The five-stage skill-acquisition model developed by Stuart Dreyfus is revisited as an integral part of culture acquisition. This examination sheds light on the role intuitive knowledge plays during the 4th and 5th stages. When modern technology becomes universal and detaches itself from culture, this intuitive knowledge changes. This accounts for the loss of technologies that were socially appropriate and environmentally sustainable.

Avtor izhaja iz ugotovitve, da je proces modernizacije v svetovnem obsegu sproduciral učinke, ki so z njim samim v protislovju, ga uničujejo in so ireverzibilni. Eden od simptomov te civilizacijske krize so nova družbena gibanja, ki lahko sicer tako hitro, kot so nastopila, tudi izginejo, vendar jih bo kriza vedno znova reproducirala. Njihova največja zasluga je, da so preoblikovala vrednostni sistem. V zvezi z mirovnim gibanjem pravi, da je treba pojem miru razširiti: miru ni, če ni svobode, politične in ekonomske (...) demokracije in spoštovanja človekovih pravic. Mir bi moral pomeniti tudi spravo človeštva s samim sabo in drugačen odnos do tehnologije. Eksplikacija takega pojma miru pa bi morala temeljiti na spremembi znanstvene paradigme. (shrink)

(1994). Charles Darwin, Paul MacLean, and the lost origins of “the moral sense”: Some implications for general evolution theory. World Futures: Vol. 40, No. 4, pp. 187-196.

The paper surveys selected alternative conceptions of rationality in contemporary and (especially) traditional economics and sociology. While the status of rationality as one of the master concepts, subjects and objectives of social science and philosophy has been further promoted in contemporary economics and sociology, questions often arise among economists and sociologists themselves as to its meaning or definition. As an attempt to help address this issue, the paper selects and examines a (limited) number of pertinent definitions and conceptions of rationality (...) from both economic and sociological theory. By virtue of its coverage of economics and sociology, this study is thoroughly interdisciplinary and contributes toward filling in a void in the current literature in which such studies are relatively rare. (shrink)

_A much-needed consideration of methodology in comparative philosophy._.

With the publication of The Social Frameworks of Knowledge? the English speaking world has at last been given a serious opportunity to approach the complex sociological thought of Georges Gurvitch. However, as the author himself admits in the Preface, this book appears ?abstract and schematic particularly to the uninitiated?.1 The aim of this paper will be to try to relate this translated work to the main body of Gurvitch's writing and particularly to his stance in the sociology of knowledge. First (...) I will examine the intellectual origins of his sociology of knowledge and his attitude to his predecessors in the field. Secondly I will compare his approach to the sociology of knowledge to that of P. L. Berger and T. Luckmann. (shrink)

A much-needed consideration of methodology in comparative philosophy.

The majority of the world’s cultures encourage or require members to enter alternative states of consciousness while involved in religious rituals. The question is, why? This paper suggests an explanation for the culturally prescribed ASC from the view of Fisher information. It argues from the position, first put forward by Emile Durkheim in his magnum opus, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, that all religions are grounded in reality. It suggests that many of the structural elements of cultural cosmologies (...) are similar and that the ritual induction of ASC may help to bring individual experience into greater accord with a pan-human eidetic cosmology, and thus with certain invariant attributes of reality. The necessity of this process is demonstrated by recourse to Fisher information. The paper shows how experiences generated during alternative states of consciousness may help to maintain a minimal level of realism in the interests of adaptation to what is in other respects a transcendental reality. (shrink)

The article explores the unique, its essence and role in the development of types of rationality. The unique is explained as unrepeatable, which does not fit into the actual implemented reversibility, repeatability and cyclicality. This is a universal property that is inherent in the individual education and is expressed in the individual and unique elements, properties and relations. The purpose of the research is to reveal the unique as a scientific concept, apply it to the rationale for the processes of (...) changing types of rationality. The connection of the unique with a single, natural, indefinite, negation is revealed. Negation is presented as a form of thinking of a cognizing subject for the realities of scientific knowledge. Analysis of recent research and publications, initiated the solution of the problem of unique : use of the articles by authors G. Bashlyar, P. Burak, P. А. Vodopyanov, A. I. Zelenkov, V. H. Voronkova, O. P. Punchenko, I. Prigogine, I. Stengers, V. S. Stepin, L. P. Turkin and others. Research Methodology: general logical and theoretical research methods are used, representing their procedural adaptation to the solution of the problem. Unique in science is determined by the subject through its critical understanding of innovation, value context and essential for a given level of development of science. It is divided by type, depending on the scientific problems to be solved. Scientific novelty – unique is presented as a form of rationality movement, the moment of development of knowledge, it is also a test of knowledge for innovation, scientific character, clarification and their correlation. The types of rationality – classical, non-classical and post-non-classical – are identified and the role of the unique in their development and changes is clarified. Results of the research : on the analysis of the development of the natural sciences, it was proved that the change of types of rationality is associated with the growth of the innovative spirit of these sciences. Conclusions – the innovative potential constantly consisted in the damage to the stability of the old methodological principles that could not be adapted to the new discoveries. In classical rationality, unique principles were: unambiguity, clarity, obviousness; in non-classical – relativity, complexity, chance, complementarity; in the post-non-classical determining principles are steel: nonlinearity, chaos, self-organization, open systems, and more. The change of types of rationality gradually turned the unique from exceptions for natural science into its subject. (shrink)

In this paper, I provide a critical examination of Warren Schmaus’s recently systematized “functionalist” approach to the study of collective representations. I examine both the logical and the conceptual viability of Schmaus’s brand of “functionalism” and the relation between his rational reconstruction and philosophical critique of Durkheim and the latter’s original set of proposals. I conclude that, due to its reliance on certain problematic philosophical theses, Schmaus’s functionalism ultimately falls short of providing a coherent alternative to the Durkhemian position or (...) serving as a useful starting point from which to understand the origins of abstract categories in concrete experience. (shrink)

The paper reconsiders the Weber Thesis of a linkage between Calvinism and capitalism. It first restates this sociological Thesis in terms of the Calvinist doctrine of predestination as its theological core and premise in virtue of being treated as the crucial religious factor of the spirit of modern capitalism. Consequently, it proposes that the Weber Thesis’ validity and consistency depends on that doctrine, succeeding or failing as a sociological theory with the latter depending on whether or not it is unique (...) in theological terms, as well as economic-social consequences. For that purpose, it reexamines and compares the Calvinist doctrine of predestination with the pre-Calvinist versions and infers that it is basically identical to or compatible with these. It then draws the implications for the Weber Thesis in respect of the degree of its validity or consistence. It concludes that the Weber Thesis likely is fail as a sociological-economic theory with the Calvinist doctrine of predestination to the extent that the latter is its theological ground and revealed not to be unique and new theologically and probably in terms of its societal effects. (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)

(2013). Corrective Lenses: How The Laws of Energy Networks Improve our Economic Vision. World Futures: Vol. 69, Reclaiming Free Enterprise: The Scientific and Human Story, pp. 402-449.

On this occasion, I shall try to respond to the suggestions that I report what it was like to be a graduate student at Harvard in the early 1930s engaged in writing a dissertation which took the shape in print of the monograph, Science, Technology and Society in Seventeenth-Century England. This, quite some time before the sociology of science had emerged with a cognitive and social identity. I shall not attempt an account – let alone an explanatory account – of (...) the micro-environment at Harvard back then that provided local context for that study. Indeed, I suspect that the Gerald Holton, Everett Mendelsohn and Arnold Thackray reconstructions come closer to the intellectual and social reality of that time and place than anything I might reconstruct. (shrink)

A bewildering array of sciences, theories, and methodologies offer researchers many difficult choices when studying emotion or designing affective technologies. Thus, clarity of focus is a prime virtue of good work, as illustrated in the Aylett and Paiva (2012) article. The social sciences remain fundamentally undecided about how to conceptualize human variations, including how to measure culture and personality, and even about whether these two commonly used words have real meaning. This disagreement is pronounced in human-centered computing, because cognitive and (...) rational-choice perspectives are technically easiest to apply, and these make little room for culture and personality. The article employs a modular approach, which can inspire researchers following alternative conceptualizations to substitute their own preferred choices. (shrink)