The goal of our article is to review the widespread anthropological figure, according to which we can achieve a better understanding of humans by contrasting them with animals. This originally Herderian approach was elaborated by Arnold Gehlen, who characterized humans as “deficient beings” who become complete through culture. According to Gehlen, humans, who are insufficiently equipped by instincts, indirectly stabilize their existence by creating institutions, i.e., complexes of habitual actions. On the other hand, Maurice Merleau-Ponty shows that corporeal relationship to (...) the world is already indirect because it is based on preestablished and readjusted “standards” or “norms” of interaction with the environment. Merleau-Ponty then calls these norms “institutions” and views culture as readjustment of institutions which operate already on the level of corporeal existence. The anthropological figure of confronting humans and animals thus cannot produce, as in Gehlen, a contrast between an allegedly “direct” relationship to the world in animals and a supposedly “indirect” relationship to the world in humans. The Herderian approach can be meaningfully retained only if interpreted as an invitation to confront the norms of indirect interaction with the world in animals and in people, that is, if viewed as a comparison of their respective institutions. (shrink)

It is now widely accepted that qualitative and quantitative research traditions, rather than being seen as opposed to or in competition with each other should be used, where appropriate, in some kind of combination. How this combining is to be understood ontologically, and therefore epistemologically, however, is not always clear. Rather than endlessly discussing the relationship between different approaches, this paper explores some of the assumptions of the ontologies that underpin such apparent differences, arguing that approaches which declare themselves to (...) be distinct theoretically are often surprisingly similar methodologically. It is argued that dominant ontologies and epistemologies struggle with the conceptualisation and representation of particularity, difference, process, interactions through time, multiple and de-centred forms of causation, and dynamic structure. Complexity/dynamic systems theory is then introduced and examined for its potential to offer the basis of a different kind of ontology: one which is able not only to accommodate these things, but which is itself based upon them. In conclusion, the implications of this perspective are discussed in relation to the problems that have been identified, particularly in relation to the conceptualisation of 'context'. (shrink)

It is now widely accepted that qualitative and quantitative research traditions, rather than being seen as opposed to or in competition with each other ( ; ) should be used, where appropriate, in some kind of combination (; ). How this combining is to be understood ontologically, and therefore epistemologically, however, is not always clear. Rather than endlessly discussing the relationship between different approaches, this paper explores some of the assumptions of the ontologies that underpin such apparent differences, arguing that (...) approaches which declare themselves to be distinct theoretically are often surprisingly similar methodologically. It is argued that dominant ontologies and epistemologies struggle with the conceptualisation and representation of particularity, difference, process, interactions through time, multiple and de‐centred forms of causation, and dynamic structure. Complexity/dynamic systems theory is then introduced and examined for its potential to offer the basis of a different kind of ontology: one which is able not only to accommodate these things, but which is itself based upon them. In conclusion, the implications of this perspective are discussed in relation to the problems that have been identified, particularly in relation to the conceptualisation of ‘context’. (shrink)

This article takes up, but in a different key, an argument of postmodernists that the over-rationalized conception of society tends to ignore important phenomena such as those belonging to the symbolic domain. It is suggested that the emerging programme of symbolic sociology may contribute toward a new synthetic and interdisciplinary thinking in social sciences. The concept of symbolism as a social phenomenon rather than as an autonomous linguistic or semiotic system is presented; and the argument is made that if social (...) knowledge is constitutive of society, similarly collective sentiments, temporality and collective memory are also symbolically produced. They are created from and create discursive symbolism, symbolic objects and symbolic behaviours. Finally, the article focuses on collective actions where the sociology of symbolic processes is most promising. (shrink)

Intertwined with the celebration of Athenian democratic institutions, we find in the "Oresteia" another chain of interactions, in which the elite families of Argos, Phokis, Athens, and even Mount Olympos employ the traditional aristocratic relationships of xenia and hetaireia to renegotiate their own status within-and at the pinnacle of-the civic order, and thereby guarantee the renewed prosperity of their respective communities. The capture of Troy is the result of a joint venture by the Atreidai and the Olympian "family" . Although (...) Agamemnon falls victim to his own mishandling of aristocratic privilege, his son is raised by doryxenoi in Phokis , a relationship which is mirrored by that with the Olympian "allies," Hermes and Apollo. Orestes' recovery of his father's position is thus shown to depend upon a network of "guest-friends" and "sworn-comrades," reinforced by the traditional language of oaths and reciprocal loyalty. In the Eumenides, the alliance between the Olympian and Argive royal families is re-invoked as the basis both for Athena's protection of Orestes, and finally for Zeus' concern for his daughter's Athenian dependents. In contrast to this successful "networking," and the resultant benefits that trickle down to the citizens of Argos and Athens, stand the seditious oaths and perverted "comradeship" of Aigisthos and Klytaimestra; likewise, the Erinyes are unable to draw on equivalent claims of pedigree or xenia to those enjoyed by Orestes and Apollo. Like all Greek tragedies, the "Oresteia" presents the action through constantly shifting viewpoints, those of aristocrats and commoners, leaders and led, while the propriety of this hierarchy itself is never questioned. And although the action moves from monarchical Argos to an incipiently democratic Athens, paradoxically we hear less and less about "ordinary," lower-class citizens as the trilogy progresses. Thus, at the same time that the trilogy reinforces the sense of collective survival and civic values , it also suggests that these can be maintained only through the proper interventions of their traditional leaders. Aeschylus' plays were composed during a time when the Athenian democracy was still developing, and elite leadership and patronage were still taken for granted. Attic tragedy and the City Dionysia may be seen as a site of negotiation between rival ideologies within the polis, wherein a kind of "solidarity without consensus" is achieved. Written and staged by the elite under license from the demos, the dramas play out dangerous stories of royal risk-taking, crime, glory, and suffering, in such a way as to reassure the citizen audience simultaneously of their own collective invulnerability, and of the unique value of their leading families. (shrink)

An important tradition in popular and academic environmentalist thought concentrates on cosmological issues, to do with overarching (or underlying) views about the nature of reality and the place of humanity in nature. This tradition connects the environmental crisis with anthropocentric and mechanistic cosmologies, and tries to address this crisis through cosmological critique and reconstruction – a practice I call 'cosmological intervention'. This practice presupposes a link between 'world view' and 'ethos'. I argue that an environmentalist ethos does not necessarily or (...) automatically follow from the world view elements propounded in cosmological interventions. Rather, world view symbolises ethos. Cosmologies favoured by environmentalists describe the abstract and necessary properties of the world in ways which reflect those concrete and contingent properties of the world that the ecology movement seeks to protect, extend and celebrate. (shrink)

Based on the ideas of two main representatives of the academic discourse on Ubuntu, Michael O. Eze and Mogobe B. Ramose, the paper shows how the concept of Ubuntu can contribute to transcending conventional concepts of cosmopolitanism. Referring to the concept of Ubuntu, Ramose and Eze criticize ‘Western’ concepts of cosmopolitanism because they always seem to start from binary oppositions (‘I’ and ‘other’), which must be reconciled. ‘Western’ cosmopolitanism continues to build on boundaries (nations, cultures, etc.) that constitute communities and (...) exclude the ‘other’. Here the boundary remains a place of exclusion. Therefore, it is necessary to conceptualize categories such as ‘boundary’ and the ‘Other’ in a different way. Ubuntu as a concept where the human being is essentially a relational being (one who exists in and through relationships) seems to offer an alternative in the sense of a ‘critical’ (Mignolo, 2002a) or ‘emancipatory’ cosmopolitanism. (Pieterse, 2006; Ngcoya, 2015). (shrink)

Abstract.In this essay I examine the new sciences of religion, spanning the traditional fields such as the psychology, sociology, and anthropology of religion to new fields such as the economics, neurosciences, epidemiology, and evolutionary psychology of religion. The purpose is to welcome these approaches but also delineate some of their philosophical and theological limitations. I argue for pluralistic methodologies in the scientific study of religious and spiritual phenomena. I argue that religious persons and institutions should welcome these investigations, because science (...) affects only interpretative strategies and does not present a fundamental challenge to core religious commitments. Indeed, the new sciences of religion can help religions in becoming more effective and wholesome. I am critical of confusing the scientific study of religion with scientism and trace this ideological project back to August Comte. In the end I deconstruct the metaphoric boundary that places religion on the inside as the object and science as the subject on the outside looking in. (shrink)

The present essay is a compact form of the results obtained during many decades of research into the primeval foundations of the collective fields of force, both social and of consciousness. Since everything is determined by their origins, and the collective forces arise from the mind, we had to explore the ultimate origins of mind. We have come to recognize the law of interactions as the law and necessity which determine the primeval origins of mind. It also determines the substance (...) and essence of the Universe and the modes of its existence and functioning. The present essay is a concise form of results obtained during many decades of research in the primeval foundations of collective, both social and consciousness fields. I point out that a yet unknown type of forces existed in the Golden Age, which I termed as collective force. In the Golden Age mankind lived in communities which had a full unity. The communal life developed its collective forms, of which the most significant are the development of human speech, of language, share of work and the development of the communal fests. The law determining the primeval origins of mind is the cosmic law of interactions. It defines the substance of the Universe and the ways of its existence and activity. A detailed analysis is presented on the nature of the lay of interaction here. One consequence of this fundamental principle is the general prevalence of the principle of mutuality, which plays a basic role in the understanding of the unfolding and degeneration of consciousness. The principle of mutuality determines the changes of every levels of life. The laws of the generation of consciousness in the ages of evolution toward Homo and the Golden Age are analysed. I presented some evidences indicating the factual existence of the Golden Age, as well as its destruction, which was necessarily accompanied by the overthrow of the consciousness of the Golden Age, its repression and replacement by the newly developed rational, upper or superficial mind. Starting from the consideration that our mind is a product of our history, the phenomenon of the 'double mind' is recognised, the largely antagonistic duality of human mind. It is succeeded to solve the riddle of the double mind and determining its substance. Our double mind, consisting of the ‘upper’ or rational mind and the ‘deep-mind’, is a creature of the two fundamental ages of mankind, that of the age of power domination and the Golden Age. Therefore it expresses the duality of our history. We attempted to explore the heritage of the Golden Age embedded into our world of instincts, sexuality, emotional and sensual world, and the expressions of this heritage according to the different periods of our lives. If we will succeed in enlightening the deep-mind it may make it possible to give back the long-forgotten collective fields of forces to mankind, unavailable to the surface mind at present, and would expand the all-pervasive power of the conscious mind significantly. Hopefully, our results open up new vistas for the research of the collective fields and the double nature of the human mind, and may enable us to know and complete ourselves more deeply and thoroughly. (shrink)

This work would like to be a contribution for a more thorough knowledge of the phenomenology of the Mafia in Lombardy. It is a study carried out according to an ethnographic approach, which proposes the analysis of a cultural artifact aiming at understanding the logics and structure of the Mafia organization from different social interlocutors’ representations and lived experiences.

What is the relationship between natural science, social science, and religion? The dominant paradigm in contemporary social science is scientism, the attempt to apply the methods of natural science to the study of society. However, scientism is problematic: it rests on a conception of natural science that cannot be sustained. Natural scientific understanding emerges from an instrumental and objectifying relation to the world; it is oriented toward control and manipulation of the physical world. Social‐scientific understanding, by contrast, must begin with (...) a practical and meaningful relation to the world: it is oriented toward the mediation of values and objective possibilities in the social world. Social science is therefore a form of practical reason based on objective claims. But while social‐scientific understanding starts with interpretation, its possibilities by no means end there. In particular, by developing abstract and objectified models of society as a system, social science opens existing social organization to critical reflection. Religion, by contrast, is a form of speculative reason about ultimate values, based on subjective claims of religious experience. Social science nevertheless shares with religion an orientation toward values and concern with the “good life.”. (shrink)

The ‘reflexive turn’ transcended disciplinary boundaries within the social sciences. Feminist scholars in particular have taken up its core concerns, establishing a wide-ranging literature on reflexivity in feminist theory and practice. In this paper, I contribute to this scholarship by deconstructing the ‘story’ of my own research as a white, genderqueer, masculine-presenting researcher in Ghana. This deconstruction is based on thirteen months of field research exploring LGBT activism in the capital city of Accra. Using a series of ethnographic vignettes, I (...) examine questions of queer subjectivity, embodiment and self/other dynamics in the research encounter. Specifically, I interrogate what a reflexive concern for power relations means when researchers share moments of commonality and difference with research participants, here in relation to axes of gender, sexuality, race and class. Finally, I explore the challenge of theorising resistance in light of feminist postcolonial critiques of the politics of representation. I conclude that it is only by locating these tensions and dissonances in the foreground of our inquiries that reflexivity becomes meaningful as a way of rendering knowledge production more accountable and transparent, of practising feminist solidarity, and of excavating our own queer research journeys. (shrink)

La relación entre seres humanos y otros anymales (anymals) (Kemmerer, 2006) es, por definición, asimétrica. A lo largo de la historia se han esgrimido múltiples argumentos para justificar un supuesto excepcionalismo humano (excepcionalism), desde la atribución de derechos divinos a una mayor inteligencia, legitimando así un sistema de explotación denominado dominación (domination) (Manfredo et al. 2019). Las relaciones entre especies y cómo se conciben son un tema difícil. Hay muchos modos de enfocar las relaciones entre el humano y los anymales, (...) desde la adoración religiosa (vacas en la India) a la explotación (investigación biomédica). Además en Occidente surgen formas alternativas de ver y entender estas relaciones (por ejemplo, la relación con animales domésticos). La pertenencia a una u otra especie es un factor fundamental que influye en la posición que cada animal tiene en estas jerarquías asimétricas. Sin embargo, se deben considerar otros elementos relevantes, como los vínculos entre individuos, de la misma manera que el afecto por otras personas depende en líneas generales del tipo de vínculo que tengamos con ellas (por ejemplo, la relaciones familiares o de amistad). (shrink)

The contemporary books of Cassius Dio's Roman History are known for their anecdotal quality and lack of interpretive sophistication. This paper aims to recuperate another layer of meaning for Dio's anecdotes by examining episodes in his contemporary books that feature masquerades and impersonation. It suggests that these themes owe their prominence to political conditions in Dio's lifetime, particularly the revival, after a hundred-year lapse, of usurpation and damnatio memoriae, practices that rendered personal identity problematic. The central claim is that narratives (...) in Dio's last books use masquerades and impersonation to explore paradoxes of personal identity and signification, issues made salient by abrupt changes of social status at the highest levels of imperial society. (shrink)

Sociological studies of culture have made significant progress on conceptual clarification of the concept, while remaining comparatively quiescent on questions of measurement. This study empirically examines internal conflicts (or “infighting”), a ubiquitous phenomenon in political organizing, to propose a “resinous culture framework” that holds promise for redirection. The data comprise 674 newspaper articles and more than 100 archival documents that compare internal dissent across two previously unstudied lesbian and gay Marches on Washington. Analyses reveal that activists use infighting as a (...) vehicle to engage in otherwise abstract definitional debates that provide concrete answers to questions such as who are we and what do we want. The mechanism that enables infighting to concretize these cultural concerns is its coupling with fairly mundane and routine organizational tasks. This mechanism affords one way to release the culture concept, understood here as collective self-definitions, from being “an amorphous, indescribable mist which swirls around society members,” as it was once provocatively described. (shrink)

In the United States, low-income or minority populations tend toward earlier births than the more advantaged. In disadvantaged populations, one factor that may exert pressure toward early births is “weathering,” or pervasive health uncertainty. Are subjective perceptions of health related to fertility timing? Drawing on a small sample of intensive interviews with teenage mothers-to-be, I suggest that low-income African American teenagers may expect uncertain health and short lifespans. Where family economies and caretaking systems are based on kin networks, such perceptions (...) may influence the decision to become a young mother. Heuristic typologies of ways socially situated knowledge may contribute to the reproduction of fertility timing practices contrast the experiences of poor African American interviewees, working class white interviewees, and middle-class teens who typically postpone childbearing. (shrink)

The authors find it more useful to payattention to relationships than to boundaries.By focusing attention on bounded, individualpsychological issues, the metaphor ofboundaries can distract helping professionalsfrom thinking about inequities of power. Itoversimplifies a complex issue, inviting us toignore discourses around gender, race, class,culture, and the like that support injustice,abuse, and exploitation. Making boundaries acentral metaphor for ethical practice can keepus from critically examining the effects ofdistance, withdrawal, and non-participation.The authors describe how it is possible toexamine the practical, moral, and ethicaleffects (...) of our participation in relationshipsby focusing on just relationships rather thanon boundaries. They give illustrations andclinical examples of relationally-focusedethical practices that derive from a narrativeapproach to therapy. (shrink)

The relationship of Marxist thought to the phenomena of everyday life and utopia, both separately and in terms of their intersection, is a complex and often ambiguous one. In this article, I seek to trace some of the theoretical filiations of a critical Marxist approach to their convergence (as stemming mainly from a Central European tradition), in order to tease out some of the more significant ambivalences and semantic shifts involved in its theorization. This lineage originates in the work of (...) Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, then stretches to Georg Lukács and the so-called ‘Gnostic Marxism’ of Walter Benjamin (as mediated by the important figure of Georg Simmel), and culminating most recently in the work of Agnes Heller. Such a Marxist theory is inseparable from a political project that seeks to unveil and critique what it takes to be the debased, routinized and ideological qualities of daily existence under the auspices of modern capitalist society, but also attempts to locate certain emancipatory tendencies within this selfsame terrain, an orientation that can be summed up in the phrase ‘everyday utopianism’. Although there are occasional lapses into dualistic modes of thinking in the work of these writers, the key insight they present to us is the need to overcome the pervasive dichotomy between the everyday/immanent and the utopian/transcendental, of a sort that has bedevilled the work of many other theorists and intellectual traditions. (shrink)

This article reexamines the evidence for the relationships between the Vestal virgins and their natal kin from the second century BC to the third century ad. It suggests that the bond between these priestesses and their families remained strong throughout this period and that, as a consequence, interpretations of the Vestals' position within Roman society that emphasize the severing of agnatic ties through their removal from patria potestas may be misguided. When placed in the broader social and legal context, the (...) ritual “capture” of these priestesses is shown to be a necessary feature of their priestly identity, which only marked the Vestals as extraordinary because of the unique intersection of religious and gender categories that characterized their office. Finally, the implications of these findings for the interpretation of Vestal virginity are discussed. (shrink)

This article presents a part of the results of an empirical study conducted at a Parisian hospital between 2011 and 2014. It aimed at understanding the women and couples’ motivations to terminate or not a pregnancy once a prenatal diagnosis has revealed a genetically related disease in the embryo or fetus. The article first presents the social and legal context of the study, the methodology used and the pathologies that were encountered. Then, it examines the results of the interviews conducted (...) with 5 women alone and 23 couples explaining their reasons for deciding to terminate or not the pregnancy. Finally, it explores the patients’ views about the doctor’s involvement in the decision-making process. The findings reveal the reasons they formulate when they ponder whether to terminate or not the pregnancy. It highlights the process of their deliberation, their hierarchisation of arguments and concerns. They also show how patients, though often consumed in sorrow, claim to be the legitimate decision-makers, especially women, in a social and legal context in which the rejection of eugenics is viewed as an undisputable principle. (shrink)

In her important and well-known discussion “On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion,” Mary Anne Warren regrets that “it is not possible to produce a satisfactory defense of a woman’s right to obtain an abortion without showing that the fetus is not a human being, in the morally relevant sense.” Unlike some more cautious philosophers, Warren thinks that we can definitively demonstrate that the fetus is not a person. In this paper, Warren’s argument is critically examined with a focus (...) especially on the question of the foundation and the boundaries of the moral community. The fundamental thesis of the paper is that Warren’s approach is flawed for at least four reasons: (1) that being a person is not as obviously central to having full moral rights as Warren assumes, (2) that her exclusivism regarding moral status has dubious moral consequences independent of the abortion issue, (3) that it is not clear that a fetus is not a person, even on Warren’s own criteria, and (4) her criteria for personhood are themselves suspect. (shrink)

This article looks at issues of power in the relationships between the organizers of three city-wide book reading projects on the one hand, and their communities, funders, and partners on the other. We contend that a discourse of “organizational le- gitimacy” emerges from an analysis of discussions with the organizers of the reading programs. Or- ganizational legitimacy here demonstrates that the power effects are self-regulated, as well as externally introduced, and that it has both strategic and ideological implications. Our identi (...) cation and subsequent analysis of this speci c discourse was achieved through the application of a critical discourse analysis (Van Dijk, 1993) designed to locate power and privilege in the production and reproduction of discursive language. We expand this analysis to employ a Foucauldian understanding of power in our analy- sis of the management strategies of libraries and partner organizations in book reading projects. Emerging from the discursive language highlighted in our analysis is a discourse of legitimacy re ec- tive of a broader social discourse of capitalism. This discourse highlighted participation, democratic process, and funding concerns for individ- ual participants as they tried to explain, describe, rationalize or question the “legitimacy” of their organization or initiative. This approach problematizes legitimacy as a discourse and allows for connections between the broader social discourse and the enactment of discourse at the local level. (shrink)

The ‘critique of intellectuals’ refers to a genre of normative discourse that holds intellectuals accountable for the consequences of their ideas. A curious feature of the contemporary, especially American, variant of this genre is its focus on intellectuals who were aligned with such world-historic losers as Hitler and Stalin. Why are Cold War US intellectuals not held to a similar standard of scrutiny, even though they turn out to have been aligned with the world-historic winners? In addressing this general question, (...) some self-serving tendencies of intellectual history are observed, in particular the asymmetry between the ease with which intellectuals are credited with the good consequences of their ideas and the difficulty with which they are blamed for the bad consequences. This asymmetry is particularly noted in Richard Rorty, whose pragmatism treats past ideas as a legacy intended for the (American) reader’s benefit. As a corrective, I advocate, in Paul Ricoeur’s terms, a ‘hermeneutic of suspicion’ that treats intellectual life as fraught with danger, as our adoption of ideas always amounts to passing judgement over those who have borne them in the past. (shrink)

This essay proposes to view networks as sociocultural structures. Following authors from Leopold von Wiese and Norbert Elias to Gary Alan Fine and Harrison White, networks are configurations of social relationships interwoven with meaning. Social relationships as the basic building blocks of networks are conceived of as dynamic structures of reciprocal (but not necessarily symmetric) expectations between alter and ego. Through their transactions, alter and ego construct an idiosyncratic "relationship culture" comprising symbols, narratives, and relational identities. The coupling of social (...) relationships to networks, too, is heavily laden with meaning. The symbolic construction of persons is one instance of this coupling. Another instance is the application of social categories (like race or gender), which both map and structure social networks. The conclusion offers an agenda for research on this "meaning structure of social networks.". (shrink)

Discussions in sociological theory often focus on ontological questions on the nature of social reality. Against the underlying epistemological realism, I argue for a constructivist notion of theory: Theories are webs of concepts that we use to guide empirical observations and to make sense of them. We cannot know the real features of the social world, only what our theoretical perspectives make us see. Theories therefore represent social phenomena by highlighting certain features and relating them in a logical system. In (...) this system, theoretical sentences can be considered true if they meet two conditions: They are consistent with the theory at hand and adequately map empirically observable relations between objects denoted by theoretical constructs. Truth is therefore relative to a perspective; it is not objectively determinable. Theories should be assessed not for their ontologies but for what they allow us to see and how they connect to empirical observations. (shrink)

Recent developments in social theory, and especially in movement research, have deepened our understanding of the self-instituting and self-transformative capabilities of society. However, as the case of Alain Touraine's notion of historicity shows, there is a real danger that social praxis is being reduced to the function of self-thematization and self-programming, enshrining society in a self-referential circle. Ideas of self-transcendence and the non-identity of society with itself cannot be adequately accounted for as long as full scope is not given to (...) the interpretive dimension of human articulation. Moreover, the human ability of self-reflexivity and critique and the recognition of self-transformative faculties are often and principally denied to those societies which do not fit into the framework of modernity, thus subverting claims of universality. Against this Johann Arnason has suggested a return to an anthropology of the social subject which, over and above the constituting faculties, foregrounds the hermeneutical ability of (self-)distantiation and broadens the reference of human action and interpretation, or, rather, transcends the idea of a specific referent: constitutive of the human condition is the opening towards other possibilities, the opening towards the world. What seems required is an interactional approach towards society and culture which takes difference as constitutional, for society as well as social theory, and not as something which can be relegated to a secondary level of complicating conditions. (shrink)

Ever since its formative years in the USA a century ago, the discipline of education has taken an uneasy stand on its own ‘scientific’ status, not least with regard to the basic issue of the relationships between theory and practice. When a science of education was introduced as a panacea for rational planning in the fields of schooling and teacher training, general solutions on a scientific basis were to underpin efficient steering at all levels. Presently, there are signs of similar (...) approaches to science in federal policies concerned with evidence‐based educational practice in the USA. At the same time a new conception of educational science has been launched in Sweden as a means to promote more fruitful research. With the background of some striking similarities as well as differences among dominant conceptions of educational science in these varying contexts, this article aims to reconsider some basic aspects of the persistent issue of the relationships between pedagogic theory and practice. (shrink)

Ever since its formative years in the USA a century ago, the discipline of education has taken an uneasy stand on its own ‘scientific’ status, not least with regard to the basic issue of the relationships between theory and practice. When a science of education was introduced as a panacea for rational planning in the fields of schooling and teacher training, general solutions on a scientific basis were to underpin efficient steering at all levels. Presently, there are signs of similar (...) approaches to science in federal policies concerned with evidence‐based educational practice in the USA. At the same time a new conception of educational science has been launched in Sweden as a means to promote more fruitful research. With the background of some striking similarities as well as differences among dominant conceptions of educational science in these varying contexts, this article aims to reconsider some basic aspects of the persistent issue of the relationships between pedagogic theory and practice. (shrink)

Koopman’s book revolves around the notion of transition, which he proposes is one of the central ideas of the pragmatist tradition but one which had not previously been fully articulated yet nevertheless shapes the pragmatist attitude in philosophy. Transition, according to Koopman, denotes “those temporal structures and historical shapes in virtue of which we get from here to there”. One of the consequences of transitionalism is the understanding of critique and inquiry as historical pro...

Taking its orientation from Peter Winch, this article critiques from a Wittgensteinian point of view some “theoreticist” tendencies within constructivism. At the heart of constructivism is the deeply Wittgensteinian idea that the world as we know and understand it is the product of human intelligence and interests. The usefulness of this idea can be vitiated by a failure to distinguish conceptual from empirical questions. I argue that such a failure characterises two influential constructivist theories, those of Ernst von Glasersfeld and (...) David Bloor. These are considered in turn. Both theories seek to give a general, causal account of knowledge: von Glasersfeld's in term of cognitive subjectivity, Bloor's in terms of social agreement. Ironically, given that both writers cite Wittgenstein as a source of theoretical inspiration, assumptions of both theories run counter to key Wittgensteinian arguments. To show that Wittgenstein's views offer no solace to the realist, the article closes with a brief consideration of John Searle's theory of knowledge. (shrink)

Deliberative scholars have suggested that citizens should be able to exchange arguments in public forums. A key element in this exchange is the rational mode of communication, which means speaking through objective argumentation. However, some feminists argue that this mode of communication may create or intensify epistemic injustices. Furthermore, we should not assume that everyone is equally equipped to take part in deliberation. Certain groups, such as Indigenous peoples, for instance, who may not be versed in rational forms of argumentation, (...) may not be listened to or involved sufficiently in the deliberative process. Therefore, it seems we need an alternative mode of communication, such as storytelling, which is a first-person or collective narrative. Given this, how should we pursue this goal? This article aims to answer this question by analysing a local conflict involving an Indigenous tribe and a neighbouring community in Brazil and exploring the underlying testimonial and hermeneutical injustices. I argue that storytelling has an important normative and institutional role in public deliberation and show that its applied version could overcome epistemic injustices and lead to better public policies. (shrink)

For the larger part of modern western intellectual history, it has been assumed that the study of morality and religion requires special methodology, insulated from, and in some important aspects incongruent with, the scientific method commonly used in the realm of natural sciences. Furthermore, even if it would be granted that moral and religious behavior is amendable to scientific analysis, the prospects of using evolutionary theory in particular to do the heavy lifting in explanation of these phenomena have been bleak, (...) since many scholars doubted that a biological theory could possibly offer any valuable contribution. Recent advances in the fields of Evolutionary Ethics and Cognitive Science of Religion disprove both claims, emphasizing empirically founded explanations, demonstrating extraordinarily high degree of methodological consilience, and revealing utmost importance of the application of evolutionary theory in fields of study once deemed to be exclusive domains of social sciences and philosophy. (shrink)

Although technology is often viewed as value-free, an anthropological perspective suggests that technological tools embody values and assumptions of their builders. Drawing upon extended field research, this article investigates the construction of work in the expert systems community of artificial intelligence. Describing systematic deletions in practitioners' representations of their own work, the article relates these to both the selectivity of conventional knowledge acquisition procedures and the tendency of expert systems to "fall off the knowledge cliff." Although system builders see the (...) latter problem as purely technical, this article suggests that it is also the result of nontechnical factors, including the system builders' own tacit assump tions. This article supports the view that technology has a cultural dimension. (shrink)

Most modern definitions of art fail to successfully address the issue of the ever-changing nature of art, and rarely even attempt to provide an account that would be valid in more than just the modern Western context. This article develops a new theory that preserves the advantages of its predecessors, solves or avoids their problems, and has a scope wide enough to account for art of different times and cultures. It argues that an object is art in a given context (...) iff some person culturally competent in this context have afforded it the status of a candidate for appreciation for reasons considered good in this context. This weakly institutional view is supplemented by auxiliary definitions explaining the notions of cultural contexts, competence, and good reasons for affording the status. The relativisation to contexts brings increased explanatory power and scope, and the ability to account for the diversity of art. (shrink)

Murray Edelman's work raised significant theoretical and methodological questions regarding the symbolic nature of politics, and specifically the role played by non‐rational beliefs (those that lack real‐world grounding) in the shaping of political preferences. According to Edelman, beneath an apparently functional and accountable democratic state lies a symbolic system that renders an ignorant public quiescent. The state, the media, civil society, interpersonal relations, even popular art are part of a mass spectacle kept afloat by empty symbolic beliefs. However suggestive it (...) is, the weaknesses of Edelman's theoretical and methodological approach, and the relative strengths of more recent research on the politics of cultural symbols, render Edelman's work unable to serve as either model or springboard for the contemporary study of political symbols. (shrink)

ABSTRACT One of Murray Edelman’s most important insights was that understanding public ignorance about politics and policy requires an analysis of how symbolic communication and popular culture shape public knowledge and opinion. Approaches that simply dismiss the public as ignorant or idiotic make a similar error as those that simply embrace the modern public as capable of engaging in the work of a competent demos, insofar as both simplify complex social and cultural processes of meaning‐making and comprehension. The problem for (...) those who wish to take Edelman’s insight seriously—a problem that Edelman failed to resolve—is precisely how to study and theorize the public as something less than deliberative and knowledgeable, but more than simply ignorant. (shrink)