Experimental and Cross-Cultural Epistemology

2021 ◽  
pp. 210-232
Author(s):  
Jonathan Stoltz
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Philosophy ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Tibetan Buddhist ◽  
Buddhist Epistemology ◽  
Experimental Epistemology ◽  
Tacit Assumptions ◽  
Is Value ◽  
The Way

Chapter 10 examines how contemporary trends in experimental philosophy can benefit from the study of Buddhist epistemology. In particular, it explores the question of whether an appreciation of Buddhist epistemology could inform philosophers about both the merits of experimental epistemology and experimental philosophy’s emphasis on probing intuitions about knowledge. The second half of the chapter steps back from this examination of experimental philosophy and argues that there is value to be found in contemporary philosophers learning more about other traditions of epistemological theorizing, including the Indian and Tibetan Buddhist traditions of epistemology. Among other things, it can serve to change the way we view our own tradition of epistemology and lay bare the tacit assumptions that undergird contemporary discussions of knowledge.

scholarly journals Individual and Cross-Cultural Differences in Semantic Intuitions: New Experimental Findings

2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 322-357 ◽  
Author(s):  
James R. Beebe ◽  
Ryan Undercoffer
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Differences ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
Experimental Philosophy ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
Cross Cultural Differences ◽  
Anchoring Effects ◽  
Semantic Reference ◽  
Experimental Findings ◽  
Epistemic Perspective

In 2004 Edouard Machery, Ron Mallon, Shaun Nichols and Stephen Stich published what has become one of the most widely discussed papers in experimental philosophy, in which they reported that East Asian and Western participants had different intuitions about the semantic reference of proper names. A flurry of criticisms of their work has emerged, and although various replications have been performed, many critics remain unconvinced. We review the current debate over Machery et al.’s (2004) results and take note of which objections to their work have been satisfactorily answered and which ones still need to be addressed. We then report the results of studies that reveal significant cross-cultural and intra-cultural differences in semantic intuitions when we control for variables that critics allege have had a potentially distorting effect on Machery et al.’s findings. These variables include the epistemic perspective from which participants are supposed to understand the research materials, unintended anchoring effects of those materials, and pragmatic factors involved in the interpretation of speech acts within them. Our results confirm the robustness of the cross-cultural differences observed by Machery et al. and thereby strengthen the philosophical challenge they pose.

“Down-to-Earth TV dramas”: The reception of authenticity, reality, and modality in Danish TV dramas

2021 ◽  
pp. 174960202110463
Author(s):  
Yeşim Kaptan
Keyword(s):  
Focus Group ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Television Viewing ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Semiotic Analysis ◽  
Focus Group Interviews ◽  
Truth Value ◽  
Group Interviews ◽  
Empirical Material ◽  
The Way

This article investigates how Turkish audiences conceptualize authenticity in their engagement with foreign television (TV) productions in the case of Danish TV dramas. The theoretical notion of authenticity is juxtaposed with empirical material from fieldwork interactions, focus group interviews, and one-on-one interviews conducted with Turkish audiences between 2016 and 2018. By employing a semiotic analysis of fieldwork data, I argue that Turkish audiences attribute authenticity to the Danish TV drama series according to a socially created modality (truth value of a sign). This article draws on accounts about modality markers in TV drama series such as authentic portrayals of Danish TV characters and plausible-realistic depictions as a verisimilitudinous representation of everyday life. In the context of cross-cultural television viewing practices, the way Turkish audiences attribute meaning to Danish TV series in terms of authenticity, realism, and modality reveals a distinct differentiation between Danish TV dramas and other nationally and globally circulating media products.

scholarly journals Women and Orientalism: 19th century Representations of the Harem by European female travellers and Ottoman women

2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 10
Author(s):  
Thisaranie Herath
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
The West ◽  
Cultural Exchanges ◽  
Private Spaces ◽  
The Way

The inaccessibility of the Ottoman harems to European males helped perpetuate the image of the harem as purely sexual in nature and contributed to imperialistic discourse that positioned the East as inferior to the West. It was only with the emergence of female travellers and artists that Europe was afforded a brief glimpse into the source of their fantasies; however, whether these accounts catered to or challenged the normative imperialist discourse of the day remains controversial. Emerging scholarship also highlights the way in which harem women themselves were able to control the depiction of their private spaces to suit their own needs, serving to highlight how nineteenth century depictions of the harem were a series of cross-cultural exchanges and negotiations between male Orientalists, female European travellers, and shrewd Ottoman women. 

scholarly journals Striving for Entrepreneurial Autonomy: A Comparison of Russia and the Netherlands

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-138 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Van Gelderen ◽  
Galina Shirokova ◽  
Vladimir Shchegolev ◽  
Tatiana Beliaeva
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
Emerging Market ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
Structural Similarity ◽  
Business Owners ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Cultural Comparison ◽  
Business Ownership ◽  
Cross Cultural Comparison ◽  
The Way

ABSTRACTAutonomy is a primary motive, as well as source of satisfaction, for those who start and run their own business. Autonomy is not inherent to business ownership – owner/founders must make concentrated efforts to achieve and maintain autonomy. This study aims to increase our understanding of autonomy by investigating how it is experienced, the factors that affect it, and the actions that business owners take to attain and retain it. We study these topics in the setting of an emerging market – Russia – and compare the outcomes with a similar study conducted in the Netherlands. Our cross-cultural comparison reveals that the way autonomy is experienced and attained can be viewed as an expression of survival values in Russia and of self-expression values in the Netherlands. We posit an underlying structural similarity by theorizing the level of experienced entrepreneurial autonomy to be the outcome of the balance of power and dependencies.

scholarly journals Intuitions About the Reference of Proper Names: a Meta-Analysis

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noah van Dongen ◽  
Matteo Colombo ◽  
Felipe Romero ◽  
Jan Sprenger
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Philosophy ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Proper Names ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Cultural Effects ◽  
Follow Up Studies

Abstract The finding that intuitions about the reference of proper names vary cross-culturally (Machery et al. Cognition 92: 1–12. 2004) was one of the early milestones in experimental philosophy. Many follow-up studies investigated the scope and magnitude of such cross-cultural effects, but our paper provides the first systematic meta-analysis of studies replicating (Machery et al. Cognition 92: 1–12. 2004). In the light of our results, we assess the existence and significance of cross-cultural effects for intuitions about the reference of proper names.

scholarly journals Secondary Art and the Two-Story House: Kuwabara Takeo and the Comparative Imagination in Mid-Century Japan, 1935–1947

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Adam Bronson
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
French Literature ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Japanese Culture ◽  
Western Civilization ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Cultural Comparison ◽  
Intellectual Culture ◽  
Cross Cultural Comparison ◽  
The Way

This article focuses on the life and ideas of Kuwabara Takeo, a cultural critic and scholar of French literature who became renowned for his 1946 critique of haiku as a “secondary art” in comparison with the novel. By reconstructing Kuwabara's intellectual trajectory from the mid-1930s to the mid-1940s, I show how this famous essay was in part an effort to respond to Karl Löwith's famous critique of Japanese intellectuals. Löwith argued that Japanese intellectuals were insufficiently critical towards their own culture, due to the way that they compartmentalized practices and ideas associated with either Japanese culture or Western civilization. Kuwabara resisted such tendencies through the practice of cross-cultural comparison. His work gained encouragement from and responded to Löwith's critique in a way that illuminates the role that comparisons played in the intellectual culture of mid-twentieth-century Japan.

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