Download or read book Rational Ritual written by Michael Suk-Young Chwe and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2013-04-28 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Why do beer commercials dominate Super Bowl advertising? How do political ceremonies establish authority? Why were circular forms favored for public festivals during the French Revolution? This book answers these questions using a single concept: common knowledge. Game theory shows that in order to coordinate its actions, a group of people must form "common knowledge." Each person wants to participate only if others also participate. Members must have knowledge of each other, knowledge of that knowledge, and so on. Michael Chwe applies this insight, with striking erudition, to analyze a range of rituals across history and cultures. He shows that public ceremonies are powerful not simply because they transmit meaning from a central source to each audience member but because they let audience members know what other members know. In a new afterword, Chwe delves into new applications of common knowledge, both in the real world and in experiments, and considers how generating common knowledge has become easier in the digital age." -- From the jacket.

Download or read book Reason and Culture written by Ernest Gellner and published by Wiley-Blackwell. This book was released on 1992-08-03 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the 17th century, Western society has had a turbulent relationship with Reason. Descartes set out to reorganize all his opinions in the light of Reason, allowing, as Pascal bitterly reproached him, nothing else. In the course of the centuries which followed, the relationship with Reason became the object of a vigorous, often passionate debate. David Hume declared Reason to be impotent; Immanuel Kant observed that men suffered from 'misology' as the result of their disappointed expectations from Reason; G.W.F. Hegel declared that the main insight of philosophy consisted of the realization that Reason masterminded and guided all history. The debate has not remained restricted to philosophy. Max Weber, the most influential modern sociologist, was obsessed with the distinctive role of Reason in Western society, and the part it played in engendering industrialism. Social anthropologists have been preoccupied both with the universality and the diversity of conceptual thought. Emile Durkheim taught them to ask why all men were rational, whilst Max Weber taught sociologists to ask why some men were more rational than others. This book brings together the philosophical, historical and sociological discussions of rationality and strives to make clear the underlying issues and the continuity of the debate in the various disciplines.

Download or read book Reason and Culture written by Ernest Gellner and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Culture and Practical Reason written by Marshall Sahlins and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2013-11-22 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The main thrust of this book is to deliver a major critique of materialist and rationalist explanations of social and cultural forms, but the in the process Sahlins has given us a much stronger statement of the centrality of symbols in human affairs than have many of our 'practicing' symbolic anthropologists. He demonstrates that symbols enter all phases of social life: those which we tend to regard as strictly pragmatic, or based on concerns with material need or advantage, as well as those which we tend to view as purely symbolic, such as ideology, ritual, myth, moral codes, and the like. . . ."—Robert McKinley, Reviews in Anthropology

Download or read book Rationality written by Steven Pinker and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2021-09-28 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2021 'Punchy, funny and invigorating ... Pinker is the high priest of rationalism' Sunday Times 'If you've ever considered taking drugs to make yourself smarter, read Rationality instead. It's cheaper, more entertaining, and more effective' Jonathan Haidt, author of The Righteous Mind In the twenty-first century, humanity is reaching new heights of scientific understanding - and at the same time appears to be losing its mind. How can a species that discovered vaccines for Covid-19 in less than a year produce so much fake news, quack cures and conspiracy theorizing? In Rationality, Pinker rejects the cynical cliché that humans are simply an irrational species - cavemen out of time fatally cursed with biases, fallacies and illusions. After all, we discovered the laws of nature, lengthened and enriched our lives and set the benchmarks for rationality itself. Instead, he explains, we think in ways that suit the low-tech contexts in which we spend most of our lives, but fail to take advantage of the powerful tools of reasoning we have built up over millennia: logic, critical thinking, probability, causal inference, and decision-making under uncertainty. These tools are not a standard part of our educational curricula, and have never been presented clearly and entertainingly in a single book - until now. Rationality matters. It leads to better choices in our lives and in the public sphere, and is the ultimate driver of social justice and moral progress. Brimming with insight and humour, Rationality will enlighten, inspire and empower. 'A terrific book, much-needed for our time' Peter Singer

Download or read book The Moral Purpose of the State written by Christian Reus-Smit and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2009-11-02 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book seeks to explain why different systems of sovereign states have built different types of fundamental institutions to govern interstate relations. Why, for example, did the ancient Greeks operate a successful system of third-party arbitration, while international society today rests on a combination of international law and multilateral diplomacy? Why did the city-states of Renaissance Italy develop a system of oratorical diplomacy, while the states of absolutist Europe relied on naturalist international law and "old diplomacy"? Conventional explanations of basic institutional practices have difficulty accounting for such variation. Christian Reus-Smit addresses this problem by presenting an alternative, "constructivist" theory of international institutional development, one that emphasizes the relationship between the social identity of the state and the nature and origin of basic institutional practices. Reus-Smit argues that international societies are shaped by deep constitutional structures that are based on prevailing beliefs about the moral purpose of the state, the organizing principle of sovereignty, and the norm of procedural justice. These structures inform the imaginations of institutional architects as they develop and adjust institutional arrangements between states. As he shows with detailed reference to ancient Greece, Renaissance Italy, absolutist Europe, and the modern world, different cultural and historical contexts lead to profoundly different constitutional structures and institutional practices. The first major study of its kind, this book is a significant addition to our theoretical and empirical understanding of international relations, past and present.

Download or read book On Reason written by Emmanuel Chukwudi Eze and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2008-07-04 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A philosophical argument that rationality is based on, or produced from, difference, and is not only worth retaining but necessary in a culturally diverse world.

Download or read book Rational Rabbis written by Menachem Fisch and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 1997-11-22 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: " . . . a fascinating and thought-provoking book . . . " —The Jewish Quarterly "The best introduction to the talmudic literature that is available. . . . An extraordinarily important book, brilliant, and lucid." —Daniel Boyarin "Menachem Fisch has written a rich, thoughtful book. One will come away from Rational Rabbis with a deeper understanding of just what the Talmud is." —Hilary Putnam Talmudic culture is often viewed as bound by its traditions. Menachem Fisch maintains that a close reading of talmudic texts frequently reveals their authors as rabbis who, rather than conform uncritically to tradition, knowingly set out to expose and resolve problems inherent in the received traditions.

Download or read book The Ambivalences of Rationality written by Geoffrey Ernest Richard Lloyd and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 137 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cross-cultural examination of notions and practices of rationality in ancient and modern societies, drawing on philosophy, ethnography and cognitive science.

Download or read book Environmental Culture written by Val Plumwood and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2005-09-15 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this much-needed account of what has gone wrong in our thinking about the environment, Val Plumwood digs at the roots of environmental degradation. She argues that we need to see nature as an end itself, rather than an instrument to get what we want. Using a range of examples, Plumwood presents a radically new picture of how our culture must change to accommodate nature.

Download or read book Incorporating Science Economics and Sociology in Developing Sanitary and Phytosanitary Standards in International Trade written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2000-05-31 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The rapid expansion of international trade has brought to the fore issues of conflicting national regulations in the area of plant, animal, and human health. These problems include the concern that regulations designed to protect health can also be used for protection of domestic producers against international competition. At a time when progressive tariff reform has opened up markets and facilitated trade, in part responding to consumer demands for access to a wide choice of products and services at reasonable prices, closer scrutiny of regulatory measures has become increasingly important. At the same time, there are clear differences among countries and cultures as to the types of risk citizens are willing to accept. The activities of this conference were based on the premise that risk analyses (i.e., risk assessment, management, and communication) are not exclusively the domain of the biological and natural sciences; the social sciences play a prominent role in describing how people in different contexts perceive and respond to risks. Any effort to manage sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) issues in international trade must integrate all the sciences to develop practices for risk assessment, management, and communication that recognize international diversity in culture, experience, and institutions. Uniform international standards can help, but no such norms are likely to be acceptable to all countries. Political and administrative structures also differ, causing differences in approaches and outcomes even when basic aims are compatible. Clearly there is considerable room for confusion and mistrust. The issue is how to balance the individual regulatory needs and approaches of countries with the goal of promoting freer trade. This issue arises not only for SPS standards but also in regard to regulations that affect other areas such as environmental quality, working conditions, and the exercise of intellectual property rights. This conference focused on these issues in the specific area of SPS measures. This area includes provisions to protect plant and animal health and life and, more generally, the environment, and regulations that protect humans from foodborne risks. The Society for Risk Analysis defines a risk as the potential for realization of unwanted, adverse consequences to human life, health, property, or the environment; estimation of risk is usually based on the expected value of the conditional probability of the event occurring times the consequence of the event given that it has occurred. The task of this conference and of this report was to elucidate the place of science, culture, politics, and economics in the design and implementation of SPS measures and in their international management. The goal was to explore the critical roles and the limitations of the biological and natural sciences and the social sciences, such as economics, sociology, anthropology, philosophy, and political science in the management of SPS issues and in judging whether particular SPS measures create unacceptable barriers to international trade. The conference's objective also was to consider the elements that would compose a multidisciplinary analytical framework for SPS decision making and needs for future research.

Download or read book Cultural Evolution written by Ronald Inglehart and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-03-22 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents and tests a theory that helps explain the rise of environmentalist parties, gender equality, and same sex marriage - and the reaction that led to Brexit and the election of Trump.

Download or read book Rationality and Cultural Understanding written by Tove Österman and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Rational Lives written by Dennis Chong and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2011-03-15 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Those who study value conflicts have resisted rational choice approaches in the social sciences, contending that political conflict over cultural values is best explained by group loyalties, symbolic motives, and other "nonrational" factors. However, Chong shows that a single model can explain how people make decisions across both social and economic realms. He argues that our preferences result from a combination of psychological dispositions, which are shaped by social influences and developed over the life span. Chong's book yields insights about the circumstances under which preferences, beliefs, values, norms and group identifications are formed. It offers a provocative explanation of how ingrained social norms and values can change over time despite the forces maintaining the status quo. "Going beyond the tired polemics on both sides, [Chong] constructs a new interpretation of human behavior in which culture and individual rationality both matter. The synthesis is a more comprehensive and powerful explanatory framework than either side could have produced, and Chong's creativity should influence subsequent interpretations of our social life in fundamental ways."—Christopher H. Achen, University of Michigan

Download or read book On Reason written by Emmanuel Chukwudi Eze and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2008-07-04 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Given that Enlightenment rationality developed in Europe as European nations aggressively claimed other parts of the world for their own enrichment, scholars have made rationality the subject of postcolonial critique, questioning its universality and objectivity. In On Reason, the late philosopher Emmanuel Chukwudi Eze demonstrates that rationality, and by extension philosophy, need not be renounced as manifestations or tools of Western imperialism. Examining reason in connection to the politics of difference—the cluster of issues known variously as cultural diversity, political correctness, the culture wars, and identity politics—Eze expounds a rigorous argument that reason is produced through and because of difference. In so doing, he preserves reason as a human property while at the same time showing that it cannot be thought outside the realities of cultural diversity. Advocating rationality in a multicultural world, he proposes new ways of affirming both identity and difference. Eze draws on an extraordinary command of Western philosophical thought and a deep knowledge of African philosophy and cultural traditions. He explores models of rationality in the thought of philosophers from Aristotle, René Descartes, Francis Bacon, and Thomas Hobbes to Noam Chomsky, Richard Rorty, Hilary Putnam, and Jacques Derrida, and he considers portrayals of reason in the work of the African thinkers and novelists Chinua Achebe, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, and Wole Soyinka. Eze reflects on contemporary thought about genetics, race, and postcolonial historiography as well as on the interplay between reason and unreason in the hearings of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He contends that while rationality may have a foundational formality, any understanding of its foundation and form is dynamic, always based in historical and cultural circumstances.

Download or read book Rationality and Cultural Interpretivism written by Kei Yoshida and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2014-08-06 with total page 157 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rationality and Cultural Interpretivism: A Critical Assessment of Failed Solutions critically assesses cultural interpretivism by scrutinizing five different proponents of it and their solutions to the problem of rationality. The book examines the works of Peter Winch, Charles Taylor, Clifford Geertz, Marshall Sahlins, and Gananath Obeyesekere and their contributions to the so-called rationality debate in the philosophy of the social sciences. This debate began with Winch’s criticism of Edward Evans-Pritchard and has become one of the central debates in the field since 1960s, continuing as a controversy between Sahlins and Obeyesekere. Kei Yoshida reveals the need for a cogent solution to the problem of rationality. He identifies two main problems with previous theories: first, that they exaggerate the differences between the natural and the social/cultural, and hence they also exaggerate the differences between the natural and the social sciences; and second, that they ignore important social science problems, particularly outcomes from the unintended consequences of human actions. Yoshida urges social scientists not simply to interpret agents’ intentions or symbolic systems, but also to explain the unintended consequences of human actions. Still entangled in positivism, cultural interpretivists claim that the social sciences differ from the natural sciences and thus reject any unity of method. Yoshida argues that we need to overcome the mistaken positivist image of science in order to develop a more fruitful philosophy of the social sciences. The analysis presented in this book will be of value to students and scholars of social epistemology, philosophy of science, philosophy of the social sciences, and the social sciences themselves, as well as anyone interested in the philosophical problem of rationality and relativism.

Download or read book Culture and Rationality written by and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: