The Laughing Philosopher: The Affectionate Laughter of Agnes Heller

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 149-162
Author(s):  
Dmitri Nikulin
Keyword(s):  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
The Social ◽  
Critical Interpretation

Abstract This paper is a critical interpretation of the role of laughter in the work of Agnes Heller. Following the distinction between innate affect and culturally conditioned emotion, Heller argues that laughter is an affect that comes as the expressive reaction to the hiatus between the social and the natural. As such, laughter is ubiquitous and yet remains ultimately undefinable, because it signifies the unbridgeable gap between the two worlds that we inhabit at the same time. Laughter thus sonorously presents our human condition as expressible yet not graspable according to a single theory of laughter (superiority, relief, incongruity, and ambivalence, as defined by D. H. Monro), or any combination thereof. Paraphrasing Immanuel Kant, laughter is ultimately the instinct of reason that liberates us from the illusion that a resolution between the two conflicting constituents of our existence is ultimately possible.

Reconsidering American Power

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Postcolonial Studies ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
American Power ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
The Social ◽  
State Sponsorship ◽  
To Come

Postcolonial studies, postmodern studies, even posthuman studies emerge, and intellectuals demand that social sciences be remade to address fundamentals of the human condition, from human rights to global environmental crises. Since these fields owe so much to American state sponsorship, is it easier to reimagine the human and the modern than to properly measure the pervasive American influence? Reconsidering American Power offers trenchant studies by renowned scholars who reassess the role of the social sciences in the construction and upkeep of the Pax Americana and the influence of Pax Americana on the social sciences. With the thematic image for this enterprise as the ‘fiery hunt’ for Ahab’s whale, the contributors pursue realities behind the theories, and reconsider the real origins and motives of their fields with an eye on what will deter or repurpose the ‘fiery hunts’ to come, by offering a critical insider’s view.

Hobbes's Artifice as Social Construction

2005 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 74-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raia Prokhovnik
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Social World ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Individual Identity ◽  
The Social ◽  
Critical Issues ◽  
Constructionist Approach

AbstractThe paper argues that Leviathan can be interpreted as employing a constructionist approach in several important respects. It takes issue with commentators who think that, if for Hobbes man is not naturally social, then man must be naturally unsocial or naturally purely individual. First, Hobbes's key conceptions of the role of artifice and nature-artifice relations are identified, and uncontroversially constructionist elements outlined, most notably Hobbes's conceptualisation of the covenant. The significance of crucial distinctions in Leviathan, between the civil and the social, between science and philosophy, between mankind's nature and the human condition, is developed. A constructionist reading of the argument of Leviathan is then advanced. The interpretation focuses on the contribution of nature-artifice relations, and of Hobbes's notion of civil philosophy, in understanding the critical issues of the state of nature and individual subjectivity. This reconstruction of the meaning of the text highlights the necessarily social character of human life in Leviathan, expressed in the way that the social' gives meaning to the 'natural', as well as because for Hobbes we live in a mind-affected world of perception and ideas. Leviathan can be interpreted as, in particular, a political social construction, because both social and individual identity logically require the social order and arrangements that only a strong government can supply. The social world, in Leviathan, cannot exist prior to the generation of a political framework, in civil society, the commonwealth, and law.

The Role of Arts and Humanities in undergraduate Medical Curricula

2009 ◽  
Vol 24 (S1) ◽  
pp. 1-1
Author(s):  
E. Sukhanova
Keyword(s):  
Medical Students ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Additional Insight ◽  
Arts And Humanities ◽  
The Social ◽  
Interpretive Skills ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Specific Learning

This paper will explore possible ways of integrating humanities disciplines in medical education.In today's world, medical students have to learn to understand the social and cultural environment in which medicine is practiced. The humanities have long since have been the principal site of diversity in the academy. Now they can help medical students come to terms with diversity that is the context ot today's medicine.Studies in arts and humanities help recognize the limitations of purely biotechnical approach to patient care, in complex and paradigm-changing ways. Such studies also pave the way for understanding how social assumptions and values play out in healthcare policies. In sum, the humanities provide an additional insight into the human condition, allowing students “to consider human beings in their totality,” in the words of Jean Delay, a pioneer of psychopharmacology who also maintained a literary career throughout his life.Furthermore, humanities contribute to the development of complex interpretive skills, embracing affective aspects of intelligence as much as they embrace conventional rationalist forms of inquiry such as logic, analysis, deconstruction and critique. There is some evidence that medical students who have an additional background in the humanities are less vulnerable to burnout while studying and go on to perform better in important areas of practice. Approaches to developing specific learning outcomes and curricular guidelines will be discussed.

Social Science and Ideological Critiques of Ecclesiology

2018 ◽  
pp. 552-572
Author(s):  
Neil Ormerod
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Dietrich Bonhoeffer ◽  
Problematic Relationship ◽  
The Social ◽  
Edward Schillebeeckx ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Human Condition

Theology has long engaged philosophy as a dialogue partner, but the social sciences raise a new set of issues as both theology and the social sciences reflect concretely on the human condition. The problematic relationship between theology and the social sciences is perhaps nowhere more evident than in the area of ecclesiology. Whenever ecclesiology turns from more idealistic ahistorical forms of discourse to deal with the actual context and constitution of historical communities, the role of the social sciences in providing insights into those contexts and constitutions becomes difficult to deny. This chapter seeks to map out some of the history of the engagement with the social sciences by ecclesiologists such as Clodovis Boff, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Edward Schillebeeckx, John Milbank, and Roger Haight, and the challenges that this engagement poses. Underlying this debate are profound theological issues concerning grace and nature.

The Role of the Core Moral Values in Social Work

2018 ◽  
pp. 18-24
Author(s):  
Sorin-Tudor Maxim
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Moral Values ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Human Intervention ◽  
Traditional Values ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Human Condition

We consider it appropriate to examine, within the social work act, under the new circumstances, the importance of other than traditional values which tend to become central, that human intervention relates to. In this particular context, tolerance, understood as a respect for different, but human lifestyles, and the empathy, as a way to meet real, not “presumed” expectations, of individuals and groups, have the ability to restructure the system of values of social work able to allow a different approach in order to achieve the human condition.

scholarly journals What Philosophical Aesthetics Can Learn from Applied Anthropology

Symposion ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-53
Author(s):  
Anna Kawalec ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Applied Anthropology ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Western Tradition ◽  
General Terms ◽  
The Social

Through a detailed case study of investigations on beauty, I demonstrate that a thoughtful consideration of empirical evidence can lead to the disclosure of the fundamental assumptions entrenched in a philosophical discipline. I present a contrastive examination of two empirically oriented approaches to art and beauty, namely, the anthropology of art and the anthropology of aesthetics. To capture these two different ways of interpreting the available evidence, I draw upon a debate between Alfred Gell and Jeremy Coote on the understanding of beauty and art in the Dinka community. Following Gell, I reveal that the Western-centric predilection of Coote, who uses traditional aesthetic categories, leads to his failure to grasp the functional and causal roles of beauty in the social relations of the Dinka. In more general terms, my study reveals the inherent limitations of aesthetics as developed in the Western tradition and its Kantian legacy. Being steadily driven towards purely abstract and speculative concepts, such as ‘work of art,’ Western aesthetics has lost the ability to account for the causal role of beauty in social relations. By contrasting this approach with Gell’s anthropological approach to art, I indicate those fundamental assumptions of aesthetics as a philosophical discipline that apparently confine it to a particular cultural context, compromising its ability to account for the universal human condition. As my study illustrates, this limitation could be overcome by a thoughtful and unprejudiced examination of empirical evidence.

Social Representations and Commitment

2018 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 233-249 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Bonetto ◽  
Fabien Girandola ◽  
Grégory Lo Monaco
Keyword(s):  
Social Representations ◽  
Social Representation ◽  
Second Line ◽  
Review Of The Literature ◽  
First Line ◽  
Research Perspectives ◽  
The Social ◽  
Bibliographic Search ◽  
English Articles

Abstract. This contribution consists of a critical review of the literature about the articulation of two traditionally separated theoretical fields: social representations and commitment. Besides consulting various works and communications, a bibliographic search was carried out (between February and December, 2016) on various databases using the keywords “commitment” and “social representation,” in the singular and in the plural, in French and in English. Articles published in English or in French, that explicitly made reference to both terms, were included. The relations between commitment and social representations are approached according to two approaches or complementary lines. The first line follows the role of commitment in the representational dynamics: how can commitment transform the representations? This articulation gathers most of the work on the topic. The second line envisages the social representations as determinants of commitment procedures: how can these representations influence the effects of commitment procedures? This literature review will identify unexploited tracks, as well as research perspectives for both areas of research.

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