scholarly journals Alone in the world? Indeed, and liberatingly so

2021 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Barend J. Du Toit
Keyword(s):  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Belief Systems ◽  
Biological Evolution ◽  
The Other ◽  
Common Denominator ◽  
Interdisciplinary Dialogue ◽  
Religious Convictions ◽  
Human Uniqueness ◽  
Scientific Context ◽  
The One

How do we know that we can trust our viewpoints, our dogmatic principles and our religious convictions to constitute veracity, if not truth? Where can an arbiter be found for our deliberations to establish the trustworthiness of our viewpoints or belief systems, when we differ one from the other on religious matters, and in the context of religious conviction also differ in political and social endeavours? Van Huyssteen deserves commendation for his contribution to this discourse in developing the concept of a postfoundationalist epistemology in an attempt to justify theology’s integrity, and endorse theology’s public voice within our highly complex and challenging world. He suggests that the concept of human uniqueness might be the common denominator in the contributions of theology (in its specific understanding of the unique status of humans in God’s creation) and science (in its understanding of the unique stature of Homo sapiens in terms of biological evolution). However, the author, in this article, argues that given the radically diverse disciplines of science in our highly developed technological – and indeed within our current Covid-dominated context (on the one hand) and the pre-scientific context of religion (on the other hand), it becomes increasingly difficult to imagine how it can remain possible to find something like a common issue, a shared problem, a kind of mutual concern or even a shared overlapping research trajectory that might benefit precisely from this envisaged interdisciplinary dialogue. Is it possible that ‘alone in this world’ could mean something different than what Van Huyssteen suggests?Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: How do we know that we can trust our viewpoints, and our religious convictions to constitute truth? Van Huyssteen develops the concept of a postfoundationalist epistemology in an attempt to justify theology’s integrity within the discourse with science. However, the author in this article argues that it has become increasingly difficult for systematic theology to find a shared overlapping research trajectory that might benefit this interdisciplinary dialogue.

The Problem of the Typology of Rationality in Muslim Culture

2019 ◽  
Vol 62 (6) ◽  
pp. 88-99
Author(s):  
Andrey A. Lukashev
Keyword(s):  
Modern Philosophy ◽  
Theoretical Basis ◽  
Theoretical Models ◽  
The Other ◽  
Common Denominator ◽  
Islamic Culture ◽  
The Common ◽  
Per Se ◽  
The One ◽  
Muslim Culture

The typology of rationality is one of major issues of modern philosophy. In an attempt to provide a typology to Oriental materials, a researcher faces additional problems. The diversity of the Orient as such poses a major challenge. When we say “Oriental,” we mean several cultures for which we cannot find a common denominator. The concept of “Orient” involves Arabic, Indian, Chinese, Turkish and other cultures, and the only thing they share is that they are “non-Western.” Moreover, even if we focus just on Islamic culture and look into rationality in this context, we have to deal with a conglomerate of various trends, which does not let us define, with full confidence, a common theoretical basis and treat them as a unity. Nevertheless, we have to go on trying to find common directions in thought development, so as to draw conclusions about types of rationality possible in Islamic culture. A basis for such a typology of rationality in the context of the Islamic world was recently suggested in A.V. Smirnov’s logic of sense theory. However, actual empiric material cannot always fit theoretical models, and the cases that do not fit the common scheme are interesting per se. On the one hand, examination of such cases gives an opportunity to specify certain provisions of the theory and, on the other hand, to define the limits of its applicability.

To Support and Defend

2019 ◽  
pp. 152-187
Author(s):  
Juliane Hammer
Keyword(s):  
At Risk ◽  
Domestic Violence ◽  
Direct Contact ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
The Other ◽  
Community Leaders ◽  
Religious Convictions ◽  
The One ◽  
Muslim Communities

This chapter highlights Muslim service providers of many kinds and the organizations in which they work. Muslim service providers, in different ways from advocates and community leaders, not only are at the front lines of the struggle against domestic violence (DV) in Muslim communities but also most directly and persistently interact with the mainstream DV landscape/movement. Service providers are at risk themselves in more acute ways as their direct contact with victims and survivors can also become contact with perpetrators who are a threat not only to DV victims but also to anyone who supports those victims. The chapter then explores the significance of their religious convictions and identities for the work they perform and for the ways in which they relate to their clients on the one hand and to “the system” on the other. It also sketches the landscape of Muslim DV services and offers some insights into the specific challenges this work entails.

Substance and Cognition of Biological Phenomena

1970 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-71
Author(s):  
Piotr Lenartowicz
Keyword(s):  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Chemical Substance ◽  
The Other ◽  
Natural Behavior ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Biological Phenomena ◽  
The One ◽  
Living Being

Biologists are not used to the term „substance". They prefer to say „a living being", „an organism", a „specimen of species Homo sapiens'' - for instance. Chemists, on the other hand, when they say „this is a new substance" they usually mean the same Aristotle would mean - I think. The chemical meaning of the term „substance" is closest to the one I am going to discuss in this paper. To know a substance, one has to accumulate and store a multitude of different forms of evidence concerning this „natural behavior". So that concept of the „nature" of a given chemical substance is necessarily very complex and it cannot result from a single sensation, or a momentary observation

Introduction: Refocus on Tarkovsky

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Sergey Toymentsev
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
Film History ◽  
Russian Language ◽  
The Other ◽  
Film Analysis ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
Interdisciplinary Dialogue ◽  
Religious Cult ◽  
The One ◽  
Opening Up

This introduction outlines the main tendencies in Tarkovsky studies, the most salient of which are English-language auteur studies, methodologically based in film history and formalist analysis, and Russian-language hagiographic and quasi-theological monographs fostering the religious cult of the director. This chapter argues that most Tarkovsky scholars trained in Slavic studies are somewhat reluctant to enter into interdisciplinary dialogue with other film theories and philosophical approaches by relying more on the traditional (empirically oriented) methods of film analysis developed by film history and film hermeneutics. This anthology, the chapter argues, attempts to overcome the methodological narrowness of Anglophone auteur studies on Tarkovsky on the one hand and Russophone hagiographic zeal on the other by opening up the field to different theoretical approaches.

Christian Viaticum: A Study of its Cultural Background

Traditio ◽  
1953 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 1-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory Grabka
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Classical Antiquity ◽  
Spontaneous Growth ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Religious Convictions ◽  
Christian Worship ◽  
Other World ◽  
The One ◽  
Natural Expression ◽  
The Church

Two ideas, the Divine and the Other-World, seem to have dominated much of the life of the ancient Greeks and Romans and to have claimed their best energies. To a great extent the culture of classical antiquity is the natural expression of these two predominant religious convictions. When Christianity entered the Graeco-Roman world and gathered its adherents from among both the cultured class and the unlettered masses, it made no violent break with ancient culture but preserved whatever was best in it. On the one hand, the Church sought to suppress whatever militated against its own teaching in these matters; on the other, it readily embraced a number of purely folk customs and practices of virtually spontaneous growth and gave them a new orientation in conformity with Christian principles. In a word, some of the pagan usages and rites were purified and, whenever possible, adapted to Christian worship.

scholarly journals We Shall Fight: Speaker-Exclusive We as a Grammatical Metaphor

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 43
Author(s):  
Francesca Santulli
Keyword(s):  
Public Discourse ◽  
The Other ◽  
Common Denominator ◽  
First Person ◽  
Review Of The Literature ◽  
Person Plural ◽  
Plural Pronoun ◽  
First Person Plural ◽  
The One ◽  
Metaphorical Interpretation

The first person plural pronoun cannot be considered as an expression of pluralization of the first. Its semantic boundaries are defined in context, and this inherent vagueness an be pragmatically exploited for communicative purposes. Beyond the frequently investigated opposition between (addressee-) inclusive vs exclusive forms, this paper explores non-prototypical uses of the first person plural pronoun, focusing on the conflicts that arise when it is used in contexts that semantically exclude the speaker. Speaker-exclusive forms can occur in different situations, ranging from interpersonal exchanges to public discourse. The paper investigates their different semantic implications, highlighting their common traits as well as their crucial peculiarities. Both the review of the literature and the analysis of actual examples bring forth the different values and functions of various speaker-exclusive occurrences of the first person plural. A more systematic categorization of the forms can be obtained adopting a metaphorical interpretation, which on the one hand emphasises their common denominator (i.e. speaker-exclusiveness) and, on the other, sheds light on their varying communicative potential.

Divinatory failure: the religious and social role of Gisu diviners

Africa ◽  
1991 ◽  
Vol 61 (3) ◽  
pp. 299-317 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suzette Heald
Keyword(s):  
Social Relationships ◽  
Social Role ◽  
Belief Systems ◽  
The Other ◽  
Diagnostic Systems ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Social Invisibility ◽  
The One ◽  
The Individual

AbstractThe literature has tended to deal with diviners only where they have been seen to play a notable role in the transformation of social relationships. This leads us to overlook their relative social invisibility in many African societies. Yet we may gain insight into the rise of prophets and charismatic healers by looking at the other side of this story in the multitude of very humble practitioners plying their trade. This is the context in which this article explores the role of diviners among the Gisu of Uganda.The privacy of consultation, the search for distant diviners, the way they are approached only at times of crisis and as agents of private counteraction or vengeance, go some way towards explaining why it is difficult for diviners to gain recognition. Added to which are the difficulties of another order which relate to what might here be regarded as divinatory success. For divination may be seen to fail at a number of different levels: in the lack of credibility of a given practitioner, i n a lack of unanimity among those consulted and in the multiplicity of causal agents evoked.An argument put forward here is that scepticism is endemic to the system and, possibly, distinctive to it. We should ask not, as Evans-Pritchard did, how belief i s sustained despite the presence of scepticism but what it is about these beliefs which encourages scepticism. It is not useful to explore this issue in terms of the rationality question or the ‘truth’ of belief systems. If we are to draw a comparison with modern attitudes, of greater significance are the organisation and differentiation of knowledge and its relationship to power. It is suggested that diagnostic systems used by societies such as the Gisu encourage an agnostic attitude in a way i n which those of the modern West do not.In the final part of the article the social role of divination is reconsidered and some of the positive functions proposed for it are questioned. Gisu divination can be seen to have evolved into a very narrow niche whose parameters are bound, on the one hand, by the limits of belief and, on the other, by a system of interpersonal vengeance. We may say that the socially marginal attributes of diviners, exclusively concerned with the negative aspects of social relationships, represent a real social marginality. At best they are agents by which the individual may be reconciled with harshnesses imposed by his own destiny, of ancestral affliction; at worst they are agents of individual vengeance and retribution. This may be taken as more or less disqualifying them from articulating a positive, future-oriented vision on behalf of the community. Clearly it is not impossible but it is a huge jump from these humble practitioners, interpreting the present in terms of the past and trading evil with evil at an individual level, to prophets capable of formulating a positive social vision, a means forward, on behalf of a wider moral or social community.

Biological Ideas and Their Cultural Uses

1984 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
pp. 111-133 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ted Benton
Keyword(s):  
Biological Evolution ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Sciences ◽  
Political Organizations ◽  
Human Species ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
The One ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Do So

The topic of my talk is a very ancient one indeed. It bears upon the place of humankind in nature, and upon the place of nature in ourselves. I shall, however, be discussing this range of questions in terms which have not always been available to the philosophers of the past when they have asked them. When we ask these questions today we do so with hindsight of some two centuries of endeavour in the ‘human sciences’, and some one and a half centuries of attempts to situate the human species within a theory of biological evolution. And these ways of thinking about ourselves and our relation to nature have not been confined to professional intellectuals, nor have they been without practical consequences. Social movements and political organizations have fought for and sometimes achieved the power to give practical shape to their theoretical visions. On the one hand, are diverse projects aimed at changing society through a planned modification of the social environment of the individual. On the other hand, are equally diverse projects for pulling society back into conformity with the requirements of race and heredity. At first sight, the two types of project appear to be, and often are, deeply opposed, both intellectually and politically.

scholarly journals Creative derivatives the poetics of derivation and its formative assumptions

2021 ◽  
pp. 233-252
Author(s):  
Jagor Bučan
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Common Denominator ◽  
Creative Work ◽  
Work Of Art ◽  
Cognitive Insight ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Works Of Art ◽  
Aesthetic Pleasure ◽  
The One ◽  
Existing Form

The creative derivatives phrase has in itself two terms: creativity (lat. creatus - having been created) and derivation (lat. derivatio - derivation, departure). Creativity presupposes the realisation of the new, the non-existent. Derivation, on the other hand, means transition, formation or arrangement. A derivative is what is derived or comes from something else (like gasoline which is a petroleum derivative). Creative derivations would therefore be processes in which a new is derived from the existing; procedures of rearranging the existing, conversion (transitioning) from one system to another. There are two basic requirements that are necessary for the realisation of these and such actions: an adequate poetic means and a common denominator of two or more phenomena, i.e. two or more systems that are brought into contact. We define the poetic means here in Jakobson's terms as the axis of combination (syntagm) and the axis of selection (paradigm). The paper systematises the poetic possibilities of artistic modeling, which is based on the template of already existing works of art. Different versions of the approach to modern and postmodern practice of taking over the already existing form and content aspects of a work of art are briefly explained and described. When choosing examples, the author adheres to the principle of representativeness instead of compendial comprehensiveness. The outcome of the paper should be twofold. On the one hand, the aim is to get to know and understand the poetics of taking over, which is one of the preconditions for aesthetic pleasure and cognitive insight when encountering works of art of that provenance. On the other hand, the work should be useful to students in their own creative work. The poetic means exhibited in it should facilitate a creative approach to the inexhaustible source of tradition.

III.—The Place in Nature of the Tasmanian Aboriginal as deduced from a Study of his Calvarium.—Part I. His Relations to the Anthropoid Apes, Pithecanthropus, Homo primigenius, Homo fossilis, and Homo sapiens

1912 ◽  
Vol 31 ◽  
pp. 41-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard J. A. Berry ◽  
A. W. D. Robertson
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
The Other ◽  
Present Material ◽  
Australian Aboriginal ◽  
The World ◽  
The One ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

IN our communication to the Royal Society of Victoria of the 11th March, 1909 (1), describing our recent discovery of forty-two Tasmanian crania hitherto quite unknown to the world of science, we stated that “one of the earliest purposes to which it is proposed to utilise the present material is the determination of the relationship of the Tasmanian to the anthropoids and primitive man on the one hand, and to the Australian aboriginal on the other hand. Schwalbe's study of Pithecanthropus erectus (2) may serve as a basis for the former purpose, and Klaatsch's recent work (3) for the latter, though it must be remembered that innumerable authors have contributed to both subjects.” The present work is the fulfilment of the first part of this undertaking, namely, the determination of the relationship of the Tasmanian to the anthropoids and primitive man.

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