Practical Identity, Contingency and Humanity

Aim of this paper is to support the view that all human practical identities are contingent by arguing against the view that there is at least one necessary practical identity shared by all human beings, namely Humanity. The view that Humanity is a necessary practical identity is explicitly defended by Christine M. Korsgaard (Korsgaard, C. M. 1996. The Sources of Normativity, edited by O. O’Neill. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Korsgaard, C. M. 2009. Self-Constitution: Agency, Identity, and Integrity. New York: Oxford University Press) and indirectly by Marya Schechtman (Schechtman, M. 2014. Staying Alive: Personal Identity, Practical Concerns, and the Unity of a Life. New York: Oxford University Press). Korsgaard understands Humanity both in terms of pure self-legislation, and as deep sociality. In the first case, Humanity as self-legislation faces what I call ‘Existential dilemma’: either Humanity has specific content, typical of contingent practical identities, but stops being necessary for all human beings; or Humanity is emptied of its content and is conceived of as necessary self-legislation, but stops being a practical identity. In the second case, i.e., Humanity as deep sociality, Korsgaard confuses the necessary natural fact that human beings are social creatures, with contingent contexts of human socialization, which are the true sources of specifically human practical identities. I articulate this confusion in the guise of what I call ‘Nature/Nurture dilemma’, which also applies to the morally neutral account of human personhood advocated by Schechtman (Schechtman, M. 2014. Staying Alive: Personal Identity, Practical Concerns, and the Unity of a Life. Oxford University Press). In conclusion, I address the worry that without the necessary practical identity of Humanity we might not be able to extend our practical and moral concerns to distant fellow human beings by sketching an alternative path to extend such concerns.

Anthropomorphic Metaphor in the English Veterinary Terminology

Introduction. The article is devoted to the presentation of the results of the study of metaphorization and the study of metaphorical terms, widely represented in the English terminology of veterinary medicine. The purpose of the article is to represent the features of the anthropomorphic metaphorical name in the English terminology of veterinary medicine. Materials and methods of research. The study of metaphorization as a way of forming English veterinary terms was conducted by us on the basis of lexicographic data recorded in English terminological dictionaries of veterinary medicine. Results of the research. The analysis of lexicographic material allowed to identify four donor domains that served as a source of metaphorical names in the terminology of veterinary medicine: HUMAN, LIVING ORGANISM, NATURAL FACT, ARTIFACT. Conceptual analysis of metaphorical terms of veterinary medicine revealed that one of the most productive metaphors used in the creation of terminological units is anthropomorphic. In anthropomorphic metaphorization, the names are transferred from the donor domain HUMAN to the recipient domain VETERINARY. The article attempts to consider the cognitive basis of anthropomorphic metaphor as one of the mechanisms of creation of veterinary terms in English. Based on the theory of conceptual metaphor, it was found that the sources of anthropomorphic metaphor are the biological characteristics of people, the names of body parts and properties of a living organism. Semantic groups of metaphorical terms formed on the basis of cognitive transfer of tokens related to the structure of the human body, its behavior, inherent qualities, life and way of life in the field of veterinary medicine based on external or functional similarity between donor and recipient domains are considered. Сonclusions. Thus, the study allows us to conclude that the terms-metaphors occupy a certain niche in the terminology of veterinary medicine in English and ensure their effective functioning in the language of veterinarians. Conceptual analysis of metaphorical terms of veterinary medicine revealed that one of the most productive is anthropomorphic metaphor. As a result of anthropomorphic metaphorization, new terms of veterinary medicine are formed on the basis of cognitive transfer of tokens that relate to the social characteristics of a person that determine his appearance, behavior or condition, in the field of veterinary medicine on the basis of external or functional similarity between donor and recipient domains.

THE SOCIETY OF URAL MINING TECHNICIANS: ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE AND OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT

The article traces the historical conditions and the reasons for the creation of organization “The Society of Ural Mining Technicians”, which made a great contribution to the development of science and technology of the Ural region during the new socio-economic processes of the early 20th century. The article discusses the expediency of the activity of administrative structure of “The Society of Ural Mining Technicians” and its governing bodies on the territory of the Perm province over the 1901 to 1909. The authors of the article write in detail about the coordination and subordination of structural divisions: the General Meeting and the Management Board and dwell on the questions of the membership organization particularly. Changing the form of management and powers of the General meeting and the Management Board in the process of finalizing the Charter has become a natural fact of the organization development during this period. This question has not been studied deeply in historiography. In addition, the authors refer to the engineering, technical and organizational activities of the founder and the chairman of “The Society of Ural Mining Technicians” P.M. Utaykov.

TUBO DALAM PERSPEKTIF EKOLOGI BUDAYA PETANI KERAMBA JARING APUNG DI KAWASAN DANAU MANINJAU PROPINSI SUMATERA BARAT

Tulisan ini bertujuan menggambarkan bagaimana strategi petani Keramba Jaring Apung (selanjutnya disebut KJA) di Kawasan Danau Maninjau Provinsi Sumatera Barat dalam menghadapi tubo yaitu peristiwa kematian ikan secara massal di Danau Maninjau akibat keracunan. Pendekatan ekologi budaya digunakan untuk menganalisis dan menjawab permasalahan penelitian. Penelitian menggunakan metode kualitatitf dengan pengumpulan data melalui studi pustaka, wawancara, dan observasi. Hasil penelitian menggambarkan bahwa petani KJA menghadapi peristiwa tubo sebagai proses alam yang harus diterima sehingga mereka harus beradaptasi agar kehidupan ekonomi mereka dapat bertahan. Adaptasi petani KJA didasarkan pada pemahaman mereka terhadap lingkungan, tubo, teknologi yang ada, dan nilai-nilai religi yang mereka miliki. Dengan pendekatan ekologi budaya petani KJA mampu menghadapi perubahan alam dan teknologi sehingga mereka dapat tetap bertahan.This work was intended to draw the strategy of the floating net cage farmers (Keramba Jaring Apung, KJA) in the Lake Maninjau in West Sumatera to deal with the ‘tubo’, a mass death of fish as a result of poison-laced bait. To analyze and answer the research question, therefore the research employed the cultural ecology approach. The research also used the qualitative method with the data collection by literature study, interviews, and observations. The study revealed that the farmers accepted the ‘tubo’ inevitably as a natural fact. As the consequence of it, they couldn’t help but adapted in order to survive economically. The adaptation process is based on their understanding of the environment, the ‘tubo’, the existing technology, and their religious values. They were able to adapt to natural and technological changes because of the ecological and cultural approaches they applied. As a result, they were able to survive

Sociological Perspectives Across Individual Experiences, Social Structures, and Representations

This chapter is a literature review which aims to highlight the most critical aspects discussed in the surrogacy scholarship, whose interdisciplinarity represents a major value for the advancement of the sociological understanding of the phenomenon. The literature review is organized into three levels. The first is that of individual experience, which includes some of the main ethnographies that have tried to explain the motivations that push people, aspiring parents but above all the surrogates, to undertake this procreative path. At the second level, that of the social structure, there are three recurring themes: inequality—explained through the concept of stratified reproduction—which permeates the relationships between the parties and upon which the surrogacy market proliferates; the transformation of procreation into a productive process in which life is commodified and the woman reduced to her womb; the transformation of kinship from a natural fact to a cultural product, which is defined by one’s own intentions, and the parallel fragmentation of motherhood into several figures. At the third level, that of representation, there are the studies that discuss how surrogacy is told by the media, and the studies that provide a systematization of the different feminist perspectives on the subject.

Evolutionary dynamics drives role specialization in a community of players

The progression of game theory from classical to evolutionary and spatial games provided a powerful means to study cooperation, and enabled a better understanding of general cooperation-promoting mechanisms. However, current standard models assume that at any given point players must choose either cooperation or defection, meaning that regardless of the spatial structure in which they exist, they cannot differentiate between their neighbours and adjust their behaviour accordingly. This is at odds with interactions among organisms in nature who are well capable of behaving differently towards different members of their communities. We account for this natural fact by introducing a new type of player—dubbed link players—who can adjust their behaviour to each individual neighbour. This is in contrast to more common node players whose behaviour affects all neighbours in the same way. We proceed to study cooperation in pure and mixed populations, showing that cooperation peaks at moderately low densities of link players. In such conditions, players naturally specialize in different roles. Node players tend to be either cooperators or defectors, while link players form social insulation between cooperative and defecting clusters by acting both as cooperators and defectors. Such fairly complex processes emerging from a simple model reflect some of the complexities observed in experimental studies on social behaviour in microbes and pave a way for the development of richer game models.

Conclusion

This chapter summarizes P. F. Strawson's thoughts about people's natural and nonrational commitment to engage in characteristically interpersonal relationships. It expands Strawsons' views that the quality of people' wills toward others matter to them, that people put some set of demands on the quality of others' wills, and that people will react in certain ways when those demands are violated or exceeded. It also describes how people typically engage with others in a characteristically interpersonal way. The chapter explains how the exact demands and reactions, as well as details of people's ordinary interpersonal relationships are a natural fact and a product of life as it actually happens. It also illustrates the ways people sometimes characteristically suspend interpersonal relating when circumstances are extreme or when someone is incapable of engaging in it.

Guided Tour

Chapter 1 provides a guided tour of the book. It begins with an explanation of the divide between formal and informal work on epistemic rationality and that between work on belief and credence. Six Basic Assumptions are sketched to get the ball rolling. They are the view that normative fact is grounded in natural fact, that propositional attitudes are binary relations, that propositional attitudes are functional in nature, that such attitudes are subject to epistemic appraisal, that transitions between them are too, and that models of such rationality are acceptable only if they match the target phenomena (in a sense of ‘match’ to be glossed).