Finding Common Ground: Understanding Ourselves and the World Through Literature: Surviving and Thriving

2021 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 33-38
Author(s):  
Jung Kim ◽  
Deborah Augsburger
Keyword(s):  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (8) ◽  
pp. 29-36
Author(s):  
Alexis Dubon ◽  

How do you find common ground with those that believe in a vast, intricate, media conspiracy to hide the truth? In this work of philosophical short story of fiction, the narrator drives out to his parent’s house to visit them for the holidays. Much to his surprise, when his parents open the door, they are only two feet tall! He is concerned that his parents, like many in the world, have shrunk to half their size. His parents, however, are equally concerned about their son because they believe he, and others in the world, have doubled in size. The son tries to explain to his parents that they have shrunk, that is why their house, and all their belongings, seem so large. However, his parents believe he, like many others, have an altered idea of what reality is, and that they have been lied to by the media and local officials. The son continues to come year after year to visit his tiny parents, who continue to refuse that they have changed, not the world around them.


Gersonides ◽  
2010 ◽  
pp. 59-80
Author(s):  
Seymour Feldman

This chapter explains how the existence of God is philosophically provable. It adopts the terminology of Thomas Aquinas about some of the basic beliefs of monotheistic religion. In attempting to delineate the distinct domain of theology, Aquinas distinguished between the “preambles of faith” and the “articles of faith.” This chapter analyzes the underlying assumption that human reason can prove and explain some of the basic beliefs of monotheistic religion. Not only does it discuss the common ground for philosophy and faith, but it explains monotheistic religions without religiously based assumptions. It describes the ontological proof of Anselm of Canterbury and points out various arguments about the world and how they cannot be explained without positing the existence of God.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. 3086 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jenny Richards ◽  
Yinghong Wang ◽  
Scott Orr ◽  
Heather Viles

Earthen heritage is one of the oldest and universal forms of heritage but its conservation poses many challenges. Establishing international collaborations could provide an efficient, sustainable mechanism to increase knowledge exchange, aiding the development of earthen heritage conservation strategies around the world. However, perceived differences in how Eastern and Western countries value earthen heritage and develop conservation strategies can pose challenges for establishing collaborations. To understand these perceived differences and whether they hinder collaborations, this paper compares British and Chinese heritage conservation policy and practice and then reports the results from an innovative workshop examining the approaches of 13 Chinese and 13 UK based heritage experts and researchers towards earthen heritage conservation. Workshop participants undertook bilingual discussions and completed a co-created questionnaire available in English and Mandarin. Both groups identified historic value as the most important value and maintenance of authenticity and integrity, need for scientific research and site scale conservation as vital considerations for conservation strategies. This study found that to understand the potential for collaboration, individual perspectives need consideration as well as policies and practices. This innovative bilingual, discussion-based approach has potential to aid collaborations for diverse international issues from wildlife conservation to cross-boundary pollution and climate change.


2006 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahti-Veikko Pietarinen

To understand evolutionary aspects of communication is to understand the evolutionary development of the meaning relations between language and the world. Such meaning relations are established by the application of the interactive systems of semantic games. Subsumed under the evolutionary framework of repeated games, semantics in such games refers to the cases in which stable meanings survive populations of strategically interacting players. The viability of compositionality, common ground and salience in such evolutionary games is assessed. Foundationally, the discussion is rooted in Charles S. Peirce’s pragmatist philosophy.


Author(s):  
Naim Ata Atabey ◽  
Halenur Yılmaz ◽  
Merve Öztürk

The founding members of The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) consist of mostly the European countries. The organization which is regional in nature and more focused on Europe has global aims like contributing to developments of world trade and economic development of members and other countries in the process of economic development. Corporate Governance Principles published for the first time in 1999 by OECD that can be adapted by each country according to their circumstances, provide guidance to countries in order to achieve the objectives. Corporate Governance Principles mainly focus on the responsibility, fairness, transparency and accountability. Gaining their independence after the dissolution of Soviet Union, the countries established Commonwealth of Independent States. They began to build their economic structures and make their presence felt in the world economy. Some developments like establishment of capital market can be seen as the best example of that effect. For all countries including Eurasia, adapting to the new institutional arrangements for businesses has become more important to continue their existence. Moreover, such integration between the CIS and world countries will contribute positively to developments of economic and cultural relationships. In this respect, enterprises in CIS countries are expected to shape their organizational structure according to international rules and standards. In this paper, the emerging developments of CIS countries due to being member to OECD and their compliance with Corporate Governance Principles, their possible problems and Corporate Governance Principles which is seen as common ground between CIS and world countries are evaluated.


Author(s):  
Jane I. Guyer ◽  
Karin Pallaver

African peoples have managed multiple currencies, for all the classic four functions of money, for at least a thousand years: within each society’s own circuits, in regional exchange, and across the continent’s borders with the rest of the world. Given the materials of some of these currencies, and the general absence of formalized denominations until the colonial period, some early European accounts defined certain transactions as barter. The management of multiplicity is traced through four eras: a) the precolonial period, with some monies locally produced and acquired, and others imported through intercontinental trades, such as the Atlantic slave trade, and eventually under the expansion of capitalism to Africa; b) the colonial period, when precolonial monies, in some places, still circulated with official monies; c) postcolonial national monies for the new African states; and d) the most recent phase of multiplicity in use, due to migration and sales across borders as well as to the use of new technologies, such as mobile money. The management of multiplicity thereby has a long history and continues to be an inventive frontier. History and ethnography meet on common ground to address these dynamics through empirical study of money in practice, and broader scholarship has drawn on a large variety of original sources.


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