Ce texte a paru initialement dans ANNALES ESC. Vol. 13, n° 4, oct.-déc. 1958, p. 725-753, puis a été réédité dans Écrits sur l'histoire, Paris, Flammarion, 1969. p. 44-83. Il est également disponible, mais dans une version assez fautive, ici. Il y a crise générale des sciences de l'homme : elles sont toutes accablées sous leurs propres progrès, ne serait-ce qu'en raison de l'accumulation des connaissances nouvelles et de la nécessité d'un travail collectif, dont l'organisation intelligente reste à mettre (...) (...) - Histoire – Nouvel article. (shrink)

This article aims to draw a portrait of the influence of cybernetics on soft science. To this end, structuralism, post-structuralism and postmodern philosophy will be successively analyzed in a perspective based on importing concepts stemming from the cybernetic paradigm (information, feedback, entropy, complexity, etc.). By focusing more specifically on the American postwar context, we intend to remind the audience that many soft science specialists were involved in the elaboration of this ‘new science’. We will then retrace the influence of the (...) cybernetic paradigm on structuralism. Starting with the historic meeting between Roman Jakobson and Claude Lévi-Strauss, we will illustrate that structural phonology is directly inspired by discoveries stemming from the informational model. In the same perspective, the conceptual borrowings of psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan from cybernetics will be identified and analyzed. Then, we will address the matter of the relationship between postmodern theories and the cybernetic paradigm. The philosophical movement towards deconstruction, as well as Deleuze and Guattari’s philosophy, will be analyzed based on how they relate to this paradigm. We will also insist on the fact that the philosophy of Jean- François Lyotard’s La Condition postmoderne is fully in line with the epistemological revolution launched by cybernetics. (shrink)

The main theme of the article, which by genre falls into the area of semiotically influenced philosophy, is a reflection on the relationship between the human and the non-human, using two partial but parallel discourses. The first discourse is the perspective of general semiotics, which is defined in the article on the basis of two distinct forms of rationality that, in different guises, still intervene in debates about the nature of the humanities and social sciences today. The first form of (...) this rationality is semiological, which can be classified under the encyclopaedic rubric of structuralism, and which has its main source of inspiration in general linguistics and its continuation in philosophical anti-humanism. The second perspective has its origins in Peirce’s logicist theory of the sign and his pragmatist metaphysics, and opens up thinking about the sign, the human, and the non-human to a non-language-centric view of the world. Despite their demonstrable theoretical and methodological incompatibility, the present text treats them as incompatible but largely complementary perspectives. It is in their mutual exposition that one can see the moments in which the view of modern human as a semiological and semiotic animal takes shape. The text brings this fundamental and founding theoretical schism into focus by examining two images from post/modern art: Ted Chiang’s “The Great Silence” and Jorge Luis Borges’ “Averroës’s Search.”. (shrink)

The main theme of the article, which by genre falls into the area of semiotically influenced philosophy, is a reflection on the relationship between the human and the non-human, using two partial but parallel discourses. The first discourse is the perspective of general semiotics, which is defined in the article on the basis of two distinct forms of rationality that, in different guises, still intervene in debates about the nature of the humanities and social sciences today. The first form of (...) this rationality is semiological, which can be classified under the encyclopaedic rubric of structuralism, and which has its main source of inspiration in general linguistics and its continuation in philosophical anti-humanism. The second perspective has its origins in Peirce’s logicist theory of the sign and his pragmatist metaphysics, and opens up thinking about the sign, the human, and the non-human to a non-language-centric view of the world. Despite their demonstrable theoretical and methodological incompatibility, the present text treats them as incompatible but largely complementary perspectives. It is in their mutual exposition that one can see the moments in which the view of modern human as a semiological and semiotic animal takes shape. The text brings this fundamental and founding theoretical schism into focus by examining two images from post/modern art: Ted Chiang’s “The Great Silence” and Jorge Luis Borges’ “Averroës’s Search.”. (shrink)

This paper seeks a deeper understanding of the congener as a factor in animal and human behaviour. It does so, not by concentrating on analyses of stimulus exchanges - largely specific to the species - by which a congener is recognized, but on the more general questions of why a notion of congener exists at all and why it plays such an extraordinary important role in animal and human behaviour.Three separate approaches, by way of anthropomorphic psychology, a paraphysical energy model (...) and the physical theory of the implicate order, lead to the recognition of a certain inseparability of self and congener; and to an interpretation of the content of the notion of congener and of the behaviour in relation to it, in terms of the fundamental concept of energy and the even more fundamental one of order. (shrink)

Brain functions are stochastic processes without intentionality whereas mind emerges from brain functions as a Hegelian “change from quantity”, that is, on the order of 1012 profusely interconnected neurons, “into a new quality”: the collective phenomenon of the brain's self-experience. This self-referential and self-observing quality we have in mind is capable of (recursively) observing its self-observations, i.e., interpreting change that is meaningful in relation to itself. The notion of self-interpretation embodies the idea of a “hermeneutic circle”, that is, (in interpretation (...) theory) the treatment of the whole in relation to its parts. (shrink)

Every now and then when watching a movie, we come across faces in which we recognize a significant value, because they represent some important cultural models we use to assign meaning to our experience of the world. By way of example, I will discuss the faces of the protagonists of two recent films, Abdellatif Kechiche’s La vie d’Adele. Chapitres 1 & 2 (2013; English title Blue Is the Warmest Colour) and Leonor Serraille’s Jeune femme (2017), comparing them with the faces (...) of the protagonists of some older movies, such as Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson’s Shrek (2001) and James Cameron’s Avatar (2009). I will argue that the way in which the faces are portrayed is similar to the narrative structure of the stories of the characters they belong to, and that the signs and narrative structures used to construct the discourses about the world in those films are at the same time similar to those of two important cultural models of what it means to be young men and women in our times. As these cultural models are different, yet interconnected, I will argue that the most meaningful faces in cinema change due to the transformation of the cultural models they derive from and that a sociosemiotic method based on a structuralist vision of culture can help identify the most culturally significant symbolic faces on screen, and elsewhere. (shrink)

The article consists of a brief biographical account of Immanuel Kant’s life and career, followed by a discussion of his basic philosophy, and a brief discussion of his pivotal point in the history of Rhetoric and Communicology. A major figure in the European Enlightenment period of Philosophy, his Collected Writings were first published in 1900 constituting 29 volumes. He wrote three major works that are foundational to the development of Western philosophy and the human sciences. Often just referred to as (...) the “Three Critiques” informally, the First, the Second, and the Third. These are respectively: The Critique of Pure Reason focused on issues in logic, The Critique of Practical Reason relating ethical guidelines, and The Critique of Judgment exploring issues of aesthetics. He is most famous for his philosophy of transcendental idealism. This version of idealism argues that in logic statements are analytic or synthetic. He further argues that statements are a priori or a posteriori. Models of rhetoric, phenomenological methodology, and the contemporary Perspectives Model of interpersonal communicology are included as the Kantian legacy in the US. Notes provide a guide to edition and philological issues in the Kantian corpus, especially for the hermeneutics of Vorstellung versus Darstellung. (shrink)

Understanding social cognition referring to narratives without relying on mindreading skills has been the main aim of the Narrative Practice Hypothesis proposed by Daniel Hutto and Shaun Gallagher. In this paper, I offer a semiotic reformulation of the NPH, expanding the notion of narrative beyond its conventional common-sense understanding and claiming that the kind of social cognition that operates in implicit false belief task competency is developed out of the narrative logic of interaction. I will try to show how experience (...) is shaped through meaning by the structure of narrativity and the way this can account for how narrative competencies do not just depend on language acquisition, but permeate the interactive competencies of pre-linguistic children and some social non-human animals. Developing during primary and secondary intersubjectivity and rooted in the semiotic ability to deceive and manipulate others, semiotic narrativity is the key bridge that leads us to mind and beliefs starting from basic perceptions, emotions and embodied enactive interactions. I will test my Narrative Practice Semiotic Hypothesis on Autism spectrum disorders, where social cognition skills don’t work properly, connecting NPSH to the Social Motivation Theory of Autism. I will finally answer some criticisms towards the original NPH, connecting its semiotic reformulation to early mindreading in infants and to some very recent experiments by Krupeneye et al. and Buttelmann et al. about false beliefs understanding in primates. (shrink)

The article discusses the problem of coexistence of different types of rationality, different scientific and linguistic pictures of the world as well as the problem of the adoption by one culture of another culture’s scientific picture of the world with accompanying transformations of the linguistic picture of the world of the recipient culture. The article deals with the experience of mutual research and collision between Western and Chinese traditions, using the example of medical science. The author examines the problem of (...) the transfer of scientific medical knowledge from Western to Chinese culture in the context of a radical mismatch of scientific and linguistic pictures. The articles considers two different approaches to the translation of Western medical terminology into Chinese, developed at different times by English translators Benjamin Hobson and John Fryer. Hobson was focused on harmonizing new terminology with the usual concepts of the world language picture of the recipient. Fryer preferred to introduce new specific terms, artificially created directly for the needs of a new scientific picture of the world. In the field of medical terminology, the first of the two approaches turns out to be more viable, since it is more focused on its “end users” – Chinese doctors who study Western medicine in order to use its methods in their medical practice. Therefore, there is only partial applicability of the approaches, methods and terminology developed in one tradition for the evaluation and development of another tradition. (shrink)

Cet article examine comment l’approche structuraliste d’Althusser transforme le concept d’idéologie chez Marx. Ce dernier distingue deux fonctions : l’idéologie-description/distorsion et l’idéologie-légitimation/reproduction, mais l’articulation qu’il propose ne semble pas aboutie car elle maintient en arrière-plan une anthropologie phénoménologique des « individus vivants ». En faisant du « sujet » la production de l’idéologie par le mécanisme d’interpellation des individus, Althusser propose de déconstruire cet impensé marxien du « sujet constituant » pour lui substituer une théorie générale du « sujet constitué (...) », théorie plus en phase avec la Science de l’Histoire que Marx a inauguré. Reste à savoir si le « sujet » épuise toutes les dimensions de la « subjectivité », c’est-à-dire si la lecture « structuraliste » peut se passer de la lecture « phénoménologique » de Marx. (shrink)

Depuis le célèbre article de Merleau-Ponty, « De Mauss à Claude Lévi-Strauss », la manière dont on évalue le rapport entre ces deux auteurs détermine ou exprime autant d’interprétations historiques du structuralisme et de choix théoriques ou philosophiques quant aux sciences sociales. Cette filiation se voulait une critique: être fidèle à la découverte de Mauss, celle du caractère central de la réciprocité dans la vie sociale, imposait de dépasser la sociologie vers une sémiologie générale. Cet article s’efforce de montrer qu’il (...) ne s’agit pas là, contrairement à l’interprétation subtile qu’en fit Merleau-Ponty, de faire de la réalité sociale un système de points de vue substituables ou de mouvements corrélés de sub-jectivation, mais de montrer que ce sont les « valeurs » qui, du fait de leur nature, de leur ontologie, doivent nécessairement circuler entre plusieurs points de vue exclusifs et complémentaires. Il revisite la célèbre critique de Lévi-Strauss à Mauss sur l’explication de l’obligation de donner par une « force des choses », et replace l’apport de l’anthropologie structurale dans la philosophie de l’esprit contemporaine, là où elle se confronte aux questions ouvertes par la physique sur l’ontologie des objets quantiques. (shrink)

The primary method by which science endeavors to order the world is the analytic approach, consistent with Cartesian principles of dividing the problem in as many sections as required for an optimal solution, and progressing from the simplest to the most complex reasoning. When the interactions among the various elements of the system being studied are minimal, such a procedure indeed makes it possible to formulate laws that describe chains of causality. However, when the variables are interdependent and linked by (...) non-linear equations, the atomistic method cannot account for the phenomenon in its entirety. Spurred by this inadequacy, scientists sought to discover synthetic methods which, early in the twentieth century, led to the conceptualization of holistic theories in a number of disciplines. The most highly developed fields are the psychology of form, structural anthropology (1), and the various systems theories (2). More recently, the development of epigenetic concepts in biology has corresponded to the appearance of different theories of pattern in physics and mathematics (3, 4) and to the progressive emergence of the concept of self-organization (5, 6, 7). The objective is to explain the production of complex structures on the basis of interacting elements, none of which contains a guiding scheme that dictates these structures. In biology, the challenge is to locate the constraints that are expressed in a space of possibilities (8) in order to develop a theory of organization that is capable of predicting the finite number of forms that living creatures can assume (9). This school of thought can be described as structuralist, emergentist, self-organizational, or epigeneticist, depending on the theoretical version that is emphasized. (shrink)

Investigamos o problema da continuidade entre (1) cognições básicas e (2) complexas, especificamente em relação à linguagem. Nossa hipótese é a de que visões contemporâneas da linguagem não inviabilizam necessariamente a abordagem bottom-up ― abordagens tipicamente enativistas. Primeiro apresentamos a posição de Daniel Hutto e Erik Myin (2013, 2017), representantes do Radically Enactive Cognition (REC), a qual assume o desafio da continuidade e identifica na linguagem o critério para uma distinção de tipo entre (1) e (2). Em seguida, estabelecemos a (...) posição Wittgensteiniana defendida por Moyal-Sharrock (2019), na qual a linguagem seria apenas mais uma habilidade de possível desenvolvimento para (1) e (2). Haveria, portanto, somente uma distinção de grau , não de tipo. Por mais que a avaliação de Moyal-Sharrock seja interessante no sentido de que parece evitar um ceticismo de continuidade (identificado por ela no REC), também encontramos problemas em sua visão. (shrink)

Among those who reject the Epicurean claim that death is not bad for the one who dies, it is popularly held that death is bad for the one who dies, when it is bad for the one who dies, because it deprives the one who dies of the good things that otherwise would have fallen into her life. This view is known as the deprivation account of the value of death, and Fred Feldman is one of its most prominent defenders. (...) In this paper, I explain why I believe that Feldman’s argument for the occasional badness of death fails. While staying within an Epicurean framework, I offer an alternative that adequately accounts for a significant range of widely held intuitions about prudential value. My account implies that death is almost always good for the one who dies, yet often less good than not dying. Finally, I discuss some puzzles that remain for my account and hint at possible ways to address them. (shrink)

Ce qu'on peut appeler lathéorie du discoursbouleverse les fondements épistémologiques et les perspectives méthodologiques de la recherche dans d'importants secteurs des sciences humaines et sociales. L'ethnologie, la psychanalyse et, bien entendu, les sciences de la littérature deviennent le champ d'application d'un système conceptuel opératoire que sous-tend la notion de « texte », et d'un modèle d'analyse axé sur le problème de la découverte des « lois de construction » du texte. L'intérêt particulier que présentent les thèses de M. Foucault réside (...) dans le fait qu'elles envisagent la possibilité d'élargir à l'Histoire le champ d'application de cette théorie.. (shrink)

The article deals with `The Symbolic Force of Human Rights'. First, it restricts the meaning of the term `symbolic' and of the expression `symbolic force'. Second, it discusses the concept of human rights. Having established the conceptual framework, the author goes to the core of his argument, characterizing the symbolic force of human rights as ambivalent: on one hand, it serves for their generalized affirmation and accomplishment; on the other hand, it acts as a manner of political manipulation. In this (...) regard, the article focuses, first, on the symbolic force of human rights at the level of national states, and then within the international and worldwide context, on criticizing finally the rhetorical use of human rights by nowadays' only superpower, the USA. Key Words: human rights • interventionism • supranational and national • legal orders • symbolic force. (shrink)

In this paper the affiliation of Lévi-Strauss with the functional structuralism of Trubetzkoy and Jakobson is defined as “explicit linguistics” and the consonance with the works of Franz Boas is also thrown into relief. As “implicit linguistics” is defined his accurate attention to lexical facts, in the case of questions of nomenclature and in particular of the terminology of kinship. As this regards, Lévi-Strauss perfectly captures not only the differences between linguistic systems and anthropological systems, but also their respective integration. (...) In this way he comes to surmount the model itself of the functional structuralism of a certain linguistics which is too predictive. Finally, in homage to the great scholar, two examples are proposed of the integration of linguistics “without adjectives” and anthropology “without adjectives” in relation to the etymology of gr. anthropos, seen from the point of view of a specific sociolinguistic hierarchy and within the frame of the Indo-Mediterranea area, and of the Indo-European name of the woman of marriageable age (gr. gyné) seen in the perspective of the innovative conditions of exogamous marriage. (shrink)

No anthropologist has been as influential outside the own discipline as Lévi-Strauss. From philosophy to history, from politics to literary criticism, from linguistics to sociology, from psychoanalysis to poetry, from art to contemporary music, the œuvre of the author of Tristes Tropiques has fallen on these fields like a beneficial rain, giving them new life. Such a great influence has several reasons. The design of a wide-ranging anthropological project, its philosophical implications, an immense and precious erudition which allows to build (...) connections between the most different fields of humanistic and scientific knowledge, and lastly a great writing, rich of literary vibrations. All the great questions of the present, from the world’s overpopulation to cultural relativism, from the resurgence of the myth to the return of localisms, from the war of the veil to genetic manipulations, all subjects appear in the œuvre of Lévi-Strauss, always in a provocative and anticipatory formulation which represents the precious heritage of the last of the classics. (shrink)

Claude Lévi-Strauss holds that history and anthropology differ in their choice of complementary perspectives: history organizes its data in relation to conscious expressions of social life, while anthropology proceeds by examining its unconscious foundations. For R. G. Collingwood historical science discovers not only pure facts but considers a whole series of thoughts constituting historical life. Also Lévi-Strauss sees this: “To understand history it is necessary to know not only how things are, but how they have come to be.” However, Lévi-Strauss (...) does not perceive the double-sense of history, which can first be a record of historical “conscious” facts and second, a chain of unconscious or half-conscious acts. Like Lévi-Strauss, Charles Bally has derived the main theses of his theory from Saussure. However, contrary to Lévi-Strauss, Bally does not find structures at the inside of the phenomena but at their outside: “Our attention is drawn to the expressive side and not to the interior side of the facts of language.” Bally calls those structures not “history” but “style.” In Roland Barthes’s attempt to establish a structuralist system of fashion we can find a definition of style very similar to Bally’s. In the end, however, none of these thinkers addresses the fact that unconscious relations within historical life are constantly interlocked with conscious elements. (shrink)

Introduction - From the Illiad to the Studies on Hysteria: A chronology of the discovery of the unconscious mind - Freud's theories of the unconscious mind - Jung's collective unconscious - Lacan's linguistic paradigm.

Tratou-se de pesquisa de revisão crítica da literatura no campo da epistemologia. Partiu-se da hipótese das paixões “tóxicas”, isto é, de que existe uma analogia funcional entre as paixões e as toxicomanias devido à função do excesso narcísico, semelhante, mas não idêntica, em ambas. O objetivo foi introduzir os fundamentos teóricos dos métodos de pesquisa qualitativa desta hipótese, partindo-se do raciocínio por analogia na direção da semiologia psicanalítica. Mais precisamente, pretendeu-se discutir, em nível introdutório, alguns fundamentos teóricos destes métodos vistos (...) como análogos, com dupla finalidade: equacionar uma formulação da hipótese das paixões “tóxicas” de acordo com estes métodos; e estruturar um plano de estudo teórico de caráter psicanalítico, em debate interdisciplinar, adequado a esta formulação, a ser executado em outras investigações a partir da aplicação destes métodos na pesquisa desta hipótese. (shrink)

Cet article propose une réflexion sur les liens fraternels dans le cadre d’une thérapie familiale à partir des conceptions théoriques sur le fraternel de R. Kaës, sur l’illusion groupale de D. Anzieu et sur les notions de transgénérationnel dans une famille. L’objectif est de montrer la pertinence d’une approche de thérapie familiale psychanalytique à partir d’un cas d’une fratrie de quatre garçons dont l’aîné est le porteur des traumatismes parentaux et considéré comme le « bouc émissaire » de la famille. (...) Plusieurs hypothèses sont proposées qui permettent de comprendre l’importance du traumatisme en fonction de la place qu’occupe chacun des enfants de la fratrie, un « pacte dénégatif » pouvant s’être instauré comme organisateur des liens entre les frères. La thérapie familiale souligne la nécessité du travail de métabolisation de la famille et de différenciation entre les frères, au prix dans le cas présenté, d’une autonomisation réelle d’un des membres de la fratrie. (shrink)

This article aims at theorizing a creative and processual theory of non-heterosexual identity. It will be argued that, so far, scholars have tended to theorize non-heterosexual identity from a monologic perspective, which establishes one-sidedly a casual and/or unproblematic relation between the emergence of forms of psychological suffering and the development of a non-heterosexual identity. Although it must be recognized that such a claim is important at a political level, at a subjective level, it leaves non-heterosexual people destined to be flooded (...) by distressing and painful emotional states. To counter monologism within theorisations of non-heterosexual identity development, without ignoring the negative impacts of heteronormativity, it will be argued that non-heterosexual identity needs to be theorized 1) as part of a creative process situated in a specific sociohistorical context marked by heteronormativity, 2) as part of a situated process that produces and never ceases to produce multiple effects (self-states), which are unified to create an identity, and 3) as part of a situated process of creation that can be artificially transformed through art. These are the three claims that will move forward the argument of this article. (shrink)

El artículo analiza los fundamentos epistemológicos y metodológicos del esquema cruzado en el campo de las ciencias sociales y en particular del análisis cualitativo, considerando que el origen de tal esquema se encuentra en las coordenadas cartesianas. Tales coordenadas tienen un conjunto de elementos que a la vez están en la base de la geometría analítica y a partir de ella se resaltan tres aspectos que han sido “exportados” mediante el uso de este esquema, hacia las ciencias sociales: la lógica (...) de opuestos, la “espacialización” o “espacialidad” y la fecundidad conceptual. A partir de esta triada de elementos se analiza el aporte de la lingüística estructural y del estructuralismo antropológico en torno al esquema en cuestión y en relación al objetivo de formalización en ciencias sociales. El texto ilustra algunos usos del esquema analizado realizados por distintos autores contemporáneos y termina por clasificar a los mismos de acuerdo a la integración, en tales análisis, de elementos epistémico-metodológicos implícitos en las coordenadas cartesianas.This article analyses the epistemological and methodological bases of crossed diagram in the field of social sciences and especially in qualitative research, considering that the origin of this diagram is located in the Cartesian coordinate system. Such coordinates provide elements that are at the bases of analytic geometry and from it, we highlight three aspects that have been ‘exported’ in the use of this diagram by the social sciences: the logic of the opposites; ‘spacialisation’; and conceptual fecundity. From these three aspects, we analyse the contribution of structural linguistics and anthropological structuralism to this diagram, particularly regarding the goal of formalization in the social sciences. The article shows some of the uses given to this diagram by different contemporary authors, to end classifying those authors according to their analytical integration of epistemic and methodological aspects implicit in the Cartesian coordinate system. (shrink)

Lévi-Strauss's centennial is an opportunity to show his inextricable connections with the evolution of 20th-century thought and what these promise for 21st-century anthropology. He has mapped the philosophical parameters for a renewed ethnography which opens innovative approaches to history, agency, culture and society. The anthropological understanding of history, for instance, is enriched by methodical application of his mytho-logical analysis, in particular his claim that myths are `machines for the suppression of time'. Lévi-Strauss's thought has led to the development of new (...) and invigorated forms of structural analysis, exemplified by the way that his concept of canonical expression has provided the foundation for the sophisticated application of transformational analysis and formalization. (shrink)

Le genre semble une notion et une démarche évidentes dans toute étude de la famille. En effet la place dans la parenté, qui est elle-même associée à un ensemble de normes de comportement différentes selon les groupes sociaux, est indissociable du genre, maillage plus large qui noue ensemble sexe, âge, sexualité, hiérarchies, rôles, etc. Pourtant une perspective spécifique de genre est relativement récente dans les études sur l’histoire de la famille. Au cours des dernières décennies, bon nomb...

The role of behaviour in biological evolution is examined within the context of Darwinism. All Darwinian models are based on the distinction of two mechanisms: one that permits faithful transmission of a feature from one generation to another, and another that differentially regulates the degree of this transmission. Behaviour plays a minimal role as an agent of transmission in the greater part of the animal kingdom; by contrast, the forms it may assume strongly influence the mechanisms of selection regulating the (...) different rates of transmission. We consider the decisive feature of the human species to be the existence of a phenotypical system of cultural coding characterized by precision and reliability which are the distinctive features of genetic coding in animals. We examine the consequences for the application of the Darwinian model to human history. (shrink)

I wish to discuss the constitutive conditions ‐ and aporias ‐ of the representations of the other in philosophy, sociology and cultural studies. In so doing, I show that crucial to the problem of ‘tolerance’ is the answer to such questions as: How do we represent the stranger and the other? How does this representation come into being? How can it ‐ in given instances ‐ be changed? I shall suggest that the arts may play a decisive role in this (...) process.In this paper I shall attempt to outline a double thesis: (a) the philosophical theory of the experience of something other requires the challenge of ethnology as the science of the stranger; and (b) conversely, however, ethnology itself requires a theory of cultural strangeness, which although always presupposed is never developed. I shall pursue this thesis in three stages. In the first section, I shall say something about the philosophical study of the other and its latent affinity with ethnology. In the second section, I shall take some key terms from the current dispute within ethnology over methodology, and attempt to show that the experience of something other (alien) requires a medium to express, or rather to describe, this experience. This problem of ethnographic depiction and description, lying between science and art; and the suggested solutions to this problem, developed particularly by postmodern American cultural‐anthropology, namely an aesthetisization without art, leads to the third section of this paper. This provokes the following question: what does art ‐ that moment which remains hidden within the contemporary ethnological discussion ‐ have to offer to our understanding of the (cultural) other? Further, we may ask, as paradoxical as it may at first sound, whether it is precisely from art, perhaps indeed only from art, that the way is to be found leading towards that which hasn't yet been problematized in all these contemporary intercultural debates: an ethic of intercultural understanding as the most important precondition for intercultural tolerance or toleration. (shrink)

The present moment in human history is marked by the ever-accelerating movement across the world of materials, peoples and information, creating various problems and, of course, opportunities as well--especially, the movement of the people, which makes multiculturalism a major issue. Differences between the immigrants and the receiving society create conflict. One solution would be found in the legal provision for the equality of rights for all the members of society, including cultural minorities, but if the legal solution alone is considered (...) effective, there would be waste of resources accumulated in cultures as enabling agents of amenable human life. But multiple cultures in a single society easily become a source of conflict, as another culture encroaching upon one’s own culture is often felt as a threatening challenge to one’s identity, as identity is constructed in the subjective process of culture. It implies the master-and-slave struggle between two subjectivities. Cultural subjectivities, personal or collective, could be induced to constitute a complex system of federated subjectivities. Even such a system would not, however, completely eliminate tension and conflict. Intervention by an ethic universally conceived on the minimal basis would meet the urgent need to prevent escalation of conflict, but it would ultimately prepare a common ground for the development of a global culture incorporating multiple cultures as historically inherited resources for enrichment of human life. Ethical awareness is what reveals the otherness of the other and also the ontological ground of human life on earth ; as ethics and epistemology coincide, a human reason would emerge as the ground of a new global culture, and the world would hopefully become a single Lebensraum for entire humanity. (shrink)

In the emerging academic field of game studies, Roger Caillois’ Les Jeux et les hommes has already received the status of an obligatory reference. It is honoured as one of the few classic texts in game theory, but some also argue that it is not useful for analysing digital games. Caillois’ book is of particular interest for cultural theorists, though, because it presents a theory of games and play while also addressing the meaning of play. After analysing more closely why (...) Caillois’ theory falls short when it is applied to digital games, we suggest a slight modification of its categories. Starting from the four game dimensions outlined by Caillois - competition, chance, simulation and vertigo - and his two modes of playing, paidia and ludus, we build on his theory by distinguishing two additional game characteristics, called repens and repositio. Both deal with the internal, temporal organization of a game. Repens is a specific characteristic of games that appeals to the player’s desire to discover, explore and get to know the surprises a game has in store and to make progress by learning from these surprises. Repositio denotes complementary experiences: having to retry, return, replay and repeat a certain action while getting better at it with every try. The balance, or unbalance, between repens and repositio, as characteristic elements of many digital games, determines to a large extent their attraction. Finally, repens and repositio are not only indicators of fun in the playing of digital games; they also hint at basic elements in learning theories and social theory. The study of the interplay between repens and repositio can help in clarifying the possibilities and limitations of digital games for learning purposes. (shrink)

The spread of evangelical Christianity across the globe is characterized by both a high degree of similarity in liturgy, symbolism and methods of organization and communication, and at the same time a remarkable ability to plug in to local indigenous rituals, symbols and practices related to possession and magic, to disease and healing. This poses complex questions for understanding ethnicity and also cultural globalization, which are explored using contemporary and historical sources relating to South and West Africa and to Brazil. (...) The ability of those evangelical churches which advertise their ability to transmit healing powers most insistently, to transpose healing from individual to community, to replace mystery with transparency, is set against their opportunistic and clientelistic political involvements and lack of transparency in their organization. (shrink)

Several aspects of human life are pervaded with images and symbols that often belong to what Jung (1981) called archetypes, characteristics of the mind with a profound influence on most aspects of culture and sport. The rationality introduced into our society, as the fruit of both the positivist concept of progress and the rapid development of technology, has, albeit while driving out excessiveness due to irrational explanations and often knavery, also disregarded the importance of images and symbols in everyday life. (...) Yet a number of these inevitably still exist, since they are archetypal. With this observation as a starting point, the present work has been designed to analyse whether it is still possible to find ancient images and symbols in modern sport activities. The a priori reason for such a question arises from the acceptance that modern and ancient sports are profoundly different. This has been historically proved in terms of organisation and quantification, among other characteristics (Guttmann 1978). The present analysis refers to a limited number of images and symbols concerning ancient and modern sport, which include a primordial Ur-symbol, that of bodily action or of body in movement. Others concern various aspects of the athlete's life, such as expression of religious beliefs, immortality, eternal return and the front. It suggests that many of these images and symbols may still be found in contemporary sports, in open contrast with some of the Olympic principles suggested by De Coubertin and chiefly prevalent in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. (shrink)

Forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Societies , Marcel Mauss describes an archaic mode of human relations, the gift, whose analysis allows us to specify the reasons for our daily exchanges. Georg Simmel considers the same demands from the starting-point of Wechselwirkung (effects of reciprocity), which contains the properties of all human relations. Their research is based on the following question: Is society possible? The authors examine this question based on notions of sacrifice, reciprocity, and duration, which allow them (...) to isolate three conditions necessary for the existence of human relations: the personalization of, the commitment to, and the duration of this bond. Although it does not qualify as a response to the question asked above, the human relation appears as the inevitable question of sociological reasoning, able to stimulate and open new research perspectives. Key Words: anthropology • duration • exchange theory • human relations • Marcel Mauss • philosophy • reciprocity • sacrifice • Georg Simmel • sociology. (shrink)

This study deals with money, especially coins, and intends to circumscribe the place of coinage among cultural objects. Money cannot be described without a semiotics of culture. We shall consider the definitions of value in order to define the evaluative foundations of meaning, and discuss the recurring parallel between signs and coins. Using a theory of anthropic zones, we will then attempt to determine the conditions necessary for the creation of objects of value, which should lead to a typology of (...) the different orders of fascination. (shrink)