scholarly journals Beyond Belief: Japanese Approaches to the Meaning of Religion

2010 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-149 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Mark Shields
Keyword(s):  
Religious Context ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Ways Of Thinking ◽  
The Way

For several centuries, Japanese scholars have argued that their nation’s culture—including its language, religion and ways of thinking—is somehow unique. The darker side of this rhetoric, sometimes known by the English term “Japanism” (nihonjinron), played no small role in the nationalist fervor of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. While much of the so-called “ideology of Japanese uniqueness” can be dismissed, in terms of the Japanese approach to “religion,” there may be something to it. This paper highlights some distinctive—if not entirely unique—features of the way religion has been categorized and understood in Japanese tradition, contrasting these with Western (i.e., Abrahamic), and to a lesser extent Indian and Chinese understandings. Particular attention is given to the priority of praxis over belief in the Japanese religious context.

The Beginnings of Islam in Afghanistan

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arezou Azad
Keyword(s):  
Paradigm Shift ◽  
Political System ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Religious Context ◽  
Early Islam ◽  
History Of ◽  
Initial Conversion ◽  
The Way

Covering the period from 709 to 871, this chapter traces the initial conversion of Afghanistan from Zoroastrianism and Buddhism to Islam. Highlighting the differential developments in four regions of Afghanistan, it discusses the very earliest history of Afghan Islam both as a religion and as a political system in the form of a caliphate.  The chapter draws on under-utilized sources, such as fourth to eighth century Bactrian documents from Tukharistan and medieval Arabic and Persian histories of Balkh, Herat and Sistan. In so doing, it offers a paradigm shift in the way early Islam is understood by arguing that it did not arrive in Afghanistan as a finished product, but instead grew out of Afghanistan’s multi-religious context. Through fusions with Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, early Abrahamic traditions, and local cult practices, the Islam that resulted was less an Arab Islam that was imported wholesale than a patchwork of various cultural practices.

The Southern Slope of Monsalvat: How Spanish Wagnerism Became Catalan

2017 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-47
Author(s):  
Clinton D. Young
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Southern Slope ◽  
Modern Music ◽  
The Past ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Symphonic Culture ◽  
Similar Dynamic ◽  
The Way

This article examines the development of Wagnerism in late-nineteenth-century Spain, focusing on how it became an integral part of Catalan nationalism. The reception of Wagner's music and ideas in Spain was determined by the country's uneven economic development and the weakness of its musical and political institutions—the same weaknesses that were responsible for the rise of Catalan nationalism. Lack of a symphonic culture in Spain meant that audiences were not prepared to comprehend Wagner's complexity, but that same complexity made Wagner's ideas acceptable to Spanish reformers who saw in the composer an exemplar of the European ideas needed to fix Spanish problems. Thus, when Wagner's operas were first staged in Spain, the Teatro Real de Madrid stressed Wagner's continuity with operas of the past; however, critics and audiences engaged with the works as difficult forms of modern music. The rejection of Wagner in the Spanish capital cleared the way for his ideas to be adopted in Catalonia. A similar dynamic occurred as Spanish composers tried to meld Wagner into their attempts to build a nationalist school of opera composition. The failure of Tomás Bréton's Los amantes de Teruel and Garín cleared the way for Felip Pedrell's more successful theoretical fusion of Wagnerism and nationalism. While Pedrell's opera Els Pirineus was a failure, his explanation of how Wagner's ideals and nationalism could be fused in the treatise Por nuestra música cemented the link between Catalan culture and Wagnerism.

Sed ubi Socrates currit? On the Gettier Problem before Gettier

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Risto Hilpinen
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
True Belief ◽  
Belief System ◽  
Gettier Problem ◽  
Current Belief ◽  
The Future ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
The Gettier Problem ◽  
The Way ◽  
Forward Looking

Medieval philosophers presented Gettier-type objections to the commonly accepted view of knowledge as firmly held true belief, and formulated additional conditions that meet the objections or analyzed knowledge in a way that is immune to the Gettier-type objections. The proposed conditions can be divided into two kinds: backward-looking conditions and forward-looking conditions. The former concern an inquirer’s current belief system and the way the inquirer acquired her beliefs, the latter refer to what the inquirer may come to learn in the future and how she can respond to objections. Some conditions of knowledge proposed in late nineteenth- and twentieth-century epistemology can be regarded as variants of the conditions put forward by medieval authors.

Interface, Interact, Improvact

2020 ◽  
pp. 57-78
Author(s):  
Kristian Kloeckl
Keyword(s):  
Mental Models ◽  
Interaction Design ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
Design Domain ◽  
Human Machine Interaction ◽  
Ways Of Thinking ◽  
Machine Interaction ◽  
The Way

This chapter is dedicated to models of human-machine interaction (HCI) that have been influential for the design domain and that form the basis of how we think about designing human-machine interactions today. Digital networked technologies have become increasingly pervasive in today's urban environments. But regardless of the urban dimension, the domains of HCI and interaction design have long examined design approaches that take into account the ways in which humans relate to technologies. Different ways of thinking about the interaction between humans and machines have informed the way we work with technologies. The mental models one adopts when working with technologies contribute not only to how they are viewed but also to how these technologies are shaped in substantial ways.

scholarly journals Identity considerations for a psychology based on a complex epistemology

2009 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 158-166 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juan Carlos Jaramillo Estrada
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Active Part ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The World ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
The Way

Born in the late nineteenth century, within the positivist paradigm, psychology has made important developments that have allowed its recognition in academia and labor. However, contextual issues have transformed the way we conceptualize reality, the world and man, perhaps in response to the poor capacity of the inherited paradigm to ensure quality of life and welfare of human beings. This has led to the birth and recognition of new paradigms, including complex epistemology, in various fields of the sphere of knowledge, which include the subjectivity, uncertainty, relativity of knowledge, conflict, the inclusion of "the observed" as an active part of the interventions and the relativity of a single knowable reality to move to co-constructed realities. It is proposed an approach to the identity consequences for a psychology based on complex epistemology, and the possible differences and relations with psychology, traditionally considered.

Scottish Gothic Drama

2017 ◽  
pp. 59-74
Author(s):  
Barbara A. E. Bell
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Good Deal ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Visual Effects ◽  
Gothic Revival ◽  
Performance Culture ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Music Hall ◽  
The Way

Scottish theatre, from the mid-eighteenth century onwards, has been characterised by a distinctive performance culture that values anti-illusionist techniques, breaking the fourth wall, music and song, strongly physical acting styles and striking visual effects. These were accepted traits of the Georgian theatre as a whole; however, they endured in Scotland through the music hall and pantomime traditions, when late nineteenth-century Western theatre was focused on realism/naturalism. Their importance to the search for a distinctive Scottish Gothic Drama lies in the way that the conditions of the Scottish theatre during the Gothic Revival valued these skills and effects. That theatre was heavily constricted in what it could play by censorship from London and writers were cautious in their approach to ‘national’ topics. At the same time a good deal of work portraying Scotland as an inherently Gothic setting was imported onto Scottish stages.

Toys

2020 ◽  
pp. 394-402
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Heath
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Historical Sources ◽  
French Empire ◽  
Cognitive Framework ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
The Way

This article examines colonially-themed toys as historical sources that provide insight into the way that metropolitan boys and girls learned embrace the French empire in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It argues that colonially-themed toys such as drums, dolls, and games encouraged forms of play that instilled a colonial mindset and attitude among metropolitan French children. These actions provided the foundation for a cognitive framework and worldview that naturalized colonialism and racial and civilization hierarchies. The residues of these earlier practices and imaginations remain, marking toys as a particularly rich genre of material culture with which to understand the inculcation of colonialism and lingering colonial nostalgia.

The Crisis of Knowing in the Age of Complexity

2014 ◽  
pp. 1-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ton Jörg
Keyword(s):  
New World ◽  
Nonlinear Effects ◽  
Important Task ◽  
Complex Organization ◽  
Fostering Creativity ◽  
New Thinking ◽  
Conditions Of Possibility ◽  
Ways Of Thinking ◽  
The Way ◽  
Self Organizing

The crisis of our time is very much a crisis of knowledge. There is no easy way of “solving” the crisis. “Solving” the crisis demands for a real shift of mind, implying new ways of thinking and knowing about what is the real. The most important task of today, therefore, is to see and to open up a new world: a world of the possible, with its hitherto uncharted and unexplored complexity territory. For the sake of mastering complexity, understanding real complexity is urgently needed. The problem of complexity for organizations is the way organizations and companies attempt to respond to complexity. To confront and master complexity, the focus should be on the conditions of possibility, hitherto unknown. These conditions are about the possibility of triggering self-generative, self-organizing processes with potential nonlinear effects within dynamic, hyperconnected networks. These effects can be generated by the process of amplifying changes within these networks. This amplifying is about the amplifying of learning, of thinking, and of knowing. In practice, this means that new thinking in complexity is urgently needed to master the complexity involved. This approach is compared with the recent approaches advocated by big firms and companies in their embracing of complexity. This chapter shows how they are unable to discover and explore the very potential of complexity for their own Complex Organization (CO). They are very much in need to master complexity for the sake of fostering creativity, novelty, and innovation in their own organizations.

Designing Interiors

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luciano Crespi
Keyword(s):  
Interior Design ◽  
Design Strategies ◽  
Design Work ◽  
Common Thread ◽  
Ways Of Thinking ◽  
Industrialised Countries ◽  
Theoretical Reflection ◽  
The Way

The following is a theoretical reflection about the re-development of existing spaces. First, various changes in the way we live worldwide are considered, especially in industrialised countries. Then a process that spans from research to design is proposed to identify those actions required to reach an innovative response to the problem at hand. The second part of chapter illustrates a series of possible design strategies collected from the interior design work of past masters and contemporary designers. The goal is to offer a possible reading of certain important examples, providing an inventory, by definition an incomplete one, of design approaches, ways of thinking, and practices. Sometimes there is a common thread, sometimes not.

La bohème’s Paris

2020 ◽  
pp. 35-56
Author(s):  
Alexandra Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
French Culture ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
La Boheme ◽  
The City ◽  
The Way

This chapter analyses the ways in which La bohème was influenced by popular romantic representations of Paris and the ways in which it, in turn, helped shape them. It discusses the late nineteenth-century Italian fascination with French culture and the way in which Puccini’s opera was nostalgically depicting an old Paris that had been swept away by Baron Haussmann’s regeneration of the city. The chapter considers Puccini’s conception of Bohemianism, demonstrating that it had Italian as well as French roots. It examines the composer and his librettists’ reading of certain archetypal Bohemian figures, such as the good-hearted demimondaine, and of symbolic Parisian locations, such as the pavement café. The chapter concludes with a consideration of Puccini’s representation of ‘picturesque poverty’ and discusses the ways in which directors have attempted to make the work more or less gritty through their stagings.

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