Most of us would agree that the world of our experience is different than the extramental reality of which we are a part. Indeed, the evidence pertaining to cultural cosmologies around the globe suggests that virtually all peoples recognize this distinction—hence the focus upon the "hidden" forces behind everyday events. That said, the struggle to comprehend the relationship between our consciousness and reality, even the reality of ourselves, has led to controversy and debate for centuries in Western philosophy. In this (...) article, we address this problem from an anthropological perspective and argue that the generative route to a solution of the experience–reality "gap" is by way of an anthropologically informed cultural neurophenomenology . By this we mean a perspective and methodology that applies a phenomenology that controls for cultural variation in perception and interpretation, coupled with the latest information from the neurosciences about how the organ of experience—the brain—is structured. (shrink)

Evolutionary models of human cooperation are increasingly emphasizing the role of reputation and the requisite truthful “gossiping” about reputation-relevant behavior. If resources were allocated among individuals according to their reputations, competition for resources via competition for “good” reputations would have created incentives for exaggerated or deceptive gossip about oneself and one’s competitors in ancestral societies. Correspondingly, humans should have psychological adaptations to assess gossip veracity. Using social psychological methods, we explored cues of gossip veracity in four experiments. We found that (...) simple reiteration increased gossip veracity, but only for those who found the gossip relatively uninteresting. Multiple sources of gossip increased its veracity, as did the independence of those sources. Information that suggested alternative, benign interpretations of gossip decreased its veracity. Competition between a gossiper and her target decreased gossip veracity. These results provide preliminary evidence for psychological adaptations for assessing gossip veracity, mechanisms that might be used to assess veracity in other domains involving social exchange of information. (shrink)

It is argued that a link prevails between the phenomenology of externality present in classical liberal theory and the state of mind known as schizophrenia. To escape the social reality of possessive individualism, especially the conception of consequences, ends, habits, routine, the schizophrenic individual 'withdraws' or regresses into a psychic universe that contains a dimension unrelated to the consciousness and values of externality: the pursuit of wealth and things, the calculated regard of the other as an instrument for enriching the (...) self. The schizophrenic is incapable of adapting his 'ego' to the necessities of the social environment; he cannot defend himself in 'conventional' or 'normal' ways from the demands of living in a social milieu where the expectations and judgments of others impose intolerable pressures on consciousness. Instead the individual undergoing the painful process of withdrawal constructs a set of psychic defenses that from the standpoint of the external world appear to be 'strange', 'odd', 'bizarre', or 'demented'. The 'mode of Being' of the schizophrenic has nothing in common with the life-style of the acquisitive, status-conscious society. Some consideration is given to the political implications and meaning of the schizophrenic's withdrawal. (shrink)

Divided into eight sections, each with introductory essays, the selections offer rich and detailed insights into a diverse multinational philosophical landscape. Revealed in this pathbreaking work is the way in which traditional philosophical issues related to ethics, metaphysics, and epistemology, for instance, take on specific forms in Africa's postcolonial struggles. Much of its moral, political, and social philosophy is concerned with the turbulent processes of embracing modern identities while protecting ancient cultures.