements have been replaced by divergent points of view, and there is, as well, a tendency to blur fact and fiction, reality and illusion. An important commentary on the often conflicting ways Americans have understood, defined, and talked about their changing culture in the twentieth century. (shrink)

In this paper I first introduce Tomasello’s notion of thought and his account of its emergence and development through differentiation, arguing that it calls into question the theory bias of the philosophical tradition on thought as well as its frequent atomism. I then raise some worries that he may be overextending the concept of thought, arguing that we should recognize an area of intentionality intermediate between action and perception on the one hand and thought on the other. After that (...) I argue that the co-operative nature of humans is reflected in the very structure of their intentionality and thought: in co-operative modes such as the mode of joint attention and action and the we-mode, they experience and represent others as co-subjects of joint relations to situations in the world rather than as mere objects. In conclusion, I briefly comment on what Tomasello refers to as one of two big open questions in the theory of collective intentionality, namely that of the irreducibility of jointness. (shrink)