The Hermeneutics of Omens: The Bankruptcy of Moral Cosmology in Western Han China (206 bce–8 ce)

2015 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 439-459 ◽  
Author(s):  
LIANG CAI
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Moral Agent ◽  
Moral Competence ◽  
Social Closure ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Efficacy ◽  
Political Conditions ◽  
The Common ◽  
Secret Knowledge

AbstractStudents of Chinese intellectual history are familiar with moral cosmology developed in the Han era, a theory that alleges that ru use omens to admonish the emperor, and thereby to constrain and compete with his absolute political power. This thesis, in theory, is convincing; in actuality it is not. This article questions the autonomous power of omen discourse. Focusing on the socio-political conditions in which this discourse functioned, it demonstrates that, in real politics, the enactment of omen interpretation had nothing to do with restraining the power of the throne, but evolved with bloody factional struggles. Replacing the secret knowledge of diviners and astrologers with the common cultural heritage—the classics—and transforming the mysterious otherworldly spirits into a moral agent, ru successfully defeated the technical specialists and became the primary operators of the omen interpretation enterprise. The theoretical innovation that contributed to ru's success, however, undermined their chance of building a social closure both to close off competition and to secure their interpretative authority. As numerous historical cases show, neither the ru classics nor the moral competence of the speaker add to the social efficacy of omen explanation: without monopolised knowledge, standardised hermeneutic rules, or institutionalised positions, omen discourse, rather than contesting political power, became its servant.

John Locke—Theorist of Limiting and Supervising Political Power by Citizens

2021 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 49-65
Author(s):  
Adriana Neacșu ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Common Good ◽  
John Locke ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
Political Regime ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Pact ◽  
The Common

This paper aims to analyze John Locke’s ideas on the limited political mandate of the institutions of power, and the need for their supervision and sanctioning by citizens when they violate their duties. It emphasizes the topicality of these ideas, pointing out that they represent two fundamental principles in the functioning of the rule of law, defining the current democracies. Locke justified them starting from the hypothesis that society was founded by people through a deliberate pact, so that the common good could be promoted more effectively, and the legitimacy of political power is conditioned by the observance of this task. Therefore, if political power violates the social pact, it can be overthrown by citizens even by force. The author then raises the question if the use of force to change a political regime can still be justified today. Her answer is that this is an objective mechanism, which appears implacably in all unjust societies, and the only way to defuse it is for states to permanently respect the rights and freedoms of all citizens.

Making Peasants Chèf: The Tonton Makout Militia and the Moral Politics of Terror in the Haitian Countryside during the Dictatorship of François Duvalier, 1957–1971

2019 ◽  
Vol 61 (04) ◽  
pp. 925-953
Author(s):  
Marvin Chochotte
Keyword(s):  
Political Power ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Opposition ◽  
State Repression ◽  
Moral Politics ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Conditions

AbstractDrawing on never-before-utilized archival and oral sources, “Making Peasants Chèf” contends that decades of peasant marginalization from political power created the social and political conditions for the rise of the infamous tonton makout militia under the dictator François Duvalier. After coming to power in 1957, Duvalier militarized and rearmed peasants in exchange for their loyalty. Thousands of previously ostracized peasants enlisted in the dreaded makout militia to access status and political power. This explains why the peasant-based militia formed an arm of state repression. With the support of an armed peasantry, Duvalier successfully repressed the political opposition, allowing the regime to stay in power for almost three decades.

Current issues in aesthetics and beyond: Revisiting lookism

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 59-68
Author(s):  
Peter Takáč
Keyword(s):  
Plastic Surgery ◽  
Social Impact ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Common View ◽  
Aesthetic Medicine ◽  
Unequal Treatment ◽  
Self Confidence ◽  
Public Status ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Common

AbstractLookism is a term used to describe discrimination based on the physical appearance of a person. We suppose that the social impact of lookism is a philosophical issue, because, from this perspective, attractive people have an advantage over others. The first line of our argumentation involves the issue of lookism as a global ethical and aesthetical phenomenon. A person’s attractiveness has a significant impact on the social and public status of this individual. The common view in society is that it is good to be more attractive and healthier. This concept generates several ethical questions about human aesthetical identity, health, authenticity, and integrity in society. It seems that this unequal treatment causes discrimination, diminishes self-confidence, and lowers the chance of a job or social enforcement for many human beings. Currently, aesthetic improvements are being made through plastic surgery. There is no place on the human body that we cannot improve with plastic surgery or aesthetic medicine. We should not forget that it may result in the problem of elitism, in dividing people into primary and secondary categories. The second line of our argumentation involves a particular case of lookism: Melanie Gaydos. A woman that is considered to be a model with a unique look.

Philosophcal review of h. white̕s tropological theory in the context of the new philosophy of history

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (152) ◽  
pp. 92-99
Author(s):  
S. M. Geiko ◽  
◽  
O. D. Lauta
Keyword(s):  
Modern Science ◽  
Historical Knowledge ◽  
Text Organization ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Actual Material ◽  
The Common ◽  
Historical Nature ◽  
Selection Of

The article provides a philosophical analysis of the tropological theory of the history of H. White. The researcher claims that history is a specific kind of literature, and the historical works is the connection of a certain set of research and narrative operations. The first type of operation answers the question of why the event happened this way and not the other. The second operation is the social description, the narrative of events, the intellectual act of organizing the actual material. According to H. White, this is where the set of ideas and preferences of the researcher begin to work, mainly of a literary and historical nature. Explanations are the main mechanism that becomes the common thread of the narrative. The are implemented through using plot (romantic, satire, comic and tragic) and trope systems – the main stylistic forms of text organization (metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, irony). The latter decisively influenced for result of the work historians. Historiographical style follows the tropological model, the selection of which is determined by the historian’s individual language practice. When the choice is made, the imagination is ready to create a narrative. Therefore, the historical understanding, according to H. White, can only be tropological. H. White proposes a new methodology for historical research. During the discourse, adequate speech is created to analyze historical phenomena, which the philosopher defines as prefigurative tropological movement. This is how history is revealed through the art of anthropology. Thus, H. White’s tropical history theory offers modern science f meaningful and metatheoretically significant. The structure of concepts on which the classification of historiographical styles can be based and the predictive function of philosophy regarding historical knowledge can be refined.

The Influence of Personality Traits on Consumer Impulsive Buying Behaviour

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Khagendra Nath Gangai ◽  
Rachna Agrawal
Keyword(s):  
Personality Traits ◽  
Cultural Influences ◽  
Buying Behavior ◽  
Doing Business ◽  
The Social ◽  
Impulsive Buying ◽  
Social And Physical Environment ◽  
The Common ◽  
Buying Behaviour

Consumer behavior is a complex phenomenon which is evolving according to the time, situations, demographic characteristics of individuals, personality traits, cultural influences etc. The personality of individuals is a unique dynamic organization of the characteristics of a particular person, physical and psychological, which influence behavior and responses to the social and physical environment. It gives the impression that consumer buying is always influenced by their personality. Therefore, many marketers make use of personality traits in the advertisement of products and at the same time they enhance their marketing strategy. The marketers always designed different products and target specific market segments which commonly addressed on individuals personality traits. The individuals few personality traits influence consumer for impulsive buying behavior. The aim of present research is to study the personality traits influence on consumer impulsive buying behavior as it will help to create opportunities of doing business and dealing with customers. The objectives of this research are: (1) to investigate the influence of personality traits on consumer impulsive buying behavior, and (2) to identify the role of gender and their personality traits influence on consumer impulsive buying behavior. To fulfill the purpose of the study, the researchers randomly collected sample and divided them on the basis of gender, 60 males and 60 females. Data were collected from Delhi and NCR region. The data were analyzed using statistical applications such as correlation and t Test. The result was revealed that the common personality traits have a significant relationship with impulsive buying behavior that is psychoticism in the case of male and female. The role of gender has significant differences in impulsive buying behavior. The man showed more impulsive buying behavior compare to women.

What Theology Should and Should Not Learn from the Social Sciences About the Common Good

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary L. Hirschfeld
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Social Thought ◽  
Extensive Literature ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
Catholic Social Thought ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Common

There are two ways to answer the question, What can Catholic social thought learn from the social sciences about the common good? A more modern form of Catholic social thought, which primarily thinks of the common good in terms of the equitable distribution of goods like health, education, and opportunity, could benefit from the extensive literature in public policy, economics, and political science, which study the role of institutions and policies in generating desirable social outcomes. A second approach, rooted in pre-Machiavellian Catholic thought, would expand on this modern notion to include concerns about the way the culture shapes our understanding of what genuine human flourishing entails. On that account, the social sciences offer a valuable description of human life; but because they underestimate how human behavior is shaped by institutions, policies, and the discourse of social science itself, their insights need to be treated with caution.

The Struggle of My Life

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Student Community ◽  
The Social ◽  
Freedom Fighters ◽  
Intractable Problems ◽  
History Of ◽  
National Life ◽  
The Common ◽  
Primary Focus ◽  
The Masses ◽  
Freedom Movement

The present work, The Struggle of My Life: An Autobiography of Swami Sahajanand Saraswati, is an English translation of Sahajanand’s autobiography, written in Hindi, Mera Jeevan Sangarsh. It carries an introduction by the translator which briefly deals with the Swami’s life and legacy. It needs to be emphasized that this is not an autobiography in the common run. Its primary focus is not on Swami’s persona; its central theme is the cause of the freedom movement in general and in particular, of the peasant movement under his leadership. It tells of the life and legacy of one of the most uncompromising and fearless freedom fighters and peasant leaders. It covers the social and political history of one of the most crucial periods of our national life, 1920–47. Today, when the Indian peasantry is faced with a number of intractable problems, it reminds them of the struggles of the peasants of yesteryears and the kind of trials and tribulations they went through. It is also remarkable that despite his vast learning and command over Sanskrit, Swami chose to write in simple, colloquial Hindi. That only speaks for his total identification with the masses. Both the teaching and student community as well as general readers would find this book useful, interesting and intellectually stimulating.

Funerary Ritual

2019 ◽  
pp. 292-309
Author(s):  
Mireia López-Bertran
Keyword(s):  
Point Of View ◽  
Good Death ◽  
Social Implications ◽  
Archaeological Remains ◽  
Deceased Person ◽  
Funerary Rituals ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Common ◽  
Funerary Rites ◽  
Written Sources

This chapter explores the funerary rites in the Phoenician-Punic world from a comprehensive point of view, and it focuses on the common points arising from a large amount of data. The concern for burying their deceased and the belief in the soul’s afterlife show that the Phoenicians considered death as a transformation rather than as the end of a person’s life. Through our access to archaeological remains and written sources, we can reconstruct the existence of a meaningful burial program that was destined to provide a “good death” and afterlife. Funerary rituals, thus, are the actions or gestures to achieve this goal. The aim of this chapter is to explain the rites that family members undertook once someone died, in order to transform correctly the deceased person into an otherworldly being, the ancestor. The social implications of the data arising from burials are also briefly considered.

scholarly journals The Annihilation of Space: A Bad (Historical) Concept

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-30
Author(s):  
Alexis D. Litvine
Keyword(s):  
Cultural History ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Social History ◽  
Economic Consequences ◽  
Cultural Mediation ◽  
Counter Example ◽  
Dead End ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Representations Of Space

Abstract This article is a reminder that the concept of ‘annihilation of space’ or ‘spatial compression’, often used as a shorthand for referring to the cultural or economic consequences of industrial mobility, has a long intellectual history. The concept thus comes loaded with a specific outlook on the experience of modernity, which is – I argue – unsuitable for any cultural or social history of space. This article outlines the etymology of the concept and shows: first, that the historical phenomena it pretends to describe are too complex for such a simplistic signpost; and, second, that the term is never a neutral descriptor but always an engagement with a form of historical and cultural mediation on the nature of modernity in relation to space. In both cases this term obfuscates more than it reveals. As a counter-example, I look at the effect of the railways on popular representations of space and conclude that postmodern geography is a relative dead end for historians interested in the social and cultural history of space.

Increasing adolescent girls’ social competence through cognitive counseling by social workers

2021 ◽  
pp. 146801732110102
Author(s):  
Chau-kiu Cheung
Keyword(s):  
Social Competence ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Adolescent Girls ◽  
Cognitive Theory ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Young Female ◽  
Common Basis ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Common ◽  
Lower Education

Summary Despite the common basis of cognitive theory for cognitive counseling and social competence development, no research has charted the effectiveness of the counseling in raising social competence in young female residents of the residential service. To examine the effectiveness, this study analyzed data gleaned from monthly surveys of young female residents and their social workers regarding the latter’s daily life cognitive counseling. The data consisted of 391 cases pairing the female residents and social workers in Hong Kong over 33 months. Findings The cases afforded a cross-lagged analysis showing the raising of the girl’s social competence by the worker’s cognitive counseling earlier in the previous month. In substantiating this raising, the analysis also indicated that earlier social competence did not affect the counseling. Applications The findings imply the worth of promoting the social worker’s daily life cognitive counseling to advance girl residents’ social competence. Such counseling is particularly helpful to girls with lower education, who are lower in social competence.

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