Posthuman Scale

CounterText ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-43
Author(s):  
Mads Rosendahl Thomsen

Visions of the posthuman are almost inevitably tied up with questions of scale. The size of Frankenstein's creation sets him apart from humanity, the longevity of Virginia Woolf's Orlando makes her / him uncannily posthuman, and the travels of Gulliver constantly confront the protagonist with the issue of physical scale. This article investigates different dimensions of posthuman scale with examples from fiction, film, and transhumanist writings. From the sizes of bodies and the length of lives to the more complex matters of the scale of consciousness and the magnitude of social connections, what happens when an element of human existence is changed and becomes either very large or very small is a recurrent and important question. Such changes have consequences for ethical dispositions towards the lives of others, for the aesthetic appreciation or dislike of new beings, and for the ability to envision completely new ways of connecting to the world and others, for example through a cloud of shared thoughts, as Olaf Stapledon imagined. One special case of posthuman scale is the replication of the individual and the number of possible lives an individual can live without losing individuality, a question that is also pivotal for the idea of the human as a simulation that has been proposed by writers, filmmakers, and futurists alike.

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 384-400 ◽  
Author(s):  
Héctor J Pérez ◽  
Rainer Reisenzein

The death of Jon Snow at the end of the fifth season of the TV serial Game of Thrones prompted an intense reaction among the fans of the serial on social media. Thousands of viewers all over the world contributed to the discussion of the meaning and implications of this event, turning it into a global event in the participatory culture of contemporary seriality. In this article, we propose an explanation of this remarkable cultural phenomenon. Based on a theory of plot twists as surprise structures, we argue that the reactions of fans can be understood as concrete, contextually adapted realizations of the characteristic cognitive reactions evoked by the emotions of surprise and shock caused by unexpected negative events. Our analysis focuses in particular on the contributions of viewers to the establishment of the beliefs disconfirmed by the plot twist and on the cognitive activities that served to adapt their minds to the new reality revealed by the twist, which also included reflections on the aesthetic aspects of the plot twist and the narrative in which it was embedded. By providing a public platform for these reflections, the fan forums allowed the individual attempts to adapt to the plot twist to become a collective endeavor. The study illustrates how universal cognitive mechanisms interact with culturally produced contents to generate similar reactions to a fictional event across the globe.


Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (11) ◽  
pp. 1029
Author(s):  
Jessica Frazier

The idea of a univocal property of ‘goodness’ is not clearly found in classical Sanskrit sources; instead, a common ethical strategy was to clarify the ontological nature of the self or world in such a way that ethical implications naturally flow from the adjustment in our thinking. This article gives a synoptic reading of sources that treat features of ethics—dispositions, agents, causal systems of effect, and even values themselves—as emergent phenomena grounded in complex, shifting, porous configurations. One conclusion of this was that what ‘goodness’ entails varies according to the scope and context of our concern. Firstly, we examine how the Bhagavad Gītā fashions a utilitarianism that assumes no universal intrinsically valuable goal or Good, but aims only to sustain the world as a prerequisite for choice. Recognising that this pushes problems of identifying the Good onto the individual; secondly, we look at accounts of malleable personhood in the Caraka Saṃhitā and Book 12 of the Mahābhārata. Finally, the aesthetic theory of the Nāṭya Śāstra hints at a context-constituted conception of value itself, reminding us that evaluative emotions are themselves complex, curate-able, and can expand beyond egoism to encompass interpersonal concerns. Together these sources show aspects of an ethical worldview for which each case is a nexus in a larger ethical fabric. Each tries to pry us away from our most personal concerns, so we can reach beyond the ego to do what is of value for a wider province of which we are a part.


2019 ◽  
Vol 95 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-102
Author(s):  
Diana Lohwasser

Abstract The Regime of the Aesthetic As a preliminary, the text deals with the question of what can be understood by a regime of the aesthetic. The aesthetic regime generates patterns of perception that guide people in their behavior and actions. The regime of the aesthetic oscillates between social regression and emancipation. The regression of the individual aesthetic perception of the world and of the self is evident in all areas of social life. Through the mass media, the aesthetic regime has the ability to manipulate people and influence perceptions and judgment. The ability of the self to defend itself against manipulation regresses. The adoption of given perception, explanation and assessment systems makes life easier than having to question contexts. The difficult task is to emancipate oneself from the regressive aesthetic regime. Referred to Rancière, it requires an ›emancipated viewer‹ capable of emancipating itself from the assigned structures of an aesthetic regime. This endeavor represents an infinite task.


Author(s):  
Allen Carlson

Environmental aesthetics is one of the major new areas of aesthetics to have emerged in the last part of the twentieth century. It focuses on philosophical issues concerning appreciation of the world at large as it is constituted not simply by particular objects but also by environments themselves. In this way environmental aesthetics goes beyond the appreciation of art to the aesthetic appreciation of both natural and human environments. Its development has been influenced by eighteenth-century landscape aesthetics as well as by two recent factors: the exclusive focus of twentieth-century philosophical aesthetics on art, and the public concern for the aesthetic condition of environments that developed in the second half of that century. Both factors broadened the scope of environmental aesthetics beyond that of traditional aesthetics, and both helped to set the central philosophical issue of the field, which is due in large measure to the differences between the nature of the object of appreciation of environmental aesthetics, the world at large and the nature of art. These differences are so marked that environmental aesthetics must begin with basic questions, such as ‘what’ and ‘how’ to appreciate. These questions have generated a number of different philosophical positions, two of which are the engagement and the cognitive approaches. The first holds that appreciators must transcend traditional dichotomies, such as subject/object, and diminish the distance between themselves and objects of appreciation, aiming at multi-sensory immersion of the former within the latter. By contrast, the second contends that appreciation must be guided by the nature of objects of appreciation and that knowledge about their origins, types and properties is necessary for serious, appropriate aesthetic appreciation. Each approach has certain strengths and weaknesses. However, although different in emphasis, they are not in direct conflict. When conjoined, they advocate bringing together feeling and knowing, which is the core of serious aesthetic experience and which, when achieved in aesthetic appreciation of different environments of the world at large, shows just how rewarding such appreciation can be.


2019 ◽  
pp. 86-95
Author(s):  
Iryna Ivanenko

The article analyzes models of metaphorical description of sounds that are relevant to M. Vinhranovsky’s individual poetic picture of the world. It is determined that the most productive type of audio metaphorization is related to the verbalization of associative sound-to-nature relationships. Its relevance is determined by the collective (secured by verbal tradition) and individual (author) experience of perceiving objects of national space, such as river, sky, water, forest, grove, trees, as well as related phenomena of nature (wind, storm, thunder, rain). and living things (birds, animals, insects). The persistence of associations in the poetic texts motivated by this experience has been consistently confirmed. The collective and individual experience of perception of the phenomena of the nature of rain, thunderstorm, rain, wind, water motivates the active use of «sound» verbs, which metaphorize the various actions and intensity of manifestation of these phenomena. The stylistic performance of common linguistic formulas with stylistically neutral verbs – carriers of the archives of ‘sounds of nature’ is traced. It is proved that an important fragment of the sound definition of the world in the national linguistic-poetic practice and in the idyllic style of M. Vinhranovsky as its symbolic fragment is the image of “silence”. Updating the “zero” manifestation of audio semantics, it creates a semantic opposition to images with the seven “sound”. The aesthetic unfolding of the image of silence in various structural metaphorical structures: verbal predicative, verbal object, oxymoronic, tautological is attested. Analyzed metaphors confirm that the aesthetized verbalization of sound impressions is one of the dominants of M. Vinhranovsky’s individual poetic phrase, in which the metaphors with the seven ‘sound’ are indisputable artistic dominants.


Author(s):  
Е.В. Гунина ◽  
О.В. Дудина

Актуальность статьи обусловлена необходимостью снижения риска внедрения цифровой среды в процесс социализации личности. Цель данной работы провести анализ научной литературы по проблеме социализации в педагогике и психологии. Выявлено, что междисциплинарное изучение социализации сказалось на отсутствии единого определения. Тем не менее, в них найдено общее: социализация — это процесс вхождения личности в мир социальных общностей посредством культуры, социальных связей. Обозначена положительная и отрицательная роль цифровой среды в социализации. Авторы статьи считают, что снижение риска внедрения цифровых технологий возможно, во-первых, при изучении социализации личности в цифровой среде с опорой на принцип системности и учета многомерности (когнитивная, эмоциональная и поведенческая) социализации. Во-вторых, необходима модель целенаправленного и систематического психолого-педагогического сопровождения социализации личности. The relevance of the article is due to the need to reduce the risk of introducing a digital environment into the socialization of the individual. The purpose of this work is to analyze the scientific literature on the problem of socialization in pedagogy and psychology. It was revealed that the interdisciplinary study of socialization had an impact on the absence of a unified definition. However, they have a common source: socialization is the process of involvement of an individual in the world of social communities via means of culture and social connections. The authors of the article believe that reducing the risk of digital technologies is possible, first, in studying the socialization of the individual in the digital environment, based on the principle of systemicity and multidimensionality (cognitive, emotional and behavioral) socialization. Secondly, the model of goal-oriented and systematic, psychological and pedagogical support of a personality is of need.


Author(s):  
Р.Я. Фидарова ◽  
И.А. Кайтова

Суть методологического подхода Коста Хетагурова к проблемам культурноисторического развития осетинского народа в том, что он рассматривал общественное бытие и общественное сознание осетин как взаимосвязанные и взаимообусловленные феномены, составляющие единое целое, целостную систему, формирующую фундаментальную основу реалистического типа мышления, преследующего цель в удивительно жизненных, созидаемых им образах, глубоко и основательно раскрыть эстетическую специфику философского, духовнонравственного, культурноисторического освоения горцами объективного мира, мира их национальной действительности. Теоретическим инструментарием при этом для Коста является метод восхождения от абстрактного, включающего в данном случае в себя такие компоненты духовной культуры, как национальный менталитет, обычаи, обряды, традиции, Агъдау как нравственный кодекс жизни горцев, к конкретному, т.е. к судьбе и характеру отдельного человека, члена горского общества носителя его родовых качеств и родимых пятен . Кроме того, в состав теоретического инструментария Коста, при формировании им реалистического типа художественного мышления, включаются и принцип объективности, позволяющий ему анализировать противоречивый характер как действительности, так и характер отдельного человека принцип развития, помогающий Коста учитывать диалектический характер горского бытия принцип преемственности, давший возможность поэту глубоко осмыслить органические связи прошлого и настоящего. Ну а системноисторический подход помогал Коста выявить наиболее существенные, постоянные, т.е. константные связи явлений в общественной жизни и общественном сознании, тогда как детерминизм давал возможность обнажать их объективную зависимость от социальноисторических и природногеографических факторов. Столь богатый теоретический инструментарий помогал Коста глубоко и основательно осмысливать метафизические проблемы жизни горского общества. И это явилось основой формирования его реалистического типа мышления, способного дать удивительно органичный, объективноконцептуальный, художественноэстетический анализ критического состояния мира . А из данного анализа логически следовал убедительный вывод, призывающий народ к беспощадной борьбе за свободу, равенство и братство людей, а именно: мир враждебен человеку, губит его физически и развращает нравственно. И, следовательно, в данных социальноисторических обстоятельствах человек обречен на гибель, если не станет на защиту своей жизни и свободы. При решении столь сложной художественноэстетической задачи Коста умело использовал осетинскую мифологию как важнейший компонент структуры реалистического типа мышления, основы которого он же и заложил в формирующейся осетинской литературе. The essence of Khetagurovs methodological approach to the problems of cultural and historical development of the Ossetian people is that he considered the social existence and social consciousness of Ossetians as interrelated and interdependent phenomena making up a single whole, an integral system that forms the fundamental basis of a realistic type of thinking, pursuing the goal in a surprisingly vital, created by them images, deeply and thoroughly reveal the aesthetic specificity of the philosophical, spiritual, moral, cultural and historical development of the highlanders of the objective world, the world of their national reality. The theoretical tools for Kosta is the method of ascent from the abstract, which in this case includes such components of spiritual culture as the national mentality, customs, rituals, traditions, Agdau as a moral code of life of the highlanders to the specific, i.e. to the fate and character of the individual, a member of the mountain society the carrier of his generic qualities and birthmarks. In addition, the theoretical tools of Kosta, when forming a realistic type of artistic thinking, include the principle of objectivity, allowing him to analyze the contradictory nature of both reality and the nature of the individual the principle of development, which helps Kosta to take into account the dialectical nature of mountain life the principle of continuity, which gave the poet a deep understanding of the organic connections of the past and the present. But the systemhistorical approach helped Kosta to identify the most significant, permanent, i.e. constant connections of phenomena in public life and public consciousness, while determinism made it possible to expose their objective dependence on sociohistorical and naturalgeographical factors. Such a wealth of theoretical tools helped Kosta to think deeply and thoroughly about the metaphysical problems of mountain society. And this was the basis for the formation of his realistic type of thinking that can give a surprisingly organic, objectively conceptual, artistic and aesthetic analysis of the critical state of the world. And from this analysis logically followed a convincing conclusion, calling people to ruthless struggle for freedom, equality and brotherhood of people, namely: the world is hostile to man, destroys it physically and corrupts morally. And, therefore, in these sociohistorical circumstances, a person is doomed to death if he does not protect his life and freedom. In solving such a complex artistic and aesthetic problem Kosta skillfully used Ossetian mythology as an important component of the structure of the realistic type of thinking, the foundations of which he laid in the emerging Ossetian literature.


Author(s):  
Allen Carlson

Environmental aesthetics is one of the major new areas of aesthetics to have emerged in the last part of the twentieth century. It focuses on philosophical issues concerning appreciation of the world at large as it is constituted not simply by particular objects but also by environments themselves. In this way environmental aesthetics goes beyond the appreciation of art to the aesthetic appreciation of both natural and human environments. The development of environmental aesthetics has been influenced by eighteenth-century landscape aesthetics as well as by two recent factors: the exclusive focus of twentieth-century philosophical aesthetics on art and the public concern for the aesthetic condition of environments that developed in the second half of that century. Both factors have broadened the scope of environmental aesthetics beyond that of traditional aesthetics, and both have helped to set the central philosophical issues of the field, which are due in large measure to the differences between the nature of the object of appreciation of environmental aesthetics, the world at large, and the nature of art. These differences are so marked that environmental aesthetics must begin with most basic questions, such as ‘what’ and ‘how’ to appreciate. These questions have generated a number of different philosophical positions, which are typically classified as either noncognitive or cognitive approaches. Positions of the first type stress various kinds of emotional and feeling-related states and responses, which are taken to be the more noncognitive dimensions of aesthetic experience. By contrast, positions of the second type contend that appreciation must be guided by the nature of objects of appreciation and thus that knowledge about their origins, types and properties is necessary for serious, appropriate aesthetic appreciation. Each of these two kinds of approach has certain strengths and weaknesses. However, recent work in environmental aesthetics, especially in the aesthetics of human environments and everyday life, demonstrates that although different in emphasis, they are not in direct conflict. When conjoined, they advocate bringing together feeling and knowing, which is the core of serious aesthetic experience and which, when achieved in aesthetic appreciation of different environments of the world at large, demonstrates just how rewarding such appreciation can be.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 97-111
Author(s):  
Ewa Barnaś-Bara

In 2019 in Rzeszów the XVIII World Festival of the Polish community folk groups was held. The festivals have been organized since 1969, being the Song and Dance Group of Olza one of their most frequent participants. Rzeszów hosted other groups from the Czech Republic which were equally successful. The groups are widely-recognized in their own country receiving many prizes and awards in there. The paper indicates the different dimensions of Polish-Czech integration, namely personal, linguistic, educational, cultural and behavioral. The activities undertaken by the concert organizers as well as the individual effort of the participants and the audience alike made that creating the community, integration and building contacts between different nationalities, regions and cultures was possible. The main source constituted the materials collected at the Centre of Research on the Poles and the Polish community in the world of the University of Rzeszów as well as the press articles published locally and nationally.


2018 ◽  
pp. 35-44
Author(s):  
Юлія Юріївна Бродецька

The article deals with the ontological aspects of the consolidation of social being. As a fundamental reproduction mechanism, there is a phenomenon of meaning. The meaning produces, transmits the practice of connectivity and the unity of co-existence both at the individual and social levels. It is a connection, involvement that continues in the nature, quality, stability of human relations with the outside world. This connection gives the status of reality, the truth of human existence. In its ontological significance, reality as materiality, conformity, is only in experience. Thereby it is revealed that the social and individual being reality is in the space of experience that a human acquires in social interaction. «Significance of experience» forms a connection with reality, which acts as an ontological basis of meaning and grows out of its metaphysical nature. Thus, it fills the meaning itself, makes a true, real human being. The meaning connects, transforms and gives perspective to social relations. It is noted that the basis of meaning is its ontological characteristic, that is, a phenomenon arising from the real life relationships of an individual with the outside world. The nature of the meaning, which is an integral, consolidating, is determined by its transcendence. The meaning is always in the objective world. In other words, human does not choose and does not invent meaning, on the contrary, by selfrealization, it forms its connection with the world – its life meaning. Therefore, human existence requires direction to someone (something) other than herself. This metaphysical connection of being and meaning ensures the connection of human co-existence. So the true life meaning is always outside the human self, and therefore requires unity with other people. This logic reveals the phenomenon of comprehension as an integral being element, its symbolic component. Because of this, the main task of human is to go beyond the limits of their own selfishness, to feel their connection with the surrounding world. In this perspective, the meaning phenomenon is revealed in the space of sacral transformation, the personality birth. The more human overcomes the power of selfishness in themselves, the more he reveals the uniqueness of the surrounding world, the more he improves, realizes himself, acquires understanding of his own personality. In other words, self-realization itself does not foresee a direction. When in the human creativity field there is no orientation towards another human, when he «creatеs» for himself, a human must be prepared to be disappointed. Such «creativity» is empty, unclaimed, since it is devoid of its main content – love, that is, meaning. In other words, self-realization in itself should not and can not be the goal of human life. It is the result of the life meaning realization that is achieved only in the harmonious human connection with the outside world, only in productive relations with others. Therefore, self-realization is only a side effect of the man’s release beyond his own self. Consequently, meaningful life is not concentrated on its own «I», but is connected internally and externally with the lives of others. Moreover, this life is not only connected but it is also integral, since the nature of human relationship with the surrounding reality is a projection of the attitude towards himself. Thus, the analysis of the consolidation mechanisms of human existence, of its integrity, harmony, must focus in the space of the meaning problem. In other words, it is a matter of gaining a real individual experience of unity with the world. It is precisely this perspective of studying problems of integration of social and individual order that allows you to offer tools and ways to solve the issue.


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