György Márkus’s Culture, Science, Society: The Constitution of Cultural Modernity is the most sophisticated attempt among contemporary philosophies to proffer a radical critical theory of culture based upon a Marxian philosophical anthropology and an emphatically post-metaphysical re-interpretation of the paradigm of production. In this paper, I aim to evince how the content of Márkus’s published writings is related to the cultural form of his philosophical practice that he describes as ‘orientation in thought’. First, I provide an overview (...) of several key features appertaining to Márkus’s heuristic conceptual framework. Second, I clarify the theoretical and practical horizons of his project through a schematic characterization of the three categories of studies that Márkus has not included in his theory of cultural modernity. In conclusion, I raise the question of the exclusion of religion from high culture and propose some counter-arguments. (shrink)

The paper intends to study the possibility of evading the relativist dilemma: when you compare cultural forms belonging to different traditions, you either impose the result from outside, or you give up comparisons altogether as dependent on the arbiter’s parochial choices. In this paper one argues that, apart from this kind of comparison, which is called extrinsic, there is another type, called intrinsic, which is not dependent on arbiter’s choices. The essence of the intrinsic comparison is the role played (...) by the “second option” of the representatives of different traditions: it is decisive what these representatives prefer in the second place, when their first options have to be abandoned. Two old stories provide the historical paradigm of the intrinsic comparison: how Volga Khazarians are said to have converted to Judaism in the 8th century, and how the Athenian general Themistocles was voted the best general by the confederate Greek representatives. An example of contemporary intrinsic comparison between three contemporary trends – relativism, fundamentalism, rationalism – is also presented. Contrary to what Ernest Gellner believes, these trends are not incommensurable; rationalism takes precedence while being the second option of the other two trends, as soon as they want to enter a public debate. (shrink)

Bringing Ritual to Mind explores the cognitive and psychological foundations of religious ritual systems. Participants must recall their rituals well enough to ensure a sense of continuity across performances, and those rituals must motivate them to transmit and re-perform them. Most religious rituals the world over exploit either high performance frequency or extraordinary emotional stimulation to enhance their recollection. But why do some rituals exploit the first of these variables while others exploit the second? McCauley and Lawson advance the ritual (...) form hypothesis, arguing that participants' cognitive representations of ritual form explain why. Reviewing evidence from cognitive, developmental and social psychology and from cultural anthropology and the history of religions, they utilize dynamical systems tools to explain the recurrent evolutionary trajectories religions exhibit. (shrink)

Following the Gaza events of 2023/24, this study examines how Palestinians understand mass death and mass destruction, exploring how can such a humanitarian catastrophe be framed within a coherent narrative. The focus is on the concept of sacrifice, analysed through a theoretical framework that distinguishes between meaningful sacrifices and absurd, meaningless deaths that categorises the victims as homo-sacer. Hence, this study aims to investigate the language and literature of the Palestinian people that regards to the 2023/24 Gaza events, and the (...) way it re-conceptualises the mass death and destruction and its victims, between the concepts of sacrifice and homo-sacer. A sample of 120 literary and creative texts from the cultural magazine ‘Fusha for Palestinian Culture,’,Footnote1 was examined using the methodology of thematic analysis. Four primary themes emerged from the texts: the active documentation, the speed and intensity of death and destruction, the form of death, namely handling of bodies and burial rituals, and lastly the implementation of myths from various traditions, including the duality of mythologising and demythologising Gaza and its inhabitants. I conclude that these four themes were elemental in the rhetoric process of sanctification of the mass and random death and destruction. (shrink)

Philosophy and Hip-Hop: Ruminations on Postmodern Cultural Form opens up the philosophical life force that informs the construction of Hip-hop by turning the gaze of the philosopher upon those blind spots that exist within existing scholarship. Traditional Departments of Philosophy will find this book a solid companion in Contemporary Philosophy or Aesthetic Theory. Inside these pages is a project that parallels the themes of existential angst, corporate elitism, social consciousness, male privilege and masculinity. This book illustrates the abundance (...) of philosophical meaning in the textual and graphic elements of Hip-hop, and thus places Hip-hop within the philosophical canon. (shrink)

This paper brings Lotman's semiotic space to bear on Peirce's categories of the universe's processes. Particular manifestations of cultural semiotic space within the semiosphere are qualified as inconsistent and/or incomplete, depending upon the cultural context. Inconsistency and incompleteness are of the nature of vagueness and generality respectively, that are themselves qualified in terms of overdetermination and underdetermination, the first being of the nature of the category of Firstness and the second of the nature Thirdness. The role of Secondness (...) is unfolded by acts of distinguishing the possibilities of Firstness into this and that, here and there, there and then, and all the distinctions that follow. Secondness, then, with respect to cultural semiotic space, gives rise to hegemony, to dominance and subervience, superordination and subordination. Commensurate with this interpretation of Secondness, the realms of overdetermination and underdetermination are labeled homogeny and heterogeny respectively. These theoretical assumptions will then be used as a modeling device providing an interpretation for various key aspects of Latin American cultures. (shrink)

Offering an alternative mode of visual cultural analysis to the prevalent discursive model, this book proposes to situate analysis of Image within 'formal' analyses of culture experience. Specifically, the discussion draws on theories of affective aesthetics with the view of addressing the sensual form of culture (i.e. 'cultural form'). Therefore, the volume puts forward a mode of formalist analysis in visual cultural research which takes purchase on the idea of 'cultural form.' A continuum (...) of formalist attention between Image analysis (visual media, industrial design) and probing of 'cultural forms' establishes the theoretical underpinning of the book. These concepts are expounded through a case study which looks at formal experimentations and debates arising from 1960s avant-garde artistic practices in London. (shrink)

The article examines the two forms of Confucianism in postwar Taiwan: the state ideology presented in elementary and secondary textbooks, which emphasizes governmental authority; and the intellectual tradition, with a particular emphasis on meeting the challenge of modern Western values.

This paper analyses the text Vital Dispositions Come Via Mandate (Xing Zi Ming Chu, 性自命出) and argues that central to its account of the cultivation of inner virtue are the affections (qing, 情), the heart-mind (xin, 心), and the techniques of the heart-mind (xinshu, 心术; or simply ‘culture’). Qing, it is argued, are intersubjective, socio-culturally produced non-sensory data that act on the heart-mind and serve as the foundation for moral behavior. Qing is encoded in cultural forms such as Music (...) and poetry. Hence, there is an internal relationship between qing, xin, and xinshu. Correctly understanding the connection between these and how they shape the human being will help elucidate the nature of the Confucian moral program. In foregrounding qing, this paper presents Confucian moral philosophy as grounded in a hermeneutic and sympathetic understanding of the perspective of the other. (shrink)

Cassirer's conception of culture & theory of symbolism anticipated much of later cultural theory. The essays in this volume explore aspects of his thinking & demonstrate the influence that it had on later scholarship.

In an effort to clear away confusions regarding the role of cultural analysis in historical explanation, this paper proposes a new approach to the issue of cultural autonomy. The premise is that there are two forms of cultural autonomy, analytic and concrete. Analytic autonomy posits the independent structure of culture-its elements, processes, and reproduction. It is achieved through the theoretical and artificial separation of culture from other social structures, conditions, and action. Concrete autonomy establishes the interconnection of (...) culture with the rest of social life, and is achieved by fleshing out the historically specific formulation of particular cultural structures. In addition to theoretically specifying the two forms of cultural autonomy, I demonstrate analytic and concrete autonomy in practice by examining two works that incorporate culture into the analysis of the same historical event. The rewards of recognizing both analytic and concrete cultural autonomy are twofold. First, cultural reductionism can be countered by establishing that culture is structural. Second and more important, once the independent nature of a cultural form is established, its causal contribution to concrete historical situations can be assessed accurately and integrated into historical explanation. (shrink)

This paper analyses the text Vital Dispositions Come Via Mandate (Xing Zi Ming Chu, 性自命出) and argues that central to its account of the cultivation of inner virtue are the affections (qing, 情), the heart-mind (xin, 心), and the techniques of the heart-mind (xinshu, 心术; or simply ‘culture’). Qing, it is argued, are intersubjective, socio-culturally produced non-sensory data that act on the heart-mind and serve as the foundation for moral behavior. Qing is encoded in cultural forms such as Music (...) and poetry. Hence, there is an internal relationship between qing, xin, and xinshu. Correctly understanding the connection between these and how they shape the human being will help elucidate the nature of the Confucian moral program. In foregrounding qing, this paper presents Confucian moral philosophy as grounded in a hermeneutic and sympathetic understanding of the perspective of the other. (shrink)

This study aims to explain the form of a traditional house made of bamboo in Makassar culture; the components of the traditional houses made of bamboo and their respective functions; and socio-cultural dimensions of the shape and structure traditional house constructed of bamboo in Makassar culture. To discuss these problems, we used the Saussure’s Structural Linguistics approach and Levi Strauss’ Structural Anthropology. Both are elaborated into cultural semiotics. The data collection methods used were field surveys accompanied by (...) technical documentation, interviews, and records. Data were analyzed qualitatively. Results of the research indicate that the traditional house form made of bamboo in Makassar culture is generally divided into three parts, either vertically or horizontally. Vertically, the upper part is called pammakkang ‘attic’; the middle part is called kale ballak ‘house body’; and the bottom is called siring ‘underneath.’ Horizontally, the front is called paddaserang ri dallekang ‘vestibule’; the middle section is called paddaserang ri tangnga ‘living room’; the backside is called paddaserang ri boko ‘back room.’ The components of the upper, middle, and lower houses show opposition to each other. However, these components are logically related and related to one another so as to form a meaningful social and cultural construction. The shape and structure of traditional houses in Makassar culture is influenced by socioeconomic and socio-cultural factors. (shrink)

This ambitious work reclassifies and restructures the history of ideas and the philosophy of culture through a wide-ranging and novel use of the idea of the organon. It does so by radically revising standard interpretations and theories of all branches of philosophy, and by providing an intellectual and philosophical foundation for the new organon of the cultural sciences. Furthermore, the seeded idea that saw its growth in the form of this book is the unshakable conviction that the only (...) way by which a new apparatus of philosophy, an organon, could be created is by harking back to the vast sources of imagination, inspiration and mimÄ"sis. This entire study is based on the notion that metaphysics, insofar as it is concerned with the world in its entirety and with human beingâ (TM)s existence and thought, should provide the foundation for the organon of cultural sciences, based on symbolic forms. Given that the colossal amount of information and knowledge of philosophy, arts, humanities, logic, mathematics, social sciences and natural sciences cannot be comprised, analyzed and comprehended per se, it is the organonâ (TM)s objective to extract the main principles, ideas, postulates, theorems and theories of the cultural sciences, and, subsequently, to shape and restructure them as symbolic forms. Since all these principles are grounded on Becomingâ "which is not a stable or fixed entity such as Being, substance or thingâ "the symbolic forms preserve and change, elevate and further the organon of the cultural sciences, via a critical-dialectical process. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Forms of Life and Cultural EndowmentsVictor Peterson IIYou know, honey, us colored folk is branches without roots and that makes things come round in queer ways.—Zora Neale Hurston (Their Eyes Were Watching God 15)what does it mean when we speak of a form of life? When speaking of a form of life, we consider one different from others by way of its mode of expression, that (...) is, by its means of construction. This interpretation lends itself to a functional analysis of the material put to use and whose operations jointly express the concept we are after. Modes of expression can be plotted between a rhetorical and semantic axis (Gates 48). As such, "[t]he level of connotation of the visual sign, of its contextual reference and positioning in different discursive fields of meaning and association, is the point where already coded signs intersect with the deep semantic codes of a culture and take on additional more active ideological dimensions" (Hall 56). Coordinates within this domain encode signifying practices, revitalizing the traditional concept of signification as a function of what's signified with respect to a signifier. The content of a syntagm in this coordinate system, a point in this plane, indexes its function with respect to others. As such, we will conceive of the content of modes of expression functionally.A function is defined by pairing an element from a domain and another from a sub/co-domain whereby that pair is an element of that function. In this way, we can treat functions as abstract objects. If we treat a domain as what determines the availability of an expression, and a sub/co-domain as representative of its range of application, then the function of applying some proposition maps a movement from a domain of selection to one of composition, that is, its use with respect to others. The function of an expression, then, represents an operation over the possible worlds of its appropriate application (Taylor 201–02, 269, 276). This becomes more interesting when considering assertions whereby one subject is known to be the case for another, a concept that's modeled when a proposition from one is appearing in the object position of another (Fara 65–73). Resultingly, a proposal for an [End Page 26] ontology constituted by modes of interaction rather than identity stipulations to physical entities arises. It follows that if a form of life is understood by way of its mode of expression, then its content is expressed as an ensemble of the functions of its operations. Let this ensemble of functions be called an endowment.There is a pervasive debate in cultural studies that obsesses over proprietary notions as well as the ability to locate an origin. With that in mind, let us consider a coordinate system where there are two perpendicular axes, and we define positions within the space provided at the intersection of lines drawn from each. Each axis is represented by an ordered series of markers. A line drawn from each axis indicates that the coordinates indexed at their intersection is a function of these two markers. This locates an individual at a point in that domain, indexing a relation between the axes framing that space. Therefore, that coordinate-wise space, here a domain of possible expression, is not "empty" as pessimists would claim, but is filled with functional-content, albeit functions yet applied and marked by a point in that plane.Although we are currently speaking of two-dimensional space, the same follows for as many dimensions as we want. A point's location is a function of three values in three dimensions, four in four dimensions, and so on. Forms of life, then, will be comprised of four dimensions. This allows for a space-time conception, wherein joint expressions bend space-time and that space dictates those individuals' possible movements. From this, we construct a geometrical model of space-time represented as a cube composed of two-dimensional slices with these slices extending in a particular direction like cards stacked one on top of the other to model time.We want our conception of a form of life to be spatial. After all, it... (shrink)

Filling out long questionnaires can be frustrating, unpleasant, and discouraging for respondents to continue. This is why shorter forms of long instruments are preferred, especially when they have comparable reliability and validity. In present study, two short forms of the Cross-cultural Personality Assessment Inventory were developed and validated. The items of the short forms were all selected from the 28 personality scales of the CPAI-2 based on the norm sample. Based on some priori criteria, we obtained the appropriate items (...) and constructed the 56-item Chinese Personality Assessment Inventory and the 28-item CPAI. Then, we examined the factor structure of both short forms with Exploratory SEM and replicated the four-factor structure of the original CPAI-2, reflecting the four personality domains of Chinese people, namely, Social Potency, Dependability, Accommodation, and Interpersonal Relatedness. Further analyses with ESEM models demonstrate full measurement invariance across gender for both short forms. The results show that females score lower than males on Social Potency. In addition, these four factors of both short forms have adequate internal consistency, and the correlation patterns of the four factors, the big five personality traits, and several health-related variables are extremely similar across the two short forms, reflecting adequate and comparable criterion validity, convergent validity, and discriminant validity. Overall, the short versions of CPAI-2 are psychometrically acceptable and have practically implications for measuring Chinese personality and cross-cultural research. (shrink)

This article develops a sociological reading of Walter Benjamin’s ‘Arcades Project’, or Passagen-werk . Specifically, the essay seeks to make explicit Benjamin’s non-dualistic account of structure and agency in the urban milieu. I characterize this account as the ‘dialectic of urbanism’, and argue that one of the central insights of Benjamin’s Passagen-werk is that it locates an emergent and innovative cultural form - a distinctive ‘street culture’ or jointly shared way of modern urban life - within haussmannizing techniques (...) of architectural administration and spatial domination. In the modern metropolis, Benjamin sees a new kind of collective - an embedded and effervescent sociocultural group held together not by the functionalist imperatives of capitalist urban planning but by an improvisational mode of street life. Key Words: agency • culture • embeddedness • structure • urbanism. (shrink)

This target article presents a theory of human cultural learning. Cultural learning is identified with those instances of social learning in which intersubjectivity or perspective-taking plays a vital role, both in the original learning process and in the resulting cognitive product. Cultural learning manifests itself in three forms during human ontogeny: imitative learning, instructed learning, and collaborative learning – in that order. Evidence is provided that this progression arises from the developmental ordering of the underlying social-cognitive concepts (...) and processes involved. Imitative learning relies on a concept of intentional agent and involves simple perspective-taking. Instructed learning relies on a concept of mental agent and involves alternating/coordinated perspective-taking (intersubjectivity). Collaborative learning relies on a concept of reflective agent and involves integrated perspective-taking (reflective intersubjectivity). A comparison of normal children, autistic children and wild and enculturated chimpanzees provides further evidence for these correlations between social cognition and cultural learning. Cultural learning is a uniquely human form of social learning that allows for a fidelity of transmission of behaviors and information among conspecifics not possible in other forms of social learning, thereby providing the psychological basis for cultural evolution. (shrink)

In dialogue with afro-caribbean philosophy, this book seeks in Cassirer's philosophy of symbolic forms a new vocabulary for approaching central intellectual and ...

Increasingly, psychologists have shown a healthy interest in cultural variation and a skepticism about assuming that research with North American and Northern European undergraduates provides reliable insight into universal psychological processes. Unfortunately, this reappraisal has not been extended to questioning the notion of culture central to this project. Rather, there is wide acceptance that culture refers to a kind of social form that is entity-like, territorialized, marked by a high degree of shared beliefs and coalescing into patterns of (...) key values that animate a broad range of cultural performances and representations. Ironically, anthropologists and other scholars in cultural studies have overwhelmingly come to reject this view of culture. Arguably, then, the move in psychology to attend to cultural environments has paradoxically further distanced it from the fields most concerned with cultural forms. This essay reviews this state of affairs and offers a proposal how a more nuanced appreciation of cultural life can be articulated with theories and methods familiar and available to psychologists. (shrink)

The movement of cultural studies that has been a global phenomenon of great importance over the last decade was inaugurated by the University of Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies in 1963/64 led at the time by Richard Hoggart (1958) and Stuart Hall. During this period, the Centre developed a variety of critical approaches for the analysis, interpretation, and criticism of cultural artifacts. Through a set of internal debates, and responding to social struggles and movements of the (...) 1960s and the 1970s, the Birmingham group came to focus on the interplay of representations and ideologies of class, gender, race, ethnicity, and nationality in cultural texts, including media culture. They were among the first to study the effects of newspapers, radio, television, film, and other popular cultural forms on audiences. They also focused on how various audiences interpreted and used media culture in varied and different ways and contexts, analyzing the factors that made audiences respond in contrasting ways to media texts. (shrink)

The Culture-Breast and Psychoanalysis focuses on the formative influence of cultural objects in our lives, and the contribution such experiences make to our mental health and overall wellbeing. Combining approaches used in clinical, academic, and arts settings, The Culture-Breast and Psychoanalysis is an essential resource for clinical practitioners of psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, counselling, psychology and psychiatry. It will also be of interest to researchers and practitioners in the fields of psychosocial studies, sociology, social work, cultural studies, and the creative (...) and performing arts. (shrink)

Résumé: Jusqu’à présent, le développement humain a eu pour corolaire la destruction des paysages culturels. Avec le développement de la civilisation industrielle, les gens ne profitent pas seulement du bonheur qu’elle leur apporte, mais sont également confrontés à divers problèmes liés aux paysages culturels. La philosophie de l’environnement est une philosophie moderne qui considère la relation entre l’homme et la nature comme une question fondamentale, et qui met l’accent sur la protection des paysages culturels. L’analyse de la philosophie environnementale de (...) la Chine ancienne montre que les anciens penseurs se souciaient de tout ce qui se trouve au ciel et sur la terre et qu’ils exploraient en profondeur des questions telles que le développement harmonieux entre l’homme et la nature, offrant ainsi une nouvelle approche de la protection des paysages culturels chinois. Prenant l’exemple de la philosophie environnementale taoïste, cet article propose une analyse préliminaire de la définition des paysages culturels, du développement de la philosophie environnementale et de la philosophie environnementale taoïste. Partant de là, il explore le rôle de la philosophie environnementale telle que “l’unité du ciel et de l’homme” dans la construction de la civilisation écologique, apportant ainsi de nouvelles idées pour la protection des paysages culturels. (shrink)

Rothacker’s concept of humanities is based on the cohesive idea of participation (»Teilhabe«; by perception, in tradition, in community) which is not modified in his works all over the years. His texts offer dimensions of ›characteristic form‹ (»geprägte Form«: J. W. Goethe, »Urworte. Orphisch«), which bind the style of life (»Lebensstil«) of individuals and nations. The structure of Rothacker’s approach allows modifications (for example in adressing national socialistic thought) without the necessity to rearrange the concept itself. Rothacker’s interpretation (...) of ›characteristic form‹ is founded on values concerning worthy cultural developments. (shrink)

Digital data inundation has far-reaching implications for: disciplinary jurisdiction; the relationship between the academy, commerce and the state; and the very nature of the sociological imagination. Hitherto much of the discussion about these matters has tended to focus on ‘transactional’ data held within large and complex commercial and government databases. This emphasis has been quite understandable – such transactional data does indeed form a crucial part of the informational infrastructures that are now emerging. However, in recent years new sources (...) of data have become available that possess a rather different character. This is data generated in the cultural sphere, not only as a result of routine transactions with various digital media but also as a result of what some would want to view as a shift towards popular cultural forms dominated by processes of what has been termed prosumption. Our analytic focus here is on contemporary prosumption practices, digital technologies, the public life of data and the playful vitality of many of the ‘glossy topics’ that constitute contemporary popular culture. (shrink)

'The men of culture are the true apostles of equality.' Matthew Arnold's famous series of essays, which were first published in book form under the title Culture and Anarchy in 1869, debate important questions about the nature of culture and society that are as relevant now as they have ever been. Arnold seeks to find out 'what culture really is, what good it can do, what is our own special need of it' in an age of rapid social change (...) and increasing mechanization. He contrasts culture, 'the study of perfection', with anarchy, the mood of unrest and uncertainty that pervaded mid-Victorian England. How can individuals be educated, not indoctrinated, and what is the role of the state in disseminating 'sweetness and light'? This edition reproduces the original book version and enables readers to appreciate its immediate historical context as well as the reasons for its continued importance today, in the face of the challenges of multi-culturalism and post-modernism. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more. (shrink)

A model of a spatio-cultural sub-context (enfolded in a wider scope context) is presented in the form of a blue print of a Complex System with a two-stage decision engine at its core. The engine first attaches a meaning to analyzable datum, and then decides whether to keep or change it. It does not alter already stored meanings but is designed to search for data to be converted into additional stored meanings and improve the accuracy of correspondence of (...) their spatial and cultural range of relevance. Meaning is reduced to the choice of a strategy—a future continuum of events; a choice dependent on a unique Evolutionary Path, a past continuum of events specific enough to lead to the current temporarily stable state of a spatio-cultural category. It is a blue print for a program that can emulate decisions to initiate changes in the environment in which a collective of culture partners resides; changes consisting of movements from one location to another or in the layout of its current location. The model is proposed at a low cultural resolution and is applicable, after suitable modifications, to a majority of city/period pairs. However, any such model has to be city/period specific. It is illustrated with a design for analyzing changes in the Israeli city, in particular in Tel Aviv. (shrink)

I argue that much current environmental theory is unwittingly grounded in assumptions about personhood that entangle it within existing ideology. Culture theory, I suggest, offers a way out of this entanglement through its perception of our immersion within a symbolic realm which precedes consciousness. Environmental theory, by embodying, articulating and legitimating cultural forms, can avoid being assimilated by those individualistic and scientistic assumptions which undermine its potential.

I expand the metaphor of computing as philosophical laboratory by exploring philosophical insights gleaned from examining computer‐mediated communication (CMC) technologies in terms of the cultural values and communicative preferences they embed, as well as their interactions with the values and preferences that define diverse cultures in which the technologies are deployed. These empirically grounded data provide new insights for debates in philosophy of technology, notions of the self, and epistemology. This approach to utilizing data drawn from the cultural (...) encounters facilitated by CMC technologies further suggests more ambitious ways of making philosophical use of CMC venues as a laboratory for testing and refining basic claims and hypotheses. The approach also uncovers other grounds that should encourage philosophers to become interdisciplinarians – not only for the sake of perhaps developing new sorts of insights and even forms of knowledge but also in order to shape and contribute to a global ethic and a Socratic education needed to sustain cultural diversity as CMC envelops the globe. (shrink)

The aim of this literature-based study is to explore the influence of socio-cultural factors on business ethics in post-soviet countries with dissimilar cultural contexts. Specifically, this article seeks to identify and compare contextual influences on informal norms of morality in business in transitional post-soviet societies. In order to pursue this investigation, the countries of Belarus and Estonia were identified as being among the most noteworthy examples of culturally different post-soviet countries in transition. The study reveals contradictory manifestations of (...) mixtures of business norms in both Estonia and Belarus, which are conditioned by the merger of an autocratic bureaucratic soviet system with more participative and empowering forms of western management. The most persistent changes relate to moves from patriarchal and paternalistic types of relationship and low work motivation. The significance of these differences, which include nationality and religious legacies, will almost inevitably be overlooked should the countries be placed under the general umbrella of'former soviet states' when considering business ethics in these contexts. (shrink)

The article analyzes cultural crisis as a decline in human existential creativity. A review of the problematic nature of the conception of creativity shows that this concept is not strictly defined. Non-classical philosophers were among the first to theoretically ground the importance of creativity for an individual, their quality of life, the well-being of society, and the development of culture. From this philosophical perspective, it is shown that a human being has, as a natural creative faculty, an innate ability (...) to create. This existential human creativity can be defined as the self-development of one's personality, the creation of one's life and environment. The causes and consequences of a decline in creativity are analyzed in the context of Spengler's conception of cultural crisis. The conclusion is reached that creative activity and creativity can be taken to be the most profound goal of a personality and its most perfect form of existence. From this existential creativity stems an authenticity of life, a creation of spiritual values, and an improvement and development of cultural forms. The disjunction of culture and civilization reveals that the establishment of an era of civilization and mass culture marks the decline of authentic culture as regards vibrant existential creative activity. (shrink)

This article reports the findings of a cross-cultural study that explored the relationship between nationality, cultural orientation, and attitudes toward different ways in which an employee might blow the whistle. The study investigated two questions – are there any significant differences in the attitudes of university students from South Korea, Turkey and the U.K. toward various ways by which an employee blows the whistle in an organization?, and what effect, if any, does cultural orientation have on these (...) attitudes? In order to answer these questions, the study identified six dimensions of whistleblowing and four types of cultural orientation. The survey was conducted among 759 university students, who voluntarily participated; 284 South Korean, 230 Turkish, and 245 U.K. Although all three samples showed a preference for formal, anonymous and internal modes of whistleblowing, there were significant variations related to nationality and cultural orientation. The findings have some key implications for organizational practice and offer directions for future research. (shrink)

My paper will analyze Cassirer’s logic of the cultural sciences as it developed in close engagement with work on logic, psychology, biology, and linguistics in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The paper focuses on Chajim Steinthal, who sees the “expressive form” of language as a natural function of human engagement with the environment, developing independently of logic. When read in the context of his engagement with Steinthal, the biologist Uexküll, and the neuroscientist Kurt Goldstein, The Philosophy of (...) Symbolic Forms reimagines the role of logic and language in the construction of the cultural world. This provides a reading of what Cassirer means by the logic of the cultural sciences, and what he means by culture itself. My reading highlights the tension, which I argue stems from Steinthal’s earlier work, between the assertion that phenomena including linguistic expression, living beings, and consciousness develop independently of a unifying logic, and Cassirer’s assertion that we live in a common, objective human world. (shrink)

This article addresses the problem of two extreme positions in the self-understanding of human beings namely ignoring culture or its over-determination. Though Charles Taylor and Antonio Gramsci are widely known to differ from each other in many respects, we endeavor a congruent reading to evolve a comprehensive perspective. We make avail of their concepts, such as background, horizon, and common sense, to comprehend the nature of the culturally constituted self and its relevance for education. For both Taylor and Gramsci, the (...) human self is situated in a cultural framework. Though the relation between self and culture is constitutive and inevitable, culture does not entirely determine or overshadow the self. This stance gives space for upholding freedom, dignity and liberation of the human self in both of them. While preserving the essential role of culture in the formation of the human self, education must not be reduced to identity politics. Education must incorporate culture, be critical of it and pay attention to forming a critical self. (shrink)

Most works dealing with Third World development have been carried out by using Western demographic and economic concepts. Moreover, ethnologically-oriented analyses focusing on the dynamics of development have had little effect on development programs. Finally, a good number of these studies did not go beyond a well-meaning but uncritical empiricism regarding the analytical grids to be applied to new post-colonial and cultural forms. Today no one denies the impact of modernity on the social life of developing countries. Technology, science (...) and economics create social, ideological and cultural models which tend to identify these new nations with the purely Western source that invents and propagates them. (shrink)

The advent of new information technologies has created a new inter-Arab cultural space, one that is at once unconstrained by the ideological prescriptions associated with nationalism, and beyond the strict control of governments. This new space is of a diffuse decentralized character, reflecting the heterogeneity of the Arab reality that it serves, and the fragmentation of Arab culture. It does, however, also represent the emergence of a new commonality in form, allowing for an amplification of the diffusion and (...) discussion of ideas and topics, on a large-scale participation basis. The Arab reaction to the "What We're Fighting For" open letter, signed and circulated by 60 leading American intellectuals is significant both for its demonstration of the extension and flexibility of this new inter-Arab cultural sphere, and for revealing the need of Arab culture for defining its intellectual outlook in its post-nationalist, post-leftist, Islamist-dominated phase. The purpose of this presentation is to present the Arab reaction and debate generated by the American open letter, as a catalyst, as a case study illustrating the importance and potential of the new inter-Arab cultural space as both a gauge and a generator of culture. (shrink)

Conflict can profoundly affect individuals and their groups. Oftentimes, conflict involves a clash between one side seeking change and increased gains through victory and the other side defending the status quo and protecting against loss and defeat. However, theory and empirical research largely neglected these conflicts between attackers and defenders, and the strategic, social, and psychological consequences of attack and defense remain poorly understood. To fill this void, we model (1) the clashing of attack and defense as games of strategy (...) and reveal that (2) attack benefits from mismatching its target's level of defense, whereas defense benefits from matching the attacker's competitiveness. This suggests that (3) attack recruits neuroendocrine pathways underlying behavioral activation and overconfidence, whereas defense invokes neural networks for behavioral inhibition, vigilant scanning, and hostile attributions; and that (4) people invest less in attack than defense, and attack often fails. Finally, we propose that (5) in intergroup conflict, out-group attack needs institutional arrangements that motivate and coordinate collective action, whereas in-group defense benefits from endogenously emerging in-group identification. We discuss how games of attack and defense may have shaped human capacities for prosociality and aggression, and how third parties can regulate such conflicts and reduce their waste. (shrink)

The theme of consent is, without question, associated with the origins of bioethics and is one of its most significant paradigms that has remained controversial to the present, as is confirmed by the proposal for its debate during the last World Congress of Bioethics. Seen broadly as a compulsory minimum procedure in the field of biomedical ethics, even today it keeps open the issues that it has raised from the start: whether it is really necessary and whether it can be (...) proven to be effective. My goal will be to attempt to determine the most genuine and relevant meaning of consent, going back from its present dominant normative meaning and, from there, identifying or simply sketching other possible forms of its expression in the world we live in, so as to justify its pertinence and validity. This objective will involve three stages: (1) ‘Consent’ as a privileged paradigm of bioethics (the ethical-juridical sense), (2) The symbolic value of ‘consent’ (the social-cultural sense), and (3) ‘Consent’ as promotion of the human (the humanistic-personal sense) .It is concluded that the common notion of normative consent is not the only one, nor does it hold universal validity; that, from a historical-cultural perspective, new expressions of consent appear, adapted to different social contexts and to possibly be implemented in developing countries; and, finally, that consent is strictly indispensable in situations of extreme dependence, in its symbolic relational character, in as much as it promotes ethical relationships among strangers and ensures that they remain so. (shrink)