Making Epistemologists Nervous: Relational Memory and Psychological Individualism

Hypatia ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 405-423
Author(s):  
Rockney Jacobsen
Keyword(s):  
Relational Theory ◽  
Relational Memory ◽  
The Past ◽  
Political Conception ◽  
Relational Theories ◽  
Political Dimensions

We cannot rethink the ethical and political dimensions of memory—especially its role in constituting persons and identities—without rethinking the nature of memory itself. I first describe a traditional epistemological view of memory, according to which memory is a faculty for preserving knowledge of the past, and then juxtapose a relational theory of memory developed by Sue Campbell. The relational theory is represented in terms of a distinction between actions and achievements; this distinction enables us to both clarify and defend the shift from an epistemological to a political conception of memory. On the resulting view, accuracy, not truth, is the appropriate norm for evaluating memory, and remembering is no longer conceived as an interior process. In the penultimate section I confront an objection to a relational theory of memory—and to relational theories of cognition generally—and suggest a strategy of response.

scholarly journals China's Global Expansion and Latin America

2010 ◽  
Vol 42 (4) ◽  
pp. 809-837 ◽  
Author(s):  
RHYS JENKINS
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
Economic Impacts ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Past ◽  
Primary Products ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
Political Dimensions ◽  
Negative Impacts

AbstractChina's rapid growth and increased integration with the global economy over the past three decades have significant economic impacts and political implications for Latin America. This paper reviews the debate over whether these impacts have on balance been positive or negative for the region. It argues that those who emphasise the positive economic impacts of China have been over-optimistic and underplay some of the negative impacts associated with Chinese competition in manufacturing and increasing Latin American specialisation in primary products. On the other hand, when focusing on the political dimensions, there has been a tendency to exaggerate both the extent of China's influence in the region and the fears to which this gives rise, particularly among US commentators.

scholarly journals L'éthique du care en archéologie préventive : un retour d'expérience et quelques pistes de réflexion

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 128-137
Author(s):  
Christophe Tufféry
Keyword(s):  
Social Groups ◽  
Ethics Of Care ◽  
Archaeological Sites ◽  
Professional Identities ◽  
The Past ◽  
Full Diversity ◽  
The Face ◽  
Political Dimensions ◽  
Supervisory Staff ◽  
Interdependent Relationships

After reviewing what constitutes preventive archaeology, I propose mobilizing, for this field of activity, the notion of an ethics of care. This notion is polysemous and has ethical, sociological and political dimensions. It does not remain theoretical but is instead rooted in reality and in the full diversity of practices. An ethics of care can offer new avenues for reflection and action for archaeologists, but also for supervisory staff and the various archaeology institutions to gain a new understanding of the behaviours, discourses, practices and practical needs of archaeologists. Over the past twenty years, archaeologists have had to integrate the presence of multiple professional risk factors, in the face of which attitudes and discourse have varied between responsibility, prevention and sometimes denial. Archaeologists work in a variety of terrains where their bodies and practices intersect and reflect their “embedded” relationships in archaeological sites and remains. Archaeologists’ field areas are also places of sociability where their professional identities and collective histories are built, which are a very powerful glue for the functioning of their social groups. The importance of these interdependent relationships is also emphasized by an ethics of care.

Remarks on Relational Theories of Motion

1989 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Earman
Keyword(s):  
Recent Article ◽  
Relational Theory ◽  
Space Time ◽  
The Real ◽  
Space And Time ◽  
Theory Of Motion ◽  
Relational Theories ◽  
The Absolute

In a recent article in this journal, Barbara Lariviere offers a very useful distinction between two ways of understanding the claims that Leibniz, or relational theorists in general, might wish to make about the nature of motion and the structure of space and time; viz.,(L1) There is no real inertial structure to space-time.and(L2) There is a real inertial structure to space-time, but it is dynamical rather than absolute.Citing the authority of Weyl, the author argues that L1 is untenable; indeed, the argument purports to show that if L1 were true, then there would be no coherent basis for a theory of motion, not even a relational theory. My main goal in this note is to point out why this argument is mistaken while at the same time sketching the real reason why the relational conception of motion is untenable. In addition I will offer a few remarks about the relevance of L2 to the absolute-relational controvery.

The Politics of Slavery

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Brace
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
The Political ◽  
History Of Political Thought ◽  
Historical Process ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
History Of ◽  
Political Dimensions ◽  
Definition Of

This book asks what it means to describe someone as a slave and explores the political dimensions of that question. It argues against the search for a transhistorical and timeless definition of slavery, and offers a critical interrogation of the dominant liberal discourse on slavery from the Enlightenment to the present. It pays particular attention to the meanings of the slavery / freedom binary and to the connections between the past and the present in understanding ‘old’ and ‘new’ slavery. The book is about what it means to think about slavery as a historical process and as a political relation, both in the history of political thought and in present debates about trafficking and incarceration. It argues that we need to bring the concept of slavery back into our understandings of freedom, labour and belonging, and unravel the assumptions behind the meanings we ascribe to personhood, sub-personhood and humanity. From Aristotle and the idea of natural slavery, through Locke’s conception of civil society, Hegel’s master-slave dialectic and J.S. Mill’s analogy of slavery and marriage to the discourse of modern abolition and the idea of trafficking as slavery, the book interrogates what it means to think about the idea of freedom as the opposite of slavery, and draws attention to the significance of the tensions, ambiguities and silences that surround that conception.

scholarly journals High-resolution fMRI Reveals Match Enhancement and Attentional Modulation in the Human Medial Temporal Lobe

2011 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 670-682 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole M. Dudukovic ◽  
Alison R. Preston ◽  
Jermaine J. Archie ◽  
Gary H. Glover ◽  
Anthony D. Wagner
Keyword(s):  
High Resolution ◽  
Temporal Lobe ◽  
Medial Temporal Lobe ◽  
Relational Memory ◽  
Relevant Stimulus ◽  
Match To Sample ◽  
The Past ◽  
Human Hippocampus ◽  
Parahippocampal Cortex ◽  
Familiar Stimuli

A primary function of the medial temporal lobe (MTL) is to signal prior encounter with behaviorally relevant stimuli. MTL match enhancement—increased activation when viewing previously encountered stimuli—has been observed for goal-relevant stimuli in nonhuman primates during delayed-match-to-sample tasks and in humans during more complex relational memory tasks. Match enhancement may alternatively reflect (a) an attentional response to familiar relative to novel stimuli or (b) the retrieval of contextual details surrounding the past encounter with familiar stimuli. To gain leverage on the functional significance of match enhancement in the hippocampus, high-resolution fMRI of human MTL was conducted while participants attended, ignored, or passively viewed face and scene stimuli in the context of a modified delayed-match-to-sample task. On each “attended” trial, two goal-relevant stimuli were encountered before a probe that either matched or mismatched one of the attended stimuli, enabling examination of the consequences of encountering one of the goal-relevant stimuli as a match probe on later memory for the other (nonprobed) goal-relevant stimulus. fMRI revealed that the hippocampus was insensitive to the attentional manipulation, whereas parahippocampal cortex was modulated by scene-directed attention, and perirhinal cortex showed more subtle and general effects of attention. By contrast, all hippocampal subfields demonstrated match enhancement to the probe, and a postscan test revealed more accurate recognition memory for the nonprobed goal-relevant stimulus on match relative to mismatch trials. These data suggest that match enhancement in human hippocampus reflects retrieval of other goal-relevant contextual details surrounding a stimulus's prior encounter.

The rise of New Confucianism and the return of spirituality to politics in mainland China

2018 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 294-314 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jun Deng ◽  
Craig A. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
New Left ◽  
Mainland China ◽  
Primary Ideal ◽  
Intellectual Culture ◽  
Nationalist Movement ◽  
The Past ◽  
New Confucianism ◽  
Crucial Component ◽  
Political Dimensions

In the past two decades, the revival of New Confucianism in mainland China has accelerated and become a crucial component of the intellectual public sphere. New Confucians have appeared alongside the larger groups of liberals and the New Left, often developing in dialogue or contrast with these intellectual neighbours. As part of the series of research dialogues on mapping the intellectual public sphere in China, this article examines recent discourse from New Confucian intellectuals, particularly dialogue with liberals and the New Left, to highlight the major debates and leading figures that define the cultural nationalist movement of Mainland New Confucianism. We show that, despite the immense difficulty of finding power as a minority voice in contemporary China, an integration of the religious and political dimensions of Confucianism in mainstream Chinese social, political, and intellectual culture remains the primary ideal that fuels and unites these intellectuals in the 2010s.

scholarly journals Chivalry and Knighthood in the Past and Present; Contrasting “Gawain” and Fire Emblem Three Houses

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen Vuong
Keyword(s):  
Video Game ◽  
Dramatic Effect ◽  
English Poem ◽  
Institutional Power ◽  
The Past ◽  
Social Code ◽  
Political Dimensions ◽  
Is Value

In my paper, I delve into the socio-political dimensions of knighthood and chivalry during the medieval era of Europe through a comparison between the Medieval English poem, “Gawain and the Green Knight,” and the video game, Fire Emblem Three Houses, published in 2019 by Nintendo. Within both texts, I explore chivalry and knighthood as a specific social code and institution of power, both of which are complex constructs beneath its veneer of idealism and romanticism. More prominently however, I discuss the interplay between chivalry as a system of power and one’s humanity. I argue that Three Houses compellingly demonstrates this dynamic through its characters and their interactions together, and shines a light on the reality of individuals beholden to institutional power. Although contemporary narratives may tend to misconstrue the past for dramatic effect, I believe there is value in examining them because they may conversely reveal previously overlooked aspects of historical concepts due to the biases and values of the period.

scholarly journals Connecting Relational Theory and the Systems Theory Framework: Individuals and Their Systems

2007 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 38-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wendy Patton
Keyword(s):  
Systems Theory ◽  
Open System ◽  
Relational Theory ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Multiple Systems ◽  
Integrated Framework ◽  
Theory Integration ◽  
Relational Theories ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Theory Framework

The Systems Theory Framework (STF) facilitates the inclusion of relevant aspects of multiple existing theories within an integrated framework, wherein relevance and meaning is decided upon by each individual. Patton and McMahon emphasise that the application of the Systems Theory Framework in integrating theory and practice is located within the crucible of the individual, acknowledging that the individual is an open system recursively interacting with and within multiple systems. The present paper furthers a discussion of the potential for the Systems Theory Framework in theory integration, in particular with respect to relational theories.

JALAN PANJANG HUBUNGAN ANTARAGAMA DI INDONESIA

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 443-470
Author(s):  
Taqiyudin Zarkasi
Keyword(s):  
World History ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Social Character ◽  
Islamic World ◽  
The Past ◽  
Interfaith Relations ◽  
Client Relationship ◽  
Political Dimensions ◽  
Religion And State ◽  
Harsh Reality

The struggle for independence was perceived by Muslims as a struggle for liberation not only the nation from colonialism, but also to liberate them from the religion of oppressors who come from other religions. These sentiments gained strong momentum when put in a historical context of the time, especially the harsh reality that the civilization of the Islamic world, which in the past grew rapidly and peaked brilliant, when it was sunk so deep, fell under Western colonialism that in fact claimed to Christian civilization. Of course, dissect interfaith relations in Indonesia must necessarily look at the history in which religions act in the constellation of politics since the country’s standing, even since before independent. Naturally, unpack these issues cannot be separated from the relation between religion and state as two of the most powerful institutions in the stage of world history. Patron-client relationship that is very hierarchical social character that forms as a religious group that is subordinate to the colonial powers, both in the religious and political dimensions. Compliance as servant relations among Christian missionaries in the future will be more colorful. Such circumstances make it difficult for the Christians when they are faced with a political choice for independence from the Dutch colonizers.

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