scholarly journals The Subject of Conceptual Mapping: Theological Anthropology across Brain, Body, and World

Open Theology ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 117-135
Author(s):  
Erin Kidd

Abstract Research in conceptual metaphor and conceptual blending-referred to collectively as “conceptual mapping”-identifies human thought as a process of making connections across fields of meaning. Underlying the theory of conceptual mapping is a particular understanding of the mind as embodied. Over the past few decades, researchers in the cognitive sciences have been “putting brain, body, and world back together again.” The result is a picture of the human being as one who develops in transaction with her environment, and whose highest forms of intelligence and meaning-making are rooted in the body’s movement in the world. Conceptual mapping therefore not only gives us insight into how we think, but also into who we are. This calls for a revolution in theological anthropology. Our spirituality must be understood in light of the fact that we are embodied beings, embedded in our environment, whose identities are both material and discursive. Finally, using the example of white supremacy, I show how this revolution in understanding the human person can be useful for ethical reflection, and in thinking about sin and redemption.

Open Theology ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 227-240
Author(s):  
David Mark Dunning

Abstract Existentialism centres reflection upon the bodily existence of the human person. Generally, however, theological anthropology has struggled to manage developments in biological and psychological sciences that have made clear the pluriformity of human embodiment. The work of the social sciences has also increased the visibility of minority, disadvantaged, or neglected persons. Theological anthropology must begin to conceive of an inclusive, non-static understanding of human nature that fully acknowledges the integrity and the diverse identities of the human subject. To riposte, this article utilises the interplay between phenomenology and theology in the work of the contemporary philosopher-theologian Jean-Luc Marion. Marion undeniably sees the root of the human in the concrete free person; he recognises an ever-receding, indefinable horizon towards which the incomprehensible existence of the subjective phenomenon is universally oriented. In this article I focus on how a combination of the theology of the subject and its existential orientation, realised through the freedom of incomprehensibility à la Marion, may provide a dynamic basis for understanding human nature at a time when subjective diversity is ever more asserted.


Author(s):  
John Arblaster

This chapter examines the subject of humanity as created in the image and likeness of God, a central theme in the Christian mystical tradition. Indeed, the imago Dei forms the foundation of much if not all Christian theological anthropology, and questions of the ‘nature’ and ‘structure’ of the human person are evidently central to questions of the mystical encounter between human persons and God. This chapter first surveys the scriptural background of the imago Dei in both Genesis and the New Testament and then provides a brief survey of current systematic-theological and historical-theological approaches. After providing some background to patristic imago Dei theologies in both the East and West, the chapter focuses in-depth on three lesser-known medieval authors: John of Fécamp, William of St Thierry, and John of Ruusbroec, in an attempt to highlight the rich variation and theological sophistication of their mystical anthropologies.


2020 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 113-133 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nandita Chaudhary ◽  
Sujata Sriram

The mind has been the subject of fascination since ancient times, and every cultural tradition has folk theories related to meaning-making, attributions, and explanations about being human. In this sense, the subject of Psychology is as old as humanity, although its rise as a global, scientific discipline is relatively recent, emerging from 20th-century Europe and America. Theoretical ideas and methods generated during the growth of the discipline were aligned with beliefs about human nature and scientific methods specific to Euro-American cultures. Although “preached” and practiced universally as a science, this culturally circumscribed and ideologically bound history of the discipline needs further examination. Rather than “thinking globally” and “acting locally,” the agenda of Psychology has been the reverse; “think locally and act globally,” as critics of mainstream Psychology have pointed out. The predominance of individual, intra-mental, laboratory-tested, quantifiable dimensions of human conduct are based subliminally on Western ideology. The alternative methods of approaching real-life experiences, literature, art, inter-mental phenomena, and other qualitative dimensions of human interactions remain relatively under-explored. The dominant mainstream Psychology is seen as an objective, measurable, and universal science that has had far-reaching consequences for ordinary people around the world. This somewhat sinister side of conventional Psychology is the subject of this article, where we argue that despite significant exceptions and scholarly dissent, the popularity and prevalence of experimental Psychology has marginalized “others” at the expense of its own progress. We use illustrations primarily from teaching, research and practice in Psychology in Indian Universities.


1925 ◽  
Vol 18 (8) ◽  
pp. 455-464
Author(s):  
James Byrnie Shaw

No doubt the title of this paper suggests a question at once to the mind of the reader: Why girls? It is, however, easy to discover that among the girls who enter freshman classes there is a rather widespread idea that Mathematics is a very difficult subject, and that one should take as little as possible and meet the requirements for graduation. Owing to early inadequate teaching, and to lack of understanding the meaning of the elementary parts of mathematics, a large part of the entering class in any university or college, will come in with a dread of the subject, and sometimes a loathing for it, which will interfere seriously with success in passing a freshman course; and, what is of more serious import, will pass on to succeeding generations the idea that it is a branch of the curriculum of little interest, and to be learned only with an extraordinary amount of work and worry. To those of us who know the fascination of this field of human thought, this should be a matter of keen regret, but we must assume the blame ourselves.


2005 ◽  
Vol 60 (3) ◽  
pp. 425-427
Author(s):  
Csaba Pléh

Ádám György: A rejtozködo elme. Egy fiziológus széljegyzetei Carpendale, J. I. M. és Müller, U. (eds): Social interaction and the development of knowledge Cloninger, R. C.: Feeling good. The science of well being Dunbar, Robin, Barrett, Louise, Lycett, John: Evolutionary psychology Dunbar, Robin: The human story. A new history of makind's evolution Geary, D. C.: The origin of mind. Evolution of brain, cognition and general intelligence Gedeon Péter, Pál Eszter, Sárkány Mihály, Somlai Péter: Az evolúció elméletei és metaforái a társadalomtudományokban Harré, Rom: Cognitive science: A philosophical introduction Horváth György: Pedagógiai pszichológia Marcus, G.: The birth of the mind. How a tiny number of genes creates the complexities of human thought Solso, R. D.: The psychology of art and the evolution of the conscious brain Wray, A. (ed.): The transition to language


Author(s):  
Hannah Lee

This paper is the attempt to show how system theory could provide critical insight into the transdisciplinary field of library and information sciences (LIS). It begins with a discussion on the categorization of library and information sciences as an academic and professional field (or rather, the lack of evidence on the subject) and what is exactly meant by system theory, drawing upon the general system theory established by Ludwig von Bertalanffy. The main conversation of this paper focuses on the inadequacies of current meta-level discussions of LIS and the benefits of general system theory (particularly when considering the exponential rapidity in which information travels) with LIS.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tsair-Wei Chien ◽  
Hsien-Yi Wang ◽  
Yang Shao ◽  
Willy Chou

BACKGROUND Researchers often spend a great deal of time and effort retrieving related journals for their studies and submissions. Authors often designate one article and then retrieve other articles that are related to the given one using PubMed’s service for finding cited-by or similar articles. However, to date, none present the association between cited-by and similar journals related to a given journal. Authors need one effective and efficient way to find related journals on the topic of mobile health research. OBJECTIVE This study aims (1) to show the related journals for a given journal by both cited-by and similarity criteria; (2) to present the association between cited-by and similarity journals related to a given journal; (3) to inspect the patterns of network density indices among clusters classified by social network analysis (SNA); (4) to investigate the feature of Kendall's coefficient(W) of concordance. METHODS We obtained 676 abstracts since 2013 from Medline based on the keywords of ("JMIR mHealth and uHealth"[Journal]) on June 30, 2018, and plotted the clusters of related journals on Google Maps by using MS Excel modules. The features of network density indices were examined. The Kendall coefficient (W) was used to assess the concordance of clusters across indices. RESULTS This study found that (1) the journals related to JMIR mHealth and uHealth are easily presented on dashboards; (2) a mild association(=0.14) exists between cited-by and similar journals related to JMIR mHealth and uHealth; (3) the median Impact Factor were 3.37 and 2.183 based on the representatives of top ten clusters grouped by the cited-by and similar journals, respectively; (4) all Kendall’s coefficients(i.e., 0.82, 0.89, 0.92, and 0.75) for the four sets of density centrality have a statistically significant concordance (p < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS SNA provides deep insight into the relationships of related journals to a given journal. The results of this research can provide readers with a knowledge and concept diagram to use with future submissions to a given journal in the subject category of Mobile Health Research. CLINICALTRIAL Not available


2021 ◽  
pp. 097226292098394
Author(s):  
Kannan Perumal

The work ‘Corruption Measurements: Caught Between Conceptualizing the Phenomenon and Promoting New Governance Agenda?’ is a qualitative study based on reviewing the literature available on the subject. It starts with the introduction that explains the evolution of the idea of measuring corruption, its relevance to governance and associated theoretical issues. The topic, ‘Evolution of Corruption Measurements’ gives an overview about different corruption indices. While the topic ‘Challenges to Corruption Measurements’ briefly introduces the challenges faced by corruption measurements, the topics ‘Conceptualizing Corruption’ and ‘Methodological Issues’ give insight into the contentions faced by corruption measurements from different theoretical perspectives. Also, explained in these sections are how the corruption measurements have conceptualized corruption over the period of three decades; and how do they keep evolving their methods in order to become more relevant in policy advocacy. Issues associated with data aggregation also are explained in-depth in this work. This work demonstrates that though continuous methodological evolution and empirical research have helped corruption measurements to improve their acceptance level, the gap that exist between corruption control framework and practice will remain a challenge to address in future if corruption measurements do not genuinely account the contextual realities.


2019 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 84-101 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Iliadis ◽  
Imogen Richards ◽  
Mark A Wood

‘Newsmaking criminology’, as described by Barak, is the process by which criminologists contribute to the generation of ‘newsworthy’ media content about crime and justice, often through their engagement with broadcast and other news media. While newsmaking criminological practices have been the subject of detailed practitioner testimonials and theoretical treatise, there has been scarce empirical research on newsmaking criminology, particularly in relation to countries outside of the United States and United Kingdom. To illuminate the state of play of newsmaking criminology in Australia and New Zealand, in this paper we analyse findings from 116 survey responses and nine interviews with criminologists working in universities in these two countries, which provide insight into the extent and nature of their news media engagement, and their related perceptions. Our findings indicate that most criminologists working in Australia or New Zealand have made at least one news media appearance in the past two years, and the majority of respondents view news media engagement as a professional ‘duty’. Participants also identified key political, ethical, and logistical issues relevant to their news media engagement, with several expressing a view that radio and television interviewers can influence criminologists to say things that they deem ‘newsworthy’.


1859 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 381-457 ◽  

The necessity of discussing so great a subject as the Theory of the Vertebrate Skull in the small space of time allotted by custom to a lecture, has its advantages as well as its drawbacks. As, on the present occasion, I shall suffer greatly from the disadvantages of the limitation, I will, with your permission, avail myself to the uttermost of its benefits. It will be necessary for me to assume much that I would rather demonstrate, to suppose known much that I would rather set forth and explain at length; but on the other hand, I may consider myself excused from entering largely either into the history of the subject, or into lengthy and controversial criticisms upon the views which are, or have been, held by others. The biological science of the last half-century is honourably distinguished from that of preceding epochs, by the constantly increasing prominence of the idea, that a community of plan is discernible amidst the manifold diversities of organic structure. That there is nothing really aberrant in nature; that the most widely different organisms are connected by a hidden bond; that an apparently new and isolated structure will prove, when its characters are thoroughly sifted, to be only a modification of something which existed before,—are propositions which are gradually assuming the position of articles of faith in the mind of the investigators of animated nature, and are directly, or by implication, admitted among the axioms of natural history.


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