Putting Free Will in Cultural Context and Beyond

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-2
Author(s):  
Heidi M. Ravven
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Cultural Context

scholarly journals Qoheleth’s Idiolect and Its Cultural Context*

2021 ◽  
Vol 114 (4) ◽  
pp. 451-468
Author(s):  
Nili Samet
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Semantic Fields ◽  
Time Space ◽  
New Ideas ◽  
Key Terms

AbstractThe language of Qoheleth is characterized by an awkward style and an unusual vocabulary. Past studies have assigned these peculiarities to linguistic factors, assuming that the book reflects an underrepresented dialect or register. The current study aims to expand the boundaries of this discourse by introducing extra-linguistic considerations into the discussion. Qoheleth is the only biblical book that is purely philosophical, focusing on abstract issues such as the purpose of life and the problem of free will. Such philosophical discussions require the use of an abstract terminology. The basic toolkit of any philosopher consists of conceptual phrases such as “time,” “space,” “cosmos,” “humanity,” “meaning,” etc. Yet abstract vocabulary was meager in the Hebrew at the author’s disposal. Paving a pioneering way in the realm of thought, Qoheleth’s author had to create a terminological system capable of expressing his new ideas. This article traces the ways in which the need for a personally-customized philosophical idiom shaped Qoheleth’s language. Exploring the origins of eleven key-terms in the book, this article reveals the dynamics that gave rise to Qoheleth’s personal lexicon. These include generalization and conceptualization of the extant semantic fields of certain terms in order to re-invent them as personal expressions reflecting the author’s philosophy. The author takes advantage of the “linguistic availability” of certain terms, that is, their foreignness or rareness that makes them better-suited, in his view, to bear newly created meanings. Taken together, Qoheleth’s neologisms constitute a personal idiolect, carefully designed to convey the author’s unique thought.

Dark, Darker, Darkest: The Mood and Genre of Sardonic Death in “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” as Told by Ambrose Bierce, Robert Enrico, and Rod Serling

Genre ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 109-125
Author(s):  
Peter Kratzke
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Film Adaptation ◽  
Twilight Zone ◽  
Ambrose Bierce ◽  
Rod Serling

Comparing Ambrose Bierce’s “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” (as framed by Bierce’s illuminating philosophical attitude) with the Frenchman Robert Enrico’s film adaptation (how his adaptation decisions are manifest in the film) and Rod Serling’s use of that film for an episode of The Twilight Zone (as the show’s cultural context was and is perfect for the task) reveals afresh that mood (involving an author’s attitude toward content) is necessarily more important than genre (involving content itself) when narrative content approaches the unknowable. What perhaps surprises in this comparison is that, arguably, Bierce’s short story is the least dark of the three versions of what may be called the mood and genre of sardonic death, for it only denounces (especially in terms of free will versus determinism) the doomed man, while Enrico’s film elicits sympathy and Serling’s episode empathy.

Origen, Bardaiṣan, and the Origin of Universal Salvation

2009 ◽  
Vol 102 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-168 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ilaria L. E. Ramelli
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Philosophy Of History ◽  
Universal Salvation ◽  
Origen Of Alexandria ◽  
Eventual Return ◽  
Philosophical Framework ◽  
Ex Nihilo

Is Origen of Alexandria the inventor of the eschatological doctrine of apokatastasis— of the eventual return of all creatures to the Good, that is, God, and thus universal salvation? Certainly, he is one of its chief supporters in all of history, and he is, as far as we know, the first to have maintained it in a complete and coherent way, so that all of his philosophy of history, protology, and anthropology is oriented toward this telos.1 There are, however, significant antecedents to his mature and articulate theorization, at least some of which he surely knew very well, and there is even a possible parallel. For this conception did not appear ex nihilo, but in a cultural context rich in suggestions and premises, and in a philosophical framework of lively discussions concerning fate, free will, theodicy, and the eternal destiny of rational creatures.

Culture and the plasticity of perception

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Lifshitz ◽  
T. M. Luhrmann
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Context ◽  
Sensory Experience ◽  
Cultural Learning ◽  
The World

Abstract Culture shapes our basic sensory experience of the world. This is particularly striking in the study of religion and psychosis, where we and others have shown that cultural context determines both the structure and content of hallucination-like events. The cultural shaping of hallucinations may provide a rich case-study for linking cultural learning with emerging prediction-based models of perception.

Youth Development in Europe

2009 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 372-375 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katariina Salmela-Aro ◽  
Ingrid Schoon
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Relationship Quality ◽  
Youth Development ◽  
Social Relationships ◽  
Transition To Adulthood ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Integrative Framework ◽  
Reciprocal Interactions ◽  
The Family ◽  
Key Players

A series of six papers on “Youth Development in Europe: Transitions and Identities” has now been published in the European Psychologist throughout 2008 and 2009. The papers aim to make a conceptual contribution to the increasingly important area of productive youth development by focusing on variations and changes in the transition to adulthood and emerging identities. The papers address different aspects of an integrative framework for the study of reciprocal multiple person-environment interactions shaping the pathways to adulthood in the contexts of the family, the school, and social relationships with peers and significant others. Interactions between these key players are shaped by their embeddedness in varied neighborhoods and communities, institutional regulations, and social policies, which in turn are influenced by the wider sociohistorical and cultural context. Young people are active agents, and their development is shaped through reciprocal interactions with these contexts; thus, the developing individual both influences and is influenced by those contexts. Relationship quality and engagement in interactions appears to be a fruitful avenue for a better understanding of how young people adjust to and tackle development to productive adulthood.

Accentuating Your Masculine Side

2013 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 103-108 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chongzeng Bi ◽  
Oscar Ybarra ◽  
Yufang Zhao
Keyword(s):  
Social Norms ◽  
Gender Role ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Self Esteem ◽  
Western Countries ◽  
Self Evaluation ◽  
Two Samples ◽  
Agency And Communion

Recent research investigating self-judgment has shown that people are more likely to base their evaluations of self on agency-related traits than communion-related traits. In the present research, we tested the hypothesis that agency-related traits dominate self-evaluation by expanding the purview of the fundamental dimensions to consider characteristics typically studied in the gender-role literature, but that nevertheless should be related to agency and communion. Further, we carried out these tests on two samples from China, a cultural context that, relative to many Western countries, emphasizes the interpersonal or communion dimension. Despite the differences in traits used and cultural samples studied, the findings generally supported the agency dominates self-esteem perspective, albeit with some additional findings in Study 2. The findings are discussed with regard to the influence of social norms and the types of inferences people are able to draw about themselves given such norms.

When Mother Earth Rises Up

2013 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 271-277 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simona Sacchi ◽  
Paolo Riva ◽  
Marco Brambilla
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Natural Disasters ◽  
Natural Disaster ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Disaster Victims ◽  
Willingness To Help ◽  
Mother Earth

Anthropomorphization is the tendency to ascribe humanlike features and mental states, such as free will and consciousness, to nonhuman beings or inanimate agents. Two studies investigated the consequences of the anthropomorphization of nature on people’s willingness to help victims of natural disasters. Study 1 (N = 96) showed that the humanization of nature correlated negatively with willingness to help natural disaster victims. Study 2 (N = 52) tested for causality, showing that the anthropomorphization of nature reduced participants’ intentions to help the victims. Overall, our findings suggest that humanizing nature undermines the tendency to support victims of natural disasters.

Free will and agency.

1994 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 143-144 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. A. Sappington
Keyword(s):  
Free Will

Sexuality in a Cultural Context

1982 ◽  
Vol 27 (5) ◽  
pp. 375-376
Author(s):  
Victor L. Brown
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Context
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