scholarly journals ‘Responsible Interim’: Revising Hermeneutics and Ethics in the Era of Globalization and Religious Plurality. Philosophical and Sociological Reflections on the Modern State of Religion

Studia Humana ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 45-56
Author(s):  
Sybille C. Fritsch-Oppermann

Abstract Coming from a more comparative point of view as far as Theology of Religions and Interreligious Studies are concerned – though to a certain extent as well as a pluralist in the sense of hope for universal understanding and well-being – I want to ask how Interreligious and Intercultural Hermeneutics are a necessary tool when we try to set up minimal standards for a Global Ethics in the reality of nowadays multicultural societies. I introduce for Ethics as well as for Hermeneutics the concept of ‘Responsible Interim’ – the latter reflecting the fact that human beings do have universals only under the ‘eschatological reserve’ (in Christian terminology), as ‘Suchness in Emptiness’ (in Buddhist terminology). I will proceed from universal truth questions and more general questions of philosophy of religion towards questions of cultural i.e. religious contexts shaping ethical and religious view(s) and convictions. Can smallest common denominators be found? How does legal rule help to establish and keep them? How does society, how do individuals change by starting from a spiritual, creative and holistic and maybe even transpersonal point of view – a view of co-creation and incarnatio continua in religious, i.e. in Christian terminology again?

Philosophy ◽  
2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Sauchelli

A great number of works of art, it is commonly claimed, are aesthetically valuable. Some philosophers have even argued that providing an aesthetically pleasing experience is their only proper function. However, some of these artworks display or invite us to adopt an immoral point of view. Even worse, they even seem to make immoral situations delightful and appealing. The following questions thus arise: Does the alleged immorality of these works count as an aesthetic or artistic defect? Can an immoral movie or novel ever be a great example of its kind? In addition to these concerns related to art evaluation, the connection between various forms of art and morality has been investigated by discussing the capacity of works of art to move us emotionally. More specifically, thinkers from different traditions and ages have remarked that works of art are clearly able, first, to stir our emotions in a particularly effective way, and, second, to invite us to act following certain ideas that have been made appealing by their beauty or other aesthetic qualities. Plato was the first in the Western tradition to evaluate in a systematic way whether, as a consequence of the previous considerations, we should supervise the storytellers who are supposed to educate our youth. Other philosophers, from Aristotle to more recent advocates of the value of the humanities, have argued in favor of the positive role that truly great works of art may have in our moral education. Contemporary philosophers are also interested in the role of imagination in fictional immoral contexts (can we engage with immoral works of art and be justified in so doing?). They are also interested in the role played by art in contributing to our well-being and flourishing as human beings. The great majority of recent works on the topic, however, are focused on an assessment of the arguments in favor or against ethical criticism, with a particular emphasis on the criticism of representational works of art. Other issues at the intersection of art and morality are the concept of the obscene, the value of pornography, and censorship.


2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 282-297
Author(s):  
Maria Psoinos

Purpose Despite numerous studies on the separate health consequences of economic crises and post-migration difficulties, very little is known about the processes through which the intersection of economic crisis and post-migration adversity contribute to migrants’ health vulnerabilities. The purpose of this paper is to examine existing literature about how newly arrived and long-term migrants’ health and well-being are affected by the economic crisis in Greece. Design/methodology/approach The ongoing economic recession in Greece, combined with the recent migration crisis, provided an adequate context for investigating migrants’ health and well-being. A narrative literature review was performed on whether and how migrants’ health and well-being are affected by the economic and the migration crises in the particular case of Greece. Papers published between January 2010 and December 2017 were selected based on review of titles and abstracts, followed by a full text review. Findings The review identified a surprisingly limited number of relevant studies. Ultimately five studies were selected and their findings summarised. There was only one study attempting to unravel the specific processes through which the crisis and the post-migration problems impact cumulatively on migrants’ health and well-being and to suggest healthcare improvements. Further research on this topic is urgently needed. Originality/value This paper explores existing research looking at how migrants’ health and well-being are affected by the economic and the migration crises in Greece. The emerging dearth of research evidence on the above topic is also critically discussed from a socio-political point of view and recommendations are made related to healthcare practice and services set up for migrants’ health and care.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 390-391
Author(s):  
Corinna Loeckenhoff ◽  
Denis Gerstorf

Abstract Self-continuity, the sense that one’s personal past, present, and future selves are meaningfully connected, is unique to human beings. Self-continuity varies across individuals with higher levels conveying benefits for mental health and well-being, physical health and health-related behaviors, as well as financial planning and moral choices (for a review see Hershfield, 2019). From a developmental point of view, self-continuity emerges over the course of childhood, but less is known about its development in adulthood. Recent evidence indicates that higher chronological age is associated with higher perceived self-continuity among healthy adults. Studies further suggest that age effects are more pronounced for more distant time intervals but fairly symmetrical for past and future (for a review see Loeckenhoff & Rutt, 2017). However, prior work has predominantly relied on U.S. convenience samples raising questions about generalizability to broader population samples as well as cross-national consistency of the findings. To address these concerns, the present study examined self-continuity in the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP, 2017 Innovation Sample, n = 1659, aged 18-92, M = 62.8, SD = 18.1, 53% female). In addition to replicating the previously reported positive association between age and self-continuity (r = .17, p < .001) and testing for curvilinear effects, we report on the role of temporal direction (past vs. future), temporal distance (1, 5, and 10 years), and demographic factors (i.e., gender, education, and wealth). The present findings add to the literature on adult age differences in self-continuity. Practical implications and directions for future research are discussed.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michele Corriero

The Covid-19 Pandemic effects invites us to reflect and rethink of our model of welfare state. What type of welfare model? The content of this contribution is to suggest a different point of view on welfare, through a supportive, generative and pedagogical approach, renewed attention on inequalities from a prospective of inclusion, sustainability and care of human beings. Forced isolation induced by COVID-19 pandemic dramatically impacted individuals' well-being, isolation, pain, loneliness and shock has raised awareness of the essential values both on men and women, the importance of inclusiveness and pedagogical generativity. It can be said that this was in some ways a spiritual experience, helpful in rediscovering humanity in man, which recalled that ex malo bonum, good can come from something bad, but, as St. Augustine himself argued: bad moments can bring out the good "if you work on it", consciously. It is by working exactly on this awareness, without refusing this intense emotional experience of change, that can be found the pedagogical transformative space and the role of educational relations and of the educator in the welfare system; a new idea of ​​governance of capacities, an opportunity for the development of a welfare society for the well-being of individuals and Communities.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Vaccaro M

The Covid-19 pandemic has led to changes in the habits of human beings with repercussions on psychological well-being from an emotional and affective point of view. So far, research in the literature has focused on the critical elements of distance learning from a connection point of view and software used. It is necessary to expand the research aimed at assessing the impact that the pandemic has had on the psychological well-being of teachers who have been asked not only to change their habits but at the same time the working context and teaching tools. The research was born as an observational study through structured interview, conducted on a sample of 38 randomly selected teachers, representative of the Calabria region. Each respondent was subjected to a questionnaire which explored the perceived psychological well-being and demographic descriptors, such as age, sex, marital status, city of residence, profession, city where they work, years of work, experience, duration of the working week, and the impact that the pandemic has had on their work. To assess the quality of life at work over the last 30 days, the Hundall Self Report proQOL – Professional Quality of Life Scale Questionnaire (2009) was used, consisting of 30 questions on a Likert scale (from 1”never” to 5 “very often”), which can be traced back to 3 dimension: Compassion Fatigue, Burnout and Compassion Satisfaction. The results have shown that a sudden and radical change in one’s habitual behaviors, as well as the way and context of work, have led teachers to have a reduced perception of the quality of life in one’s work environment. The man by nature has enchored to his daily habits and asking him to change his routine behavior involves a decompensating in the perception of his quality of life as demonstrated by the study conducted.


2021 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 317-342
Author(s):  
Anna Wierzbicka

Are there any concepts that all human beings share? Three hundred years ago Leibniz was convinced that there are indeed such concepts and that they can be identified by trial and error. He called this hypothetical set the alphabet of human thoughts. Gradually, however, the idea faded from philosophical discourse and eventually it was largely forgotten. It was revived in the early 1960s by the Polish linguist Andrzej Bogusławski. A few years later it was taken up in my own work and in 1972 in my book Semantic Primitives a first hypothetical set of universal semantic primitives was actually proposed. It included 14 elements. Following my emigration to Australia more and more linguists joined the testing of the proposed set against an increasing range of languages and domains. As a result, from mid 1980s the set steadily grew. The expansion stopped in 2014, when the number stabilised at 65, and when Cliff Goddard and I reached the conclusion that this is the full set. This paper reviews the developments which have taken place over the last 50 years. It reaffirms our belief that we have identified, in full, the shared alphabet of human thoughts. It also examines the recurring claim that one of these primes, HAVE PARTS, is not universal. Further, the paper argues that there is not only a shared alphabet of human thoughts but a shared mental language, Basic Human, with a specifiable vocabulary and grammar. It points out that the stakes are high, because what is at issue is not only the psychic unity of humankind (Boas 1911) but also the possibility of a universal human community of communication (Apel 1972). The paper contends that Basic Human can provide a secure basis for a non-Anglocentric global discourse about questions that concern us all, such as global ethics, the earth and its future, and the health and well-being of all people on earth.


GeroPsych ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 61-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lia Oberhauser ◽  
Andreas B. Neubauer ◽  
Eva-Marie Kessler

Abstract. Conflict avoidance increases across the adult lifespan. This cross-sectional study looks at conflict avoidance as part of a mechanism to regulate belongingness needs ( Sheldon, 2011 ). We assumed that older adults perceive more threats to their belongingness when they contemplate their future, and that they preventively react with avoidance coping. We set up a model predicting conflict avoidance that included perceptions of future nonbelonging, termed anticipated loneliness, and other predictors including sociodemographics, indicators of subjective well-being and perceived social support (N = 331, aged 40–87). Anticipated loneliness predicted conflict avoidance above all other predictors and partially mediated the age-association of conflict avoidance. Results suggest that belongingness regulation accounts may deepen our understanding of conflict avoidance in the second half of life.


Author(s):  
R. R. Palmer

In 1792, the French Revolution became a thing in itself, an uncontrollable force that might eventually spend itself but which no one could direct or guide. The governments set up in Paris in the following years all faced the problem of holding together against forces more revolutionary than themselves. This chapter distinguishes two such forces for analytical purposes. There was a popular upheaval, an upsurge from below, sans-culottisme, which occurred only in France. Second, there was the “international” revolutionary agitation, which was not international in any strict sense, but only concurrent within the boundaries of various states as then organized. From the French point of view these were the “foreign” revolutionaries or sympathizers. The most radical of the “foreign” revolutionaries were seldom more than advanced political democrats. Repeatedly, however, from 1792 to 1799, these two forces tended to converge into one force in opposition to the French government of the moment.


Author(s):  
Alan L. Mittleman

This chapter moves into the political and economic aspects of human nature. Given scarcity and interdependence, what sense has Judaism made of the material well-being necessary for human flourishing? What are Jewish attitudes toward prosperity, market relations, labor, and leisure? What has Judaism had to say about the political dimensions of human nature? If all humans are made in the image of God, what does that original equality imply for political order, authority, and justice? In what kinds of systems can human beings best flourish? It argues that Jewish tradition shows that we act in conformity with our nature when we elevate, improve, and sanctify it. As co-creators of the world with God, we are not just the sport of our biochemistry. We are persons who can select and choose among the traits that comprise our very own natures, cultivating some and weeding out others.


2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 8
Author(s):  
Mohammad Ahashan ◽  
Dr. Sapna Tiwari

Man has always tried  to determine  and tamper the image of woman and especially her identity is manipulated and orchestrated. Whenever a woman is spoken of, it is always in the relation to man; she is presented as a wife , mother, daughter and even as a lover but never as a woman  a human being- a separate entity. Her entire life is idealized and her fundamental rights and especially her behaviour is engineered by the adherents of patriarchal society. Commenting  on the Man-woman relationship in a marital bond Simone de Beauvoir wrote in her epoch-making book entitled The Second Sex(1949): "It has been said that marriage diminishes man,  which is often true , but almost always it annihilates women". Feminist movement advocates the equal rights and equal opportunities for women. The true spirit of feminism is into look at women and men as human beings. There should not be gender bias or discrimination in familial and social life. To secure gender justice and gender equity is the key aspects of feminist movement. In India, women writers have come forward to voice their feminist approach to life and the patriarchal family set up. They believe that the very notion of gender is not only biotic and biologic episode but it has a social construction.


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