scholarly journals An attempt at a holistic definition of the concept of «environment» in the context of Karl Marx's philosophical anthropology

Author(s):  
P. N. Kondrashov ◽  

The article attempts a broad (philosophical) definition of the concept of «environment». The relevance of this attempt is due to the fact that in the modern ecological discourse there is a narrow understanding of the environment, which is mainly reduced to the concept of nature. This one-dimensionality leads to the fact that the analysis of environmental problems does not take into account the multilateral dialectical interrelationships between a person and the whole environment in which he exists. Based on the philosophical and anthropological ideas of Karl Marx, the author shows that in the process of carrying out his activity (praxis), a person, entering into metabolic relations with nature (which acts as the «inorganic human body», his life means and an irreparable condition for his existence), transforms this nature (natürliche Welt) and thereby creates its «second nature» — the surrounding cultural environment (Umwelt). But since praxis is always carried out together with Others, relations with them form the world of people — the social environment (Mitwelt), which, being internalized in the psyche of the individual, forms his own world — the existential environment (Eigenwelt). Thus, the environment, understood in such a broad sense, is an integral, internally interconnected system of three worlds: animate and inanimate nature (natürliche Welt), material and spiritual culture (Umwelt) and human society (Mitwelt), through relations with which and there is a man and his own inner existential world (I, Eigenwelt). As a result, the author concludes that for a full-fledged and harmonious existence of a person himself, it is necessary, within the framework of a philosophical and ecological worldview and lifestyle, to treat with thrifty care not only the natural environment, but also human society and human culture, thanks to which a person exists as a person, for all these worlds — nature, society and culture — constitute the home (οἶκος) in which man lives.

Author(s):  
Ebrahim Moosa

This chapter examines the philosophical anthropology of Muhammad Iqbal's theory of khudi (selfhood or personhood). Asserting that this is Iqbal's greatest contribution to philosophy, it shows how Iqbal rehabilitated the concept and used it as the source of inspiration for the social reconstruction of Muslim society. Stripped of its selfish egotism, and rooted in Iqbal's epistemological metaphysics of intuition, khudi now becomes a positive signifier for a renewed identity for the individual and also the impetus for a creative revolution in the world. Indeed, in Iqbal's understanding, selfhood only triumphs through love of the divine, and when selfhood is realised then it becomes equal to the resurrection of humankind.


Author(s):  
Peggy J. Miller ◽  
Grace E. Cho

Chapter 12, “Commentary: Personalization,” discusses the process of personalization, based on the portraits presented in Chapters 8–11. Personalization is not just a matter of individual variation; it is a form of active engagement through which individuals endow imaginaries with personal meanings and refract the imaginary through their own experiences. The portraits illustrate how the social imaginary of childrearing and self-esteem entered into dialogue with the complex realities of people’s lives. Parents’ ability to implement their childrearing goals was constrained and enabled by their past experiences and by socioeconomic conditions. The individual children were developing different strategies of self-evaluation, different expectations about how affirming the world would be, and different self-defining interests, and their self-making varied, depending on the situation. Some children received diagnoses of low self-esteem as early as preschool.


2021 ◽  
Vol 74 (2) ◽  
pp. 67-71
Author(s):  
Zh.K. Madalieva ◽  

The article discusses in detail the essence and meaning of ritual as a social action. The study of the nature of this phenomenon involves, first of all, the study of various approaches to the definition of the concept of "ritual" and related phenomena. Analyzing the existing definitions, the author comes to the conclusion that "ritual" is a certain set of actions that have symbolic meaning. The symbolism of the ritual is manifested in its connecting role with the world of the sacred, sacred. The article emphasizes that in the consciousness of a person in a traditional society, the sacred world is present in the real world through ritual. As an archaic form of culture, ritual was also a way of regulating and maintaining collective life. The ritual served as a means of integrating and maintaining the integrity of the human community, giving it stability. Therefore, the article focuses on the social functions of the ritual in both public and individual life.


2017 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 55-62
Author(s):  
Nicholas Overgaard

Although we accept that a scientific mosaic is a set of theories and methods accepted and employed by a scientific community, scientific community currently lacks a proper definition in scientonomy. In this paper, I will outline a basic taxonomy for the bearers of a mosaic, i.e. the social agents of scientific change. I begin by differentiating between accidental group and community through the respective absence and presence of a collective intentionality. I then identify two subtypes of community: the epistemic community that has a collective intentionality to know the world, and the non-epistemic community that does not have such a collective intentionality. I note that both epistemic and non-epistemic communities might bear mosaics, but that epistemic communities are the intended social agents of scientific change because their main collective intentionality is to know the world and, in effect, to change their mosaics. I conclude my paper by arguing we are not currently in a position to properly define scientific community per se because of the risk of confusing pseudoscientific communities with scientific communities. However, I propose that we can for now rely on the definition of epistemic community as the proper social agent of scientific change.Suggested Modifications[Sciento-2017-0012]: Accept the following taxonomy of group, accidental group, and community:Group ≡ two or more people who share any characteristic.Accidental group ≡ a group that does not have a collective intentionality.Community ≡ a group that has a collective intentionality. [Sciento-2017-0013]: Provided that the preceding modification [Sciento-2017-0012] is accepted, accept that communities can consist of other communities.[Sciento-2017-0014]: Provided that modification [Sciento-2017-0012] is accepted, accept the following definitions of epistemic community and non-epistemic community as subtypes of community:Epistemic community ≡ a community that has a collective intentionality to know the world.Non-epistemic community ≡ a community that does not have a collective intentionality to know the world.[Sciento-2017-0015]: Provideed that modification [Sciento-2017-0013] and [Sciento-2017-0014] are accepted, accept that a non-epistemic community can consist of epistemic communities.


2014 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andre Van Oudtshoorn

Jesus� imperatives in the Sermon on the Mount continue to play a significant role in Christian ethical discussions. The tension between the radical demands of Jesus and the impossibility of living this out within the everyday world has been noted by many scholars. In this article, an eschatological-ontological model, based on the social construction of reality, is developed to show that this dialectic is not necessarily an embarrassment to the church but, instead, belongs to the essence of the church as the recipient of the Spirit of Christ and as called by him to exist now in terms of the coming new age that has already been realised in Christ. The absolute demands of Jesus� imperatives, it is argued, must relativise all other interpretations of reality whilst the world, in turn, relativises Jesus� own definition of what �is� and therefore also the injunctions to his disciples on how to live within this world. This process of radical relativisation provides a critical framework for Christian living. The church must expect, and do, the impossible within this world through her faith in Christ who recreates and redefines reality. The church�s ethical task, it is further argued, is to participate with the Spirit in the construction of signs of this new reality in Christ in this world through her actions marked by faith, hope and love.


لارك ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (20) ◽  
pp. 30-40
Author(s):  
Sanaa Lazim Hassan

Sam Shepard is one of the controversial modern American playwrights who wrote about issues that are concerned with the individual in America rather than the institution In his theatre, the audience expects to see everything that concerns itself with the western culture and ignores that which is global. He is very much interested in the inner landscape of America rather than its position as the leader of the world. Thus, in his drama he preaches such ideology urging the US Administration to focus the attention on the American welfare. The research attempts an analysis on his play The States of Shock using the New Historicism approach through studying the writer’s point of view concerning the craft of war. Modern politics has been very influential on both the social as well as the literary scene. Wars, whether launched or were only loomed at, has been considered the most controversial subject about which plays, poems, and books were written. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, writers


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (4-2) ◽  
pp. 351-371
Author(s):  
Vladimir Ignatyev ◽  

The article considers the phenomenon of augmented reality as a special hybrid reality and a part of social space. The author compares the differences in approaches to the interpretation of reality in philosophy, social theory and natural science. The provisions of phenomenological sociology are used as a methodological basis for the study. The author substantiates the necessity of conjugation of ontological and epistemological perspectives of interpretation of the “multilayer” social reality. The lack of concentration of attention in most studies on distinguishing these angles leaves the category of social reality on the periphery of the construction of social ontologies. And this is not a paradox, but a desire to avoid difficulties in choosing a research position when solving a problem of a certain class each time that arises: either to build ontological models of each layer of the social, or to re-enter into polemics about the permissible limits of avoiding solipsism. The article shows one of the possible ways out of the vicious circle of polemics about the demarcation of ontology and epistemology by presenting the concepts of ‘social reality’ and ‘social actuality’ as a means of separating research angles. Their application makes it possible to establish that the environment formed by augmented reality is much more complex than it seems to the individual in his direct perception. It includes four spaces: 1) the objective world; 2) the mental world; 3) a hybrid world as a symbiosis of real and imaginary worlds; 4) symbiosis of fragments of the real world - torn apart in space and time and combined with the help of technologies in devices, which make it possible for an individual to be present while observing their combined existence and to operate with them. The author comes to the conclusion that this feature of the organization of space with the help of augmented reality implies the specificity of the changed social space in which individuals have to interact. There is a transformation of the basic ‘cell’ of society - the system of social interaction. It has been established that augmented reality technologies provide additional, qualitatively new opportunities for influencing individual pictures of the world. Augmented reality also complicates virtual reality, introducing, in addition to fictional characteristics, the content of practical actions. Augmented reality not only ‘comprehends’ the world, but is in direct practical contact with it, turning into a special side of constant reality. It was found that the interaction of augmented reality with social reality is reversible. Thanks to this process, social reality from ‘augmented’ reality is transformed into a ‘complex’ one, the qualitative determination of which can be designated as ‘hybrid social reality’. Its mode of existence is more complex than that of the human community, and is inaccessible to them as long as they retain the biological substrate of their corporeity. But no less significant consequence for social and anthropogenic transformation is the emergence in society of its new structural unit - a techno-subject, as an actor of a new species and a new agent that forms a hybrid society. It has been established that the user of augmented reality transforms the provided visual effects in his imagination into really (beyond imagination) existing things and phenomena (ontologization). A reverse movement also takes place - from illusions fixed in the imagination as objects (created by augmented reality), back to pure illusions (reverse hypostatization). The distinction between the observed and the hidden through the introduction of the concepts of social reality and social actuality makes it possible to discover a more complex structure of the social - its multi-layered nature, supplementing the ontology of social reality and, in particular, P. Donati’s relational theory of society, with ideas about such layers as actual and potential, virtual and valid. The article considers the possibility of extending the idea of the heterarchical principle of the structure of society (developed in the works of I.V. Krasavin on the basis of the model of W. McCulloch) to the further development of the augmented reality ontology. The formation of space connections using AR technology is a continuation of the embodiment of the heterarchy principle, which brings the social structure beyond the structures of a constant society.


Author(s):  
Wes Furlotte

Chapter ten, therefore, examines the opening section of Hegel’s Rechtphilosophie, “Abstract Right,” in order develop a ‘preliminary sketch’ of the concepts of right and juridical personhood. The chapter historically contextualizes Hegel in relation to the mechanical deterministic conception of the individual (Hobbes) and abstract, though free, conceptions (Rousseau, Kant, Fichte). The chapter then moves to point out Hegel’s uniqueness in this context. Synthesizing Hobbesian and Fichtean standpoints, Hegel argues that the natural dimension of the individual (impulse, drive, and whim) is crucial to the genesis of actual freedom in the social world. Reconstructing Hegel’s analysis, the chapter shows that freedom is not undermined by acting out on one’s desires, impulses etc. but is brought into the world by these very drives. Although these drives are historically and socially conditioned they are, nevertheless, immediate and therefore constitutive of the basal level of juridical personhood. Thereby the chapter argues that a new sense of nature arises within Hegel’s political philosophy. The task, then, is to pursue what nature must mean within the fields constituting the socio-political.


2019 ◽  
pp. 63-85
Author(s):  
J.P.S. Uberoi

This chapter presents a discussion of international intellectual trends in the social sciences, theoretical and empirical studies in India, the question of independence of mind or home rule in intellectual institutions. Following the swarajist project outlined earlier of viewing Europe and its systems of knowledge and practices from an independent Indian point of view, this chapter is in effect a research outline for a new structural sociology in India. We are introduced to structuralism as it exists in the world, its scope and definition and as a methodology for the social sciences. This is followed by the approach to structuralism as scientific theory, method and as philosophical world view. Finally discusses are the principles of structural analysis, structuralism in language, literature and culture, in social structure, with regard to society and the individual, religion, philosophy, politics, sociology and social-anthropology.


Author(s):  
Taina Bucher

IF … THEN provides an account of power and politics in the algorithmic media landscape that pays attention to the multiple realities of algorithms, and how these relate and coexist. The argument is made that algorithms do not merely have power and politics; they help to produce certain forms of acting and knowing in the world. In processing, classifying, sorting, and ranking data, algorithms are political in that they help to make the world appear in certain ways rather than others. Analyzing Facebook’s news feed, social media user’s everyday encounters with algorithmic systems, and the discourses and work practices of news professionals, the book makes a case for going beyond the narrow, technical definition of algorithms as step-by-step procedures for solving a problem in a finite number of steps. Drawing on a process-relational theoretical framework and empirical data from field observations and fifty-five interviews, the author demonstrates how algorithms exist in multiple ways beyond code. The analysis is concerned with the world-making capacities of algorithms, questioning how algorithmic systems shape encounters and orientations of different kinds, and how these systems are endowed with diffused personhood and relational agency. IF … THEN argues that algorithmic power and politics is neither about algorithms determining how the social world is fabricated nor about what algorithms do per se. Rather it is about how and when different aspects of algorithms and the algorithmic become available to specific actors, under what circumstance, and who or what gets to be part of how algorithms are defined.


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