Theories of Power, Poverty, and Law: In Commemoration of the Contributions of Peter Bachrach

2010 ◽  
Vol 43 (01) ◽  
pp. 87-89
Author(s):  
Aryeh Botwinick
Keyword(s):  
Participatory Democracy ◽  
Human Experience ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Political Climate ◽  
Political Ideologies ◽  
Human Equality ◽  
Human Limitation ◽  
Philosophical Understanding

When I reflect upon Peter Bachrach's political theorizing from the perspective of the heated primary battles of 2008, I am struck by the unusual character of his political insights and commitments—and of how relevant and compelling they are in the current political climate. Peter might be appropriately considered a radical liberal democrat—who focused very sharply on the tensions between radicalism and liberalism as political ideologies, but sought to maintain a close and continually flowing circuit between radicalism and liberalism as bodies of philosophical understanding that could mutually nurture and sustain each other. Under his hermeneutical gaze, Hobbes was not only the father of modern philosophical liberalism but the theorist who instigated the formation of participatory democracy. By clarifying for us the extent to which we lacked foursquare rational props to support our judgments across a whole spectrum of human experience from everyday practical affairs to science, religion, and metaphysics, he cleared a tremendous space for human beings to actively participate in structuring their own lives and shaping their own destinies. In addition to his explicit statements concerning human equality (whose political payoffs would be mostly unusable by a contemporary democrat), there was implicit in Hobbesian theorizing a massive re-inflection of human limitation and possibility that could make participation seem like a plausible complement to his theorizing.

Fake News with Real Consequences: The Effect of Cultural Identity on the Perception of Science

2018 ◽  
Vol 80 (9) ◽  
pp. 686-688 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin M. Bonney
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Literacy ◽  
Public Perception ◽  
Learning Activity ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Political Climate ◽  
News Reports ◽  
Political Ideologies ◽  
Informed Citizenry ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Undergraduate Science

Fake news and alternative science are increasingly popular topics of conversation in the public sphere and the classroom due to increasingly far-reaching social media and a shifting political climate. Promoting scientific literacy by providing opportunities for students to evaluate reports of contentious scientific issues and analyze the underlying factors that influence public perception of science is necessary for the development of an informed citizenry. This article describes a three-part learning activity useful for engaging biology students in evaluating the accuracy of science-related news reports, and reflecting upon the ways that social cues, religion, and political ideologies shape perception of science. These activities are appropriate for teaching about climate change, evolution, vaccines, and other important contemporary scientific issues in upper-level high school and undergraduate science courses.

Justice, international

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Barry ◽  
Matt Matravers
Keyword(s):  
Distributive Justice ◽  
Moral Community ◽  
The State ◽  
International Justice ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Human Equality ◽  
International Obligations ◽  
Political Conditions ◽  
State Relations

Although it has been denied (by, for example, F.A. Hayek 1976) that the concept of distributive justice has application within states, it is not controversial that there can be unjust laws and unjust behaviour by individuals and organizations. It has, however, been argued that it makes no sense to speak of justice and injustice beyond the boundaries of states, either because the lack of an international sovereign entails that the conditions for justice do not exist, or because the state constitutes the maximal moral community. Both arguments are flawed. Without them, we are naturally led to ask what are the implications of the widely-held idea of fundamental human equality, the belief that in some sense human beings are of equal value. This cannot be coherently deployed in a way that restricts its application to within-state relations. In either a utilitarian or Kantian form it generates extensive international obligations. An objection that is often made to this conclusion is that the obligations derived are so stringent that compliance cannot reasonably be asked under current political conditions. But this shows (if true) that current political conditions are incompatible with international justice.

scholarly journals The World as a Theological Problem

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-46
Author(s):  
Martin Koci
Keyword(s):  
Religious Experience ◽  
Human Experience ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Proper Sense ◽  
Experience Of God ◽  
Theological Turn ◽  
Christian Worldview ◽  
The World ◽  
Theological Turn In Phenomenology

Abstract We have no other experience of God but the human experience, claims Emmanuel Falque. We – human beings – are in the world. Whatever we do, whatever we think and whatever we experience happens in the world and is mediated by the manner of the world. This also includes religious experience. Reflection on the possibility of religious experience – the experience of God – suggests that the world is interrupted by someone or something that is not of the world. The Christian worldview makes the tension explicit, which is perhaps why theology neglects the concept and fails in any proper sense to address the world. Through following the phenomenologist Jan Patočka, critiquing the theologian Johann B. Metz and exploring the theological turn in phenomenology, I will face the challenge and argue for a genuine engagement with the world as a theological problem.

scholarly journals Humanisasi dan Divinisasi dalam Seni dan Ritual

MELINTAS ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 193
Author(s):  
Fabianus Sebastian Heatubun
Keyword(s):  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Human Experience ◽  
The Body ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Human Beings

<span>Metaphysically speaking, human being is a </span><em><span>homo ritualis</span></em><span> or a ritual being, and not simply because of the need for any ritual, but because of one’s ontological structure. At the same time, human is also a </span><em><span>homo sapiens artisticus</span></em><span>. One’s way of being and one’s mode of thinking is always artistic. One might also say that ritual is always artistic and art is always ritualistic. In this sense ritual and art are inseparable, for ritual and art are </span><em><span>sui generis</span></em><span>. Both exist in the area of human experience and are in touch with cognition, affection, knowledge, action, and enjoyment. Art and ritual are the hermeneutical site of meanings and values that simultaneously become the same place to find the answers. Imagined within the realness of life, art and ritual are a field of meanings. When human beings slip away from their humanity, art and ritual become the medium to restore it. Not only can art and ritual create a balance between the physical and the mental aspects, between the body and the soul that have been dehumanised, they also can exalt human beings towards the divine level as the culmination of the humanisation process.</span>

Agriculture

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
John A. Mears
Keyword(s):  
Turning Points ◽  
Human Experience ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Crop Cultivation ◽  
Agricultural Origins ◽  
Modern Agriculture ◽  
Hunting And Gathering ◽  
Livestock Raising

When striving to delineate the contours of the human experience, world historians must highlight the major turning points in the existence of our species. Among the momentous watersheds through which human beings have passed since their appearance over 100,000 years ago, none has been more profound in its consequences than the shift from hunting and gathering to agriculture, a form of subsistence usually defined as different combinations of systematic crop cultivation and livestock raising. This article explains agricultural origins, recurring agricultural patterns in the post-classic world, and the industrialization of modern agriculture.

How to Be Childless

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel Chrastil
Keyword(s):  
Old Age ◽  
Life Stories ◽  
Human Experience ◽  
Advanced Degree ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
American Women ◽  
The Past ◽  
Childless Women ◽  
Age Attitudes ◽  
Dominant Narratives

Childless uncovers the voices and experiences of childless women from the past 500 years and puts them in conversation with research from a broad range of disciplines, from psychology to philosophy to sociology. It addresses two main questions: What are the pathways to childlessness, and how do childless individuals flourish? Eschewing two dominant narratives—that the childless are either barren and alone or that they are carefree and selfish—it views childless individuals as complicated human beings with nuanced life stories. The pathways to childlessness, so often labeled simply “choice” and “circumstance,” are far more complex and interweaving. Childless examines issues including regret, old age, attitudes toward childlessness, the household, and legacy. Every year, over 80,000 American women with an advanced degree reach age 45 without having given birth. Thousands more debate whether or not to have children. The childless might think that they’re living in a unique situation with little to guide them. But, in reality, they can turn to the vast human experience with childlessness for inspiration, warnings, and guidance.

scholarly journals The aesthetic approach to people with dementia

2014 ◽  
Vol 26 (9) ◽  
pp. 1407-1413 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julian C. Hughes
Keyword(s):  
Human Beings ◽  
People With Dementia ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Person With Dementia ◽  
Philosophical Understanding

The question I wish to consider is: how do we approach people with dementia? I want to suggest that the approach we take should be the aesthetic one. I shall need to say what this is. My question is not an empirical one. I am not asking how we actually approach people with dementia. My question has an ethical bent to it: how ought we to approach people with dementia? In asking this question, however, I am not after an explanation suggesting we should act with kindness, compassion, honesty, integrity and so forth. We ought to do all these things, of course, and I hope such virtues will flow from the account I shall give. But I am really after something somewhat deeper, a philosophical understanding of what it is to be a person with dementia and, consequently, how we ought to stand as human beings in relation to this person.

Urbanitas-Rusticitas: Linguistic Aspects of a Medieval Dichotomy

1979 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
pp. 149-157 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Richter
Keyword(s):  
Early Christianity ◽  
Human Experience ◽  
Rural Setting ◽  
Rural Life ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Christian Teaching

Christian teaching places man’s origin in paradise, a rural setting, and the end of mankind in the celestial city of Jerusalem. Thus both town and country have potentially positive connotations to the believer. Yet just as the angel could fall to become satan, so town and country could acquire evil reputations, depending on the behaviour of human beings in these settings (after all, the fall of man took place in paradise).Christian writings draw in many respects on human experience, including the setting of man in society. At times in history town and country were experienced as different settings of life. Certainly there existed a notion of a superiority of urban over rural existence in classical Greek times; in contrast, Roman civilisation was more geared towards rural life. Both Hellenic and Roman thought contributed a great deal to the shaping of early Christianity. I am concerned here primarily with medieval attitudes towards town and country, but it is a fact that these were, partly at least, based on earlier tradition.

The Mystical Experience: with an Emphasis on Wittgenstein and Zen

1976 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 483-491
Author(s):  
Charles H. Cox ◽  
Jean W. Cox
Keyword(s):  
Mystical Experience ◽  
Zen Buddhism ◽  
Human Experience ◽  
Great Understanding ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Western Tradition ◽  
The West ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
Mystical Tradition

Mysticism and the mystical experience seemingly play little or no part in our Western tradition. Certainly there is no mystical tradition in the West such as Zen Buddhism, nor is there any great understanding of or influence from the writings of Heraclitus, Spinoza, or the mystical passages in the early work of Wittgenstein. Mysticism has been generally misunderstood in the West, and it has even evoked the attacks of philosophers and theologians.1 Mysticism to many conjures up images of monks meditating in caves; it is generally pictured as esoteric, otherworldly, irrational, and at best irrelevant to the daily lives of human beings. If what we say below is correct, it will be seen that mysticism is none of these but is rather a singular human experience that lies at the foundations of civilization.

scholarly journals Postphenomenological Method and Technological Things Themselves

Human Studies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Ritter
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Human Experience ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Pragmatic Approach ◽  
Technological Mediation ◽  
The World ◽  
Phenomenological Perspective ◽  
Human World ◽  
Empirical Turn

AbstractWe live in a world where it is impossible to exist without, and beyond, technologies. Despite this omnipresence, we tend to overlook their influence on us. The vigorously developing approach of postphenomenology, combining insights from phenomenology and pragmatism, focuses on the so-called technological mediation, i.e., on how technologies as mediators of human-world relations influence the appearing of both the world and the human beings in it. My analysis aims at demonstrating both the methodological weaknesses and open possibilities of postphenomenology. After summarizing its essentials, I will scrutinize, first, its ability to turn to the technological things themselves and, second, the so-called empirical turn as realized by postphenomenology. By assessing its conceptual framework from the phenomenological perspective, I hope to demonstrate that postphenomenology needs philosophical clarification and strengthening. In short, it needs a more phenomenological, and less pragmatic, approach to technology in its influence on human experience.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document