Hyper-Generalization by the Human Mind

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaan Valsiner
Keyword(s):  
Interdisciplinary Research ◽  
Cultural Psychology ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Board Of Trustees ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Historical Anthropology ◽  
Social Anthropology ◽  
Research And Teaching ◽  
The Social ◽  
Keynote Speech

Jaan Valsiner shows how human beings create cognitive and affective orders through constructions of meaning that allow them to move safely in highly complex situations and environments. He sees the human being as an “animal symbolicum” with performative needs and driven by the desire to communicate. He shows how processes of interpretation, understanding and ordering are structured and how a combination of approaches from social anthropology, semiotics, cultural psychology and psychoanalysis can contribute to a more appropriate representation of these processes and their functions. The Hans Kilian Award for the Research and Promotion of Metacultural Humanisation honours excellent achievements in interdisciplinary research and teaching in the social and cultural sciences. In addition to the keynote speech by cultural psychologist Jaan Valsiner in English, there is a foreword by Heinz-Rudi Spiegel, chairman of the board of trustees for the Hans Kilian Award, and a laudatio by Pradeep Chakkarath, co-director of the Hans Kilian and Lotte Köhler Centre for Social and Cultural Psychology and Historical Anthropology.

Education and cosmopolitanism: Liberating our non-cosmopolitan minds through mindfulness

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (5) ◽  
pp. 610-627
Author(s):  
Oren Ergas
Keyword(s):  
Human Mind ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Interdisciplinary Field ◽  
Social Narratives ◽  
Main Challenge ◽  
The Social ◽  
Contemplative Studies ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Feeling At Home ◽  
Person Experience

This paper locates the main challenge for education in cosmopolitanism within the nature of education when interpreted as a “mind-making process.” Based on this interpretation, education is currently a process that shapes non-cosmopolitan minds, for the practices generally associated with it habituate the human mind to see “reality” through contingent social narratives. The aspiration of education in cosmopolitanism to cultivate “a sense of feeling at home and caring for the world,” requires practices that also liberate the mind from the contingencies of the social narratives into which it happens to be born. For such purpose, education requires an ethical meta-narrative, which applies to all human beings and appeals to a mutual human language. Following calls for embracing a pluralistic epistemology in policy making, this paper proposes the interdisciplinary field of contemplative studies that focuses on the understanding of the embodied mind, as a point of origin for considering education as such and education in cosmopolitanism in particular. Mindfulness is then interpreted as one possible practical pedagogy based on which we can practice detachment from the contingency of social narratives by cultivating grounded-ness in the non-contingency of pre-conceptual embodied first-person experience.

scholarly journals Towards a Cultural Psychology: Meaning and Social Practice as Key Elements

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Andrés Santamaría ◽  
Mercedes Cubero ◽  
Manuel Luis De la Mata
Keyword(s):  
Psychological Functioning ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Cultural Psychology ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Self And Other ◽  
The Social ◽  
Historically Situated ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Methodological Aspects

Several prominent scholars in the Social Sciences have defended the need for a new way of studying the relationship between culture and the individual. Over the last three decades, it has been common to find studies under the heading of Cultural Psychology (CP), which have focussed on the role of culture in historical and ontogenetic development. However, among the defenders of CP, there have been specific disagreements over theoretical and methodological aspects of the project. This lack of agreement is revealed by the different conceptions of the role of meaning and social practice in human psychological functioning. This paper aims is to analyze some different approaches to CP, and the role of meaning plays in its constitution. For us, the central claim of CP is that the human mind should be seen as inter-penetrated by intentional worlds that are culturally and historically situated, and this psychology must to study the ways psyche and culture; person and context, self and other, practitioner and practice live together, and jointly make each other up. In addition, CP has also identified the symbolic mediation of mind and culture as its analytical focus. Finally, we defend that culture and mind are to be treated as forms of culturally differentiated meaning practices. To make possible this enterprise, we propose the necessity to develop the notion of mediated and situated actions as a unit of analysis of Cultural Psychology.

Abortion Policy and the Market

2003 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-98
Author(s):  
John M. Cobin ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Public Choice ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Social Costs ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Abortion Policy ◽  
Social Loss ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
Unwanted Pregnancies ◽  
The One

The only true scarce resource is the human mind. Yet abortion is perhaps the most potent enemy of the human mind, since it destroys the one thing in life that cannot be replaced. Ecmomic analysis suggests that abortion policy will fail to serve the public iruerest due to public choice and knowledge problems, and it will adversely distort beneficial market phenomena like adoption services. Even if markets fail to produce zero unwanted pregnancies, it is not clear that abortion policy has avoided more tragic government failures. Theologians argue that killing innocent human beings is moral turpitude, since an irreplaceable soul is lost. But abortion is also a huge social loss in an economic sense. Society loses from legalized abortion by losing a mind and from the social costs that devolve from destroying that mind. Hence, classical liberals should embrace the recent pro-life momentum.

scholarly journals LANGUAGE – PROLIFIC SOURCE OF HUMAN MIND AND SPEECH

2019 ◽  
Vol 49 (06) ◽  
pp. 11-14
Author(s):  
Tamar Karaia
Keyword(s):  
Main Part ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Human History ◽  
Human Race ◽  
Specialized Knowledge ◽  
Profound Impact ◽  
New Words ◽  
The Social ◽  
Culture And Language

ABSTRACT The paper encloses different aspects of language and its facets which influences the social way of thinking and speaking in human behaviour. As we argue, generating new words and other fundamental changes in linguistic as the main part of language development, makes a profound impact on the components of culture and language simultaneously. The article also reviews the strong power of human words and speech that makes unforgettable sense of human evolution. The central issue is how important the word expression is and so features of the words expressed by human beings actually reveal their attitude and the way they perceive the whole world. So, language has played a prominent role in human history. Furthermore, the things we use in our everyday lives rely on specialized knowledge or skills human race produce through the language. The information behind these was historically coded in verbal communications, and with the advent of writing it could be stored and become increasingly complex and sophisticated. As it is underlined, the evolution of human spices absolutely depends on language, and if we carefully accept every change in as language with the correct approach to the issue, we really became inheritors of unusual and invaluable heritage.

scholarly journals Cross-cultural psychiatric research: an anthropologist's view

1990 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 143-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Inga-Britt Krause
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Interdisciplinary Research ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Psychiatric Research ◽  
Cultural Issues ◽  
Social Anthropology ◽  
Cultural Research ◽  
The Social ◽  
Cross Cultural Research ◽  
The Relationship

A need for improved communication between the social sciences and psychiatry is being expressed from many quarters. Interest in social and cultural issues is not, of course, new to psychiatry, but collaboration between the two approaches has not always been easy. Recently one social science in particular has become popular with psychiatry. This is social anthropology, and many psychiatrists consider that the inclusion of anthropological data and methods, particularly in cross-cultural research, can be useful and informative to psychiatry. What then is the relationship between anthropology and psychiatry and what are the problems which professionals face in attempting interdisciplinary research?

scholarly journals Cultural Psychology

1998 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 141-145
Author(s):  
Muhyiddin Shakoor
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Psychology ◽  
Developmental Psychology ◽  
Culturally Sensitive ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Social Practices ◽  
Mental Life ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Mental Processes ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Future

For the past thirty years, Michael Cole has been a prolific writer, researcher,and creative thinker in the field of developmental psychology. In CulturalPsychology: A Once and Future Discipline, he attempts to synthesize what hehas learned and to set forth an approach to developmental psychology from anhistorical and culrural perspective. Hence, a culturally sensitive science ofhuman development appears to be Cole's objective. He describes cultural psychologyas "the study of culture's role in the mental life of human beings." Hissubtitle suggests that culrural psychology was a discipline which existed in formertimes and will exist again in the future. Cole argues in favor of what isknown as a "second psychology," which moves beyond the confines of traditionaland contemporary psychological thinking about how the human mind isunderstood. The former psychology, described as naturalistic, has focused onthe familiar and more classical views. Such views evolved from our analysis ofmental phenomena developed from ideas, sensations, reflexes, and experienceswith sensorimotor connections. Alternately, the latter approach, "second psychology,"looks at the higher mental processes formed by cultures. Theseinclude things such as languages, myths, and social practices within the individual'ssocial context. The author reviews the evolution of thought throughseveral contemporary thinkers who, in his view, have contributed the substanceof a scientific, second psychology-oriented methodology necessary for aviable, efficacious culrural psychology. That is to say a psychology which issensitive to social and culrural contexts. The context includes such things aslanguage, riruals, and routines as they contribute to understanding people interms of their interdependence, cooperation, and essential humanity ...

Current issues in aesthetics and beyond: Revisiting lookism

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 59-68
Author(s):  
Peter Takáč
Keyword(s):  
Plastic Surgery ◽  
Social Impact ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Common View ◽  
Aesthetic Medicine ◽  
Unequal Treatment ◽  
Self Confidence ◽  
Public Status ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Common

AbstractLookism is a term used to describe discrimination based on the physical appearance of a person. We suppose that the social impact of lookism is a philosophical issue, because, from this perspective, attractive people have an advantage over others. The first line of our argumentation involves the issue of lookism as a global ethical and aesthetical phenomenon. A person’s attractiveness has a significant impact on the social and public status of this individual. The common view in society is that it is good to be more attractive and healthier. This concept generates several ethical questions about human aesthetical identity, health, authenticity, and integrity in society. It seems that this unequal treatment causes discrimination, diminishes self-confidence, and lowers the chance of a job or social enforcement for many human beings. Currently, aesthetic improvements are being made through plastic surgery. There is no place on the human body that we cannot improve with plastic surgery or aesthetic medicine. We should not forget that it may result in the problem of elitism, in dividing people into primary and secondary categories. The second line of our argumentation involves a particular case of lookism: Melanie Gaydos. A woman that is considered to be a model with a unique look.

New Wars and Their Visual Representation: Dead Bodies without Graves/Mourne

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Tuncay Şur ◽  
Betül Yarar
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Visual Representation ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Public ◽  
Photographic Images ◽  
War Photography ◽  
New Wars ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Impact

This paper seeks to understand why there has been an increase in photographic images exposing military violence or displaying bodies killed by military forces and how they can freely circulate in the public without being censored or kept hidden. In other words, it aims to analyze this particular issue as a symptom of the emergence of new wars and a new regime of their visual representation. Within this framework, it attempts to relate two kinds of literature that are namely the history of war and war photography with the bridge of theoretical discussions on the real, its photographic representation, power, and violence.  Rather than systematic empirical analysis, the paper is based on a theoretical attempt which is reflected on some socio-political observations in the Middle East where there has been ongoing wars or new wars. The core discussion of the paper is supported by a brief analysis of some illustrative photographic images that are served through the social media under the circumstances of war for instance in Turkey between Turkish military troops and the Kurdish militants. The paper concludes that in line with the process of dissolution/transformation of the old nation-state formations and globalization, the mechanism and mode of power have also transformed to the extent that it resulted in the emergence of new wars. This is one dynamic that we need to recognize in relation to the above-mentioned question, the other is the impact of social media in not only delivering but also receiving war photographies. Today these changes have led the emergence of new machinery of power in which the old modern visual/photographic techniques of representing wars without human beings, torture, and violence through censorship began to be employed alongside medieval power techniques of a visual exhibition of tortures and violence.

Engagement as a Reflection of Communicative Potential

Communicology ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-33
Author(s):  
N.V. Kirillina
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Interdisciplinary Research ◽  
Strategic Communication ◽  
Phenomenological Tradition ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Potential ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Communicative Processes

The paper represents the analysis of the concept of communicative. The choice of topic is determined by the search for criteria and tools for assessing the results of strategic communication, taking into account the development of its interactive forms. The author leads the existing approaches to the definition of the concept of engagement and identifies the areas for further interdisciplinary research of the specified subject, and raises the issue of the appropriateness of using the engagement indicators in the assessment the social potential of communication. The work is based on the phenomenological tradition in the interpretation of communicative processes and the metamodel of communication of R. Craig. The author uses the methods of comparative analysis, analogy, generalization, and combined methodology of interdisciplinary analysis.

The Property Species

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bart J. Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Fundamental Principle ◽  
First Century ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Full Account ◽  
Symbolic Thought ◽  
Core Property ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of

What is property, and why does our species happen to have it? The Property Species explores how Homo sapiens acquires, perceives, and knows the custom of property, and why it might be relevant for understanding how property works in the twenty-first century. Arguing from some hard-to-dispute facts that neither the natural sciences nor the humanities—nor the social sciences squarely in the middle—are synthesizing a full account of property, this book offers a cross-disciplinary compromise that is sure to be controversial: All human beings and only human beings have property in things, and at its core, property rests on custom, not rights. Such an alternative to conventional thinking contends that the origins of property lie not in food, mates, territory, or land, but in the very human act of creating, with symbolic thought, something new that did not previously exist. Integrating cognitive linguistics with the philosophy of property and a fresh look at property disputes in the common law, this book makes the case that symbolic-thinking humans locate the meaning of property within a thing. The provocative implications are that property—not property rights—is an inherent fundamental principle of economics, and that legal realists and the bundle-of-sticks metaphor are wrong about the facts regarding property. Written by an economist who marvels at the natural history of humankind, the book is essential reading for experts and any reader who has wondered why people claim things as “Mine!,” and what that means for our humanity.

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