Science and Humanity

Author(s):  
Andrew Steane

This volume offers an in-depth presentation of the structure of science and the nature of the physical world, with a view to showing how it complements and does not replace other types of human activity, such as the arts and humanities, spirituality and religion. The aim is to better inform scientists, science educators, and the general public. Many think that science can and does establish that the natural world is a vast machine, and this is the whole truth of ourselves and our environment. This is wrong. In fact, scientific models employ a rich network of interconnecting concepts, and the overall picture suggests the full validity of further forms of truth-seeking and truth-speaking, such as art, jurisprudence, and the like. In fundamental physics, the equations that describe physical behaviour interact in a subtle symbiotic way with symmetry principles which describe overarching guidelines. The relationship between physics and biology is similar, and so is the relationship between biology and the humanities. Darwinian evolution is an exploratory mechanism which allows richer patterns and truths to come to be expressed; it does not negate or replace those truths. The area of values, of what can or should command our allegiance, requires a different kind of response, a response that is not completely captured by logical argument, but which is central to human life. Religion, when it is understood correctly and done well, is the engagement with the idea that we have a meaningful role to play, and much to learn.

Author(s):  
Judith Aston

This chapter discusses ways in which the database narrative techniques of virtual media can be used to explore the relationship between real-world oral storytelling and embodied performance in the cultural transmission of memory. It is based on an ongoing collaboration between the author and the historical anthropologist, Wendy James, to develop a multilayered associative narrative, which considers relationships between experience, event, and memory among a displaced community. The work is based on a substantial living archive of photographs, audio, cine, and video recordings collected by Wendy James in the Sudan/Ethiopian borderlands from the mid-1960s to the present day. Its critical context relates to the ’sensory turn’ in anthropology and to ’beyond text’ debates within the arts and humanities regarding ways in which we can capture and represent the sensory experiences of the past.


2020 ◽  
pp. 019145372091991
Author(s):  
Jeff Noonan

The article argues that historical materialism is not only a theory of historical change but more generally a mediation between the natural foundations of human life and its meaningful symbolic expressions. The article begins with an interpretation of the general philosophical significance of the basic premises of historical materialism as they are sketched in the German Ideology. I argue that these premises point us in two different directions: down, towards a scientific understanding of the natural world, and up, towards interpretations of meaningful human expressions. Reductionist scientific models are appropriate for the understanding of natural forces, but these reveal their own limitations when applied to social life. Social life cannot be understood outside its symbolic expressions, but these are not free floating ideal abstractions, but remain connected to fundamental human purposes and must be understood as such.


2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Yusuf

Human life can not be separated from the natural world around it. Nature is the main source of humans to connect the chain of life. Suber food basically comes from nature which is then processed in such a way by humans. That way, it is very necessary to have actions that are caring and conserving nature so that it is maintained. In Hinduism, there is the term Panca Yadnya which contains the worship or sacrifice which is done sincerely and sincerely from the heart. One of the elements of the five Yadnya is done to the Butha to preserve nature and harmony of human life during the world called the Bhuta Yadnya. In another sense, Bhuta Yadnya is an offering made with the welfare of plants. Of course this is also related to natural conditions which are an important component in supporting the survival of human life. The relationship between nature and humans is inseparable because the two are interrelated, therefore, it is necessary to have a reciprocal relationship in maintaining a balance between the two. In this paper, it explains about the role of the Panca Yadnya ceremony or the five types of sacrifices performed in Hindu beliefs, especially regarding the Bhuta Yad whose role is to preserve nature. In undergoing the life cycle of the world, humans play an important role in preserving the surrounding natural preservation.


2021 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 1023-1026
Author(s):  
Rafed Kawan Mohammed

This research aims to discover the effect of Nature in Thomas Hardy's chosen literary works. The treatment of Hardy's ecology illustrates the roots of thought that have led to our contemporary environmental crisis. Hardy shares affinity by philosophically reconstructing society in the center of natural elements and images by introducing the true meaning of literary art and nature. Hardy self-consciously depicts the naked reality of nature, property, and the place of man as a reaction towards a mechanized and materialized culture that values technological innovations and expositions politically. Hardy has distinguished nature with his distinctive style and insight. Analyzing the work of Hardy helps to know the social and ecological critiques of Victoria on the relationship between the human environment that are biologically and psychologically fascinating and strange when it comes to placing humans into the universe. The research demonstrates how someone such as Hardy represented his knowledge of nature as a mere reflection of man's harmony or disharmony with his climate. Hardy promotes the belief that setting is an important and fundamental factor of human lives that has a direct effect on their lives consciously and unconsciously. Discussing different characters and their various attributes and functions concerning the natural world around them are of great importance for understanding the link between man and the environment. Hardy not only depicts in his novels but also in his poetry the portrayal of the true position of man in nature and the significance of this representation in human life.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 425-444
Author(s):  
Luke Parker

Abstract Henry David Thoreau’s relationship to Greek literature, and Homer’s Iliad in particular, is more often remarked than analysed. This article argues that Thoreau’s engagement with Homer in his first book, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, proves central to the themes of that work highlighted by critics as well as its less-studied formal hybrid of poetry and prose. I show that Thoreau constructs Homer as the poetic ideal in which the perennially renewed life of the natural world becomes accessible to human beings caught in the fatal and unidirectional movement of historical time. Thoreau’s ideas here may track Romantic conceptions of Homer and Greek literature more generally, but Thoreau turns contemporary uncertainty around the person of Homer into reflection on the relationship between personal experience and literary expression of ‘living nature’. This turns out to structure a larger dichotomy between poetry and prose, one in which Thoreau associates the latter with authentic experience and self-expression of an individual human life. In A Week’s engagement with Homer, then, we see Thoreau negotiating not only some core concerns of his writing but also his evolution from aspiring poet to author of the works in prose that ultimately define his career.


1989 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 379-392
Author(s):  
George Pattison

When we compare a thinker as complex and many–sided as Søren Kierkegaard with a cultural phenomenon as significant as Zen Buddhism it is unlikely that we will be able to come up with any simple formula by which to summarize the results of the comparison. But the value of such comparative studies need not in any case lie in the conclusions we reach but in the intrinsic interest and importance of the material itself, in the questions and insights raised by both similarities and dissimilarities. All this is still true if we confine the field of comparison to a very specific area, as here, where we are concerned with the relationship between art and religion in Kierkegaard and Zen. For this is of course no marginal issue: the distinction between the aesthetic and the religious is fundamental to the whole structure of Kierkegaard's authorship while the arts provde one of the main manifestations of the spirit of Zen. Our line of enquiry may be narrow but it takes us straight to the heart of the matter and the questions which it raises are crucial to the overall assessment of both Kierkegaard and Zen and of the relationship between them.


2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 110-119
Author(s):  
Walter Hood ◽  
Shannon Jackson

From their origins, the University of California, Berkeley and The Oakland Museum of California (OMCA) were established in different geographical, cultural, and political contexts. In a course sponsored by the Global Urban Humanities Initiative, artist, designer and Landscape Architecture Professor Walter Hood asks students to examine the museum and its neighborhoods in order to come up with proposals for change. He works on projects ranging from city-scale master plans to site plans to art installations and is known for his focus on the human element in design. UC Berkeley Associate Vice Chancellor for the Arts and Design, Shannon Jackson, recently spoke with Walter Hood at his Oakland studio about how the arts and humanities and design can work together to illuminate urban experience. This is the accounting of the conversation.


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-49
Author(s):  
Aris Elisa Tembay ◽  
Eliman

Kejatuhan manusia kedalam dosa telah membuat manusia kehilangan kemuliaan Allah. Manusia bukan saja harus menerima hukuman Allah secara rohani sebagai mahluk yang diciptakan dengan Kemuliaan Allah, namun secara fisik dan social mereka menerima ganjaran hukuman dari Allah. Kehidupan secara fisik berubah, dimana mereka kemudian menyadari bahwa dirinya dalam keadaan telanjang dan merasakan malu. Secara social mereka mengalami putusnya hubungan dengan Allah dan lingkungannya kemudian menjadi takut dan menyembunyikan diri dari hadapan Allah. Manusia kemudian menerima hukuman dari Allah yang berdampak secara rohani, dan juga jasmani. Mereka dibuang dari tempat kemuliaan kedalam dunia yang penuh dengan penderitaan sebagai akibat dari perbuatan dosa tersebut. Allah kemudian menunjukkan Kasih-Nya, dengan mencari manusia yang telah jatuh dalam dosa mengadakan pemulihan, akan tetapi tetap menegakkan keadilan dengan menjatuhkan hukuman-Nya dan mengadakan perjanjian akan Keselamatan bagi manusia berdosa. Rancangan keselamtan dari Allah inilah yang kemudian dilaksankan dengan Misio-Dei, dimana Allah mengutus Anak-Nya Yesus Kristus datang kedunia ini, para Nabi dan Rasul, kemudian Misio Eklesiae, dimana Allah menempatkan Gereja-Nya dan mengutus orang-orang percaya untuk memberitakan Injil Keselamatan. Injil Keselamatan itu adalah “Kabar Baik” dimana didalamnya ada berita tentang kelepasan manusia dari hukuman dosa. Dosa telah membuat manusia mengalami berbagai penderitaan, baik rohani, Jasmani juga hubungan berdampak pada lingkungan social. Pemulihan tidak hanya cukup pada tataran Rohani saja, karena dosa adalah permasalahan yang kompleksitas dan menyeluruh dalam kehidupan manusia didunia ini. Pelayanan “Holistik” adalah upaya untuk memulihkan keberadaan manusia seutuhnya, baik secara spiritual dimana manusia diperdamaikan dengan Allah tetapi juga secara mental dimana   manusia dibangkitkan kembali semangatnya untuk memperjuangkan kehidupannya didunia ini. Dengan demikian Injil bukan saja menyelesaikan perkara-perkara rohani saja, akan tetapi juga berdampak pada kehidupan social masyarakat, karena itulah tugas Gereja untuk melakukan tiga hal penting dalam dunia ini:   Marturia, Koinonia, dan Diakonia. Inilah merupakan bagian dari pelayanan yang bersifat “Holistik”                   Man's fall into sin has made man lose the glory of God. Humans must not only receive God's punishment spiritually as a creature created with the Glory of God, but physically and socially they receive punishment from God. Life physically changes, where they then realize that they are naked and feel ashamed. Socially, they experience a break with God and their environment and become afraid and hide themselves from God. Humans then receive punishment from God that impacts spiritually, and also physically. They are banished from the place of glory in a world full of suffering as a result of these sins. God then shows His love, by searching for people who have fallen into sin to make restoration, but still uphold justice by dropping His punishment and entering into a covenant of Salvation for sinful humans. This salvation design from God was then carried out by Misio-Dei, where God sent His Son Jesus Christ to come into this world, the Prophets and Apostles, then Misio Eklesiae, where God placed His Church and sent believers to preach the Gospel of Salvation. The Gospel of Salvation is the "Good News" in which there is news about human deliverance from the penalty of sin. Sin has caused people to experience various sufferings, both spiritual, physical and also the relationship has an impact on the social environment. Restoration is not only enough at the Spiritual level, because sin is a complex and comprehensive problem in human life in this world. "Holistic" service is an effort to restore the whole human existence, both spiritually where humans are reconciled with God but also mentally where humans are reawakened to fight for their lives in this world. Thus the Gospel not only resolves spiritual matters, but also has an impact on the social life of the community, because that is the Church's duty to do three important things in this world: Marturia, Koinonia, and Diakonia. This is part of the service that is "Holistic".


Author(s):  
Andrew Steane

The motivation, themes, and content of the book are introduced. The aim is to offer a better view of what science tells us about the nature of the physical world—better than the one widely assumed in our culture. Science is a rich tapestry which does not at all suggest that the world is a purposeless machine, nor does it undermine the arts and humanities. The book then engages the area of values and meaning, and shows the different type of discourse that is involved there. It offers a reply to a major argument of Hume and Dawkins, about the content of religious language. The final part of the book shows how religious response can inhabit the complete picture without awkwardness.


2010 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 173-193 ◽  
Author(s):  
Derek Paget

The past two decades have seen a remarkable resurgence in documentary theatre in Britain and America, with a growing emphasis on verbatim material. In this article, Derek Paget examines a distinctively twenty-first-century contribution to the tradition of activist theatre grounded in the last century. Using verbatim material, supporting a specific current cause, and often produced in association with an NGO or charitable organization, the ‘rehearsed reading’ apparently offers little in terms of theatricality even if it is clearly worthy and a valuable resource for activists. Documentary theatre has always been heavily context-based, and so tends to come to the fore in troubled times. In the present conjuncture, work like that of the ‘Actors for Human Rights’ group, analyzed here, seeks to be a force for social change through a focus on single issues and a reliance on verbatim speech. Derek Paget's interest in documentary theatre has featured several times in NTQ and his early intervention on Verbatim Theatre featured in NTQ 12 (November 1987). Research for the article was conducted as part of University of Reading's 2007–2010 ‘Acting with Facts’ project (funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council). Derek Paget is Principal Investigator of the project, and Reader in Theatre and Television in the Department of Film, Theatre, and Television, University of Reading. The second edition of No Other Way To Tell It, his book on screen docudrama, is due for publication this year.


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