Rational Animal-Political Animal: Nature and Convention in Human Speech and Politics

1976 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 177-189 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurence Berns
Keyword(s):  
Human Speech ◽  
Rational Animal ◽  
Traditional Definition ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
In The Beginning

In the beginning of his Politics Aristotle argues that “man is by nature a political animal.” In fact man is more a political animal than any herding animal, for “man alone of the animals has speech,” “man alone of the animals has reason,” “man alone of the animals has logos.” In other contexts the word logos can also be translated as word, account, argument, or ratio. Logos is connected with the verb legōo which means to speak and to gather, to pick out, to select, to count. The English words collect, select, and elect are related to the same verb. Logosis selected, elected, and chosen speech, meaningful speech, thoughtful speech. The traditional definition of man as the rational animal, stemming from Aristotle, goes back to this statement, that man alone of the animals possesses logos, possesses thoughtful speech. Aristotle goes on to say:

The Distinctive Unity of the Human Being in Aquinas

2021 ◽  
pp. 580-595
Author(s):  
Therese Scarpelli Cory
Keyword(s):  
Human Being ◽  
Human Soul ◽  
Rational Animal ◽  
The Core ◽  
Definition Of

This chapter explores the fundamental vision of the human being at the core of Aquinas’ anthropology. Aquinas has typically been construed as defending a fundamentally ‘Aristotelian’ vision of the human being. I show that this label has generated a skewed reading of Aquinas. Accordingly, this chapter does not lay claim to identify what it would take for an anthropology to be authentically ‘Thomistic’. Instead, it makes a proposal concerning what I argue is the ‘guiding vision’ of Aquinas’ anthropology: namely the ‘distinctive unity of the human’. Aquinas prioritizes this notion of distinctive unity in the different areas of his anthropology. I explore how this distinctive unity is expressed (a) in Aquinas’ account of the human soul as the ‘horizon’ of the bodily and spiritual worlds, and (b) in his definition of the human being as ‘rational animal’.

Emotion and Virtue

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gopal Sreenivasan
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Character Trait ◽  
Full Measure ◽  
Traditional Definition ◽  
Definition Of

What must a person be like to possess a virtue in full measure? What sort of psychological constitution does one need to be an exemplar of compassion, say, or of courage? Focusing on these two examples, this book ingeniously argues that certain emotion traits play an indispensable role in virtue. With exemplars of compassion, for instance, this role is played by a modified sympathy trait, which is central to enabling these exemplars to be reliably correct judges of the compassionate thing to do in various practical situations. Indeed, according to the book, the virtue of compassion is, in a sense, a modified sympathy trait, just as courage is a modified fear trait. While the book upholds the traditional definition of virtue as a species of character trait, it discards other traditional precepts. For example, the book rejects the unity of the virtues and raises new questions about when virtue should be taught. Unlike orthodox virtue ethics, moreover, this account does not aspire to rival consequentialism and deontology. Instead the book repudiates the ambitions of virtue imperialism, and makes significant contributions to moral psychology and the theory of virtue alike.

scholarly journals Introduction

2009 ◽  
Vol 37 (3/4) ◽  
pp. 353-368
Author(s):  
Dario Martinelli
Keyword(s):  
Animal Species ◽  
Animal Communication ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
In The Beginning

“Zoosemiotics” was introduced in 1963 by Thomas Albert Sebeok, initially as a compromise between ethological and semiotic research. In the beginning, Sebeok was convinced that “zoosemiotics” had to be used mostly as an umbrella term, uniting different scholarly approaches to animal communication). In the light of its most recent developments, a synthetic definition of zoosemiotics can be today that of the study of semiosis within and across animal species.

scholarly journals Permanent Establishment – New Concept

2019 ◽  
pp. 445-456
Author(s):  
César García Novoa
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
New Economy ◽  
Tax Law ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Traditional Definition ◽  
Permanent Establishment ◽  
International Tax ◽  
Definition Of

The permanent establishment is an essential concept in International Tax Law. The traditional definition was based on the existence of a fixed place of business. At present, the new economy requires a change in the concept of permanent establishment. The topic of permanent establishment is based today on the so-called sufficient economic presence. The European Union is working on the definition of a permanent digital establishment.

scholarly journals Motherland in the Philosophical Constructions of I.A. Ilyin: Literary Projections

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 222-243
Author(s):  
Evgeny R. Ponomarev
Keyword(s):  
World History ◽  
Vladimir Nabokov ◽  
Russian Philosophy ◽  
Emigre Literature ◽  
Marina Tsvetaeva ◽  
Typical Sign ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
In The Beginning ◽  
Main Ideas ◽  
Ideological Structure

This is the first attempt at analyzing philosophical works about Motherland by Ivan Ilyin (written in the 1920s) as the solid ideological structure, which influenced literature of the Russian emigration of the 1920s as well as Russian émigré selfawareness. The article describes the system of Ilyin’s thought in its dynamics: from his first speeches, delivered in Berlin in 1922, towards the speeches (and articles) of the second half of the 1920s. It highlights certain changes in the definition of the Motherland: in the beginning of his philosophical career, Ilyin understands Motherland as related to the Civil War and the interests of the White Army; later, he moves this concept to religious sphere; by the end of the 1920s he relegates Motherland to the context of world history and Russian culture. Several examples show how Ilyin’s philosophy influenced (or sounds in consonance with), main ideas of the early émigré literature (including novels and political articles by Ivan Bunin, Nina Berberova, Vladimir Nabokov, and Marina Tsvetaeva). That Ivan Ilyin, a former professor of law turned into the greatest ideologist of Russia Abroad is a typical sign of the time and the proof of politicization of Russian philosophy.

THE MOUFANG LAWS, GLOBAL AND LOCAL

2009 ◽  
Vol 08 (04) ◽  
pp. 477-492 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. D. PHILLIPS
Keyword(s):  
Present Author ◽  
Inverse Property ◽  
Loop Theory ◽  
Traditional Definition ◽  
Moufang Loops ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Global And Local

There are many possible ways to define Moufang element. We show that the traditional definition is not the most felicitious — for instance, the set of all Moufang elements in an arbitrary loop, qua the traditional definition, need not form a subloop. We offer a new definition of Moufang element that ensures that the set of all Moufang elements in an arbitrary loop is a subloop. Moreover, this definition is "maximally algebraic" with respect to autotopisms. We also give an application of this new definition by showing that a flexible A-element in an inverse property loop is, in fact, a Moufang element, thus sharpening a well-known result of Kinyon, Kunen, and the present author [6]. Finally, we prove that divisible, Moufang groupoids are Moufang loops, thus sharpening a result of Kunen [9], one of the first computer-generated proofs in loop theory.

Historical Account or Discourse on Identity? A Reexamination of Fulbe Hegemony and Autochthonous Submission in Banyo

1998 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 93-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Quentin Gausset
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
Local Populations ◽  
Northern Cameroon ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Historical Accounts ◽  
In The Beginning ◽  
Almost All ◽  
The Military

Traditional accounts of the nineteenth-century Fulbe conquest in northern Cameroon tell roughly the same story: following the example of Usman Dan Fodio in Nigeria, the Fulbe of Cameroon organized in the beginning of the nineteenth century a “jihad” or a “holy war” against the local pagan populations to convert them to Islam and create an Islamic state. The divisions among the local populations and the military superiority of the Fulbe allowed them to conquer almost all northern Cameroon. They forced those who submitted to give an annual tribute of goods and servants, and they raided the other groups. In these traditional accounts the Fulbe are presented as unchallenged masters, while the local populations are depicted as slaves who were powerless over their fate; their role in the conquest of the region and in the administration of the new political order is supposed to have been insignificant.I will show that, on the contrary, in the area of Banyo the Wawa and Bute played a crucial role in the conquest of the sultanate and in its administration. I will then re-examine the cliche that all members of the local populations were the slaves of the Fulbe by distinguishing the fate of the Wawa and Bute on one side from that of the Kwanja and Mambila on the other, and by showing the importance of the Fulbe's identity in shaping the definition of slavery. Finally I will argue that, if the historical accounts found in the scientific literature invariably insist on Fulbe hegemony and minimize the role played by the local populations, it is because those accounts are often based on Fulbe traditions, and because these traditions are remodeled by the Fulbe in order to correspond to their discourse on identity.

scholarly journals Anaphora: Text-based or discourse-dependent?

2010 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 207-241 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francis Cornish
Keyword(s):  
Dynamic Interaction ◽  
Discourse Representation ◽  
Computational Approaches ◽  
Anaphor Resolution ◽  
Language Structure ◽  
Traditional Definition ◽  
On Line ◽  
Full Sense ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Sense And Reference

The traditional definition of anaphora in purely co-textual terms as a relation between two co-occurring expressions is in wide currency in theoretical and descriptive studies of the phenomenon. Indeed, it is currently adopted in on-line psycholinguistic experiments on the interpretation of anaphors, and is the basis for all computational approaches to automatic anaphor resolution (see Mitkov 2002). Under this conception, the anaphor, a referentially-dependent expression type, requires “saturation” by an appropriate referentially-autonomous, lexically-based expression — the antecedent — in order to achieve full sense and reference. However, this definition needs to be re-examined in the light of the ways in which real texts operate and are understood, where the resulting picture is rather different. The article aims to show that the co-textual conception is misconceived, and that anaphora is essentially an integrative, discourse-creating procedure involving a three-way relationship between an “antecedent trigger”, an anaphoric predication, and a salient discourse representation. It is shown that it is only in terms of a dynamic interaction amongst the interdependent dimensions of text and discourse, as well as context, that the true complexity of anaphoric reference may be satisfactorily described. The article is intended as a contribution to the broader debate within the pages of this journal and elsewhere between the formalist and the functionalist accounts of language structure and use.

Compliance within virtual teams

2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Daphna Shwartz-Asher
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Teams ◽  
Virtual World ◽  
Team Member ◽  
Human Resources Management ◽  
Virtual Team ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Resources Management ◽  
Traditional Definition ◽  
Team Task ◽  
Definition Of

In light of the growing phenomenon of virtual teams as a new concept within the Human Resources Management (HRM) world, the traditional definition of team member 'compliance' should be redefined. In order to measure the influence of the virtuality level on the team member’s reaction to instructions, an experiment was designed, in which a team task with a set of instructions was given to 150 subjects who participated in virtual or non-virtual task solving' meetings. This study’s main finding indicates that while the structured virtual team members complied with the directive to divide the labor between them and to appoint a chairperson, the structured non-virtual team members did not comply. It seems that pertaining to the task of appointing a chairperson, as for the division of labor, the use of the “formality” variable may explain the compliance of the structured virtual team members as opposed to the lack of compliance among members of the structured non-virtual team members. This research contributes to a better understanding of virtual team HRM strategies in the hope of improving the teams’ compliance and management within today’s virtual world.

Defining Man as Animal Religiosum in English Religious Writing ca. 1650–ca. 1700

2019 ◽  
Vol 88 (4) ◽  
pp. 925-952 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. J. W. Mills
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Relationship With God ◽  
Rational Animal ◽  
Cambridge Platonism ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Subsequent Incorporation ◽  
The Continuum

This article surveys the emergence and usage of the redefinition of man not as animal rationale (rational animal) but as animal religiosum (religious animal) by numerous English theologians between 1650 and 1700. Across the continuum of English Protestant thought, human nature was being redescribed as unique due to its religious, not primarily its rational, capabilities. This article charts said appearance as a contribution to debates over man's relationship with God; then its subsequent incorporation into the discussion over the theological consequences of arguments in favor of animal rationality, as well as its uses in anti-atheist apologetics; and then the sudden disappearance of the definition of man as animal religiosum at the beginning of the eighteenth century. In doing so, the article hopes to make a useful contribution to our understanding of changing early modern understandings of human nature by reasserting the significance of theological writing in the dispute over the relationship between humans and beasts. As a consequence, it offers a more wide-ranging account of man as animal religiosum than the current focus on “Cambridge Platonism” and “Latitudinarianism” allows.

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