Margaret Mead and Derek Freeman : bibliography of a controversy

<p>Derek Freeman's 1983 attack on Margaret Mead's classic Samoan ethnography, Coming of age in Samoa, aroused an unprecedented level of interest in the world of anthropology and among the educated public. That interest continues, over a decade later, with the publication of a play based on the lives of Mead and Freeman, and a major new book. The issues, of the nature of humankind and human society, are central to our understanding of humanity and the establishment of good relationships among the peoples of the world. Mead's Coming of age in Samoa is probably the best known anthropological work ever written and has had a major influence on popular perceptions of Western society and indigenous cultures. Freeman's claims, that Mead deliberately exaggerated the differences between Samoa and the West in order to advance a particular political agenda, that all human cultures are rooted in a particular biological human nature which is an inheritance from our primate ancestors, and that the study of cultures should have reference to this universal set of human proclivities and tendencies (which different cultural structures and institutions have evolved to guide and restrain) has serious implications for an anthropology which has generally abandoned attempts to explain similarities to concentrate on differences. At this theoretical level there has been much debate about Boas' commitment to physical anthropology. The critical point is surely that a commitment to cultural determinism does not preclude an interest in biological variables. It is a question of which direction of influence is studied. One of Boas' main contributions appears to have been to attempt to prove that even such apparently biological variables as head shape are determined by environmental rather than inherited factors. Unlike the early years of the 20th century, it is now the believers in cultural determinism who are insisting on dramatic differences between different societies and those proposing a greater role for biological factors who are arguing the fundamental unity of the human species.</p>

Margaret Mead and Derek Freeman : bibliography of a controversy

<p>Derek Freeman's 1983 attack on Margaret Mead's classic Samoan ethnography, Coming of age in Samoa, aroused an unprecedented level of interest in the world of anthropology and among the educated public. That interest continues, over a decade later, with the publication of a play based on the lives of Mead and Freeman, and a major new book. The issues, of the nature of humankind and human society, are central to our understanding of humanity and the establishment of good relationships among the peoples of the world. Mead's Coming of age in Samoa is probably the best known anthropological work ever written and has had a major influence on popular perceptions of Western society and indigenous cultures. Freeman's claims, that Mead deliberately exaggerated the differences between Samoa and the West in order to advance a particular political agenda, that all human cultures are rooted in a particular biological human nature which is an inheritance from our primate ancestors, and that the study of cultures should have reference to this universal set of human proclivities and tendencies (which different cultural structures and institutions have evolved to guide and restrain) has serious implications for an anthropology which has generally abandoned attempts to explain similarities to concentrate on differences. At this theoretical level there has been much debate about Boas' commitment to physical anthropology. The critical point is surely that a commitment to cultural determinism does not preclude an interest in biological variables. It is a question of which direction of influence is studied. One of Boas' main contributions appears to have been to attempt to prove that even such apparently biological variables as head shape are determined by environmental rather than inherited factors. Unlike the early years of the 20th century, it is now the believers in cultural determinism who are insisting on dramatic differences between different societies and those proposing a greater role for biological factors who are arguing the fundamental unity of the human species.</p>

Preaching to All of the Heart

There is little controversy over whether preaching should aim for the heart, but the question arises about how it should be done. This article provides an answer to this question by clarifying the biblical understanding of the heart in its fundamental unity and in its threefold complexity. Appreciating how the heart works in this way sheds light on preaching effectively to the heart. KEYWORDS: Preaching, heart, mind, desires, affections, will, word of God

THE CHALLENGES OF I-SPLITTING OR ICHSPALTUNG FOR THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF EDITH STEIN AND GERDA WALTHER

The phenomenon of I-splitting or Ichspaltung poses many challenges for phenomenology. In particular, one wonders how one and the same I can perform different acts while preserving its disinterested autonomy and identity. Moreover, as the I moves from the natural attitude to the phenomenological one, phenomenologists like Husserl defend the purity of the transcendental I to grasp the sense of what its lives. How can the I move from one attitude to the next without being affected or conditioned by the acts carried out and content seized by the I in both attitudes? For example, one wonders how trauma or intense emotional experiences may affect the transcendental or phenomenological I, if at all. Edith Stein and Gerda Walther are read here as deepening the problem of I-splitting, for they introduce a form of it that is not merely defined by the undertaking of different acts of consciousness, for example, the move from the natural to the phenomenological attitude; rather, they describe lived experiences in which the very fundamental unity of the individual, personal I is challenged or negated through intense forms of sociality and intersubjectivity achieved in community and telepathy as well as ruptures in the constitutive unity of persons through soullessness. I argue here that these phenomena seriously challenge not only the unity of I experience but also phenomenology’s claim of the capacity of a pure and absolute ego to grasp philosophically and scientifically the objective sense of its investigations.

Can We Hope for Progress in Understanding Progress?

The article discusses the question raised by A.L. Nikiforov about the meaning and significance of scientific progress. It is shown that scientific progress, in ac­cordance with the original meaning embedded in this concept, should be consid­ered in the context of the universal development of the human reason, which covers not only the cognitive assimilation of the natural world, but also the con­struction of a harmonious society, and the improvement of man as such. Based on this, it is problematic to talk about autonomous scientific progress that does not affect the spiritual sphere. It is shown that changes in the understanding of progress refer not only to scientific or social progress, but to the whole com­plex of beliefs associated with the idea of the world development. The author traces the historical transformation of the three key concepts underlying the dis­course of progress, which the researcher of the metaphysics of progress Alain de Benoist identifies as the most stable. First, the idea of linear progress, based on the mechanistic ontology and reductionism, is replaced by the concept of so­cial evolution, based on the interaction of organic systems and subsystems. Sec­ondly, the idea of the fundamental unity of humanity and a single science gives way to an irreducible multiplicity of cultures and metaphysics. Third, the idea of a controlled transformation of the world is replaced by the concept of uncer­tainty. The author traces the transformation of the idea of progress into the idea of the complication of the world. A characteristic feature of the discourse of complication is that it speaks of a distributed agent of the world process, thereby relieving man of exclusive responsibility for the course of history. The author defends the point of view that changes in the understanding of progress are an expression of increasing conceptual and ontological complexity.

Phenomenological Approaches in the Theory of Architecture in the Context of Modern Cognitive Science

The article is a fragment of the scientific research devoted to the analysis of mod­ern approaches to the understanding of architecture. It considers the problems of phenomenological approach to architecture. Applied to architectural issues, the phenomenological approach can be considered as very productive and promising, but only as it appears to be practiced by K. Norberg-Schulz and J. Pallasmaa. The article notes the fundamental unity of views, which is demonstrated by repre­sentatives of the phenomenological approach, despite the individual speci­ficity of the each representative’s position. Probably, the integrity and depth of the phe­nomenological concept (in its “primordial form”) is consonant with the comp­rehensiveness of each individual act of perception. The author also draws atten­tion to the significant circumstance, that the phenomenological approach is in fundamentally irreconcilable contradiction (conceptual and methodological) to the numerous attempts by “architectural semiotics and structuralists” to explain the whole by breaking it up into “semantic fragments”. He analyzes the corre­lation between the position of representatives of the phenomenological approach to architecture and scientific views in the sphere of modern psychology and ana­lytical philosophy. The article notes the basic similarity of the phenomeno­logical concept with M. Polanyi’s theory of “tacit knowledge”, in which those kinds of knowledge (and also practical skills) are considered and which cannot be formal­ized (partially or completely) for the purpose of transferring to others. The author also offers for consideration the introduction of concept of “pheno­menology of semi-instinctive behavior in its dynamic formation”.

Notes on the Fundamental Unity of Humankind

The argument claims the vital importance of the idea of the fundamental unity of humankind for any intercultural philosophy, and succinctly traces the trajectory of this idea – and its denials – in the Western and the African traditions of philosophical and empirical research. The conclusion considers the present-day challenges towards this idea’s implementation – timely as it is, yet apparently impotent in the face of mounting global violence.

Egress and Regress

This chapter defends Kant’s claim that all the formula for the derivation of the categorical imperative are in some sense ‘identical’. I show that although Kant rejects the claim that the ultimate object of theology (God) can be a worthy object for us, nonetheless, Kant’s movement of thought still has a theological shape. This is because Kant is concerned with what would be a worthy object for a rational being, whose dignity is such that the object of attention must not be in any sense external. This is the oldest theological problem of all, reaching back through Aquinas, and back to Aristotle and Plato, gravitating towards a version of the perennial answer, ‘thought thinking itself’. Kant claims, not entirely perspicuously, that the different formulations are ‘three ways of representing the principle of morality’, and that although they are at ‘bottom only so many formulae of the very same law’, nonetheless ‘there is a difference among them…intended to bring an idea of reason closer to intuition’. Commentators have struggled to hold together Kant’s claims, with regard to the ‘sameness’ of, and the ‘difference’ between, the formulae, interpretative approaches tend to focus exclusively on either the purported identity or difference. It is suggested that if autonomy is a variation on the ancient theological problem of ‘thought thinking itself’, then we might find a fundamental unity underlying the different formulae, such that the will’s giving to itself its own self-conception is the single reality represented under different aspects, in the various formulae.

La telepatia e la macchia. Mirror neurons e monadologie merleau-pontyane

A meditation on specularity as paradigms of a theory of experience which informs every field of philosophy and human sciences, including contemporary neurosciences. And a meditation, starting from neurosciences and mirror neurons, on the different readings of this paradigm of specularity and specularization. In particular, on that “second” reading of specularization, which suggests that the mirror is not an instrument of representation but of expression, not a device of adaquation but of creation. It is an hypothesis that Merleau-Ponty, facing the very same problems contemporary neurosciences are confonted to, reactivates in an increasingly systematic way in his later years, drawing from a tradition which we try here to reconstruct. From Merleau-Ponty to Bergson, from Bergson to Leibniz, this second reading of specularity contains a possibility which is still fruitful and which neurosciences themselves could adopt in order to reconsider in a new perspective the evidences they have considered until now from the point of view of a first reading of specularity. This second reading of specularity suggests that it is not so much necessary to explain how one subject comprehends the other, but how both subjects are comprehended within the transcendental space of what we could call an event. Empathy is not so much a syntonization among subjects, but subjects are a partial and local desyntonization of that empathic system we should place as the beginining and not at the end of the process. Consciousness does not represent the other consciousness, but they express in a simultaneous and specular diffraction the fundamental unity of an event which is every time unique and impersonal.

ARTISTIC TRADITIONS OF THE EAST AND WEST IN CONTEMPORARY KAZAKH DESIGN

Purpose of the study: The purpose of the article is to determine the degree of interaction of the eastern and western art schools in the practice of Kazakh design and to identify their role in the formation and development of design in Kazakhstan. Methodology: The study is based on a complex methodology determined by an interdisciplinary approach involving the use of the methods of historicism, systematization, stylistic analysis, and comparative analysis. The methodology was based on research concepts of T. Stepanskaya, R. Yergaliyeva, E. Balabekov, B. Amanov, A. Mukhambetova. Main Findings: Based on the studied sources, the authors can draw the following conclusions: 1) The interaction of artistic traditions of the East and West is due to the fundamental unity of the human race, ensuring the permeability of cultural boundaries; 2) The diversity of creative individuality, originality of modern approaches combined with the achievements of traditional culture are the distinguishing features of the professional values of contemporary Kazakh design. Applications of this study: Thus, the scientific and practical significance of the study consists in the fact that: - the results can be the basis for the development of lecture courses in the framework of educational programs of higher education institutions for the specialty “Design”; - the conclusions can serve as an impulse for creative development in the modern practice of transmitting national traditions in design. Novelty/Originality of this study: The originality of the research is associated with the identification of trends and prospects for the development of fashion, advertising, interior, and environmental design in the modern cultural environment of Kazakhstan, as well as the establishment of the importance of spiritual and aesthetic foundations of color scheme in the disclosure of the figurative components of design projects. The novelty of the research consists in determining the influence of the traditional color scheme of Kazakh decorative and applied arts on the shaping and color scheme in the products of modern design, many of which are the main bearers of the regional ethno-semantics.