Rationality, Religion and Intentional Systems Theory: From Objective Ethnography to the Critical Study of Religious Beliefs

2009 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 274-284
Author(s):  
Matti Kappinen
Keyword(s):  
System Theory ◽  
Systems Theory ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Human Behaviour ◽  
Critical Study ◽  
Scientific Methods ◽  
Intentional Systems ◽  
Intentional System ◽  
Critique Of Religion

AbstractRationality pervades the study of religion. This essay argues that rationality has three roles in this context. First, it functions as a presupposition in the ethnographic descriptions of religious behaviour; second, it functions as the explanatory principle in ethnography of religion; third, rationality functions as a normative tool in the critical assessments of religion. It is argued that all three roles are rooted in the Dennettian intentional system theory and are thus intricately linked with each other. It is further argued that any ethnographic study of religion that uses the best available scientific methods in the description and explanation of human behaviour, commits itself to the relative optimality of scientific outlook and to the critique of religion in principle.

Intentional systems in cognitive ethology: The “Panglossian paradigm” defended

1983 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 343-355 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel C. Dennett
Keyword(s):  
System Theory ◽  
Animal Behavior ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Vervet Monkeys ◽  
Cognitive Ethology ◽  
Communicative Behavior ◽  
Fundamental Objection ◽  
Intentional Systems ◽  
Descriptive Method ◽  
Intentional System

AbstractEthologists and others studying animal behavior in a “cognitive” spirit are in need of a descriptive language and method that are neither anachronistically bound by behaviorist scruples nor prematurely committed to particular “information-processing models.” Just such an interim descriptive method can be found in intentional system theory. The use of intentional system theory is illustrated with the case of the apparently communicative behavior of vervet monkeys. A way of using the theory to generate data - including usable, testable “anecdotal” data - is sketched. The underlying assumptions of this approach can be seen to ally it directly with “adaptationist” theorizing in evolutionary biology, which has recently come under attack from Stephen Gould and Richard Lewontin, who castigate it as the “Panglossian paradigm.” Their arguments, which are strongly analogous to B. F, Skinner's arguments against “mentalism,” point to certain pitfalls that attend the careless exercise of such “Panglossian” thinking (and rival varieties of thinking as well), but do not constitute a fundamental objection to either adaptationist theorizing or its cousin, intentional system theory.

scholarly journals DEVELOPMENT AND APPLICATION OF SYSTEMIC FAMILY THERAPY - AN ASSESSMENT OF THE SITUATION IN THE EXPIRING SECOND DECADE OF THE 21ST CENTURY AND THE CHALLENGE OF A GENDER-SENSITIVE NEW ORIENTATION

2019 ◽  
pp. 253-263
Author(s):  
S. Velasquez-Montiel
Keyword(s):  
System Theory ◽  
Systems Theory ◽  
General System ◽  
General Systems Theory ◽  
Von Bertalanffy ◽  
Scientific Methods ◽  
Norbert Wiener ◽  
Theoretical System ◽  
General Systems ◽  
Systemic Family Therapy

It is always helpful to take a closer look at the development in order to understand the situation. Therefore, we would like to give a short outline of the development of the systemic therapy, which resulted from the general system theory, at this point, whereby no claim to completeness exists. The general systems theory is based on different scientific methods that initially emerged independently.The considerations of the biologist Ludwig von Bertalanffy can be mentioned as general basics, as well as the concept of cybernetics developed by Norbert Wiener and W. Ross Ashby. These approaches were further developed by the action-theoretical system theory according to Parsons and the introduction of the term «organization» by Luhmann. The aim of general systems theory is to enable more accurate predictions of system behaviour.

The Comic Stance

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-72
Author(s):  
Lauren Olin
Keyword(s):  
Systems Theory ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Cognitive Architectures ◽  
General Acceptance ◽  
Plausible Account ◽  
The Future ◽  
Intentional Systems

Abstract Despite sustained philosophical attention, no theory of humor claims general acceptance. Drawing on the resources provided by intentional systems theory, this article first outlines an approach to investigating humor based on the idea of a comic stance, then sketches the Dismissal Theory of Humor (DTH) that has resulted from pursuing that approach. According to the DTH, humor manifests in cases where the future-directed significance of anticipatory failures is dismissed. Mirth, on this view, is the reward people get for declining to update predictive representational schemata in ways that maximize their futureoriented value. The theory aims to provide a plausible account of the role of humor in human mental and social life, but it also aims to be empirically vulnerable, and to generate testable predictions about how the comic stance may actually be undergirded by cognitive architectures.

scholarly journals Speaking to My Ancestors: An Ethnographic Study of Lived Childhood Religion in Rural Gansu

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 177-206
Author(s):  
Joseph Chadwin
Keyword(s):  
Religious Belief ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Gansu Province ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Lived Religion ◽  
Unique Form ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
Rural Village ◽  
Ethnographic Data

AbstractThis article provides an overview of the major existing scholarship pertaining to childhood religion in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). More specifically, it examines lived childhood religion in a rural village in Gānsù province. This article challenges the commonly preconceived notion that children in the PRC do not regard religious belief as important and simply mirror the religious practices of their guardians. By utilising ethnographic data, I argue that children in the PRC are capable of constructing their own unique form of lived religion that is informed by, but crucially distinct from, the religious beliefs and practices of adults. The practices and beliefs of this lived religion can be extremely important to children and the evidence from fieldwork suggests that they tend to take both their practice and belief very seriously.

scholarly journals A Transcription and Translation Protocol for Sensitive Cross-Cultural Team Research

2017 ◽  
Vol 27 (12) ◽  
pp. 1751-1764 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lauren Clark ◽  
Ana Sanchez Birkhead ◽  
Cecilia Fernandez ◽  
Marlene J. Egger
Keyword(s):  
Pelvic Organ ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Scientific Methods ◽  
Team Research ◽  
Sensitive Topics ◽  
Target Languages ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Required Quality

Assurance of transcript accuracy and quality in interview-based qualitative research is foundational for data accuracy and study validity. Based on our experience in a cross-cultural ethnographic study of women’s pelvic organ prolapse, we provide practical guidance to set up step-by-step interview transcription and translation protocols for team-based research on sensitive topics. Beginning with team decisions about level of detail in transcription, completeness, and accuracy, we operationalize the process of securing vendors to deliver the required quality of transcription and translation. We also share rubrics for assessing transcript quality and the team protocol for managing transcripts (assuring consistency of format, insertion of metadata, anonymization, and file labeling conventions) and procuring an acceptable initial translation of Spanish-language interviews. Accurate, complete, and systematically constructed transcripts in both source and target languages respond to the call for more transparency and reproducibility of scientific methods.

NEW TOPOLOGICAL ℂ-ALGEBRAS WITH APPLICATIONS IN LINEAR SYSTEMS THEORY

2012 ◽  
Vol 15 (02) ◽  
pp. 1250011 ◽  
Author(s):  
DANIEL ALPAY ◽  
GUY SALOMON
Keyword(s):  
System Theory ◽  
Linear System ◽  
Natural Number ◽  
Systems Theory ◽  
Hilbert Spaces ◽  
Commutative Monoid ◽  
Tempered Distributions ◽  
Invertible Elements ◽  
Nuclear Spaces ◽  
Wide Family

Motivated by the Schwartz space of tempered distributions [Formula: see text] and the Kondratiev space of stochastic distributions [Formula: see text] we define a wide family of nuclear spaces which are increasing unions of (duals of) Hilbert spaces [Formula: see text], with decreasing norms ‖⋅‖p. The elements of these spaces are functions on a free commutative monoid. We characterize those rings in this family which satisfy an inequality of the form ‖f * g‖p ≤ A(p - q)‖f‖q‖g‖p for all p ≥ q + d, where * denotes the convolution in the monoid, A(p - q) is a strictly positive number and d is a fixed natural number (in this case we obtain commutative topological ℂ-algebras). Such an inequality holds in [Formula: see text], but not in [Formula: see text]. We give an example of such a ring which contains [Formula: see text]. We characterize invertible elements in these rings and present applications to linear system theory.

Niklas Luhmann's anti-totalitarian observation of systems

Kybernetes ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gorm Harste ◽  
Klaus Brønd Laursen
Keyword(s):  
System Theory ◽  
Systems Theory ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Present Contribution ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Critical Potential ◽  
Conceptual Discussion

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the philosophical roots of Luhmann's theory in relation to its anti-totalitarian elements.Design/methodology/approachThe paper offers a conceptual discussion of the critical and anti-totalitarian angle in Niklas Luhmann's system theory.FindingsThis paper finds that systems theory has a critical potential.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors' knowledge the anti-totalitarian element of Niklas Luhmann's system theory has not be discussed before the present contribution.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
G. Edward White
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Participatory Democracy ◽  
Industrial Capitalism ◽  
Scientific Methods ◽  
Intellectual Inquiry ◽  
American Society ◽  
Previous Volume

The previous volume of this trilogy left off by summarizing momentous changes that, cumulatively, had transformed American society from its premodern state to modernity by the second decade of the twentieth century. As employed in that volume and this one, the term modernity means the presence of a world characterized by maturing industrial capitalism, a political culture featuring increased participatory democracy, the weakening of a hierarchical, class-based social order predicated on relatively fixed status distinctions, and the emergence of secular theories of knowledge and “scientific” methods of intellectual inquiry as competitors to theories and methods based on religious beliefs. By the close of the 1920s, all of those features of American life were in place....

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document