scholarly journals 'Verstehen' heißt nicht 'mögen'

2002 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Theo Harden
Keyword(s):  
Intercultural Communication ◽  
Basic Assumption ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Mutual Understanding ◽  
Entire Area ◽  
Formal Instruction ◽  
Intercultural Exchange ◽  
Marco Polo ◽  
History Of ◽  
Positive Feelings

The discussion in the entire area of "intercultural communication" revolves around the issue of facilitating mutual understanding between members of ethnic and cultural communities. The basic assumption is that once this has been achieved, the fundamental problems have been addressed, thereby removing the obstacles for sympathetic interaction. The conclusion that understanding is a necessary condition for liking, is, however, faulty. Empathy and sympathy are - even though related - not identical. In this contribution I will argue that getting to know the "other" better will not automatically result in liking him/her more. The history of exotism from Marco Polo via Columbus to even such sober characters as James Cooke shows that phenomena which are not understood may create very strong positive feelings whereas in an intracultural setting which is certainly not ridden by difficulties encountered in intercultural exchange, we do find clearly marked antipathies. A further topic to be addressed is the issue of whether the matters in question are intrinsically accessible and capable of being mediated in formal instruction.

scholarly journals Intercultural Communication Barriers. China and the USA, The Difficulties of a Dialogue

2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 258-263
Author(s):  
Oana-Antonia Ilie
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Differences ◽  
Intercultural Communication ◽  
Communication Barriers ◽  
Communication Process ◽  
Mutual Understanding ◽  
Language Differences ◽  
Intercultural Exchange ◽  
Communication Difficulties ◽  
The Usa

Abstract When people from different countries, cultures and backgrounds meet, they have to cope with the positive and the negative aspects of the intercultural exchange. Barriers such as anxiety, language, stereotypes, prejudice, ethnocentrism, and assumption of similarity instead of difference are the most significant ones to consider. This paper aims to discuss the main difficulties that individuals of various cultures and heritages may face during the intercultural communication process. In particular, this paper takes a closer look at the cultural differences between China and the USA, and at some of the current communication difficulties that the two countries face, caused by lack of mutual understanding, ethnocentrism, stereotypes, prejudice, language, differences of nonverbal indices, political and economic causes.

scholarly journals Pierre Clastres as comparative political theorist: The democratic potential of the new political anthropology

2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-94
Author(s):  
Christopher Holman
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Alternative Model ◽  
Political Anthropology ◽  
The Political ◽  
Mutual Understanding ◽  
Comparative Political Theory ◽  
Intercultural Exchange ◽  
History Of

This article examines the political anthropological work of Pierre Clastres in light of the emergence of the subfield of comparative political theory. In particular, it argues that Clastres’ reconstruction of the political philosophy of various Amazonian societies offers an alternative model for the engagement with texts and traditions external to the history of so-called Western societies. Rejecting all impulses toward totalization – as represented, for example, in the assertion of a dialogical potential for establishing modes of intercultural exchange aimed at achieving mutual understanding – Clastres calls attention to the radical social-historical alterity of forms of society. Appreciation of this alterity not only enlarges the scope of comparative political thought to engage inherited traditions that resist assimilation into Western conversations, but also reveals an indeterminate democratic potential grounded in political creativity.

Schopenhauer’s Pessimism in Context

2020 ◽  
pp. 283-298
Author(s):  
Mark Migotti
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Early Eighteenth Century

In this chapter, the author attempts to establish what is philosophically living and what is philosophically dead in Schopenhauer’s pessimism. Against the background of the intriguing the history of the terms “optimism” and “pessimism”—in debates about Leibniz’s theodicy in the early eighteenth century and the popularity of Schopenhauer in the late nineteenth century, respectively—the author points up the distinction between affirming life, which all living beings do naturally, and subscribing to philosophical optimism (or pessimism), which is possible only for reflective beings like us. Next, the author notes the significance of Schopenhauer’s claim that optimism is a necessary condition of theism and explains its bearing on his pessimistic argument for the moral unacceptability of suicide. The chapter concludes that Schopenhauer’s case for pessimism is not conclusive, but instructive; his dim view of the prospects for leading a truly rewarding, worthwhile human life draws vivid attention to important questions about how and to what degree an atheistic world can nevertheless be conducive to human flourishing.

Interdisciplinary History of Intercultural Communication Studies

2020 ◽  
pp. 60-163
Author(s):  
Steve J. Kulich ◽  
Liping Weng ◽  
Rongtian Tong ◽  
Greg DuBois
Keyword(s):  
Intercultural Communication ◽  
Communication Studies ◽  
History Of

Transforming Historical Objectivism into Historical Hermeneutics: From “Historical Illness” to Properly Lived Historicality

2019 ◽  
Vol 61 (4) ◽  
pp. 490-515
Author(s):  
Thomas Tops
Keyword(s):  
Reception History ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Historical Study ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
New Paradigm ◽  
History Of Interpretation ◽  
Critical Methodology ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
History Of ◽  
Biblical Texts

Summary The present study analyses recent criticisms against the use of modern-historical methodologies in Biblical Studies. These methodologies abstract from the historical horizon of the researcher. In order to relate properly to the historicality of the researcher, historical objectivism needs to be transformed into historical hermeneutics. Recent developments in the historical methodology of biblical scholars are unable to reckon with the historicality of the researcher due to the partial or incorrect implementation of Gadamer’s views on reception history. I analyse the views of Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, and Gadamer on historicality and contend that the study of reception history is a necessary condition for conducting historical study from within the limits of our historicality. Reception history should not be a distinct methodological step to study the “Nachleben” of biblical texts, but needs to clarify how the understanding of these texts is already effected by their history of interpretation. The awareness of the presuppositions that have guided previous interpretations of biblical texts enables us to be confronted by their alterity. This confrontation calls for a synthesis between reception-historical and historical-critical methodology that introduces a new paradigm for conducting historical study in Biblical Studies in dialogue with other theological disciplines.

scholarly journals Notes on the History of Eastern Adventure, Exploration, and Discovery, and Foreign Intercourse with Japan

1882 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 82-92
Author(s):  
C. Pfoundes
Keyword(s):  
Marco Polo ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Will ◽  
Previous Occasion

AbstractIn the paper I had the honour of reading before this society on a previous occasion, I alluded to the early explorers and adventurers, whose efforts were directed towards “Japan,” no doubt incited by the accounts of Marco Polo, and other early voyagers and travellers. Numerous efforts were made by private individuals, as well as by the heads of great nations, to open up fresh routes. I am strongly of opinion that justice is not done to the intelligence and energy of these early explorers, whom it has been but too general a fashion to call buccaneers. Few written accounts have come down to us of the earlier explorers and adventurers. Few men of those times had the literary talent, even if they had the will, to have their adventures put down in writing; but there are other and more cogent reasons why so little has been handed down to us.

scholarly journals Formation of Multiculturalism of Future Teachers of Foreign Languages in the Context of Multicultural Education

2020 ◽  
pp. 168-175
Author(s):  
Valeriia Shkarlet ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Multicultural Education ◽  
Intercultural Communication ◽  
Professional Training ◽  
Foreign Languages ◽  
Future Teachers ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
Multicultural Environment ◽  
Language Knowledge ◽  
History Of

The article explains the key concept "multicultural education of future teachers of foreign languages". The essence and content of the notions "multiculturalism", "multicultural education" are clarified; the connection between them is established. The influence of these concepts on the process of professional training of future teachers of foreign languages is also revealed. The concept of culture is defined, namely the origin and history of ancient, medieval and modern times of the use of this concept. The relevance of teaching humanitarian disciplines in higher education institutions, especially a foreign language, is highlighted, which expands the language knowledge of students and gives them the opportunity to become full members of a multicultural environment. Also, synonymous terms for the concept of "polyculture" and the main goals of polycultural education are presented. So, we can state that the multiculturalism of the personality of future teachers of a foreign language consists in striving during intercultural communication with representatives of other languages; to understand a specific foreign language system of language and concepts of culture, their system of value-semantic guidelines, to integrate new experience into one's own system of language and concepts of culture, and also to analyze the system of one's own culture through cognition of a new culture, which leads to the formation of multicultural value guidelines.

scholarly journals The History of Science and the History of Knowledge

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-90
Keyword(s):  
History Of Science ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Manhattan Project ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Contemporary History ◽  
History Of Knowledge ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
History Of ◽  
High Level

The article examines the state of the history of science as a discipline and its objectives in the context of its origins and current transformations. The establishment of this discipline and its assumptions about the nature of science together with its goals and structure are briefly discussed. The history of science became a discipline only at the beginning of the second half of the 20th century, and its start is associated with the work of chemist James Conant, a high-level administrator in Manhattan project who was also president of Harvard University and a high-ranking bureaucrat. It was based also on the narrative developed by Alfred North Whitehead, Edwin Burtt, Alexandre Koyré and other historians of science, which claimed modern science was the creator of modernity and a necessary condition for the geopolitical domination of the West. In that understanding, modern science meant science since the time of Galileo and Newton. The author provides a critical analysis of this foundation narrative for the discipline and of its consequences while showing how contemporary history of science has overcome it. The contradiction between modernism and historicism has been resolved in favor of the latter. A key role in this was played by the book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn, which held the potential to undo the presumed monolithic unity of science by rejecting teleology and introducing incommensurability and discontinuities into the historical process. By rejecting explanation of the knowledge of other times and places in terms of modern science, the discipline faced a radical multiplication of independent types of knowledge. This was facilitated by the reorientation to the study of knowledge practices that took place in the 1980s. As a result, the subject matter of the history of science began to erode, and this launched discussion of the prospects for a transition to a history of knowledge based on the study of practices. The sweep of this change of vision is illustrated by the example of classifying sciences according to both their subject matter and the similarities in their research practices. Finally, the advantages and disadvantages of the new discipline along with its prospects and the challenges it faces are discussed.

scholarly journals Historical and Symbolic Aspects of Linguistic Representation of the World

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-71
Author(s):  
Margarita Ganyushina
Keyword(s):  
Intercultural Communication ◽  
National Culture ◽  
Current Literature ◽  
Historical Development ◽  
Symbolic Meaning ◽  
Mutual Understanding ◽  
Symbolic Language ◽  
Theoretical Understanding ◽  
The World ◽  
World Image

The article is an attempt to offer a theoretical understanding of the notion of a “Linguistic world-image” (LWI) within symbolic contexts as represented in the current literature, define the symbol’s features, its influence on LWI in historic perspective, and investigate its functioning within idioms or metaphors. We have undertaken the review of previous LWI investigations and, as the methodological basis of our research, we have used ethno-semantic and linguistic-philosophical approaches to language; specifically, the method of multiple etymology, introduced by V. N. Toporov and developed by M.M. Makovsky, which permitted us to identify the correlation of LWI with linguistic signs as a carrier of symbolic meaning. It should be noted that studying symbolic language properties and linguistic signs within the linguistic world-image, which were not taken into account before, is conductive to a more profound comprehension of the correlation between language, culture, and mutual understanding index in the intercultural communication process.The LWI concept is considered as a subjective-objective dynamic multilevel construct, which presents its primary features through a lexical-semantic language system within a world and national culture formed as a result of the reflection of sensorial perception, facts, understanding and estimation of the objective phenomena in national linguistic consciousness, in the experience of correlation of language concepts, images and symbols throughout the cultural historical development of the language. Therefore, two approaches to studying LWI are evident - cognitive and cultural-philosophical - which are not so much conflicting as mutually reinforcing.

East West Dance Encounter (1984)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Uttara Asha Coorlawala
Keyword(s):  
Reformed Tradition ◽  
Intercultural Exchange ◽  
History Of ◽  
Indian Dance ◽  
East West

The East West Dance Encounter, 1984, Bombay, consisted of a week of presentations and discussion among selected performers and critics representing a range of styles, forms, and theories of dance and committed to intercultural exchange. In the evenings were public performances. Despite a long history of transformation, Indian dance in the 1980s was known more for adherence to tradition than for innovation. The East West Dance Encounter represented an early effort to acknowledge and celebrate choreographic experimentation. It highlighted projects that contended with the demands of a recently reformed tradition and those that engaged with modernist aesthetics, including expressionism and minimalism alongside postmodern initiatives like parody. This event set the stage for subsequent Dance Encounter events that continued to support modernist work in India.

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