TYPOLOGICAL SYSTEMATICS IN THE SCIENCE OF CULTURE: FOUNDATIONS AND PROSPECTS

Author(s):  
Audra Kristina I. Zabulionite ◽  
◽  

The creation of a taxonomy is an important stage in the formation of culturology as a mature field of scientific knowledge. It presupposes a discussion of the question of the foundation - a taxonomic unit that specifically structures the universe of cultures and world history. Although many efforts have been made to create a type as a taxonomic unit, this problem remains unresolved. When discussing the issue of the typological taxon of culture, three of its characteristics are distinguished (integrity, qualitative certainty and the ability to express the natural order), and two reasons are identified that do not allow to solve the problem of the typology of cultures. The first is that the concept of «type» is constructed as a theoretical construct (being logically constructed, it does not express the uniqueness of civilization / culture). The second reason is found in typological strategies in the scientific program of organicism and philosophy of life (in particular, the philosophy of culture of O. Spengler). Declaring the idea of local civilizations (independent historical principles), they do not solve the problem of the structure of reality (do not introduce a discontinuous metaphysical structure). The article substantiates the idea of creating a discontinuous paradigm of culturology, and in this regard, the prospects of the results of the phenomenological tradition of philosophy. According to time analytics of M. Heidegger, the type of unique culture is understood as its fundamental hermeneutic structure of being. The typology of cultures is understood not as a methodological, but rather as an ontological problematics predominantly. In taxonomy, a typological taxon expresses the unique characteristics of a civilization (culture) and serves as a discrete unit that specifically structures the universe of cultures. Taking into account the uniqueness of the type as a taxonomic unit, the question of a single principle of typological taxonomy (or a single architectonics of cultural studies) is raised. This issue is solved by referring to E. Husserl's theory of objectivity, to the concepts of "quasi-region" ("pure objectivity" or formal ontology) and regional ontologies ("material ontologies"). “Quasi-region” in relation to regional ontologies acts as a formal logic of objectivity, but each region, being formally subordinate to the content, is not derived from “pure objectivity.” Each region creates its own eidetic ontology, therefore the prospect of creating a typological systematics presupposes the development of an eidetics of unique regions. Moreover, a single science of culture unites culturological discourses of unique civilizations and cultures

1994 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-24
Author(s):  
Muhammad Al Ghazali

Shah Wali Allah's (1703-63) ideas and profound intellectual legacycontinue to atrract scholastic interest. Despite many works on his legacy,significant facets remain unknown. As his futuristic ideas hold great promisefor modem and future Islamic thought, his works should be analyzed.We will focus on one such idea: his synthesis of reason, revelation,and empiricism. Building on evidence from an inductive survey of socialphenomena to support the claims of revelation and staying within thedoctrinal framework of revealed guidance, he constructs a universal socialcultute paradigm and says that all Qur'anic injunctions and instructionsof the Prophet are compatible with the demands of human nature.His view of the individual and human society is an integral facet ofhis philosophy of life and is one of the most original parts of his legacy.He sees life as a display of the grand divine scheme in natural order andSocial organization. Although his exposition of humanity's social developmentseems to be in the nature of a humanist and sometimes assumes theform of an empirical survey, his final conclusions confirm the fundamentalpostulates of religion. Some modem exponents of his social doctrinessuggest that his ideas are not original and say that he might havetaken them from Ibn Sin$ or Ibn Khaldiin. However, a totalist view ofhis framework of thought shows that this is an unwamted assertion ...


Author(s):  
Azamat Abdoullaev

Formalizing the world in rigorous mathematical terms is no less significant than its fundamental understanding and modeling in terms of ontological constructs. Like black and white, opposite sexes or polarity signs, ontology and mathematics stand complementary to each other, making up the unique and unequaled knowledge domain or knowledge base, which involves two parts: • Ontological (real) mathematics, which defines the real significance for the mathematical entities, so studying the real status of mathematical objects, functions, and relationships in terms of ontological categories and rules. • Mathematical (formal) ontology, which defines the mathematical structures of the real world features, so concerned with a meaningful representation of the universe in terms of mathematical language. The combination of ontology and mathematics and substantial knowledge of sciences is likely the only one true road to reality understanding, modeling and representation. Ontology on its own can’t specify the fabric, design, architecture, and the laws of the universe. Nor theoretical physics with its conceptual tools and models: general relativity, quantum physics, Lagrangians, Hamiltonians, conservation laws, symmetry groups, quantum field theory, string and M theory, twistor theory, loop quantum gravity, the big bang, the standard model, or theory of everything material. Nor mathematics alone with its abstract tools, complex number calculus, differential calculus, differential geometry, analytical continuation, higher algebras, Fourier series and hyperfunctions is the real path to reality (Penrose, 2005).


2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 152-169
Author(s):  
Martin Sahlén

Modern scientific cosmology pushes the boundaries of knowledge and the knowable. This is prompting questions on the nature of scientific knowledge, and the emergence of the new field “Philosophy of Cosmology.” One central issue is what defines a “good” model. I discuss how “good” models are conventionally chosen, and how those methods operate in data-sparse situations: enabling the implicit introduction of value judgments, which can determine inference and lead to inferential polarization, e.g., on the question of ultimate explanation. Additional dimensions for comparing models are needed. A three-legged comparison is proposed: evidence, elegance and beneficence. This explicitly considers the categories of criteria that are always at least implicitly used. A tentative path to an implementation of the proposed model comparison framework is presented. This extends the Bayesian statistical framework. Model comparison methodology is fertile ground for dialogue between the sciences and the humanities. The proposed framework might facilitate such a dialogue.


Notes ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 621
Author(s):  
Douglas Leedy ◽  
Jamie James

1999 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 328-345 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Ocker

Dilthey, in his famous essay, ‘Die Enstehung der Hermeneutik’, first published in 1900, taught us that Matthias Flacius Illyricus, the mid sixteenth-century Lutheran theologian, was the author of the first significant treatise on hermeneutics. Conceding a classic Protestant opinion once articulated by Flacius, he consigned medieval interpretation to what must have seemed a justified oblivion: he simply ignored the period between Origen and John Calvin. Calvin, Flacius, and especially Friedrich Schleiermacher were the main contributors to the rediscovery of the interpretive force of history and language, which Dilthey surely felt was best appreciated by his own philosophy of culture. Hans-Georg Gadamer later tried to show that Dilthey himself was weak on language and misinformed about history, falling prey to the movement that Gadamer opprobriously called ‘historicism’. Gadamer's own view of the development of hermeneutics—with its subjection of historical knowledge to ‘our own present horizon of understanding’, its accent on language, and its debt to Martin Heidegger—shifted the chronology of hermeneutics even closer to the present According to Gadamer, the ‘hermeneutic problem’ was specifically created by the alienation of exegesis and understanding from ‘application’, the importance of which was discovered only by Romantic philosophy and best redressed with the help of a language-obsessed philosophy of being. But as was the case for Dilthey, the crucial moment in the development of hermeneutics remained the discovery of the role of language in ‘meaning’, in the broadest sense, so that texts could only be understood in the grand context of a philosophy of life or, in Gadamerian terms, in the context of a philosophy that functioned as present interpretation.


Author(s):  
José Viegas Brás ◽  

The Epistemologies of the South awaken our reflection to knowledge and practices of the traditional African culture which have been silenced in the historical unfolding. Such is the case of Ubuntu. In this philosophy of life, we have an existence which is only an existence because there are other existences. In this culture, which has an almost endless capacity for seeking consensus and reconciliation, a shift has taken place from an excluding notion of identity “I am because you are not” to an inclusive notion “I am because we are, and because we are then I am”. In this sense, we formulate as starting question to know how the concerns contained in the Ubuntu philosophy find expression in the oral heritage of Umbundu, given that they belong to the same linguistic matrix of Bantu. As core goal of this study we highlight: to interpret how Umbundu has integrated, preserved and disseminated the principles of the Ubuntu philosophy of life. We selected as sources of this research elements of the oral heritage (folk songs, folk poetry, proverbs, lullabies, chants). The methodology used focuses on the analysis of the structuring principles of the Ubuntu philosophy: 1) to live at peace with oneself (relation with self); 2) to live at peace with the other (relation with the others); and 3) to live in harmony with nature and the cosmos (relation with the universe). The findings of our research have led us to conclude that principles can be found in the oral heritage of Umbundu that have helped perpetuate and disseminate the Ubuntu philosophy. So, the oral heritage of Umbundu has contributed to renew the spirit of solidarity and the spirit of belonging to the universe and to the human community, through the belief that everything in the universe exists in full connection.


1994 ◽  
Vol 135 (1817) ◽  
pp. 454
Author(s):  
Ivan Hewett ◽  
Jamie James

1944 ◽  
Vol 76 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 52-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bolesław Szcześniak

Western science began to penetrate to the Far East at the end of the sixteenth century, along with the Christian faith spread by Portuguese Jesuits.Astrology was important in both China and Japan. It included not only a limited knowledge of astronomy, but some philosophy and logic. The advent of astronomical knowledge as understood in Europe was the beginning of a new kind of science, which did not affect the East's traditional view of the universe; although at first information from Europe about medicine, physics, and astronomy reached the Far East along with the doctrines of Christianity, as a means of attracting converts to what the Chinese termed a new philosophy of life. An early propagator of Western civilization in China was the Jesuit Matteo Ricci (1553–1610), who taught medicine and astrology together with the principles of Catholicism. Another Jesuit, Francis Xavier, advised his superiors to send a mission consisting not only of the devout but also of the cultured.


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