Belief in the Human

2018 ◽  
pp. 250-281
Author(s):  
Ethan H. Shagan
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Social World ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Social ◽  
New Ideas ◽  
Suspension Of Disbelief

This chapter cites Samuel Taylor Coleridge's concept of the “willing suspension of disbelief” in order to describe the timeless process by which human beings believe in their own creations. As seen before, Europeans influenced by new ideas in the seventeenth century were freed to believe in spiritual objects in much the same way they believed in mundane ones, as acts of sovereign judgment. With the category so perforated, there was no intrinsic reason why belief had to remain bound to objects judged “true” in a transcendent or universal sense; it might also alight upon objects judged true in more provisional or instrumental ways. Crucially, this included the social world: ephemeral human creations, the ideas and things that humans themselves make.

Symbolic interactionism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arthur Brittan
Keyword(s):  
Symbolic Interactionism ◽  
Social World ◽  
Reciprocal Relationship ◽  
The Self ◽  
Psychological Perspective ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
Language Identity ◽  
The Social ◽  
Interactive View

Symbolic interactionism is in the main a US sociological and social psychological perspective that has focused on the reciprocal relationship between language, identity and society. Philosophically it has largely been associated with pragmatists such as James (1907), Mead (1934), Dewey (1922) and Pierce (1958), although in the European context it has affinities with hermeneutics and phenomenology. In addition, it has links with various ‘dramaturgical’ approaches to communication that emphasize the interactive processes underpinning the construction, negotiation, presentation and affirmation of the self. In brief, symbolic interactionism is premised on the supposition that human beings are ‘active’ and not ‘reactive’. Although it is not easy to spell out the central propositions of Symbolic Interactionism in a systematic way, nevertheless, most of its proponents are committed to an interactive view of self and society, that is, they take issue with those views that see the social world as a seamless unity that completely encapsulates and determines individual conduct.

The Sea and the World of the Mutasaddi: A profile of port officials from Mughal Gujarat (c. 1600–1650)

2011 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
JORGE FLORES
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Social World ◽  
Port Cities ◽  
Mughal Empire ◽  
The Social ◽  
Business Politics ◽  
The World

AbstractThis article seeks to trace the profile of the governors (mutasaddis) of the main port-cities (especially Surat and, to a lesser extent, Cambay) of the Mughal province of Gujarat in the first half of the seventeenth century. My research on the careers of individual mutasaddis – based mainly (but not exclusively) on existent Portuguese materials – allows us to better understand the social world of those occupying key positions in the ‘waterfront’ of the Mughal Empire and its dealings extensively with the European powers (Portuguese, Dutch and English). Hence, the analysis of the professional and personal trajectories of the Indian Muslim doctor Muqarrab Khan and the Persian Mir Musa Mu'izzul Mulk presented here demonstrate how far business, politics and cultural patronage were often entangled in the career of a Mughal mutasaddi of Gujarat.

The Police

2021 ◽  
pp. 466-487
Author(s):  
Simon Holdaway
Keyword(s):  
Social World ◽  
Participatory Methods ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Academic Knowledge ◽  
Ethnographic Studies ◽  
What Works ◽  
The Social ◽  
Police Policy ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
Theoretical Foundations

This chapter interrogates the contemporary dominance of a “What Works” approach in studies of the police. It examines and finds wanting the methodological and theoretical foundations of this orientation. Instead, it argues that researchers should begin with an understanding of human beings, adopting research methods resonating with their conclusion. Ethnography is based on the meanings human beings attribute to the social world; it is concerned with a systematic, detailed description and analysis of the police and policing. After this introduction, major ethnographic studies of the police are discussed, and their main findings analyzed. Studies conducted beyond Anglo-American societies are covered. Each study reveals a key feature of policing that would not have been identified if ethnographic, participatory methods had not been used. The consequences of each finding for policing and for academic knowledge are discussed briefly, and somewhat ironically, key implications for police policy are considered.

Human dignity as a structural feature of functional differentiation – a precondition for modern responsibilization

2015 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gesa Lindemann
Keyword(s):  
Structural Feature ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Functional Differentiation ◽  
Social World ◽  
Sociological Analysis ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Philosophical Discussion ◽  
New Approach ◽  
The Social ◽  
Open Question

AbstractThis article offers a new sociological understanding of human dignity as a structural feature of modern functionally differentiated society. Durkheim and Luhmann build their analyses of dignity on the notion that functional differentiation and individualization are interconnected. At the same time, both assume implicitly that only living human beings can be bearers of dignity. The philosophical discussion around dignity does not take this for granted, however. Fichte responded to Kant's analysis of dignity by treating as an open question who can be identified as a bearer of dignity and by what criterion. If it is to take this seriously, sociological analysis must combine the theory of functional differentiation with an analysis of the borders of the social world. This paper follows this insight by presenting a new approach to human dignity that provides a systematic sociological answer to the question of how the borders of the social world are connected with the structure of social differentiation. In conclusion, I explore the implications for the concept of responsibility: how can bearers of human dignity be held responsible in a functionally differentiated society?

scholarly journals Collective intentionality or documentality?

2015 ◽  
Vol 41 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 423-433 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maurizio Ferraris
Keyword(s):  
Exponential Growth ◽  
Social World ◽  
Collective Intentionality ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
The Social ◽  
Technological Developments

In this article I defend two theses. The first is that the centrality of recording in the social world is manifested through the production of documents, a phenomenon which has been present since the earliest phases of society and which has undergone an exponential growth through the technological developments of the last decades (computers, tablets, smartphones). The second is that the centrality of documents leads to a view of normativity according to which human beings are primarily passive receptors of rules manifested through documents. We are not intentional producers of values. The latter, as I shall suggest in my conclusion, should be viewed as being ‘socially dependent’ rather than ‘socially constructed’.

Ideology

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Freeden
Keyword(s):  
Political Thought ◽  
Social World ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Cultural Symbols ◽  
Political Beliefs ◽  
The Social ◽  
Scientific Facts ◽  
Political Realities ◽  
Major Division ◽  
Beliefs And Attitudes

An ideology is a set of ideas, beliefs and attitudes, consciously or unconsciously held, which reflects or shapes understandings or misconceptions of the social and political world. It serves to recommend, justify or endorse collective action aimed at preserving or changing political practices and institutions. The concept of ideology is split almost irreconcilably between two major senses. The first is pejorative, denoting particular, historically distorted (political) thought which reinforces certain relationships of domination and in respect of which ideology functions as a critical unmasking concept. The second is a non-pejorative assertion about the different families of cultural symbols and ideas human beings employ in perceiving, comprehending and evaluating social and political realities in general, often within a systemic framework. Those families perform significant mapping and integrating functions. A major division exists within this latter category. Some analysts claim that the study of ideology can be non-evaluative in establishing scientific facts about the way political beliefs reflect the social world and propel people to specific action within it. Others hold that ideology injects specific politically value-laden meanings into conceptualizations of the social world which are inevitably indeterminate, and is consequently a means of constructing rather than reflecting that world. This also applies to interpretations undertaken by the analysts of ideology themselves.

Maddalena Nerli and Cosimo Tornabuoni: A Couple's Narrative of Family History in Early Modern Florence

1992 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 312-339 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giulia Calvi
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Physical Space ◽  
Social World ◽  
Virgin Mary ◽  
Material Objects ◽  
Concrete Material ◽  
The Social ◽  
Close Relatives ◽  
Shed Light

Trying to trace seventeenth-century Florentine family memoirs, I came upon a manuscript journal entirely written by a woman. Its frontispiece bore a date, 1623, and a heading: “In the name of God, the glorious Virgin Mary and all the saints of the Heavenly Court of Paradise, this book is the journal of signora Maddalena Nerli Tornabuoni, and in it she will keep a record of all her daily accounts starting from this very day in March 1623.“As the title specified, it was mainly an account book that covered twenty years of Maddalena's widowed life up to her death in 1641. Going carefully through its pages made me begin to perceive the boundaries of a domestic world organized and governed by a middle-aged urban patrician woman. It shed light on the social world she lived in, one of children, servants, close relatives, and sharecroppers; on the concrete material objects she was surrounded by—linens, foodstuffs, furniture, clothes, devotional items; and on the physical space she occupied—city and country homes, the district of S. Maria Novella and S. Giovanni in Florence.

scholarly journals Social Powers and Mental Relations

2020 ◽  
pp. 248-276
Author(s):  
Jenny Pelletier
Keyword(s):  
Social World ◽  
Current Interest ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Shared Reality ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Real Entity ◽  
The Individual

Taking its departure from the current interest in the metaphysics of the social world, this paper argues that lordship or ownership (dominium) on Ockham’s view is a power that is really identical to a person, persons, or collectivity of persons. In this sense, it is not a real entity that adds to Ockham’s famously parsimonious ontology. Rather, lordship is a mental relation connecting certain human beings (‘lords’ or ‘owners’) with certain things (‘property’) that is instituted by the individual intellective and volitional acts performed by members of the past and present community. Lordship is real, however, to the extent that the community authorizes certain members of the community to perform certain acts with respect to certain things. On the reading defended, Ockham’s view is ontologically reductionist but receptive to the shared reality of the social world.

scholarly journals We are creative – are you?

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-2
Author(s):  
Caroline Dickson ◽  
◽  
Kate Sanders ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Care ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Care Services ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The Social ◽  
Health And Social Care ◽  
The World ◽  
New Ideas ◽  
Workplace Cultures ◽  
Do So

When thinking about this editorial, we knew we wanted to say something about creativity. Working creatively is a valuable means of accessing embodied knowledge and new insights about ourselves, our practice and our workplace cultures that can be used to inform development and transformation. However, being new to writing editorials, we first decided to have a look back through the journal’s editorial archives and seek the wisdom of previous authors. In doing so, it was interesting to see that our first Academic Editor, Professor Jan Dewing, had written an editorial about being creative back in May 2012; we encourage you to have a look. Jan began: ‘Yet again I recently heard someone saying they weren’t a creative person... ’and this is something we both experience when working with others. Is this because the word creativity is perceived to refer to the arts – for example, crafting, painting, movement and music – rather than a broader understanding, as suggested by the dictionary definition below: ‘The ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships, or the like, and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations, etc.; originality, progressiveness, or imagination ’(dictionary.com). Taking this more expansive perspective opens up the possibility for us all to perceive ourselves as inherently creative. It could be argued that this creativity has come to the fore as we have adapted to new ways of living and working during the Covid-19 pandemic. While this crisis has brought huge uncertainty and challenge right across the complex mix of health and social care services, what has been remarkable is the ability people have shown to change their ways of working, to seek solutions – and to do so at pace. We believe this reflects the creative nature of human beings/persons. Oliver (2009) argues that creativity is everywhere, as humans and the world are constantly engaged in a process of making. He contends that we should view creativity as ‘openness’, which is person-oriented (Massey and Munt, 2009). In this way, we create the possibility for participatory exploration of the social, cultural and embodied context, and for improvisation and transformation, by engaging in people’s ‘interests, curiosities and passions ’(Massey and Munt, 2009, p 305).

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